The Second Industrial Revolution

• Background of Industrialization
  • First industrial revolution led by Great Britain in producing textiles in 1750
  • Second industrial revolution, arguably led by USA
    • Laissez-faire government (literally means hands off)
    • Protective tarriff
    • Government subsidies
    • land grants
    • Cheap immigrant labor, for example "coolies" (Chinese immigrants), or the Irish, Italians, Greeks etc
    • Coal, oil, iron ore, water, lumber were all readily available in the US
    • Banking was doing well with lots of available capital. JP Morgan was a famous banker of this time.
    • *Civil War- the impetus for rapid industrialization
  • Technological Innovations
  • Inventions
  • New Marketing Techniques
• The Railroad Empire
  • Background- Entrepreneur vs. Government
    • What was different in the US with the railroads was that they were built privately from government land and subsidies. This attracted foreign investors, especially from GBR.
  • Different Issues
    • In the West: James J. Hill in the Great North refused to take money and land from the government in order to build the railroads since he knew there was no such thing as free. The problems that there were not enough rails in the West.
    • In the East: There were too many tracks in the same place. There were also gaps in the tra cks and places that people had to go backwards to go forwards. (like connecting through Dallas to go to Canada).
  • Scandals
    • Erie Railroad War- Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Jim Fisk, and Daniel Drew
    • "Stock Watering:" printing and selling more stock for more than it was actually worth
    • Crédit Mobilier RR Scandal was secretly owned by the Union Pacific Railroad, hired itself to build a new railroad. Therefore, they could use the people's money instead of their own.
  • Railroad inventions and innovations
    • Vanderbilt
      • steel: lighter, stronger, doesn't rust
      • double tracking: trains can pass by each other
    • George Pullman
      • Sleeper Car, also called a Pullman Palace
    • George Westinghouse
      • Air brakes for trains
    • Gus Swift and Phillip Armour
      • refrigerated railroad cars
    • Time Zones
      • became necessary because of faster speeds and a need to synch the train times
    • The Standard Rail Gauge became 4ft 8.5in, based on the width of the Roman Chariots
  • Competition and Disorder
    • Illegal rebates were like todays rebates, except they were only available to rich people or to large orders
    • Pooling was when companies combined together and fixed the price at the same (usually too high) price. Current day example is the OPEC Cartel, a pool of oil producing countries.
    • States decide to fight back against Railroad pooling
      • Granger Laws were primarily meant to help the farmers. Most famous of these was Munn vs. Illinois (1877) Ruled in favor of the farmer, aka states are allowed to regulate the railroads
      • This was overturned by the Wabash Case in 1887, since states can't regulate interstate commerce (Article 1 Section 8 Clause 3)
      • Interstate Commerce Act (ICC) of 1887 was the first time the government would regulate a private industry
• Industrial Empire
  • Carnegie and Steel
    • Carnegie Biography
      • Carnegie was a kid with no education and he taught himself telegraphy and picked up the
      • caught the interest of Thomas A. Scott, who was teh owner of Pennsylvania RR
      • Carnegie became Scott's telegraph clerk and assistant to Scott's needs
      • Scott gives Carnegie the task of building a bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis and he
      • finds out that steel is iron is too weak and steel was too scarce so he opens a steel farm
      • west of Pittsburg where he pioneers the Bessemer-Kelly Process
      • Bessemer Converter was what made this process unique by using a mixture of metals and
      • adding cold air for more oxygen to burn off impurities
    • Vertical Integration-Sharing profits with NOBODY
      • Carnegie was smart because he owned all parts of the steel business, even the iron ore, which was called the Mesabi Range
    • Charles Schwab
      • Carnegie takes Charles M. Schwab under his wing
      • Schwab impressed Carnegie a lot and soon became the president of Carnegie Steel
      • Carnegie writes Gospel of Wealth where it talks about how to become wealthy and what the rich owe their fellow human beings, not free stuff but opportunities
      • As the story goes, on a golf course Schwab and Carnegie were playing and Carnegie says he is tired and Schwab says to Carnegie that he should take his life and dedicate it to humanity
      • J.P. Morgan asks for an amount to buy him out with an offer from Carnegie of $480 million
        • J.P. Morgan now owns first billion dollar corporation in US history, called United States Steel Corporation means that it sells stock
        • This is an example of finance capitalism, where if you want to make money you turn money into ownership
          • example is how Bank of America is the second largest owner of Carolina Panthers
  • John D. Rockefeller and the Oil Business
    • Rockerfeller was the first billionaire in US history
    • First oil well was Colonel Edwin Drake and Standard Oil
    • Rockerfeller was a very religious man, and later on he was superstitious
    • He saw all the oil spilling out of the ground and that bothered him because his mother always instilled in him "waste to want" and also "survival of the fittest"
    • Kerosene becomes popular, replacing whale fat.
