CHAPTER 18
John Rockefeller
first billionare, highly religious, struck a dealt with vanderbilt 1870 started standard oil company with cash reserves Wages price wars (very low prices) eliminated waste, maintained efficiency, made secret deals with rr companies to take over competitors
Haymarket Square Riot (1886)
refers to the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they acted to disperse the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; scores of others were wounded.
Horizontal integraton
When a company controls all or a lot of the same business for example, all oil refineries, (associated with Rockefeller)
Vertical integration
A type of organization in which a single company owns and controls the entire process from the unearthing of raw materials to the manufacture and sale of the finished product
J.P Morgan
Banker who helped RR companies get rid of debt, lower costs, issue stock to make capital "voting trust" (corporation) created to make decisions Orderly consolidation brought stability Railroads over-extended "unethical" rebates to their business associates Bought Carnegie's steel company, created US Steel corporation, controlling over half of the steel
Gospel of Wealth
Carnegie believed hard work and success are signs of God's favor, it is okay to be rich, but the rich had a moral duty to share their wealth
Andrew Carnegie
Comes from a very common background Worked for railroad and telegraph companies STEEL- Bessemer Process, stronger, more durable, steel that was produced in large quantities Vertical Monopoly
Henry Bessemer
Creator of Bessemer in England, developed in 1850s
Why was the railroad so important
Drastically affected economic and social life More direct routes, greater speed/safety, dependable schedules, larger volume of traffic, year round service Ended the relative isolation and self-sufficiency of island communities, ties people together, encourages specialization
William Kelley
Independent Creator of Bessemer in the US
National Labor Union
It was led by William H. Sylvis. The National Labor Union followed the unsuccessful efforts of labor activists to form a national coalition of local trade unions. The National Labor Union sought instead to bring together all of the national labor organizations in existence, as well as the "eight-hour leagues" established to press for the eight-hour day, to create a national federation that could press for labor reforms and help found national unions in those areas where none existed. The new organization favored arbitration over strikes and called for the creation of a national labor party as an alternative to the two existing parties.
What was the federal government's role in building of the railroad
Loaned nearly 65 million to half a dozen railroads, donated millions of acres to the public domain
Bessemer Process
Made increased steel production possible, mass production, transformed the industry
Cornelius Vanderbilt "Commodore"
Multimillionare in the shipping business, realizes rr were the way to the future, eliminated competition into NYC and built Grand Central After 1865- Consolidation of RR companies-larger companies bought smaller ones Standard schedules, signals, air brake, refigerator cars
Factory Workers
Sweatshops, horrible conditions, 12 hours a day, unsafe, low wages, child labor, hazardous, little insurance, disability
myth of self made man
The concept of the self-made man is deeply rooted in the American Dream. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, is sometimes said to have created the concept of the self-made man. In his Autobiography, he describes his way from a poor, unknown son of a candle-maker to a very successful business man and highly acknowledged member of the American society. Franklin creates the archetype of someone coming from low origins, who, against all odds, breaks out of his inherited social position, climbs up the social ladder and creates a new identity for himself. Key factors in this rise from rags to riches are hard work and a solid moral foundation. Franklin also stresses the significance of education for self-improvement.
Union Pacific, Central Pacific, Promontory Point, Utah
UP- RR company that built westward from Nebraska CP- Built eastward from the Pacific Coast PP,U-Two lines met up here at the tip of the Salt Lake, connection
Pullman Strike
was a nationwide railroad strike in the United States in the summer of 1894. It pitted the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman company, the main railroads, and the federal government of the United States under President Grover Cleveland. The strike and boycott shut down much of the nation's freight and passenger traffic west of Detroit, Michigan. The conflict began in Pullman, Chicago, on May 11 when nearly 4,000 factory employees of the Pullman Company began a wildcat strike in response to recent reductions in wages.
William H. Sylvis
was a pioneer American trade union leader. Sylvis is best remembered as a founder of the Iron Molders' International Union and the National Labor Union, the latter being one of the first American union federations attempting to unite workers of various crafts into a single national organization.
Horatio Algers
was a prolific 19th-century American author, best known for his many juvenile novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of middle-class security and comfort through hard work, determination, courage, and honesty. His writings were characterized by the "rags-to-riches" narrative, which had a formative effect on America during the Gilded Age. Alger's name is often invoked incorrectly as though he himself rose from rags to riches, but that arc applied to his characters, not to the author. Essentially, all of Alger's novels share the same theme: a young boy struggles through hard work to escape poverty. Ragged Dick, the story of a poor bootblack's rise to middle-class respectability, which was a huge success
Bret Harte
was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California.
