1. INDUSTRIAL AMERICA
Industrialization increased the standard of living and the opportunities of most Americans, but at what cost?

2. Difference Between 1st & 2nd Industrial Revolutions?
1ST Industrial Revolution
2nd Industrial Revolution
T extiles
R ailroads
I ron
C oal
R AILROADS
O il
S teel
E lectricity

4. In less than 125 years, America became the leading industrial power of the world. Major reasons for this quick rise to power include:
RAILROADS!!!!!!!!!
Resources
An abundance of natural resources
An abundance of human resources
unskilled & semi-skilled labor
Government policy towards business
Willing to help at all levels to stimulate growth
Market growing as U.S. population increased.
Entrepreneurs – talented group of businessmen & advisors with abundant capital
New inventions & technology

5. RAILROADS The factor MOST responsible for growth of American Industry.
The Railroad fueled the growing US economy:
First big business in the US.
A magnet for financial investment.
The key to opening the West.
Aided the development of other industries.
Became a consumer of other industries.

6. Railroad Construction
FIVE transcontinental lines are built:
Central Pacific & Union Pacific
Northern Pacific
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe
Southern Pacific RR
Great Northern RR (James G. Hill)

7. Transcontinental Railroad (During Civil War – to connect CA with the Union)
RACE – Pacific Railway Act, 1862:
Received 20 sq. mi. of land for every mile of track laid
$16,000 loan for every mile on flat land
$48,000 loan for every mile over mountains
Union Pacific: building west from Omaha, Nebraska
Irish immigrants
Central Pacific: building east from Sacramento, CA
Leland Stanford & the Big Four
Chinese immigrants used
Most difficult time – Sierra Nevada Mtns.
Union lays 1,086 miles & Central 689
Stanford – former CA governor; Stanford University; 49er – did reinvent himself in Gold Rush years & became successful merchant.
The Union Pacific, led by former cotton smuggler and medical doctor Thomas C. Durant, would use the government’s preoccupation with the Civil War to its advantage. Since the government paid Union Pacific for each mile of track it laid, Durant had workers install large amounts of unnecessary track across land that he owned.
Leland Stanford

8. WEDDING OF THE RAILS:
Promontory point photo linked to History Channel video on t-c railroad
Golden spike with silver sledgehammer swung by Gov. Stanford – spike is now at Stanford University
“May God continue the unity of our Country as this Railroad unites the two great Oceans of the world.”

9. Improvements in RRs will increase their profitability:
Standardization & Consolidation:
Binds all sections of country together into one market
Cornelius Vanderbilt:
“The Commodore” – steamboat fleet
Consolidates NY railroads
into NY Central RR Company
Eventually leaves his RR empire to his son, William H. Vanderbilt

10. The Erie Railroad War was a bitter and prolonged financial battle for control of a railroad line waged in the late 1860s. The competition between robber barons underscored corruption on Wall Street while it captivated the public, which followed the peculiar twists and turns portrayed in newspaper accounts.
The primary characters were Cornelius Vanderbilt, the venerable transportation magnate known as “The Commodore,” and Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, upstart Wall Street traders becoming famous for shamelessly unethical tactics.

11. Improvements in service: 4 track main line Standard gauge track
Use of Westinghouse air brake – allows all cars to stop simultaneously…can then carry heavier loads on longer trains
Pullman Palace Cars – luxury cars
Time Zones develop due to RR:
Develop because needed for RR scheduling
Originally 4 in U.S.
How many in U.S. now?
Eventually spreads worldwide
RRs needed a plan that would offer a uniform train schedule for departures and arrivals – time zones!