      • Through marketing Rockerfeller repackages kerosene, takes out ads, and makes money
    • Rockefeller buys internal combustion engines from Europe to prove to American people that gasoline can produce a lot of power
    • Before they just dumped gasoline out because they didn’t know what to do with it
    • Trusts, monopoly, horizontal integration, makes Rockefeller really rich
  • "Wreck-a-feller" and Social Darwinism
    • Sherman Anti Trust Fund
      • When public complains to state governments companies or corporations would move to any easy state like New Jersey
      • Eventually federal government passes Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 which was mostly a publicity stunt at first. It was vague and wasn’t really boosted until Teddy.
      • First test of the Sherman Act was US vs. E.C. Knight Co. in 1895
        • Supreme Court rules that it wasn’t a monopoly even though Knight Co. manufactured 97% of sugar in the US because they said that it didn’t violate interstate commerce. This was a very narrow interpretation of Constitution.
    • Holding Companies was a great way to get around Sherman Laws
      • If somebody investigates company you just subdivide over and over agian so that there is a lot of deception and the government cant figure out if the company is illegal or legal
      • A holding company becomes illegal if all of the companies produce the same thing
• Laissez Faire Capitalism Gilded Age Style
  • The Gospel of Wealth
    • Natural Aristocracy- Spencerianism or Social darwinism
    • Politicians not to be trusted
    • Government only has one duty, which is to protect the private property of the people. Basically the government is like a police force. If you believe this today, you would definitely be a libertarian.
    • Poverty is unavoidable and uncorrectable
      • Thomas Malthus- An Essay on the Principle of Population : it is useless to fight the fact that there are poor people. Poor people would be poor people.
      • William Graham Sumner- What the Social Classes Owe Each Other : the answer to this question is nothing.
    • "Stewardship of the Rich" means that you create opportunities for the poor (not handouts). Example was the Carnegie libraries created by Carnegie and kept up by the local communities.
  • Social critics and Dissenters
    • Lester Frank Ward- Dynamic Sociology
      • You can't compare human beings to the rest of natural selection, since humans have abilities that no other creatures have. Governments job was to protect private property and to make sure that the competition/playing field were even.
    • Henry George- Progress and Poverty
      • "Unearned Increment" meant that some land was more valuable based on convenience of location. George argued that all land should be kept equal, and that land that was more expensive due to its "unearned increment" was required to pay a single tax. This evolved into property tax.
    • Edward Bellamy- Looking Backwards
      • Written from a man who lives in 2000's point of view. He writes that america reaches utopia through socialism.
    • Thorsten Veblen- The Theory of the Leisure Class
      • "Conspicuous Consumption" buying name brand items for the name, buying expensive cars like BMW, books in libraries that are there to look good.
    • "The Social Gospel Movement" Walter Rauschenbusch- A Theology for the Social Gospel
      • Including William Booth and the Salvation Army
      • The Young Men's Christian Association
      • The Young Women's Christian Association
    • Jane Addams founded the Hull House in South Chicago, which was a settlement house for women- especially immigrant women
  • A Farmer's "No Bull" Look at economic sstems
    • Socialism: You have two cows, and you give one to your neighbor
    • Communism: You have two cows, the government takes them both and gives you the milk.
