AMERICAN INDUSTRY (228 – 241)
Dependence on technology:
- no electricity
- communication: 1 week for a letter to the Midwest, 3 weeks to the
west coast, months from Europe
- tech advances: 1790 – 1860 36,000 patents, 1860-1890 500,000 patents
(type writer & phonograph)
- investment in these advancements (ingenuity & investment = new industry)
- new fuels = research into petroleum (gasoline) & electricity (1898,
2 million light bulbs & 3000 power stations)
- jobs, electric sewing machines put women & children to work (clothing
became inexpensive, women stopped making their own clothes)
- food storage & refrigeration
- steam engines, government grants, immigrant workers (1869 intercontinental
link), George Westinghouse created air brakes, telegraph (Granville Woods),
time zones, lower costs for transportation (barrel of flower from NY to Chicago
in 1865, $3.45 – 1890, 68 cents)
- Samuel Morse invented telegraph (1844), Western Union in 1870
- Alexander Graham Bell, talking telegraph first telephone = AT&T (1884)
- Steel (1850’s) Brooklyn Bridge, replaces iron (lighter, stronger,
more flex)
BIG BUSINESS
Social Darwinism – society should not interfere (no tax, no regulate)
-- survival of the fittest – society will benefit
“It will be a great mistake for the community to shoot
the millionaires, for they are the bees that make the honey, and contribute
to the hive even after they have gorged themselves full.” Carnegie
Captains of Industry vs. Robber Barons
Captains = serve their nations positively, increase availability of goods,
provide jobs (buy more), found & fund museums, libraries, universities
Robbers = steal from the public, drain natural resources, bribe public officials
(for laws in their favor), drive off competition, pay low wages while forcing
their workers into unsafe conditions
Monopolies: buy out competitors & their patents, then regulate
price themselves, without competition
Cartels: loose associations, usually formed in secret, members agree
to limit supply (low supply = high demand) hardtimes challenge stability
Trusts: Rockefeller invented in 1882, turn assets to a board, which
forms a conglomerate – Rockefeller controlled the board...single unit
= trust (Sherman Anti-trust Act)
Consolidation = one giant biz from many smaller enterprises (horizontal)
– one biz controls all phases of a products development (vertical)
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