History Final Notes.docx - The Industrial Revolution in...

The Industrial Revolution in America
 Industrialization : the substitution of machines in place of humans or animals to produce
something
o Communications revolution
 The importance of the railroad
o Technological innovation
 The 1860, 36,000 patents had been issued
 1860-1890, 440 thousand were
o Raw materials – why the west was handy
 Local and Federal government gave away about 1/10 of all federal lands to the
railroad
o Favorable legislation
o Large internal market
o Large labor pool – the “new” immigrants
 Trends in Industrial America
o Population triples from 1860-1910
o By 1880s, farmers constitute less than ½ the country's labor force. The last federal
censes that put a majority of the workforce in agriculture was 1870
o Manufactuing production expanded by 12.5 times, 1860 to 1914
o Industrial landscape dominated by “big business” one percent of the nation's firms
owned 1/3 of the nation's productive capacity
 The vertically integrated firm
o Purchase or grow raw materials ->
o Transport materials to factory ->
o Fabricate these into goods ->
o Retail your products to customers
 Ex: Swift meat packing
 Bought cows ->
 Slaughtered them ->
 Transported meat in refrigerated cars ->
 Owns warehouses ->
 Markets beef to stores and consumers
 The horizontally integrated firm
o As more firms produce more of the same good, supply will exceed demand and prices
will drop below production costs, so...
 Cutthroat competition
 The cartel, or trade association (not protected in the US)
 The trust (Ownership can be held together between businesses)
 Ex: Rockefeller’s oil company
o Formed the standard oil company 1867
o National refiner's association 1872
o Pioneered the “horizontally integrated” firm (aka the “trust” --
1882)
 Ex: Carnegie Steel (both vertical and horizontal)
o Acquired sources for coal, iron ore ->

o Steamship fleet and rails to carry raw materials to steel plant
o “form the moment these crude stuffs were drug out they
followed in a stream of liquid steel in the ladles, there was never
a price, profit, or royalty paid to an outsider” J.H. Bridge
 He had to get rid of the competition
The Industrial Workforce
 Why immigrants came:
o Mostly economic reasons
o Agricultural competition with Canada, U.S, Australia forces peasants off land (In favor of
mechanization)
o Railroads and other businesses actively recruited immigrants
o Advent of steam vessels reduced travel time and cost of passage (also meant that a lot of
people returned to their homelands too because they just came to make money to go
back home and buy status)
o Some 60 million people left Europe between 1815 and 1914, 34 million of whom went to
the US
o People came from new areas of Europe than before
 Urban Workforce
o Environment was gross, living was harsh
o Work was hard, dangerous, not paid a lot
 Kids worked to help family get by
o Triangle fire 1911
 Agricultural Employees
o 1607-1870
 480 million acres cultivated
o 1871-1900
 431 million additional acres cultivated
o