    • Fascism: You have two cows, the government takes them both and sells you the milk.
    • Nazism: You have two cows, the government takes them both and shoots you
    • Bureaucracy: You have two cows, the government takes them both, shoots one, takes your tax dollars to pay someone to milk it, but the milk goes bad anyway.
    • Socialism: You have two cows, you sell one, and buy a bull with the money.
• The Growth of the American Labor Movement
  • The changing role of the worker and the changing american labor force
    • Workers became part of the machine: they could be easily injured, replaced, and there was no skill involved in what they did.
    • Working conditions were terrible! There was no workman's compensation, safety guards, or health care.
  • New Business Culture
    • "The American Dream"
      • What is the american dream? Rags to middle class. Is the american dream dead?
      • Protestant (Puritain) Work ethic
      • Horatio Alger was a popular writer. He wrote cheesy, short "dime novels" for a living. He wrote about the three ways to become middle class:
        • Hardworking and industrios
        • virtuous, no cheating, reliable, trustworthy
        • a little bit of luck
    • "Success to those who look"
      • Russel Conwell was like the major self help guru. He thought the key to success was yourself.
  • The New Imigrants
    • Mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe, especially Russian Jews.
    • Push factor was the Pograhms- Russia was persecuting the Jews in an attempt to push them out. Pull factor was the opportunities everyone thought you could find in the US.
    • Most immigrants thought that they were "birds of passage," which meant they would make enough money to live comfortably and then go back home. This often didn't happen since the wages in the US were just as low as back home.
    • The Chinese were hated, especially by the Irish. Nickname is the "Yellow Peril."
    • The Tong Wars 1850-1920
      • Chinese gangs fighting other Chinese gangs for scarce Chinese women
    • Chinese Exclusion Act closed Chinese immigration for about 10 years.

The Closing of the Western Frontier

• Essential Questions
  • What national issues emerged int he process of closing the western frontier?
  • Why does the west hold such an important place in the american imagination?
  • In what way is the west romanticized in American culture?
• Subordination of the American Indians
  • Background
    • The Great Plains go from 100 degrees W to the Rocky Mountains
    • pretty high elevation, but very very flat. Also a dry climate (about 15 inches of rain annually compared to our 60 inches).
    • after 1860, only 300,000 American Indians remained from the previous millions who inhabited the continent. 2/3 of these indians lived in the Great Plains.
    • The Plains Indians were nomadic and followed the buffalo. Their hunting was revolutionized with the arrival of the horse, brought by the Spanish. Later, the winchester rifle also caused hunting to be much more efficient.
    • The Lakota or the Lakota-Sioux Indians were perhaps the biggest group of Indians.
  • The Treaty of Ft. Laramie
    • Policy of Concentration: in exchange of $50,000 the Plains tribes would stay out of the way of the white people, and let the railroad workers do their jobs.
• The Inevitable Conflict/ The Indian Wars 1860-1890
  • The Indians didn't mind the white people just passing through, but this good feeling went away because of the Colorado Gold Rush (1859-1861). White people were encroaching on the Indian's land, and conflict was inevitable. "Pike's Peak or bust" was the popular slogan of the 59er's, which was a nickname for the Colorado miners.
  • Colonel John Chinvington and the Sand Creek Massacre 1864
    • Chivington decides to make the area "safe" and kills women, children, and scalps his enemies. The Indians were Arapaho Indians, and the chief was chief Black Kettle.
  • Red Cloud's War 1966-1868
    • The Sand Creek Massacre was partially a cause for Red Cloud's War
    • The Northern Wyoming, the Arapaho, and the Cheyenne Indians were the American Indians fighting in the war, and Colonel Henry Carrington and Captain William J Fetterman were the Americans fighting.
    • Chief Red Cloud wiped out Fetterman's troops on the Bozeman Trail. This led to the 2nd Treaty of Ft. Laramie in 1868, which put the Indians on reservations.
