II. Big Business and Organized Labor

A. New Ways of Doing Business1. Entrepreneurs devise new

ways to raise money and organize businesses

2. Corporations sold stocks to shareholders (limited risk)

3. Trusts were a group of corporations run by a single board of directors

4. Bankers, such as J.P. Morgan, began investing in corporations and owning trusts

B. The Growth of Big Business

1. Giant corporations establish monopolies

2. Andrew Carnegie integrates steel

3. John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Trust

4. Debate over trusts- A threat to free enterprise?

5. Social Darwinism

C. Changes in the Workplace

1. Women and children made up a large part of the workforce in tobacco factories, textile mills and garment sweatshops

2. Factory work was very dangerous

3. Employers not obligated to pay worker’s if they were hurt on the job

4. Unsafe conditions lead to the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1911

D. Workers Organize1. Labor unions begin to fight

for safer conditions, better pay, and less hours

2. Terence Powderly and the Knights of Labor, try to influence politicians

3. Samuel Gompers and the American Federation of Labor (AFL), ; collective bargaining

4. Strikes- the public usually sided with owners

Labor Conflicts

1. Haymarket Square, May 1886

2. Homestead Strike, July 1892

3. Pullman Strike, May 1894