13. How did the RRs impact: National unity? Industry?
Mining & agriculture?
Growth of cities and urban areas?
Immigration?
The Environment?
Wealth?
National Unity – unites nation – create largest integrated national market in the world & encourage more investment in business
Industrialization – opens up markets, speeds up access to raw materials, RR as a consumer of steel
Mining & agriculture – brings farmers and miners West, bring manufactured goods to them, carry farm products back East
Cities – carry food to masses in urban areas, carry raw materials to supply industries employing them
Immigration – want land to be populated so encourage immigrants thru Bureaus of Immigration & transport them West for free
Environment – 25 yrs. Of RR building: 15 million buffalo down to a few hundred; change ecosystem in West with the new settlement they bring.
Wealth – created millionaires – “Lords of the Rail”.
Lords of the Rail – William Vanderbilt (Cornelius’ son), Jay Gould

14. Corruption in the Railroad Industry:
Stock Watering
Exaggerating RR assets; selling stock at higher prices than it’s worth
Bribery
Of judges, legislature; free passes to politicians
The “pool”
An anti-competitive combination – group of RR companies agree to divide business in a geographic area and share the profits
Rebates and Kickbacks
Reward powerful shippers for steady & assured traffic
Price Gouging
Rates are low on competing lines, but jacked up on non-competitive lines

15. Government Regulation of RR:
State regulation – 1870s
Encourages farmers to protest & organize (the Grange) & pressure state legislatures into passing regulations to control RR monopolies
Munn. v. IL – Farmers (Grange) win victory when Court rules states CAN regulate RR rates
Federal regulation
1886 – Wabash v. Illinois
Sup. Ct. rules that states CANNOT regulate interstate commerce
1887 – Interstate Commerce Act
Prohibits rebates, pools, requires that rates be published, establishes ICC to enforce
Impact of the ICC
Provides forum for resolution of conflicts
A good first step, but not very powerful

16. Resources: Natural Resources: Human Resources:
Coal – amount mined doubles each decade between 1840 & 1890
Iron Ore – Great Lakes, PA, AL
Oil – Western PA; to TX by 1900
Human Resources:
Population doubles between 1860 & 1890
IMMIGRATION – 14 million immigrants to U.S. during this time (“New Immigrants” from S & E Europe)

17. Favorable Government Policy Towards Business
LAISSEZ-FAIRE!!
The ideology of the industrial age
Individuals should compete freely in the marketplace.
No room for government in the market!
Industry has very few government regulations and restrictions
ENTREPRENEURS
One who takes the risk of organizing and beginning a new business
Received help from the U.S. government:
High protective tariffs
Cheap land
Liberal immigration laws – cheap labor

18. JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER OIL REFINING (Standard Oil Co.)
Consolidated 40 oil refining companies – a nationwide monopoly – controlled 95% of all refineries by 1877
America’s First Billionaire
Ruthless in business! (dubbed “Reckafellaw”)
“American Beauty” rose analogy – pluck off the early buds…
Used rebates, drawbacks, spies & secret info from RR to learn about competitors & force them out of business
Stock or Cash Buyouts
Standard Oil Company had captured 90 per cent of America’s oil refining and had pushed the price down from 58 cents to eight cents a gallon. Eventually he got it down to 26 cents.

19. Devout churchgoer and Sunday School teacher Strong family man
Treated his workers well – the first to offer old-age pensions & tried to protect them in bad times
Hated waste!
Personally:
Ambitious
Abstemious
Pious
Parsimonious
Devout churchgoer and Sunday School teacher
Strong family man
Only the strong survive
Totally focused on cost efficiency – cut down the drops of solder used to close the lids of kerosene cans from 40 to 39 and wound up saving his company hundreds of thousands of dollars in the long run.
Abstemious - 1. sparing or moderate in eating and drinking; temperate in diet. 2. characterized by abstinence: an abstemious life. 3. sparing: an abstemious diet. ...
Pious - religious devotion or to spirituality
“GOD GAVE ME MY MONEY.”
John D. Rockefeller

20. Standard Oil Refinery

21. The Standard Oil Octopus is an example of the control that monopolies had over the economy and the government. This cartoon was published in 1904 during Teddy Roosevelt's presidency. The octopus is controlling the Congress (upper left building), the state capital buildings (upper right building), the shipping (upper left), the railroads (under center tentacle) and other business owner or politicians (lower right corner). The only thing not under control of the octopus is the White House. President Roosevelt is using the Sherman Anti-trust Act to regulate the monopolies. This means that there is no longer "Laissez Faire Economics."
The Octopus, 1904

22. Gave away dimes to children on the street Retired at age 40
Spent rest of his life giving away money
Gave away over $520 million to charities
$78 million to colleges
$60 million to medicine
$18 million to African American education
Lots more to education & research
University of Chicago

23. Died at age 98, 1937
at Ormond Beach , FL

24. ROCKEFELLER EXPOSED BY JOURNALIST IDA TARBELL
A lifelong Rockefeller hater (her father took the cash buyout)
Exposed Rockefeller’s unethical business dealings with RR, etc.