  • Grant's Reservation Program and Grant's Peace Policy 1869-1874
    • The churches would "adopt" a tribe and send them blankets and medicine in order to keep them alive, since they weren't allowed to hunt themselves.
    • If an Indian was caught wandering off the reservation, they would be shot. This became known as "War of Extermination" 1969-1874.
    • Very ironic, since the blacks were struggling to gain rights in the south while the indians were being exterminated.
  • Gold in Black Hills
    • When gold was discovered in the Black Hills, the miners didn't care about any treaty rights or sacred lands of the Indians. This led to the Great Sioux War 1876-1877.
    • The most famous battle of this confrontation is in Lakota Village at Little Big Horn.
      • General George Armstrong Custer was the American military leader. He was very arrogant and kind of an asshole, so he rode ahead of all the other commanders, and refused to carry a Gatling gun, even though that was what was requested. He greatly underestimated the ability and numbers of the Indians. The two Indians leaders' names were Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.
      • All 265 men of Custer's regiment were killed, except for one horse. This was considered the biggest defeat the US Army had ever had against the Indians.
  • The Nez Perce War 1877
    • Indian leader of the Nez Perce was Chief Joseph. Ironically that when the Nez Perce Indians were trying to escape into Canada, it was Oliver Howard, the freedman's advocate, who caught them and sent them back to the reservations.
  • Military Groups/Leaders
    • Geronimo, the Apache Chief: Hopeless Cause. Geronimo was a great warrior and gave the US Army lots of trouble
    • The Buffalo Soldiers on the Great Planes, later nicknamed the 10th Cavalry. Ironically the blacks were fighting to kill the Indians. Jack Pershing is the famous leader of the black regiment, who also became very famous in WW1.
• What caused the end of the Indian way of life?
  • The Ghost/Sun dance was a very controversial Indian dance, invented by Paiute Wovoka, that was banned by the Americans who wanted the Indians christianized. The dance was a mixture of christian and Indian tradition, and said that if you were killed in battle, you were only asleep and that you would come back and fight a final battle against the white man and banish him from North America.
  • The Battle of Wounded Knee, South Dakota was more like a slaughter of women, children, and old men. The 7th cavalry, who were already angry from their defeat at Little Big Horn, just went berserk on the unarmed indians. Chief Big Foot was shot and left to freeze in the snow.
  • The Killing of the Buffalo: the American government encouraged the overkilling of the Buffalo because it eliminated the need for the Indians to leave the reservation.
  • The Spread of Railroad, telegraph, and population all attracted white people to the Great Plains
  • Modern Technology and Weaponry left the Indians at a great disadvantage.
  • Helen Hunt Jackson's book: A Century of Dishonor in 1881 was about 100 years in American History of mistreating American Indians.
  • The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887: Assimilation Policy by Eastern Humanitarian
    • dissolved the tribes
    • gave each head of the family 160 acres of land, which wasn't really enough
    • also provided for citizenship after 25 years, even though the indians didn't really care much about citizenship
    • Native Americans since the Dawes Act
      • Howard- Wheeler Act of 1934, FDR creates jobs and encourages the Native American culture and language
      • "Termination Policy" 1953 Eisenhower, very conservative made the reservations a state responsibility
      • "Self-Determination without Termination" 1970: things went from bad to awful! Nixon said that Indians could determine their lifestyle, and the Federal gov would pick up the tab from the reservations; however, Nixon lied, and the Indians got really mad and started to organize into the American Indian Movement (AIM)
      • AIM 1968 took over the small town in South Dakota where the Battle of Wounded knee occurred. 2 FBI agents were killed, and Leonard Peltier was the Native American scapegoat sentenced to life in a Florida jail.
• The Closing of the Western Frontier Part 2
  • Mining in the West
    • 49er's- Sutter's Mill
      • Streams and rivers of the Sierra Nevada
      • placer mining- pan- cradle
      • hydraulic mining and the sluice
    • 59er's- Pike's Peak in Colorado, Virginia City, Nevada, and Black Hills, South Dakota (1859-1879)
      • Quarts mining: the gold was locked up in Quartz rocks
      • Stamp Mills were used for crushing ore and extracting the gold, which was different from the 49er's.
