1. Topic: Assessing the impact of Corporate Consolidation of American Industry and Technology
Do Now:
“Industrialists like Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and Rockefeller are not ‘Robber Barons’, but are in fact ‘Captains of Industry’; they helped the nation transition from an agrarian backcountry to the world’s leading economic and industrial power. Their present reputation for being ‘greedy businessmen’ ignores their great contribution to our nation.
Defend or Refute this statement

2. Railroads: Precursor of the Industrial Revolution
Benefits of Railroads
Travel, markets, raw materials
Government subsidies of railroads
Land grants, loans
Major railroad companies
Union Pacific and Central Pacific (Transcontinental RR & Leland Stanford)
Vanderbilt: Railroad magnate
Railroad abuses
Stock watering
Shipping rates and farmers
Rebates
Pools
Wabash Case (1886)
Government response: Interstate Commerce Commission (1887)

3. “The Trusts” and Robber Barons
Andrew Carnegie
Steel & Bessemer Process (Pittsburg)
Vertical Integration
J.D. Rockefeller
Standard Oil: “American Rose” or the Octopus”?
Horizontal Integration
Corporation  Trust
J.P. Morgan
Banking and Stock Market
Buys US Steel
“Interlocking Directorates”
Competition vs. Monopoly

4. The “Age of Invention”
Investment of capital, needs of businesses, “American know-how”
Major inventions:
Typewriter
Telephone (Bell)
Pullman sleeping car and Refrigerated Car
Elevator
Electric railway and automobile (1900)
Thomas Edison
Light bulb
Motion pictures
phonograph

5. Impact of Industrialization
Connecting the nation
Growth of cities
Emergence of full Industrial Capitalism
Exploitation of natural resources
Immigration
Growth of Cities
“New South”
Comparatively high standard of living
Laissez Faire or “Trust busting”?
Time regimentation (Fredrick Taylor)
Women workers
Labor Unions grow

6. Conclusion
Look at your statement regarding the Industrialists from the beginning of the lesson. Do you still feel that way about them? Explain your reasoning.