1. Gilded Age Economics and Social
Period 6 – 1865 to 1898

2. Think About It
To what extent did industrialism and innovation maintain continuity and foster change in American society?

4. Captains of Industry OR Robber Barons?
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Andrew Carnegie
John D. Rockefeller
J.P. Morgan

5. Captains of Industry OR Robber Barons: Cornelius Vanderbilt and Railroads
Transportation
Railroads
Granger Movement

7. The Business of Railroads
Rate Wars
Grange Lines
Midwest farmers dependent on rail lines for shipping
High freight rates impoverished farmers

8. Farmers vs Railroads Granger Movement Granger laws Cooperatives
Munn v. Illinois (1877)
States could regulate private companies if they served the public interest, I.e. grain elevators, railroads
Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Co. v. Illinois (1886)
States could not regulate interstate commerce
Interstate Commerce Act (1886)
Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)
Farmers’ Alliance
Ocala Platform (1890)
Free silver
Low interest loan systems
Decreased tariffs
Government regulation of communication and transportation
Graduated income tax
Favored direct election of Senators

9. Gilded Age Press and Literature
Newspapers and Magazines
Sensationalism and scandals
Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World
William Randolph Hearst’s The New York Journal
Editorials and investigative journalism
Fiction and Realism
Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today
Jack London
The Call of the Wild

10. Captains of Industry OR Robber Barons: Andrew Carnegie and Steel
Vertical Integration
Urbanization and Cities
Gospel of Wealth
Labor Unions and Strikes

11. Vertical Integration Carnegie acquired all aspects of steel production
Limited competition, maximized profits, lowered prices

12. Bessemer Process Oxidation of iron ore to remove impurities
Steel is lighter, stronger, rust-resistant
Carnegie and Steel
Adopted and adapted Bessemer Process to steel plants
Increased supply of quality steel dropped steel prices
Abundance of steel significantly impacted American industrial growth and expansion

13. Steel Production

14. Steel and Urbanization
Skyscrapers
Infrastructure
Grand Central Station
Brooklyn Bridge
Urban Innovation
Mass Transit
Elevated rails
Cable cars
Subways
Elevators
Central steam-heating systems
NYC 1850
NYC c. 1900

15. Urban Problems Overcrowding Pollution Crime Sanitation/Water Treatment
Tenement Living
Pollution
Crime
Sanitation/Water Treatment
Disease

16. Urban and Social Reform
Social Gospel
Post-millenialism
Based on Matthew 6:10 “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”
Josiah Strong
Our Country: Its Possible Future and Present Crisis (1885)
"The Anglo-Saxon is the representative of two great ideas, which are closely related. One of them is that of civil liberty. Nearly all of the civil liberty of the world is enjoyed by Anglo-Saxons: the English, the British colonists, and the people of the United States....The other great idea of which the Anglo-Saxon is the exponent is that of a pure spiritual Christianity.”
New Denominations
Christian Science
Pentecostals
Jehovah’s Witness
Salvation Army

17. Urban and Social Reform
Settlement House
Established in poor urban neighborhoods
Provided education, daycare, and health services
Middle class volunteers
Jane Addams and Hull House
Based in Chicago

18. Urban and Social Reform
Jacob Riis
How the Other Half Lives (1889)
Henry George
Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy (1879)
"Take now... some hard-headed business man, who has no theories, but knows how to make money. Say to him: "Here is a little village; in ten years it will be a great cityóin ten years the railroad will have taken the place of the stage coach, the electric light of the candle; it will abound with all the machinery and improvements that so enormously multiply the effective power of labor. Will in ten years, interest be any higher?" He will tell you, "No!" "Will the wages of the common labor be any higher...?" He will tell you, "No the wages of common labor will not be any higher..." "What, then, will be higher?" "Rent, the value of land. Go, get yourself a piece of ground, and hold possession." And if, under such circumstances, you take his advice, you need do nothing more. You may sit down and smoke your pipe; you may lie around like the lazzaroni of Naples or the leperos of Mexico; you may go up in a balloon or down a hole in the ground; and without doing one stroke of work, without adding one iota of wealth to the community, in ten years you will be rich! In the new city you may have a luxurious mansion, but among its public buildings will be an almshouse."

19. Gospel of Wealth Based on an article written by Andrew Carnegie
Guardians of the nation’s wealth
“All revenue generated beyond your own needs should be used for the good of the community.”
“In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who will help themselves; to provide part of the means by which those who desire to improve may do so; to give those who desire to use the aids by which they may rise; to assist, but rarely or never to do all. Neither the individual nor the race is improved by alms-giving.”