    • The First gold strike was in Pike's Peak, then Virginia City, and finally Black Hills.
      • The Comstock Lode was named after the guy who discovered the mine, Henry Comstock. It was discovered in Virginia City, Nevada around the Sierran Nevada Mountains.
      • Mark Twain wrote a book called Roughing It about the mining life. Outcasts of the Poker Flat and The Luck of Roaring Camp were adventure stories written by Bret Harte. Their books made Virginia City very famous.
      • Mining "Boom" towns, were towns that popped up around the gold, and once the gold was gone, they turned into ghost towns.
      • Black Hills, South Dakota was the last major gold strikes in the 48 states.
  • The Cattle Trails
    • The wild cow, or the longhorn, roamed free in Texas through Kansas.
    • The North provided industrial items, the South provided fruits and vegetables, and now, the West provides meat.
    • A new occupation cropped up in Texas called the cow boy, who would drive the cows north to the closest railroad spot which was in Sedalia, Missouri.
    • The Chisholm Trail was the most famous open range trail created by Joseph G. McCoy. He built his own stockyard in Abilene, Kansas to hold the cows while waiting for the train, and a town popped up around it. It was the most famous "cow town"
    • The Cattlemen's Association made sure that brands were not copied.
    • Frederick Remington famously painted the Western Cowboy.
    • Jesse James and Billy the Kid were two famous gunslingers/ trainrobbers
    • William F Cody nicknamed "Buffalo Bill" brought a wild west show to the East. Legendary Female Stars include Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley
• End of the Cowboy and the Open Range
  • Why did the cowboys fade away?
    • Bad weather
      • Freezing winters and dry summers. Unpredictable weather and droughts made it dangerous to drive cows.
    • Expansion of Railroads
      • when the railroads expanded to the farms, there wasn't a need for cattle ranchers anymore.
    • Fighting between the sheep herders, cattle ranchers, and the sodbusters. This conflict is called the "Range Wars"
      • everybody hated the sheepherders since they ruined the land. Barbed wire was used to enclose areas and keep the sheep off.
  • How did the cowboys go from boring occupations to legends?
    • The Virginian by Owen Wister turned the boring occupation into an exciting/adventurer sounding job
    • Also, movies made the cowboys famous, for example, "The Great Train Robbery." It was a silent film in 1903.
      • Spaghetti Westerns, filmed in Italy, were westerners with more violence, action, and less mortality than earlier ones.
      • The Zapata Westerns were a spin off of Spaghetti Westerns, filmed in Mexico, with more of a political westerners with a message for the 1960s.
      • The Hollywood Western from 1980s-today
• The Farmers
  • The Homestead Act of 1862: basically gave away 160 acres of land in order for people's farming in the West to be productive
  • The Timber Culture Act of 1873, the Desert Land Act of 1877, and the Timber and Stone Act of 1878 were all meant to help farmers in the West; however, it only helped the speculators and timber companies.
  • The Exodusters
    • Former slaves who wanted to escape the South moved west to Kansas. They were stopped when the ferry people refused to take them across the Mississippi.
    • "Pap" Singleton was the Stephan Austin of the Exodusters
  • The Transcontinental Railroad 1862-1869
    • Railroad Operations
      • The Union Pacific and the Central Pacific were the two companies that the grant was given to to build the railroad. Signed into law during the Civil War by President Lincoln.
      • The Irish, Chinese, Whites, and freedman were all hired to work on the railroad. "Coolie"s were Chinese immigrants working on the railroads
      • Blacks and Irish didn't get along since they were competing for the same jobs.
      • The Railroads were great colonizers since they speculated the land granted to them around the railroads to farmers who wanted to move out west and start farms.
    • Land Operations
      • Turnkey operations were popular, which were houses that all you had to do was "turn the key." Advertised in Germany, Romania, and other places in Eastern Europe.
      • The Oklahoma Land Rush