25. ANDREW CARNEGIE STEEL (U.S. Steel Corporation)
Hired the best technical & scientific experts
Used new process & made steel so cheaply it forced competitors into bankruptcy & then he bought them

27. Did not treat his workers as well as Rockefeller
Drove wages down & hours up for the common laborers & constantly fought unionization
Used Pinkerton Detectives against employees
But, made upper level management & experts partners in the business

28. Poor Scottish immigrant who went from “rags to riches” – a true Horatio Alger story
Began work in 1848 as bobbin boy - $1.20/wk
By 1900 produces half of nation’s steel –$25 million/year take-home pay
Ambitious, energetic, a “gambler”
Deeply believed that if one worked hard, saved $ & invested wisely, anyone could become wealthy
“The first man gets the oyster,
The second man gets the shell.”
Andrew Carnegie

29. “Gospel of Wealth” – Wealthy are blessed with greater talent and wealth and have a duty to help those who would try to help themselves.
Inequality is inevitable and good.
Wealthy should act as “trustees” for their “poorer brethren.”
Retired at 66 (bought out by J.P. Morgan – becomes U.S. Steel)
Lived to be 84
Gave away over $350 million to charities
Mostly to libraries
Carnegie Hall & Museum, NY
History channel video linked to cartoon pic
“The man who dies
rich, dies disgraced.”

30. New Financial Businessman Wall Street – 1867 & 1900
The Broker
Wall Street – 1867 & 1900

31. Beliefs defending class distinctions: SOCIAL DARWINISM
Philosophy that applied Darwin’s biological theory of “survival of the fittest” to human society & those who succeeded
Wealth no longer looked upon as bad; viewed as a sign of God’s approval.
Yale professor William Graham Sumner: “millionaires are a product of natural selection.”
Both Rockefeller and Carnegie were strong believers in this philosophy
Believed it was a method better than elections for selecting leaders
Only the strong survivors will control industry and wealth

32. RUGGED INDIVIDUALISM Equates to contempt for the poor
Many of nouveau riche had “pulled themselves up by their bootstraps”
The poor are only poor because of their laziness and lack of initiative
Rev. Russell Conwell
Christian duty to accumulate wealth
Should NOT help the poor.
“Acres of Diamonds” speech:
“There is not a poor person in the U.S. who was not made poor by his own shortcomings.”
1/10 of people own 9/10 of all the wealth by 1900

33. EFFORTS TO CURB COMPETITON:
VERTICAL INTEGRATION
BUSINESSES IN DIFFERENT BUT RELATED ACTIVITIES JOINED TOGETHER;
COMBINES ALL PHASES OF THE PRODUCTION PROCESS – Supply lines & distributions lines - gets rid of the middlemen
Best examples:
CARNEGIE
Gustavus Swift, Meat-packing
HORIZONTAL INTEGRATION:
SEVERAL FIRMS IN THE SAME KIND OF BUSINESS CONSOLIDATED, JOINED TOGETHER
Best example:
ROCKEFELLER and his Standard Oil Co.
Consolidated 40 refining companies
Carnegie made sure that no one but his employees touched the product, creating the tactic of vertical integration. All phases of marketing and production were in one organization. Carnegie wanted to improve efficiency through reliability, controlled production, and eliminating middlemen’s fees.
A method of production used by John D. Rockefeller, horizontal integration, was a strategy that called for allying with competitors to monopolize a given market. Or simply overtaking the competition through intimidation and buyouts. Through this system a trust was made.

34. SWIFT ROCKEFELLER

35. INTERLOCKING DIRECTORATES:
J.P. MORGAN
“Banker’s banker”
Put officers of his own banking syndicate on Board of Directors of rival businesses
Gave him control of multiple businesses in the same industry
Made millions financing reorganization of RRs, banks, insurance co’s.

