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best minds during gilded age

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involved in business. their goal=to make as much money as possible by any means necessary. lying, cheating, and stealing were common place.

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cause of economic growth in gilded age

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RRs. transporting goods was going to be really important.

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Land Grants

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land that was given to RR based on how much track the RR company laid down. later the RR able to sell land to settlers so they were able to profit twice and ensure that there would be people who would be paying to use the RR for shipping. later, when cleveland became president any land that was unclaimed could be sold to farmers for low prices.

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Union Pacific

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first transcontinental RR to be built. remember before the civil war the debate over where the RR should be built and how that all tied in with the Gadsden Purchase and the Kansas Nebraska Act? once Civil War started the debate was over and the Union created a plan for the RR to be built. result=business that was responsible for construction from Nebraska (the east) was the union pacific.

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Credit Mobilier

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a construction company that helped with the building found a way to cheat the government out of huge sums of money.

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Chinese and Irish

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workers on the RR primarily chinese from west (central pacific) or irish from east (union pacific)

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Indian attacks

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the building of the RR was difficult for many reasons, but most notable was indian attacks. rr building was difficult and dangerous, one of the biggest hazards was indian attacks

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why were RRs important?

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connected economy of the nation. later, U.S growing trade with asia. being able to transport goods to california which could later be transported to asia was essential.

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Cornelius Vanderbilt

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most successful RR men. he was the key to connecting the east with the west that was discovered by him. found ways to connect older RR lines together using a standard guage distance between them. also began to use steel for the rails which was much stronger, lasted much longer, and could bear heavier loads.

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Pullman Palace Cars

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RRs became the biggest business in America. air brakes made stopping safe and pullman palace cars which made travel more comfortable also helped expand the use of RR.

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Immigration

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RR also led to increased immigration, the standardization of time, and more millionairs. workers needed to build. immigrants would be sold land to farm. settlers began growing corn on much of the land bought by Jefferson through the LA Purchase. cattle started to be raised (which would lead to conflicts with both the farmers and indians)

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Jay Gould

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corruption with RRs continued. most famous man involved in corrupt practices to make money. stock watering-play on words which originated with cattle who seemed to weigh more than they really did.

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RR promoters

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make it look like the profitability of a RR was much higher so they could sell stocks at a larger price and make a bigger profit. but that meant the person buying the stock was being overcharged.

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examples of how RR owners didn't care about the public.

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RR would charge huge rates to the public to move their goods (especially farmers) when asked RR titans like Vanderbilt responded with quotes like "public be damned". didn't care about democracy. would bribe judges and elected officials. gave free tickets to journalists. because of the importance of RR and amount of welath and power the RR owners had they probably had more direct control over the lives of Americans the president had.

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Monopolies

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tried to eliminate competition. result=RRs tried to put competitors out of business. they would give kickbacks to pwoerful shippers to assure their business. they would also cut prices on some lines where there was competition and raise it on other where there was less competition.

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Pool

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to ensure they kept their wealth and power they occasionally looked for ways to cooperate=hurt public. divided business in an area and split the profits.

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how did this create massive problems for farmers

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farmers not large shipper and so they were a group that could be overcharged to make up the differnece in kickbacks given. americans not paying that much attention to what was happening. americans tended to be aware of political injustice, they ignored economic injustice. believed in capitalism and didn't want the gov to get involved. 1870s farmers hit hard by depression they tried to force gov to address their concerns

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Farmers sought assistance from

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state governments

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Grangers

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tried to influence state politicians because they believed that they would have more success locally than nationally

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states unable to

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regulate RRs

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Wabash v St Louis

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famous case that deals with a state gov addressing the corruption of the RR. Illinois. tried to regulate RR however, this was challenged in the Supreme Court. court sided with RR saying that the state couldn't make any laws that dealt with RR because it was interstate commerce.

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Interstate Commerce Act

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still, congress began to challenge the unlimited control of the RRs. even though the case went against the farmers in Illinois, Congress began to pay more attention to the corruption that occurred and as a result created the Interstate Commerce Act. attempt by fed gov to do a better job at watching what was happening with RR trade. outlawed rebates and pools and forced RR to publish prices

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Interstate Commerce Commision

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group that was appointed to make sure these new laws were being obeyed.

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Although the ICC was ineffective, it was important since it was

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the first attempt to regulate business. did not improve life for americans immediately. rr simply found ways to manipulate it. created way for disputes between the RR companies and states to be worked out. first attempt by the U.S government to regulate business

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Manufacturing

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U.S became #1 manufacturing nation in the world during gilded age. 1) ability to transport goods nationally and itnernationally. 2) banks loaning money freely 3) natural resources being acquired (coal, iron ore, oil). immigration-low priced workers

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Natural Resources

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better access to natural resources. more available. irone ore, oil, coal (like from the mesbabi range in mn)

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Immigrants

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became cheap source of labor. factories, especially steel factories, benfitted from the immigrants coming into the country. italian and polish. became known as new immigrants and hated for all of the same reason irish were hated before

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New inventions

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more patents than ever before issues. cash register and typewriter made business operate more smoothly. refridgerated RR cars for beef. most important-alexander graham bell's inventions of the telephone (allowed more women to get in the workforce). thomas edison had a number of inventions most important being the lightbulb which allowed for the extension of the work day.

