America: A Narrative History (Ninth Edition)



Chapter 18 - Big Business and Organized LaborI. The rise of big business A. Overview of factors propelling growth 1. Natural resources 2. New technology and mass production techniques 3. Entrepreneurship 4. Government policies 5. Corruption B. Second Industrial Revolution 1. Spurred by innovation and invention a. Transportation and communication networks b. Electricity c. Application of scientific research to industry II. The railroads A. Growth of railroads B. The transcontinental railroads 1. Pacific Railroads Act (1862) authorized transcontinental line on north-central route a. Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads 2. Labor a. Union Pacific: Civil War veterans, formers slaves, Irish and German immigrants b. Central Pacific: primarily Chinese 3. First transcontinental railroad completed in Promontory, Utah, 1869 4. Other transcontinental railroads C. Financing the railroads 1. Role of the robber barons a. Crédit Mobilier b. Jay Gould c. Cornelius Vanderbilt III. Manufacturing and inventions A. The growth of new industries and the transformation of old ones B. Technological advances and the impact on daily life 1. Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone, 1876 2. Thomas Alva Edison and the electric light, 1879 IV. Entrepreneurs A. John D. Rockefeller 1. Pennsylvania oil rush of 1859 2. Rockefeller as oil refiner 3. Growth of Standard Oil 4. Rockefeller’s organization of Standard Oil a. Standard Oil Trust B. Andrew Carnegie 1. Background and early ventures 2. Carnegie and steel 3. Carnegie’s approach 4. “The Gospel of Wealth“ 5. Philanthropy C. J. Pierpont Morgan 1. Family background 2. Morgan and investment banking 3. Morgan and railroads 4. Morgan and U.S. Steel D. Sears and Roebuck 1. Problem of distribution solved by mail order 2. Opens truly national markets V. The Working Class A. Social trends 1. Growing disparities in the distribution of wealth 2. Women, children, and immigrants enter the workforce B. Living and working conditions 1. Living conditions a. Crowded and filthy tenements 2. Working conditions a. Poor safety and health conditions in factories b. Rise of impersonal, contractual relationships C. Child labor 1. Dismal work conditions, meager wages a. Appalachia mines b. Southern and New England textile mills 2. Few and largely ineffective child labor laws VI. Early worker protests A. Reasons for the slow growth of unions 1. Property rights valued over labor rights 2. Large labor supply 3. Ethnic divisions among laborers B. The Molly Maguires C. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 1. Reduction of wages was immediate cause 2. The strikes spread across the country 3. Failure of the strikes D. The sand-lot incident 1. Kearney and the Workingmen’s party of California push for Chinese exclusion act, 1882 E. Anti-Chinese agitation VII. The rise of unions A. Unions in the 1850s and 1860s B. The National Labor Union 1. The first federation of unions 2. Leader’s death weakens NLU, which disbands by 1872 3. Some achievements before disbanding a. Influential in persuading Congress to pass eight-hour work day b. Repeal of Contract Labor Act VIII. The Knights of Labor A. Founded in 1869 by Uriah S. Stephens B. Success under Terrence V. Powderly 1. Growth in membership C. Decline of the Knights of Labor 1. Anarchism 2. The Haymarket affair a. Riot in Haymarket Square b. Trial and sentencing of anarchists c. Effects on Knights of Labor D. Achievements of Knights of Labor 1. Creation of the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics 2. Foran Act of 1885 3. Popularizing the idea of industrial unions IX. The American Federation of Labor A. Structure of the AFL 1. Craft unions 2. Contrast with Knights of Labor B. Samuel Gompers 1. Concern for concrete economic gains 2. Gompers’s leadership in the AFL a. Contrast with Terrence Powderly C. Membership growth in the AFL X. Struggles and setbacks of the 1890s A. The Homestead steel strike of 1892 1. Reasons for the strike a. Worker layoffs, introduction of labor saving machinery b. Homestead President Henry Clay Frick’s deliberate attempt to smash the Union 2. Battle between strikers and Pinkerton detectives 3. Strike failed, union dead at Homestead B. The Pullman strike of 1894 1. Grievances a. Workers forced to live in town of Pullman b. Wages cut but not rents 2. Workers turned to Eugene Debs and the American Railway Union 3. Strike tied up most midwestern railroads and turned violent 4. Federal intervention because Pullman carried the U.S. mail 5. Debs jailed; union called off strike C. Mary “Mother Jones“ Harris 1. Immigrant widow who became embraced labor movement in Chicago in late nineteenth century 2. Fought for higher wages, shorter hours, safer workplaces, and child labor limits 3. Organized and involved in several strikes and protests, arrested and imprisoned for her efforts 4. Lost most strikes she participated in 5. Still saw improvements in key issues of wage increases, working conditions, and child labor by her death in 1930s XI. Socialism, radicalism, and the unions A. Daniel De Leon and the Socialist Labor party B. Eugene Debs and the Social Democratic party C. The Socialist party of America 1. Debs in the presidential elections of 1904 and 1912 2. Successes of the party a. Socialist mayors elected b. Growing percentage of popular vote nationally (1) 16.5 percent in 1912 3. Decline of the party a. Internal divisions over U.S. involvement in World War I b. Defections to the Communist Party D. The Industrial Workers of the World 1. Origins of the IWW: western mining and lumber camps 2. Goals of the IWW a. To include all workers, skilled and unskilled b. To replace the state with one big union 3. Decline of the IWW a. Disputes within the group b. Strategies of IWW leader William D. “Big Bill“ Haywood (1) reached out to fringe elements of labor force to build movement (2) resistant to compromising on revolutionary principals to reach labor agreements c. IWW radicalism fueled hysterical opposition (1) World War I destroys the group (2) Leaders jailed or fled ................
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