36. Due to huge sums required to build railroads, corporations become major business form in U.S.
Corporate investors enjoy LIMITED LIABILITY … which means that investors risk ONLY the amount of their investment (stock cost) and can’t be held personally liable for debts of the corporation
A corporation is a company formed by a group of investors who get a share of ownership in proportion to the amount of money they invest

37. ADVANTAGES OF CORPORATIONS OVER OTHER TYPES OF BUSINESSES:
Viewed as a legal “person” under the law – can make contracts, sue and be sued, etc.
PERMANENCE - they continue forever
EASY TO RAISE LARGE SUMS OF MONEY
Small amounts of $ from many individual investors can be pooled into huge sums of $ need to start or expand a large company
LIMITED LIABILITY!!!!!

38. Advantages of “Big Business” in the Gilded Age?
Can produce more and better goods at a lower cost
created jobs
can afford to pay high salaries to get the best experts
increased efficiency by establishing separate departments in business

39. What are the disadvantages of “Big Business?”
Methods they used to get “Big”
Demanded, & got, volume discounts from shippers
Underselling & forcing competitors out of business
Raising prices to the consumer
Bribing of public officials
Destruction of the environment
Why would people put up with this?

40. U. S. Corporate Mergers

41. The ‘Robber Barons’ of the Past

42. Images of the new elite Jay Gould – the Archtype of the Robber Baron
RR Developer – Union Pacific
(from left to right)
John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt,
and J.P. Morgan
Dr. Thomas C. Durant, Vice-
Pres., Union-Pacific Railroad

43. Henry Flagler Moves to St. Augustine Founder of Palm Beach
An American tycoon who worked with John D. Rockefeller to establish Standard Oil. He helped develop Florida as the vacation land it is today.
Moves to St. Augustine
Founder of Palm Beach
“Father of Miami”
Founds the Florida East Coast Railway
By 1912 Florida Overseas Railroad was completed to Key West
Flagler County, Flagler Beach, Flagler College
RR rebates for Standard Oil were his idea!

44. Whitehall - 1st big mansion in West Palm –--- history museum there now
Flagler Resort
Flagler Resort on top left
Flagler College now – bottom right
1st big mansion in West Palm – Whitehall --- history museum there now
In 1878, on the advice of his physician, Flagler traveled to Jax, FL for the winter with his first wife, Mary, who was quite ill. Two years after she died in 1881, he married her former caregiver, Ida Alice Shourds. After their wedding, the couple traveled to St. Augustine in Flagler found the city charming, but the hotel facilities and transportation systems inadequate. He recognized Florida's potential to attract out-of-state visitors. Though Flagler remained on the Board of Directors of Standard Oil, he gave up his day-to-day involvement in the firm in order to pursue his Florida interests.
His greatest & longest lasting legacy was the developments along Florida's eastern coast.
Flagler College
Whitehall - 1st big mansion in West Palm –--- history museum there now 44

45. Inside WhiteHall 45

46. The FEC is possibly best known for building the railroad to Key West, completed in At one time during construction, four thousand men were employed. During the seven-year construction, three hurricanes threatened to halt the project.
One of the reasons Flagler built the Key West Extension was at the time of its conception, Key West was a major coaling station for ship traffic between South America and New York. Flagler thought it would be profitable for coal to be brought by railroad to Key West for coaling those ships. By the time the railroad was finished in 1912 though, range had been extended on the ships to such a degree that Key West was no longer a stopover for coal.
When the FEC's line from the mainland to Key West was heavily damaged by the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, the State of Florida purchased the remaining right-of-way and bridges south of Dade County, and they were rebuilt into road bridges for vehicle traffic and became known as the Overseas Highway.
It was a WPA project in 30’s? to build these new roads – lots of bonus marchers went down to there to work…..when Labor Day hurricane came in, many couldn’t get out and died. 46