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During this age the wealth and power of a few men grew

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disproportionally. very small amoutn of americans had a lot of money

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Trusts

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majority of these men wanted to protect their power and wealth. simply another name for monopoly. Vertical Integration A single company owns and controls the entire process from raw materials to the maufacture and sale of the finished product. Horizontal Integration The combining of many firms engaged in the same type of business into one large corporation

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Carnegie

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created process called vertical integration, not complete trust. made his empire from steel. used a process that was a partial monopoly-vertical integration. owner owns every part of the process

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Rockefeller

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horizontal integration to control his competition. made him money on oil (standard oil company). controlled all businesses that sold the same product he did. if he didn't control them, he put them out of business

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JP Morgan

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powerful banker. created interlocking directorates to gain control. process for eliminating competition. put his own banking employees on boards (decision making body) of other banks. controlling his own banks and banks of competitors.

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Steel

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most powerful product at the time. tobacco had been king, cotton had been king, but after the civil war it was steel. made RR and skyscrapers. Carnegie made majority of his fortune in Pittsburgh. eventually sold steel empire to JP Morgan for 400 mil

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Standard Oil Company

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Rockefeller made it. made a fortune. eventually controlled 95% of all oil sales in U.S

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Due to the unequal distribution of wealth a debate began to occur over

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how the less fortunate should be treated. many wealthy said god wanted them to be rich

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Social Darwinism

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led to the celebration of rich and disdain for poor. idea created by sociologist Herbert Spencer. believed in survival of the fittest which in his mind meant that hte most intelligent people thrived and less inteligent would be unsuccessful and maybe even die out.=less pity for less fortunate and even less interest in helping them. helped support laissez faire gov

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eventually gov needed to try to control business. how?

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social darwinism influenced gov to avoid regulating business. ICC didn't do much to stop monopolies and 14th amendment corrupt. it extended civil liberties to business

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Sherman Anti Trust Act

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failure. americans tried to pressure congress to regulate business monopolies. 1890, the act was passed. supposed to end monopolies. "there could be no combinations in restraint of trade). loopholes and in the end used to attack labor unions instead of monopolies. real effect=showed gov sihft from doing nothing, hands off, laissez faire to trying to protect americans from dishonest business practices

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South after Civil War

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south manufacturing still based on sharecropping. didn't industrialize because of unfair rate setting. RR would charge less for manufactured goods that traveled from norht to south and charge more for goods traveling south to north. mercantilism system. best example: Pittsburgh Plus Pricing

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Pittsburgh Plus Pricing

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more rich deposits of coal and iron near birmingham. should have been perfect for making steel but steel business owners in pittsburgh pressured the RR. to take away southern shipping advantage=RR charged inflated shipping fee. charged birmingham steel same price as if it had been shipped form pittsburhg. south improved their textile mills though. problem=reason mills being built there because of cheap labor. so people working in the mills, mostly poor white from appalachia, were paid extremely little

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Effect of massive amount of industrialization in the North

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life changed. big cities began to become more common and farms less common. factories time became more important because more people were working on a rigid schedule. women began working more (clerical work ontypewriters and worked on phone switchboards). careers meant married later, smaller families

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Workers' lives were

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exceptionally difficult. long hours, dangerous conditions

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What obstacles prevented workers from improving their condition

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new machines displaced employees and RR could bring in scab workers if a strike was attempted (huge numbers of immigrants coming in from southern and eastern europe). businesses could pay high priced lawyers, buy journalists, bribe politicians, and hire thugs to beat up union leaders. they could also influence the courts to issue an injuction which was an order forcing a strike to end. they could lock them out or they could force new workers to sign yellow dog contracts which was a promise not to join a labor union. could put names of agitators on a blacklist so they couldn't get hired.

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As a result, they began to unionize as a method of

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gaining strength

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National Labor Union

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began to gain momentum until panic of 1873. big issue NLU wanted was an 8 hour workday

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Knights of Labor

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wanted all workers to join on big union. slogan was an injury to one is injury to all. included skilled and unskilled workers. avoided getting involved in politics and instead focused on economic and social reofrm. president terrence powderly wanted facotries to improve worker safety and health. also wanted a workday to be reduced to 8 hours

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Haymarket Riot

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K of L fell apart due to an action outside of their control. 1886 public meeting at Haymarket Square in Chicago. police monitoring the meeting and a bomb set off by an anarchist totally unrelated to the Knights. americans lumped K of L in with the bombing . result=couldn't get any more support.

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American Federation of Labor

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led by samuel gompers tried to avoid some other problems knights had for example they were only a skilled labor union. because it was a federation there were small union that joined larger group.

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Gompers

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wasn't against capitalism, argued he just wanted more for the workers. better wages, hours, and working conditions. also wanted a clsoed shop which meant all workers had to join the union. his chief weapons were the walk out and boycott

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Labor disorder was a common occurrence between

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1881-1900

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