20. Labor Wages and Conditions
Time and Pay
Average work week for industrial worker: 60 hours
Average hourly rate for unskilled industrial worker: $0.10
Iron law of wages
Conditions
Poor ventilation and heavy equipment
In 1882, average of 675 workers killed each week
No benefits
No vacation days, sick leave, health insurance, workers’ compensation, pensions
Child Labor
As young as 5 years old
12-14 hours for $.27 ($6.65)

21. Unions vs. Management
Industrialization, mass production, use of semiskilled workers = devalued labor
Poor and dangerous working conditions, immigrants, and meager salaries = upset workforce
Collective bargaining to appeal for better conditions, higher salaries, benefits
Union Methods
political action, strikes, picketing, boycotts, slowdowns
Industrialization, mass production, use of semiskilled workers = increased profits
Poor and dangerous working conditions, immigrants, and meager salaries = increasing profits and satisfied management
Developed image of unions and organized labor as un-American, socialist, anarchist
Management Methods
lockouts, scabs, blacklists, yellow-dog contracts, government/private force, court injunctions

22. Labor Unions American Federation of Labor (AFL) (1886)
Organization of national craft unions of skilled workers
Samuel Gompers
“Bread and Butter”
Higher wages
Shorter working hours
Better working conditions
Tactics
Arbitration and strikes
Political lobbying with Democratic Party
Knights of Labor (1869)
Terence V. Powderley
Platform
Open to blacks, women, most immigrants, Catholics, unskilled and semi-skilled workers
Cooperatives and anti-trusts
8-hour workday, child labor laws
Tactics
Arbitration and strikes

23. Great Railroad Strike of 1877
July 14-September 4, 1877
Causes
Panic of 1873
Class conflict with wage cuts and unemployment
Events
Strikers forced rail stoppages
Federal troops engaged strikers
Riots and massacres
Impact
Would lead to better organization of workers and labor unions
Legislation to limit unions and preparations for potential conflicts

24. Haymarket Riot of 1886 May Day (May 1st) May 3rd May 4th Protest
Strike begins of harvesting workers
May 3rd
Police sent to protect strikers
Fight broke out and one person killed and several injured
May 4th Protest
Anarchists planned demonstration against police brutality
Police dispersed crowd of 2,000
Bombing
A pipe bomb exploded and killed 7 police officers
Police fired into crowd killing 4
Trial
8 innocent anarchists convicted of murder in a show trial
4 hanged, 1 committed suicide, 3 pardoned by governor

25. Homestead Strike June 30-July 6, 1892 Henry Frick Events Impact
Manager of Carnegie Steel
Pursued wage cuts due to lower steel prices
Attempted to weaken steel workers union
Events
Frick orders a lockout and hires scabs
Use of Pinkertons to disperse strikers
Pennsylvania state militia ultimately ends strike
Impact
Weakened steel workers union
Tarnished Carnegie’s reputation

26. Pullman Strike (1894) Pullman Palace Car Company Strike Opinion
Established “model town” for workers
In response to Panic of 1893, wages cut but not rents and town costs
Strike
Eugene V. Debs
Workers blocked transport of Pullman cars
Pullman Co. linked them to mail cars
President Grover Cleveland deployed federal troops and court injunctions to enforce postal service
Opinion
Most Americans opposed the strike
Including AFL and Samuel Gompers
In Re Debs (1895)
Supreme Court ruled federal court injunctions to enforce interstate commerce constitutional

28. Captains of Industry OR Robber Barons: John D. Rockefeller and Oil
Horizontal Integration
Standard Oil
Trusts and monopolies
Sherman Anti-trust Act (1890)
Gilded Age Society
Social Darwinism

29. Horizontal Integration

31. Standard Oil Trust Tactics Trusts and Monopolies
Lowered prices to drive out competitors (rate wars)
Threatened companies to sell to Standard Oil (buyouts)
Bribed railroads to buy Standard Oil fuel (rebates, kickbacks)
Bribed Congress members
Trusts and Monopolies
Controls prices
Limits competition

32. Antitrust Movement Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)
Prohibits any “contract, combination, in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce”
United States v. E.C. Knight Co. (1895)
Sugar refining monopoly tested Sherman Antitrust Act
Regulation applied to commerce and not manufacturing

33. Bosses of the Senate

34. Scientific Management “Taylorism”
Frederick W. Taylor
Designed hierarchies and subdivisions of labor
Managers plan, schedule, train, and supervise
Workers perform assigned tasks best suited to skills
Time management
Effects
Managerial class
Efficiency
Labor resentment

35. Henry Ford and Model T Assembly Line Worker Treatment Model T (1908)
Mass production of products through sequential assembly
Worker Treatment
Paid decent wages
Provided benefits
Model T (1908)
Low-cost product for affordable price

36. Gilded Age Socioeconomics
Socioeconomic gap extensively widened
Top 1% Ownership of Nation’s Wealth
1820: 20.3%
1860: 27%
1900: 37.3%
Top 20% Ownership of Nation’s Wealth
1820: 72%
1860: 88.1%
1900: 97.3%
Statistics
Total national wealth in 1860: $16 billion
Total national wealth in 1900: $88 billion
National wealth per capita in 1860: $500
National wealth per capita in 1900: $1100
GDP Growth Rate ( ): 4.5%
Real Wage of Unskilled Labor: 1.43%
Cost of Living: -1.5%
Expansion of middle class/white-collar workers
2/3 of population were wage earners