47. Distribution of wealth in the Gilded Age

48. The Dominance of the Trusts

49. Regulating the Trusts
1877  Munn. v. IL – Farmers (the Grange) win victory when Court rules states CAN regulate RR rates
1886  Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad Company v. IL – overrules Munn;
federal gov’t controls RR interstate commerce
1890  Sherman Antitrust Act
Forbids combinations in “restraint of trade”
No real means of enforcement
First lawsuits all decided in favor of the trusts
& against labor unions – restraining trade
1895  US v. E. C. Knight Co. – Fed. gov’t using Sherman Act to get rid of sugar monopoly but lost. Ct. held that manufacturing industries were local industries not subject to fed. gov’ts interstate commerce control
Munn – Grange was seeking regulation of rr rates & grain elevators; Ct. allowed states to regulate them….in the public interest BUT will be changed by Wabash
United States v. E.C. Knight Company, byname Sugar Trust Case, (1895), legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court first interpreted the Sherman Antitrust Act of The case began when the E.C. Knight Company gained control of the American Sugar Refining Company. By 1892 American Sugar enjoyed a virtual monopoly of sugar refining in the United States, controlling 98 percent of the industry.
President Grover Cleveland ordered the government to sue the Knight Company under the provisions of the Sherman Act, and the case reached the Supreme Court in The court ruled 8 to 1 against the government, declaring that manufacturing (i.e., refining) was a local activity not subject to congressional regulation of interstate commerce.
The decision, permitting combinations of manufacturers, put most monopolies beyond the reach of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Not until serious trust-busting began under presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft were teeth put into the antitrust laws and the power of monopolies somewhat curtailed.

50. NEW INVENTIONS & TECHNOLOGY:
Bessemer and open hearth process
Created a lighter, stronger, rust-free metal – STEEL
U.S. producing 1/3 of world’s supply by 1890
Refrigerated RR cars

51. In his lifetime, Edison patented 1,093 inventions.
Thomas Alva Edison
"Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration."
In his lifetime, Edison patented 1,093 inventions, earning him the nickname "The Wizard of Menlo Park." The most famous of his inventions was an incandescent light bulb. Besides the light bulb, Edison developed the phonograph and the "kinetoscope," a small box for viewing moving films. He also improved upon the original design of the stock ticker, the telegraph, and Alexander Graham Bell's telephone. He believed in hard work, sometimes working twenty hours a day. Edison was quoted as saying, "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." In tribute to this important American, electric lights in the United States were dimmed for one minute on October 21, 1931, a few days after his death.
Menlo Park, NJ is now Edison, NJ
“Wizard of Menlo Park”
In his lifetime, Edison patented 1,093 inventions.

52. The Light Bulb Birth of the Night Shift! Industrial production now
History channel clip linked to light bulb pic
Birth of the Night Shift!
Industrial production now
possible 24 hrs. per day!

53. The Phonograph (1877)

54. The Ediphone or Dictaphone

55. The Motion Picture Camera

56. Alexander Graham Bell Telephone (1876) New jobs for women
Scottish immigrant (by way of Canada)
In the 1870s, two inventors Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell both independently designed devices that could transmit speech electrically (the telephone). Both men rushed their respective designs to the patent office within hours of each other, Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone first. Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell entered into a famous legal battle over the invention of the telephone, which Bell won.
Throughout his life, Bell had been interested in the education of deaf people. This interest lead him to invent the microphone and, in 1876, his "electrical speech machine," which we now call a telephone. News of his invention quickly spread throughout the country, even throughout Europe. By 1878, Bell had set up the first telephone exchange in New Haven, Connecticut. By 1884, long distance connections were made between Boston, Massachusetts and New York City.
Alexander Graham Bell's notebook entry of 10 March 1876 describes his successful experiment with the telephone. Speaking through the instrument to his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, in the next room, Bell utters these famous first words, "Mr. Watson -- come here -- I want to see you."
New
jobs
for
women

57. CHRISTOPHER LATHAM SHOLES
THE TYPEWRITER
Along with the telephone, leads to feminization of the work place
Women make up
5% of all office
workers in 1870;
40% by 1910

