Technological Revolution

Changes in daily life  Take a second, think about the year 1865…  Brainstorm with your groups…  what luxuries do we have today that we did not have in 1865?  Refrigerators, electricity, cars, telephones, radios, etc.

Growth of inventions  Patents – licenses that give an inventor the exclusive right to to make, use and sell an invention for a set period of time  Patent office  saw 36,000 patents between  Saw 500,000 patents between 1860 and 1890!!!  By 1900, productivity had risen standard of living to among the highest in the world  Productivity – the amount of goods and services created in a given period of time

Energy Sources

Edwin Drake  Strikes Oil  Titusville Pa (boom town)  past  Melting whale blubber  Waiting for oil to seep from the ground  New method drilling – more efficient  Used for gasoline when cars are invented in 1880’s

Thomas Edison  developed electric power  Menlo Park, NJ  Affordable in-home lighting (within a glass bulb)  1880 – bamboo fiber filament  Lamps, fans, printing presses, and newly invented appliances

More Energy Sources  Electric power continues to grow  Lewis Latimer – improved the filament  George Westinghouse – alternating current (direct current was used by Edison)  DC – more expensive, one-two miles  AC – cheaper, travel further  General Electric and Westinghouse electric

Communication Advancements

Samuel Morris  Telegraph  Did not invent, but perfected  Telegraph messages called “Morris Code”  First message sent in 1844  This marked the beginning of the 2 nd Industrial Revolution  Western Union  Came out of the Civil War  1900’s- 900,000 miles of telephone lines and 63 million telegraphs a year

Alexander Graham Bell  Telephone  Scotland  Boston  Helping people with hearing problems caused him to create the “talking telegraph” 1876 (29 years old)  1900’s – 1.5 million phones

Other inventions  Levi Jeans  Radio  Typewriter  zipper  TP

Railroads

Transcontinental Railroad  1862  Funded by the federal government  Two companies  Central Pacific Railroad  Union Pacific Railroad  Believed it would strengthen the economic infrastructure of the US

Transcontinental Railroad Central Pacific  Founders: Theodore Judah,  Big Four -Mark Hopkins, Jr., Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Collis Potter Huntington  Start Eastward from Sacramento  Workers: Chinese Immigrants  Tools: Chisels, plows and dynamite  lost the race Union Pacific  Founder : Abe Lincoln,  Dr. Thomas C. Durant, Samuel Reed, General Grenville M. Dodge, Ames Brothers, Casement brothers  Start: West from Omaha  Workers: Irish Immigrants  Tools: pickaxes  Won - Laid more tracks

Transcontinental starting points

Golden Spike  Both tracks met up in  Promontory Summit in Utah  May 10 th, 1869

Railway improvements & changes  Noisy, dirty and uncomfortable  Steel replaced iron  safety, brakes and collisions through telegraph communication  Growth of towns  Time zones  Price of goods (shipping was cheaper!)

What the railroads means for industry and the US  Faster and more practical way of transporting goods  No limitations (weather), larger quantities  Lower costs of production  Raw material cheaper to ship = cheaper to make  Creation on National markets  Sell finished products nation-wide instead of just local  A model for Big businesses  Workers and money helped shape management  Stimulation for other industries  Encouraged innovation (iron for steel rails)

ACTIVITY

Problems  What issues did they run into while building the Transcontinental Railroad?  xperience/features/introduction/tcrr- intro/ xperience/features/introduction/tcrr- intro/

Steel

Bessemer Process  1865  Steel had been produced by melting iron, adding carbon and removing impurities  Steel is lighter, stronger and more flexible than iron  Made it easier and cheaper to produce  Mass production  With the mass production of steel, what is the next technological move?

Impact  In what ways did it impact people’s daily lives?  Sewing machine – more clothes in less time  Refrigerator – keep food cold  Light bulbs – see at night, no candles  Meatpacking industry – refrigerated cars on trains  Steel – new buildings, birth of big business

All of these impacts cause a growth in….  Consumerism….more money  And with Mo’ money comes ….  Mo’ problems

The start of big business  Robber barons  Leaders of industry built their fortunes by stealing from the public  Drove their competitors to ruins  Stole  Captains of Industry