37. Gilded Age Women Upper-class and middle-class women
College educated
Increased independence
Involved in social reforms
Gibson Girl and New Woman
20% of American women worked as wage earners
Most single women; 5% married
Low-income families required women in workplace
Female-based Jobs
Typical home-associated industries:
textiles, foods, domestic servants
New types of jobs:
secretaries, bookkeepers, typists, communication operators

38. Temperance and Reform Temperance Organizations Reform Groups
National Prohibition Party (1869)
Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) (1874)
Antisaloon League (1893)
Carrie Nation
“Hatchetations”
Reform Groups
Planned parenthood
Humane societies
Anti-prostitution

39. Immigration Massive Influx Old Immigrants New Immigrants
16.2 million immigrants ( )
8.8 million ( )
Old Immigrants
Northern and Western Europe
New Immigrants
Southern and Eastern Europe; Asia
Catholics, Jews

41. Immigrant Issues Sociopolitical Enemies Legislation Political Machines
Nativists
Josiah Strong - Our Country
Legislation
Immigration Acts of 1882, 1891
Forbid convicts, lunatics, idiots, diseased, disabled
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
Chinese immigration ban for 10 years
Chinese prevented from becoming citizens
Political Machines
Employment, housing, social services for votes
Ethnic Neighborhoods
Little Italy
Chinatown

42. Ellis Island “…Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore…”
Emma Lazarus - The New Colossus, 1883

43. Social Darwinism Herbert Spencer Fueled and Influenced…
“Survival of the fittest”
Wealth a result of hard work and brilliance
Poor and unfortunate were lazy
Fueled and Influenced…
Laissez-faire economics
Racism
Nativism
Imperialism
Eugenics
Horatio Alger Myth

44. Captains of Industry OR Robber Barons: J.P. Morgan and Electricity
Banking and Financing
Corporations
Science and Innovation
Consumerism

45. Corporations American Telephone and Telegraph Co. (1885)
J.P. Morgan Co. financed merger of Bell and communication companies
General Electric (1892)
J.P. Morgan merged Edison General Electric and Thomas-Houston Electric Company
U.S. Steel (1901)
J.P. Morgan bought Carnegie Steel and merged with other steel companies
Becomes first billion dollar company in world

46. Corporate Mergers

47. Electricity Thomas Edison Nicola Tesla The Wizard of Menlo Park
Incandescent light bulb
Safer than kerosene lamps
New York City
Direct current (DC)
Edison developed system of power stations
Nicola Tesla
Alternate current (AC)
Transfer of electricity faster and farther

48. Gilded Age Innovation Sewing Machine (1855) Isaac Singer
Transatlantic cable (1866)
Cyrus Field
Dynamite (1866)
Alfred Nobel
Typewriter (1867)
Christopher Scholes
Air brakes (1868)
George Westinghouse
Mail-order catalog (1872)
A.M. Ward
Blue jeans (1873)
Levi Strauss
Barbed wire (1873)
Joseph Glidden
Telephone (1876)
Alexander Graham Bell*
Phonograph (1877)
Thomas Edison
Incandescent Light bulb (1879)
Thomas Edison*
Cash register (1879)
James Ritty
Universal stock ticker (1885)
Thomas Edison
Transformer (1885)
Nikola Tesla
Gasoline automobile (1885)
Karl F. Benz
Skyscraper (1885)
William Le Baron Jenney
Film roll and Kodak camera (1889)
George Eastman*
Motion picture camera (1891)
Thomas Edison*
Radio (1895)
Guglielmo Marconi
Subway (U.S.) (1895)
X-ray (1895)
Wilhelm C. Rontgen
Powered flight (1903)
George and Wilbur Wright
Alkaline battery (1906)
Model T (1908)
Henry Ford

49. Monumental Innovation
Charles Alderton
Experimented with various syrups and flavorings
Robert Lazenby
Developed Dr. Pepper by 1885
Patented and incorporated by 1891
St. Louis World’s Fair and Exposition (1904)
Introduces Dr. Pepper to the world
Along with hot dogs, hamburgers, and ice cream cones

50. Gilded Age Academics Educational Reforms Science Social Sciences
Public Education
Comprehensive education
Compulsory Education
Most states required 8-14 year olds to attend schools
Kindergartens
Led to 90% literacy rate
Colleges and Universities
Increased through federal legislation and philanthropy
Women’s colleges and universities
By % of college students were women
Black colleges and universities
Science
Charles Darwin and Evolution
Technological Innovation
Social Sciences
Scientific method applied to behavioral sciences
Development of psychology, sociology, political science

51. Consumerism
Wide variety of mass produced goods led to new marketing and sales
Brand names and logos
Department stores
R.H. Macy’s
Chain stores
Woolworth’s
Grocery stores
Mail order catalogs
Montgomery Ward
Sears, Roebuck, Co.

53. Gilded Age Music Mainstream Music Popular Music
John Philip Sousa – The March King
The Washington Post
Stars and Stripes Forever
Semper Fidelis
Screamers – Circus Marches
Entry of the Gladiators
Popular Music
Ragtime
Originated from black communities combining African syncopation and classical music
Scott Joplin
The Entertainer
The Blues
Originated c from Deep South based on ballads among slaves
Lyrics mostly soulful and melancholy