Rise of Big Business in America – What you really need to know…

Rise of Big Business in America –What you really need to know…

• When / how did big multi state businesses emerge?• What key social and economic concepts shaped the rise

of big business?• Who were the robber barons – what makes them so

significant?• What were some of the results and criticisms of the new

industrial America, and what forms did these criticisms take?

• Who were the muckrakers and what impact did they have?

• “it is your duty to get rich, it is wrong to be poor” Russel Conwell

• "The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship.“ Andrew Carnegie

• "I believe the power to make money is a gift of God. . . . I believe it is my duty to make money and still more money and to use the money I make for the good of my fellow man according to the dictates of my conscience." J. D. Rockefeller

• “I aimed at America’s heart, but I think I hit them in the stomach”– Upton Sinclair 1906

• THE principal object of management should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for each employee. Frederick Taylor 1911

Rise of Industrialism Stats

• 1869 – 1913 GNP Rose 56 Percent

• 1865 US 4th Behind GB, FR, Ger

• 1900 US 1st

• 1900 US largest Petroleum Producer

• 150,000 miles of RR 1865- 1895

• 1910 US = 33% of all manufactures in World

What made the expansion of businesses possible?

• Industrial revolution in general• Expansion of transportation network• Civil War realization of necessities • Scientific Processes / Scientific Management • By 1900 US free from major domestic security concerns • Gov protections (tariffs, land, tax breaks)• Immigration • Foreign Investment• Increase of Stock Companies • Close of Frontier / Turner’s Thesis

Who were the Robber Barons?• Rockefeller• Carnegie• Morgan• Vanderbilt • Stanford • Hearst • Pulitzer

Key Inventions / Inventors that play into the rise of big business

• Bessemer Process• Thomas Edison

– Lights– Movies– Phonograph

• Bell and the Phone• Brooklyn Bridge • Railroads are both a

cause and a result

Concepts – that helped make businesses grow so fast

• Social Darwinism

• Laissez Faire• Gospel of

Wealth• Vertical

Integration • Scientific

Management (Taylor)

• Sherman Act

Results / Reactions

• Increased urbanization• Plight of urban poor• Rich v. poor gap

– $100 bill cigar lighters

• Rise of “middle management”• Union Busting (Homestead Strike)

– Increased fear of communism / anarchists

• Gospel of Wealth – Morality of Philanthropy

The chart shows the share of the richest 10 percent of the American population in total income – an indicator that closely tracks many other measures of economic inequality – over the past 90 years, as estimated by the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez.

Anti Trust - Reform

• Sherman Act• Roosevelt• Progressives • Muckrakers

– Tarbell– Sinclair– McClure’s – Riis– Steffens

Labor Organizations @1900“all we want, is more” S. Gompers

• Reaction to Big Business– Europe at same time

• Homestead Strike• Knights of Labor –

Utopian / Universal • Haymarket Bombing• AF of L – Skilled workers,

realistic, Gompers (Capitalist)

• IWW – Debs, Socialists• Eventual Red Scare hurts

labor • Pullman Strike

Immigration Traps and Misconceptions

• Huge percentage came illegally• Illegal immigrants pay taxes• Don’t forget Angel Island / West Coast• Don’t forget Mexico• Many immigrants were wealthy• Up to 40% planned on re-migration• 25% did re-migrate• US was not the only target of Immigration• Numerically today is greater wave of immigration• Percentage today is only slightly behind the late 19th

Century Boom

US at 1900 Urbanization of America:

Key Questions

• Why did cities get so big? What challenges went with that growth?

• How did Political Machines influence urban life?

• What was life like for new urban dwellers?

Immigration Vocab Terms

• Golden Door• Ellis Island / Angel

Island• Steerage• Quarantines• Ghettos• Tenements• Settlement Houses• Birds of Passage• The “New Immigration”

Baxter Street Alley in Mulberry Bend (Riis)

Court at 24 Baxter Street (Riis)

Boss Tweed

• I don't care a straw for your newspaper articles, my constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures.

I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating.

Push and Pull Factors on Urbanization

• Growth of business / jobs, new jobs

• Transportation makes food available

• Fewer farming jobs available• Romance of the big city / Success

Stories• Immigrant entry points • Cosmopolitan culture• Brings Challenges –

– Social Services, Fire, Police, Sanitation, Education, Public Health, Roads, Fuel, Refrigeration, Storage

Political Machines and the City

• Local versions of political parties, sponsored candidates etc

• Exchange of favors for votes

• Prey on immigrants

• Tammany Hall, Boss Tweed, GW Plunkitt

Combo of Urb / Immig / Labor etc leads to the “Progressives”

• Generally defined 1901-1918• Loose grouping of reform

movements and their leaders• Gathered steam after TR comes in• Muckrakers were early examples• Prohib, Suffrage, Af Am rights,

Immig rights, worker rights all loosely Progressive

• Attitude of “progress”• Why so many women?• Very middle class oriented – Goal

is to make everyone look like mid class / share mid class values

– Ex – Settlement Houses – classes on Americanization

1906

Progressive Highlights• Teddy Roosevelt – Square Deal /

Trustbusting• Muckrakers• Jane Addams / Florence Kelley /

Hull House • NAWSA • NAACP• Was progressivism really

“progressive?”– Progress implies problem?

• Who decides?– OK to change people’s values?– Central park v. Coney Island– Limit working hours v. maximize

earning potential– Melting pot v. salad bowl?

Baxter Street Alley in Mulberry Bend (Riis)

Court at 24 Baxter Street (Riis)

Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt • Post CW Generation• Self Created• Cowboy Image• Sec Navy / Rough Riders• VP Candidate / Ascends • Panama / Big Stick • Roosevelt Corollary • Progressivism / Square Deal

Trust Busting / Muckrakers• Conservation / National Parks• Assertion of Presidential power • Selection of Taft • Later Progressive / Bull Moose

Campaign

Foreign Policy Before WWI

• McKinley / Roosevelt – Start of Imperialism – Competing with Europe – Imperialism mostly as good

thing– Big Stick / Roosevelt Corollary – Span AM War , Panama, R/J

War, Venezuela

• Taft – Dollar Diplomacy • Wilson – Theoretically less

aggressive, actually more so– Haiti– Mexico– WWI – US must not be seen as weak

The Square Deal Dance - 1908

Puck Magazine July 1898

Puck Magazine 1905

“Doomsday for the Trusts”

"I Rather Like That Imported Affair"

“The World’s Constable”

Circa 1900 Life for African Americans3 Main Ideas

• Remember – Plessy v. Ferguson, Lynching, Rise of KKK,

• Northern Migration

• Discrimination

• African American Response– Cultural Response –

• 1920s Harlem Renaissance

– Political Reaction

Ida B. Wells (Barnett)

• Outspoken journalist / activist

• Specifically vocal on anti-lynching

• Accusatory (toward north + non-action)

Booker T. Washington

• “Heir to F. Douglass”?

• Tuskegee Institute

• Vocational Schools

• Need to “earn rights”

• Gradualism

Marcus Garvey

• •1920s version of Bishop Henry Turner•Re-Colonization Movement •Garvey-ites

W.E.B. DuBois

• PhD

• NAACP

• The Crisis

• The Talented Tenth

• The problem of the 20th Century is that of

the color line

1920s – African Americans6 Specifics

• Jim Crow

• Lynching

• Booker T. Washington

• Marcus Garvey

• W.E.B. DuBois

• Harlem Renaissance