George Pullman
was an American engineer and industrialist. He designed and manufactured the Pullman sleeping car and founded a company town, Pullman, for the workers who manufactured it. His Pullman Company also hired African-American men to staff the Pullman cars, who became known and widely respected as Pullman porters, providing elite service. Struggling to maintain profitability during an 1894 downturn in manufacturing demand, he lowered wages and required workers to spend longer hours at the plant, but did not lower prices of rents and goods in his company town. He gained presidential support by Grover Cleveland for the use of federal military troops in the violent suppression of workers there to end the Pullman Strike of 1894. A national commission was appointed to investigate the strike, which included assessment of operations of the company town. In 1898 the Supreme Court of Illinois ordered the Pullman Company to divest itself of the town, which was annexed and absorbed by Chicago, becoming a neighborhood.
Westinghouse
was an American entrepreneur and engineer who invented the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry. Westinghouse was one of Thomas Edison's main rivals in the early implementation of the American electricity system. Westinghouse's system ultimately prevailed over Edison's insistence on direct current. In 1911 Westinghouse received the AIEE's Edison Medal "For meritorious achievement in connection with the development of the alternating current system."
Eastman
was an American innovator and entrepreneur who founded the Eastman Kodak Company and popularized the use of roll film, helping to bring photography to the mainstream. Roll film was also the basis for the invention of motion picture film in 1888 by the world's first film-makers Eadweard Muybridge and Louis Le Prince, and a few years later by their followers Léon Bouly, Thomas Edison, the Lumière Brothers, and Georges Méliès.
Edison
was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park",[2] he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large-scale teamwork to the process of invention, and because of that, he is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory
Terence Powerly
was an Irish-American politician and labor union leader, best known as head of the Knights of Labor in the late 1880s. A lawyer, he was elected mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania for six years. A Republican, he served as the United States Commissioner General of immigration in 1897. The Knights of Labor was the largest American labor organization of the 19th century, but Powderly was a poor administrator and could barely keep it under control. His small central office could not supervise or coordinate the many strikes and other activities sponsored by union locals. Powderly saw the Knights as an educational tool to uplift the workingman, and he downplayed strikes.
Bell
was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone.
Homestead Steel Plant Strike
was an industrial lockout and strike which began on June 30, 1892, culminating in a battle between strikers and private security agents on July 6, 1892. The battle was the second largest and one of the most serious disputes in U.S. labor history second only to the Battle of Blair Mountain. The dispute occurred at the Homestead Steel Works in the Pittsburgh area town of Homestead, Pennsylvania, between the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (the AA) and the Carnegie Steel Company. The final result was a major defeat for the union and a setback for efforts to unionize steelworkers.
American Federation of Labor (AFL)-Samuel Gompers
was the first federation of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio in May 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers of the Cigar Makers' International Union was elected president of the Federation at its founding convention and was reelected every year except one until his death in 1924. The AFL was the largest union grouping in the United States for the first half of the 20th century, even after the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) by unions that were expelled by the AFL in 1935 over its opposition to industrial unionism. While the Federation was founded and dominated by craft unions throughout the first fifty years of its existence, many of its craft union affiliates turned to organizing on an industrial union basis to meet the challenge from the CIO in the 1940s. In 1955, the AFL merged with its longtime rival, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, to form the AFL-CIO, a federation which remains in place to this day. Together with its offspring, the AFL has comprised the longest lasting and most influential labor federation in the United States.
Holy Order of Knights of Labor
was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leader was Terence V. Powderly. The Knights promoted the social and cultural uplift of the workingman, rejected Socialism and radicalism, demanded the eight-hour day, and promoted the producers ethic of republicanism. In some cases it acted as a labor union, negotiating with employers, but it was never well organized, and after a rapid expansion in the mid-1880s, it suddenly lost its new members and became a small operation again. It was established in 1869, reached 28,000 members in 1880, then jumped to 100,000 in 1885. Then it mushroomed to nearly 800,000 members in 1886, but its frail organizational structure could not cope and it was battered by charges of failure and violence. Most members abandoned the movement in 1886-87, leaving at most 100,000 in 1890. Remnants of the Knights of Labor continued in existence until 1949, when the group's last 50-member local dropped its affiliation.
