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Of the People

McGerr, Lewis, Oakes, Cullather, Summers, Townsend, Dunak

Volume II

Since 1865

Chapter 16 The Triumph of Industrial Capitalism 1850—1890

The Eads Bridge

Chapter 16 American Portrait: Rosa Cassettari

Immigrated to America with her husband

Moved to Chicago and found a job

Eventually made enough money to bring her son from Italy

Jobs were unsteady and laborers worked hard

The Political Economy of Global Capitalism

Patterns of Global Migration, 1840–1900 Emigration was a global process by the late nineteenth century. But more immigrants went to the United States than to all other nations combined. Source: London Times Atlas.

The “Great Depression” of the Late Nineteenth Century

Great railroad strike of 1877

Panic of 1893

Technology developed, spread capitalism

Families migrated to cities, across the ocean

“Birds of passage”

America and the World

The Global Migration of Labor

Migrants tended to come from industrializing areas

Improvements in transportation, communication

Economic and political turmoil drove migration

Increased international competition

Pogroms against the Jews in Russia

The Economic Transformation of the West

Wanamaker’s Grand Depot Department Store, 1876 “Big business” in the late nineteenth century not only mass-produced goods but also sold them in large quantities at low prices. John Wanamaker’s Philadelphia department store was among the most famous of these large, new retailers and funded Wanamaker’s political activity against corrupt city officials.

Cattlemen: From Drovers to Ranchers

Low pay, dangerous and unsteady work

Chisholm Trail

Development of new, hybrid cattle replaced longhorns

Open range herding was environmentally destructive

Creation of ranches of hybrids

Sheepherding

Commercial Farmers Remake the Plains

Fair numbers tripled between 1860 and 1900

Farmers took land from Indians, Hispanic ranchers

Ethnic shift caused an economic shift

Changes in the Land

Great Plains were difficult to farm

Role of technology

Environmental change

Corporations, mechanized farms

Wage labor

Railroad connected them to world markets

American Landscape

Mining Camps in the West

Gold Rush created boom towns, ghost towns

Diverse, male dominated, violent

Levi Strauss

Marcus Daly’s copper mine

Corporations

Chinese and Anglo Miners near Sacramento, California, 1852 Digging for gold paid off mostly in aches, misery, and loneliness. The so-called Forty-Niners included immigrants from across the Pacific and from Latin America, but just about no women.

America Moves to the City

Birth of “downtown”

Residential neighborhoods separated by class

Streetcars, commuter railroads

Epidemic diseases

Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives

Urban reform

Technology

Proportion of the Population Living in Cities

Proportion of Population Living in Cities, 1790–1900 While a growing proportion of Americans lived in cities, city dwellers would only outnumber rural Americans in the twentieth century.

The Rise of Big Business

The Eads Bridge The steel arches of the Eads Bridge across the Mississippi River at St. Louis were both an engineering marvel and a triumph of Andrew Carnegie’s managerial skills.

The Rise of Andrew Carnegie

Scottish immigrant who was promoted on talent and intelligence

Railroads were booming

Carnegie’s skills helped grow the Pennsylvania Railroad

Largest private company in the world by 1865

Growth of Railroads

The Growth of Railroads, 1850–1890 Railroads were more than a means of transportation; they were also America’s first “big business.” They set the model for running huge industrial corporations, and the growth of railroads fostered the iron and steel industries.

Carnegie Dominates the Steel Industry

Took the practices of the railroad to other industries

Integrated operations

Steel was necessary for railroads

Bessemer process

Carnegie opened a steel plant in 1873

Big Business Consolidates

Big business required professionally trained managers, efficient bureaucracies, continuous operation

Vertical integration

Economies of scale and continuous flow

Reduced prices increased demand

Horizontal consolidation

John D. Rockefeller; Standard Oil trust

Major American Industries

Major American Industries, ca. 1890 An industrial map of late nineteenth-century America shows regions increasingly defined not by what they grew but by what they made.

A New Social Order

Cannery in Sunnyvale, California The mass production of food involved a large female labor force, as this picture shows. Quite possibly, employers hired so readily not just because they could pay women less, but because anything involving the preparation of food fit in with the stereotype of “woman’s work.”

Lifestyles of the Very Rich

200 families worth more than $20 million each

Most Protestants of British ancestry

Well educated, voted Republican

Lived in wealthy districts in cities

Fifth Avenue, Nob Hill, Back Bay

Country estates in places like Newport, RI

The Consolidation of the New Middle Class

White collar professionals

Salaried incomes

Suburbs

Craftsmen remained in the lower half of the class

Lower incomes

Independence, pride in work was prized

The Industrial Working Class Comes of Age

Technology replaced artisans with unskilled laborers

Primarily migrants

Difficult conditions, low job security

Women were 20% of labor force

Children went to work rather than school

Division of labor

Social Darwinism and the Growth of Scientific Racism

Society was stratified by class, race, ethnicity and gender

Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species

Natural selection

Social Darwinism

Inherent racial inferiority

Others argued that conditions played a role

Expansion of higher education

Working Class Immigration

Working-Class Immigration, 1840–1920 Source: US Bureau of Census.

Struggles for Democracy

“The Chinese Must Go”

Chinese fled civil war in the mid-19th c.

Worked at low skill jobs for low wages

Digging mines, laying railroad track, working fields

Opened retail shops, laundries

White workers resented their success

Racist laws and treatment

The Knights of Labor and the Haymarket Disaster

Organized craft unions, workingmen’s associations

Knights of Labor were open to all workers

National organization

Terence Powderly

Chicago strike led to Haymarket incident

Anarchists

Haymarket Riot The Haymarket “riot,” as it was misnamed, set off a wave of middle-class hysteria against foreigners, radicals, and labor unions. This image correctly shows police firing into the crowd. Inaccurately, it shows members of the crowd firing back, the orator apparently urging them on. It also leaves out the women and children who attended.