Life in the Gilded Age

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Life in the Gilded Age
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Bellwork

• Why is the Gilded Age called the Gilded Age?
• What are inventors? Which inventions do you
  think have had the biggest impact on our lives?
  Why? How does technology affect our lives?

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Gilded Age

• Term is coined by Mark Twain
• Famous author of the time
• Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn

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End of the frontier

• Indians pushed into reservations
• Wild West is tamed and settled

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The Expansion of Industry

• Changes in technology
• Fuel
• Kerosene
• Oil
• Coal
• Iron and steel
• Bessemer process

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Steel

• Steel is used for
• Railroads
• Plows, reapers, farm tools
• Food cans

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Edison
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Thomas Edison

• Made power plant/light bulb
•   With electricity factories can work more hours
  and be anywhere.

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Other inventions

• Typewriter
• Telephone (1876) by Alexander Graham Bell

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"Mr. WatsonCome hereI want to see you"
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Bellwork

• Why do we have time zones?
• What is a union? What is the benefit of having
  unions? What are some negative effects of unions?

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The Age of Railroads

• 1890more than 200,000 miles of track
• 1888more than 2,000 railroad workers die and
  20,000 are injured.
• Built by immigrants (Asians in the West and Irish
  in the East) also African-Americans
• Earn very little

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Joining the nation

• Railroads link the nation together
• Travel and industry increases
• Time zones are created to keep railroad schedules.

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Industry grows

• Railroads cause industry to grow
• George Pullman invents a sleeping car known as a
  Pullman car

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Corruption

• Railroads were usually corrupt
• Charged high prices
• Bribed government officials
• Made millions through trickery

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Congress Acts

• Congress tries to combat corruption
• Supreme Court says they can regulate interstate
  trade
• Congress passes the Interstate Commerce Act to
  regulate trade
• Not strong enough to control the railroads

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Big Business Emerges

• Businesses consolidate into big industries
• These are run by businessmen who become very
  wealthy and become known as robber barons.

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Government practices

• Government supported laissez-faire economics
• Means hands off
• Government does very little regulation
• Resultvery wealthy businesses and lots of
  corruption and little competition

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Social Darwinism

• Idea that the best individuals will succeed
• The survival of the fittest
• Government should do very little

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Robber barons

• Andrew Carnegie
• Built a giant steel firm
• Bought out competition and provides of raw
  materials and transportation of his goods
• Known as vertical consolidation

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Vertical consolidation

• Buying out companies for every stage of the
  productive process from raw materials to
  marketing.

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John D. Rockefeller

• Another robber baron
• Controlled Standard Oil
• Bought other oil companies
• This is horizontal consolidationcontrolling
  competition at one step in the process of a
  product.

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Other robber barons

• Cornelius Vanderbilt RR monopolist
• J. P. Morgan banking monopolist
• Robber barons did philanthropy work

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Monopolies and trusts

• Robber barons created monopolies
• Where a firm controls all the competition
• Also created trusts
• Companies agree to work together

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Whats wrong with this?

• Whats wrong with having monopolies and no
  competition?

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Sherman Anti-trust Act

• Congress passed the Sherman anti-trust act to
  outlaw trusts and monopolies
• Difficult to enforce

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Working conditions

• Conditions were terrible
• Long hours
• Dangerous conditions
• Poor living conditions
• Child Labor
• To improve conditions formed labor unions

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Development of Labor unions

• Labor Movement unions illegal until 1840's for
  interfering in commerce, black lists Federal
  Government kept unions weak
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Unions

• Knights of Labor unskilled/skilled workers
  demanded reforms in child labor, safety, hours (8
  hr day), equal pay for women
• American Federation of Labor skilled workers
  demanded higher pay, shorter work weeks.

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Strikes

• Strikes resulted and usually ended in violence.
  Government usually sent in troops against the
  unions

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Notable Strikes

• Great RR Strike of 1877 RR shut down, Hayes used
  army to end strike
• Haymarket Square Riot bomb killed 7 policeman,
  police fired on strikers
• Homestead Strike Carnegie hired Pinkertons to
  violently end strike
• Pullman Strike RR shut down, federal troops
  brought in and people get hurt and lose their
  jobs.

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Business leaders react

• Unions were prevented by
• Not hiring union workers
• Banning union meetings
• Using the courts and troops to stop unions