58. Alternate Current Air Brake George Westinghouse AC was safer than
Edison’s DC current
Air Brake
Probably the most lasting contribution made by George Westinghouse to modern life was his championing of alternating current (or AC). Edison favored direct current (DC), but Westinghouse proved that alternating current was much safer and the home user would benefit much more from a safer means of lighting. This led to the electrification of homes in America. The 1893 world's fair brought the widespread use of electricity in its elaborate displays which demonstrated the advantages of alternating over direct current.
George
Westinghouse

59. Wilbur Wright Orville Wright
The Airplane
Wilbur Wright Orville Wright
The craft soared to an altitude of 10 feet, traveled 120 feet, and landed 12 seconds after takeoff.
Orville Wright ( ) and Wilbur Wright ( ) had requested a patent application for a "flying machine" nine months before their first successful flight, they were that confidant.
As part of the Wright Brothers' systematic practice of photographing every prototype and test of their various flying machines, they had persuaded an attendant from a nearby lifesaving station to snap Orville Wright in full flight. The craft soared to an altitude of 10 feet, traveled 120 feet, and landed 12 seconds after takeoff. After making two longer flights that day, Orville and Wilbur Wright sent a telegram to their father, instructing him to inform the press that manned flight had taken place. This was birth of the first real airplane.
Kitty Hawk, NC – December 7, 1903

60. U. S. Patents Granted 1790s  276 patents issued.

61. Problems of workers in the Industrial Age:
Less value placed on skills
Depersonalized relations with corporate employers
Technological unemployment – machines replace men
Glutted labor market –IMMIGRANTS!
Begin to look to unions for help
Had difficulty organizing:
Extreme opposition from Employers
Courts & police favored Employers over workers
Too many immigrant laborers
Several major unions form in late 1800s:
National Labor Union
Knights of Labor
American Federation of Labor
American Railway Union

62. UNION EMPLOYER TACTICS RESISTANCE
Lockout
Blacklisting
Hiring of Scabs
Yellow Dog Contracts & ironclad oaths
Company-owned towns – Pullman, IL
Injunctions
Use of Pinkertons
Govt’s view of unions?
courts, law enforcement all on side of management in early days
Strike
Picket Line
Boycott
Hyperlink on scabs sign…..marisa tomei reading letter from GM striker in 1930’s
Unions also had links with organized crime
In 1850, Allan Pinkerton founded his detective agency based on his own incorruptible principles. His values became the cornerstone of a respected agency that still exists today. His reputation preceded him during the Civil War. He headed the organization responsible for spying on the confederacy. At war’s end, he went back to running the Pinkerton Detective Agency until his death on July 1, At his death the agency continued to operate and would soon become a major force against the young labor movement developing in the United States of America. In fact, this effort against labor tarnished the image of the Pinkertons for years. They always maintained the high moral standards established by their founder, but many people began to view them as an arm of big business. They were involved in numerous activities against labor and during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Pullman Strike (1894)
The Wild Bunch Gang (1896)
Ludlow Massacre (1914)
Many labor sympathizers accused the Pinkertons of inciting riots as a means of keeping employment or for other nefarious purposes. Their reputation was harmed by their protection of scabs and business property of the major industrialists including Andrew Carnegie. However, they managed to last through all of the controversy and still thrive today as SECURITAS (security guard service)

63. NATIONAL LABOR UNION Formed 1866 - 600,000 workers at height
General union with skilled & unskilled workers, and farmers
Sought social reform – 8 hr. day
Get 8 hr. day for gov’t workers but 1870s depression destroys union
RR wage cuts in 1877 led to massive strikes, federal troops called in & violence erodes support for unions among Americans

64. KNIGHTS OF LABOR, 1869 Led by Terrence Powderly
Originally a secret organization
ALL workers welcome: unskilled and skilled
Recruited women & blacks
Sought broad reforms:
Health and safety codes
8 hour day; end to child labor, etc.
Cooperative ideas – eventually workers would own factories
Used political activity first; preferred NOT to use strikes
Successful strike against Gould’s Wabash RR in 1885
Association with anarchy & violence (Haymarket Square Riot) causes end of Knights by 1890s
KNIGHTS OF LABOR, 1869
Haymarket – bomb thrown during a protest against police abuses during strikes – 12 killed or injured. Anti-foreign, anti-union backlash brings the union down ---- ASSOCIATED WITH ANARCHISTS!

