Second Industrial Revolution

Industry and Railroads• Bessemer process is created in the

1850s• By 1910 the U.S. becomes the world’s

top steel producer• Railroads, bridges, and buildings –

expansion of American infrastructure• Factories could produce more goods• The low cost of steel also made

everday items such as nails and wire

Brooklyn Bridge

Home Insurance Building in Chicago

• Between 1865-1890 the number of miles of railroad track jumped fivefold

• Prompted the federal government to give railroads land grants

• Pacific Railway Act (1862): Central Pacific and Union Pacific

• Increased settlement of the West• Created Standard Time and time zones

(1918)

The Rise of Big Business• Entrepreneurs – risk takers• Capitalism – free enterprise where

most businesses are privately owned• Laissez-faire capitalism – ‘leave alone’• Social Darwinism – huge inequalities

exist, but do so because of competition for survival. Stronger members adapt while weaker ones die out (natural selection). Businesses will succeed and many will fail (people as well).

• The corporation developed – business with the legal status of an individual. They are owned by people who own stock, or shares

• Advantages– Corp. can raise money by selling stock– Stockholders lose what they invest– Corp. can last after founders move on

• Many competing corporations form a trust– In many cases it led to monopolies

• http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/20070715_GILDED_GRAPHIC.html#

• John D. Rockefeller– Standard Oil; vertical integration; horizontal

integration– Eventually controls 90% of America’s oil supply

• Andrew Carnegie– Immigrant; worked for Pennsylvania Railroad;

bought his own; Carnegie Steel Company; philanthropist

• Cornelius Vanderbilt– Railroads and steamships

• George Pullman– Designing and building sleeper cars

Pullman Company Town

•Robber Barons (or)

•Captains of Industry?

• Advertising marketed to specific groups

• Department stores make shopping easier

• Rural communities ordered from catalogues

Workers Unite• Many industrial workers make no

more than $500 a year• In 1890 10% of the population owns

75% of the wealth• Congress passes the Sherman

Antitrust Act in 1890 – can’t form trusts that interfere with free trade (few cases were prosecuted)

• Many factory workers were immigrants, rural transplants, African Americans, children

• By 1900 1 in 6 kids 10-15 held a job outside the home

• 12-16 hrs. a day, 6 days a week in the factory

• No paid vacation, no sick leave, no workmen’s comp.

• Beginnings of organization– Knights of Labor (1869) accepted unskilled

labor

• Goals of the Knights of Labor– 8 hr. workday– End of child labor– Equal pay for equal work

– They engaged in boycotts, negotiation, and then strikes

• Great Railroad Strike (1877) – • The Haymarket Riot (1886) –