The Rise of Big Business in America

Objective: Students will analyze how big business shaped industrial progress in America to determine

its affects on society

Warm Up: Answer the following questions using your textbook (these question will help you in our class

discussion)1. Read “Belief in Free Markets” on 467, What is

laissez-faire capitalism? And how is laissez-faire capitalism supported by Social Darwinism?

2. Look at the map on page 462, what region had the most railroads. Why do you think this was so?

Transcontinental Railroad

• In 1862 a transcontinental railroad project went underway and was completed by 1869

• Progress VS. Problem• Effects of the Rail expansion

– Sped up settlement in the West– Adoption of “standard time” – efficiency

(states had many ‘local times’)– HUB Cities – CHICAGO (Look at page 465)

Laissez-Faire = FREE TRADE• American economic system is CAPITALIST (private

industry runs business)• By the late 1800s most businessmen believed in

Laissez-faire (“to let do”) Conduct business without intervention by the government– No government regulation/laws to conduct business– The idea is that businesses will make laws that suit the

people (because they want people to buy their products)

• Many businessmen believed in “Social Darwinism” = SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST– Weak businesses wont last and the strong businesses (hard

workers) will come out on top

Business Structure Change = Shoe Maker to Shoe Factory

• BEFORE: Single/Partner businesses (owned and operated by one person with their money)

• 1860s: Corporation: A business with the legal status of an individual. It is owned by stockholders (people who buy a piece of the company). Major business decisions are made by a board– RIGHTS OF COMPANIES STARTED TO HAVE

MORE/EQUAL RIGHTS TO PEOPLE (Fair/unfair?)

• WHAT IS THE AUTHOR SAYING ABOUT CORPORATIONS AND THE GOVERNMENT?

Integration of companies/industries

• Vertical Integration: Purchase of companies producing the supplies and the services upon which the main business depends

• Horizontal Integration: Purchase of competing companies in the same industry

• BOTH KINDS LEAD TO LOTS OF MONEY BEING MADE BY BUSINESS OWNERS

The Rise of Big Business in America

Objective: Students will analyze how big business shaped industrial progress in America to determine

its affects on society

Warm Up: Copy the questions on the board for the movie

Agenda: 1. Industrialization Movie2. Class Notes on Big Business

3. Independent Work (make-up homework)

Movie Questions: Industrialization• What is Industrialization?• Describe how railroads affected Industrialization?• Describe the Centennial Celebration in 1876, what

things were exhibited in “Machinery Hall”?• What did Alexander Graham Bell invent?• Why were cities important for industrialization?• How did humans threaten/hurt the natural resources of

the United States with Industrialization? Which resources were depleted?

• What does the narrator mean by “The United States had emerged by an economic colossus”?

The Rise of Big Business

• Objective: Students will investigate business concepts to analyze its impact on the American economy of the 1870s and today.

• Warm UP: Monopoly Cartoon Worksheet• Classwork: Business Worksheet (in

partners or alone but fill out your own worksheet)

• NOTEBOOK CHECK

Big Business: Progress or Problem for America?

• Objective: Students will investigate the rise of big business in American history to evaluate its affect on society (economically and socially)

• Agenda:– WARM UP: Finish Chapter 14 Worksheet and

REVIEW (10 minutes)– Chapter 14 QUIZ: Open Note/HW– Scientific Innovation assignment – Make a

small (8x11 poster of your invention for our timeline)

Monopolies and Trusts

• Trust: When companies agreed to merge and turn over their separate stocks/rights to a board of trusties.– The trusties than ran the group as if it were a single

corporation.

• Monopoly: When a trust gained complete control over an industry.

