Industrial Supremacy 18591914

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Industrial Supremacy1859-1914
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The Big Picture
Twenty-five years after the death of Lincoln,
America had become the first manufacturing nation
of the world. The nation had been a
manufacturing economy since the early 19th
century, but the development of the last three
decades of the century overshadowed all the
earlier progress. Industrialization changed the
physical and social landscape. Growth increased
wealth and improved the lives of many Americans,
but such benefits were far from equally shared.
This transformation impacted industrial titans,
the middle class, farmers, and workers
differently.
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Sources of Industrial Growth

• Abundant raw materials natural resources
• Large and growing labor supply
• Surge in technological innovation
• Talented entrepreneurs
• Assistance of the federal government
• Expanding domestic market for manufactured
  products

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Industrial Technology

• Communications 1866 Cyrus Field transatlantic
  cable
• 1876 Alexander Graham Bell telephone
• 1868 Christopher Sholes typewriter
• 1879 William S. Burroughts cash register
• Adding machine
• Sped and organized business

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Industrial Technology Cont.

• Most revolutionary 1870s electricity as sources
  of light and power - Thomas Edison
• Steel manufacturing Bessemer Process and
  open-hearth process
• Oil industry 1859 first oil well PA
• Early 20th century Marconi and the radio,
  Wright Brothers, automobile
• American auto industry 1903 Ford Motor Co.

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The Science of Production

• Frederick Winslow Taylor scientific
  management aka Taylorism
• More control for employers reorganized the
  production process by subdividing tasks, made
  workers interchangeable, increased speed
  efficiency of production
• Most important change emergence of mass
  production and the moving assembly line
  (introduced by Ford in 1914)

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Railroad Expansion and the Corporation

• Expansion of railroads primary agent of
  industrial development
• Helped create the corporation ventures could
  not be financed by any single person limited
  liability
• Andrew Carnegie central figure in steel
  industry
• J.P. Morgan U.S. Steel Corporation
• Gustavus Swift and meatpacking

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Railroad Expansion and the Corporation, Cont.

• Isaac Singer and sewing machines
• New managerial techniques middle manager
• Horizontal consolidation and vertical integration
• Greatest corporate empire in late 19th was John
  D. Rockefellers Standard Oil controlled 90 of
  nations refined oil
• New techniques of consolidation trust,
  holding company

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Captains of Industry or Robber Barons?
Carnegie
Rockefeller
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Americas Financier
This 1903 photograph of J.P. Morgan captures
something of the mans intimidating power. This
photograph is sometimes known as the dagger
portrait because Morgan appears to be holding a
knife in his left hand. In fact, the shiny
object is the arm of his chair.
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Survival of the Fittest

• New rationale for capitalism rested on the
  ideology of individualism
• Social Darwinism those who succeeded deserved
  success those who failed did so through
  laziness, carelessness, etc.
• Herbert Spencer 1st proponent of this theory
• Businessmen celebrated free market, but in
  reality they feared it

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The Gospel of Wealth

• People of great wealth had great responsibility
• Notion that great wealth was available to all
  Russell Conwell and Horatio Alger

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Alternative Visions

• Henry George Progress and Poverty (1879) blamed
  social problems on monopolists wanted single
  tax on land, redistribution of wealth
• Edward Bellamy Looking Backward (1888) utopian
  novel, fraternal cooperation replaced
  competition

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The Problems of Monopoly

• Workers, farmers, consumers, small manufacturers,
  conservative bankers concerned about the growth
  of monopolies
• Economy more erratic beginning in 1873
• Emergence of a new class of enormously and
  conspicuously wealthy people

1899 Cartoon showing Uncle Sam killed by the
trusts
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The Immigrant Work Force

• Rural immigrants to cities
• Foreign immigrants 25 million immigrants
  between 1865 and 1915
• Shift in immigration patterns fewer from
  northern western Europe, more from southern
  eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America
• Heightened ethnic tensions in the dynamics of the
  working class

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Wages and Working Conditions

• Wages at the turn of the century 400-500/year
• Lack of job security
• Long hours
• Industrial accidents frequent and severe

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Women and Children at Work

• Decreasing need for skilled work in factories,
  many women take jobs in factories, particularly
  textile mills
• At least 1.7 million children under age 16 worked

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Emerging Unionization

• Laborers created national unions little success
  before 1900
• Unions faced widespread public hostility
• Molly Maguires in anthracite coal region of
  western PA used violence, murder
• 1st major national labor conflict Railroad
  strike of 1877

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The Knights of Labor

• 1st major effort at a national labor organization
  founded in 1869 by Uriah Stephens
• Membership open to all who toiled
• Wanted to replace the wage system with a new
  cooperative system

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The American Federation of Labor (AFL)

• Formed in 1881, led by Samuel Gompers
• Most important labor group in the country
• Represented mainly skilled workers
• Worked for improving wages, working conditions,
  hours

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AFL, Cont.

• Demanded 8-hour workday by May 1, 1886
• Chicago strike at McCormick Harvester Co.
• Haymarket Square 7 police officers, 4 workers
  killed
• anarchism became an obstacle for unions

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The Homestead Strike - 1892

• Union of skilled iron and steel workers in
  Carnegies Homestead plant in PA
• 1892 strike after repeated wage cuts
• Pinkerton Detective Agency
• Governor of PA sent states entire national guard
  contingent

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The Pullman Strike - 1894

• Pullman Palace Car Co. sleeping parlor cars
• Company town
• Pullman slashed wages, kept rents high
• American Railway Union national strike
• Pres. Cleveland sent troops

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Sources of Labor Weakness

• Few real gains for labor in the last decades of
  the 19th century
• Workers had less political power
• Tensions among different ethnic and racial groups
  kept laborers divided
• Work force highly mobile difficult to organize
• Corporations very wealthy powerful often had
  support of local, state, and federal governments