65. AFL, 1886 Led by Samuel Gompers A CRAFT Union
ONLY skilled workers - why?
(better bargaining power)
Kept out blacks and women
A “federation”
Sought “bread and butter” reforms:
Higher Wages
Shorter Hours
Better/safer working conditions
Also sought “closed shops” (union workers only)
Relied on economic pressure: walkouts, strikes and boycotts – collective bargaining
“All I want is more!”
Federation – organization of self-governing national unions organized by trade
500,000 members by 1900
Gompers: “All I want is more!”

66. AMERICAN RAILWAY UNION
Led by Eugene V. Debs
Later became a socialist while in jail after arrest in Pullman Strike
“INDUSTRIAL” union
All workers in same industry, regardless of their craft or skill level, in the same union
Sought less violence/confrontations but winds up in it anyway

67. THE MAJOR STRIKES: Great RR Strike of 1877
Baltimore & Ohio RR – cut wages during a depression
Striking & violence spread; Employers called on federal gov’t for help
Pres. Hayes sent in troops to restore order

68. HAYMARKET SQUARE RIOT 1886
On May 1, 1886, unions called for national strike in support of an 8 hour work day
Thousands of workers demonstrated in U.S. cities but Chicago was the center; approximately 80,000 Knights there
Bomb thrown into crowd/at police; killed about a dozen people, including 7 police
Eight anarchist labor leaders arrested and tried without much supporting evidence; 4 hanged
Association between unions & violence leads to demise of Knights of Labor

69. Images from Haymarket Riots, May 3, 1886
Haymarket Memorial, Chicago

70. Carnegie Steel – Homestead Plant
Homestead Strike, 1892
Carnegie Steel – Homestead Plant
Carnegie’s partner (Frick) cut wages; workers strike
Pinkerton Detectives called in to break strike
Led to deaths of 9 strikers & 7 detectives
Anarchist tried and failed to assassinate Frick
Strike called off – management wins
Unions’ association with violence continues
History.com video on Carnegie and Frick linked to book cover.
Carnegie and Frick made little effort to hide what they had in mind. Their company advertised widely for strikebreakers and built a 10-foot-high fence around the plant that was topped by barbed wire. Management was determined to provoke a strike.
Meanwhile, the workers organized the town on a military basis. They were "establishing pickets on eight-hour shifts, river patrols and a signaling system."
Frick did what plenty of 19th-century businessmen did when they were battling unions. He hired the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which was notorious for such activities as infiltrating its agents into unions and breaking strikes-and which at its height had a larger work force than the entire U.S. Army.
When Frick plotted to sneak in 300 Pinkerton agents on river barges before dawn on July 6, word spread across town as they were arriving and thousands of workers and their families rushed to the river to keep them out. Gunfire broke out between the men on the barge and the workers on land. In the mayhem that ensued, the Pinkertons surrendered and came ashore, where they were beaten and cursed by the angry workers.
At the end of the battle between the Pinkertons and nearly the entire town, nine workers and seven Pinkertons were dead. Four days later, 8,500 National Guard forces were sent at the request of Frick to take control of the town and steel mill. After winning his victories, Frick announced, "Under no circumstances will we have any further dealing with the Amalgamated Association as an organization. This is final." And in November, the Amalgamated Association collapsed.
According to labor historian David Brody, in his highly acclaimed Steelworkers in America: The Nonunion Era, the daily wages of the highly skilled workers at Homestead shrunk by one-fifth between 1892 and 1907, while their work shifts increased from eight hours to 12 hours.

71. Pullman Strike, 1894
US cavalry breaks up 1894 Pullman Car workers strike

72. Pullman Strike, 1894 Pullman Palace Car Company Company Town
Laid off workers & cut wages after Panic of 1893
BUT didn’t cut rent & food prices
Refused to bargain; shut down plant
First true nationwide strike!
Caused interference with mail delivery
Pres. Cleveland got injunction to force end to strike and sent in troops to enforce it – sets a precedent
Debs refused, arrested, jailed … socialist
Debs arrested on federal charges of obstructing the mail