• Sherman Anti-Trust Act:– Made it illegal to form trusts that interfered with free

trade– Bill Gates and Microsoft (kind of a monopoly)

Working Conditions during the Second Industrial Revolution

• Misdistribution of wealth in US (10% of population controlled 75 of the $$)

• Movement from skilled labor to unskilled labor (poorly paid, child labor, immigrant exploitation)

• Sweatshops – cramped workshops set up in shabby apartments

Workers seek change through STRIKES and UNIONS

• By the late 1800s, working conditions were so dismal that workers began organizing into Unions

• Worked for equal pay, end of child labor, and an 8 hour workday

• Xenophobia: Fear of Foreigners – Eastern Europeans were used to striking

• Blacklist: list of people whom were refused a job– If you were a known unionist/striker you’d be

blacklisted from all the employers

Ch 14 Quiz Questions: (Complete Sentences)

• 1. Name one PUSH factor and one PULL factor for why people moved WEST in the 1800s?

• 2. What is an entrepreneur? Name one entrepreneur from the 1800s and explain why he/she was an entrepreneur.

• 3. DEFINE: Trusts and Monopolies. Explain how trusts or monopolies hurt consumers in the 1800s?

• 4. Describe working conditions for unskilled laborers in the 1800s?

• 5. You own a fast-food restaurant. Explain how you would – VERTICALLY INTEGRATE your business to make profit. – HORIZONTALLY INTEGRATE your business to make profit.

The Age of Invention:1870-1920• After completing your homework on the

information for a specific Scientific Invention, complete a 8x11 poster displaying the history and significance of your invention for our INVENTION TIMELINE

• List the inventor, year it was invented, why it was invented/what did people do before the invention, and the significance of the invention to modern day. Add a drawing or visual of the invention.

Importance of the Age of Invention• As city populations grew,

people needed faster transportation and communication

• Streetcars, Subways, Automobiles, Airplanes (1900s)

• Telegraph (beep beeps), Telephone, Typewriter

• Inventions added convenience and LEISURE TIME TO MODERN LIVING

Immigrants pour into America and Migrants move through America• Objective: Students will study the different

waves of immigrants to evaluate how they economically, socially and politically affected American culture

• Warm Up: Write a sentence or two describing each of the following pictures. All pictures are of immigrants in the late 1800s.– FOR EACH PICTURE, PREDICT WHERE THE

PEOPLE CAME FROM

Stringing Beans in Baltimore

Shucking Oysters in Florida

Immigrants in a tenement

Americanization of Immigrants

Immigration to America• Immigration is always a choice and not

everyone could immigrate– Why people moved? Desire for a better life

• PUSH and PULL Factors (see following slide)

– Not everyone could afford to go (many spent their lifesavings to get a ticket)

– Journey to America was painful (emotionally/physically) and long

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhtLKpim-Uw

– Not everyone was allowed in• Immigration laws didn’t exist in 1800s UNLESS you

were seriously diseased or disabled (unable to work)

PUSH and PULL Factors for Immigration

• Russian Jews fled religious persecution• Religious freedom in America• Desperate poverty in Eastern Europe• No economic opportunity in Europe (no land/no jobs)• America was known as “the land of opportunity”• 1840’s Potato famine in Ireland resulting in severe

starvation/poverty/disease• Cheap land in Western part of United States• Growing cities in United States

Ellis Island and Angel Island• Elis Island:

– US Government immigration station opened in 1882.

• IMMIGRANTS HAD TO PASS INSPECTION– If you were found unfit,

HAD to go back to country– Families got split up

permanently

• Sent back if diseased/disabled (hazard to US citizens or burden to US citizens)

• Angel Island– 1910: West Coast

Immigration station in San Francisco

• Chinese racism people detained for weeks in prison-like conditions

• Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (no immigration)– Anger Chinese were

taking US jobs– FIRST US immigration

law

Nativism: Anger/Fear towards those not from own country

• Efforts of Nativists to stop immigration in early 1900s:– Chinese Exclusion Act– Push for literacy tests

(never passed in Govt.)

– Americanization efforts (make foreigners more American) Y.M.C.A.

How the Irish became “American” – TIME/POPULATION ##

How does Immigration affect our lives?

• First Lady Michele Obama taking questions in DC about immigration.

• Do you think that illegal immigration is an issue? (positive or negative for the country?)

• http://www.hulu.com/watch/150772/the-obama-administration-girl-questions-first-lady-on-immigration