Industry Comes of Age Argumentative Essay

Spanning the Continent with Rails Deadlock over where to build a transcontinental railroad was broken after the South exceed, and in 1862, Congress commissioned the Union Pacific Railroad to begin westward from Omaha, Nebraska, to goldbrick Over in California, the Central Pacific Railroad was in charge of extending the r aileron eastward, and it was backed by the Big Four: including Leland Stanford, the governor of California who had useful political connections, and Collies P. Huntington, an adept lobbyist.

The Central Pacific used Chinese workers, and received the same incentives a s the Union Pacific, but it had to drill through the hard Ill. Binding the Country with Railroad Ties 1 Before 1 900, four other transcontinental railroads were built .However, many pioneers overstressed on land, and the banks that supported them often failed and went bankrupt when the land wasn’t worth as much as initial y thought. IV. Railroad Consolidation and Mechanization Older eastern railroads, like the New York Central, headed by Cornelius Band rebuilt, often financed the successful western railroads. Advancements in railroads included the steel rail, which was stronger and MO enduring than the iron rail, the Westinghouse air brake which increased safest y, the Pullman Palace Cars which were luxurious passenger cars, and telegraphs, doubleheaders, and block signals.

Revolution by Railways

Railroads stitched the nation together, generated a huge market and lots of Joe BBS, helped the rapid industrialization of America, and stimulated mining and agric ultra in the West by bringing people and supplies to and from the areas where such w Org occurred. . Railroads helped people settle in the previously harsh Great Plains.  Due to railroads, the creation of four national time zones occurred on Novel beer 18, 1883, instead of each city having its own time zone 4. Railroads were also the makers of millionaires and the millionaire class.  Railroads were not without corruption, as shown by the Credit Immobile scans Jay Gould made millions embezzling stocks from the Erie, Kansas Pacific, the Union Pacific, and the Texas and Pacific railroad companies. One method Of cheap moneymaking was called “stock watering,” in which rail road companies grossly overindulged the worth of their stock and sold them at hug e profits. As time passed, though, railroad giants entered into defensive alliances to shoo profits, and began the first of what would be called trusts, although at that it me they were called “pools. ” A pool (AKA, a “cartel”) is a group of supposed competitor who agree to work together, usually to set prices.

Government Bridles the Iron Horse

People were aware of such injustice, but were slow to combat it.The Grange was formed by farmers to combat such corruption, and many sat et efforts to stop the railroad monopoly occurred, but they were stopped when the Sup Court issued its ruling in the Wabash case, in which it ruled that states could n tot regulate interstate Wabash, SST. Louis & Pacific Railroad Company v. Illinois commerce , such as trains. The Interstate Commerce Act , passed in 1887, banned rebates and pools and squired the railroads to publish their rates openly .

The act was not a victory against corporate wealth, as people like Richard Lonely, a shrewd corporate lawyer, no Ted that they could use the act to their advantage, but it did represent the first attempt t by Congress to regulate businesses for society interest.

Miracles of Mechanization

In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and a new age was la munched. . Thomas Edison, the “Wizard Of Menlo park,” was the most versatile inventor, who, while best known for his electric light bulb, also cranked out scores of other in mentions.

The Trust Titan Emerges

Andrew Carnegie used a method called ” vertical integration, ” which meant that he bought out and controlled all aspects of an industry . John D. Rockefeller, master of” horizontal Integration, ” simply allied with or bought out competitors to monopolize a given market. These men became known for their trusts , giant, monopolistic corporations. J. P. Morgan also placed his own men on the boards of directors of other rival competitors to gain influence there and reduce competition a process called “interlocking directorates.

The Supremacy of Steel In Lincoln day, steel was very scarce and expensive, but by 1 900, Americans produced as much steel as England and Germany combined. 2. This was due to an invention that made stalemating cheaper and much more effective: the Bessemer process, which was named after an English inventor e even though an American, William Kelly, had discovered it first: 0 Cold air blown on redroot iron burned carbon deposits and purified it.

America a was one of the few nations that had a lot of coal for fuel, iron for smelting, and other e essential ingredients for steel making, and thus, quickly became #1. SKI. Carnegie and Other Sultans of Steel Andrew Carnegie started off as a poor boy in a bad job, but by working hard, assuming responsibility, and charming influential people, He started in the Pittsburgh area, but he was not a man who liked trusts; still, by 1900, he was producing 1/4 of the nation’s Bessemer steel, and getting $25 million a year. . J. Pierson Morgan, having already made a fortune in the banking industry an d in Wall Street, was ready to Step into the steel tubing industry, but Carnegie threaten De to ruin him, so after some tense negotiation, Morgan bought Carnage’s entire business s at $400 million (this was before income tax). Meanwhile, Morgan took Carnage’s holdings, added others, and launched the United States Steel Corporation in 1 901, a company that became the world’s first bill nodular corporation.

Rockefeller Grows an American Beauty Rose In 1859, a man named Drake first used oil to get money, and by the asses, eke Rosen, a type of oil, was used to light lamps all over the nation. 2. However, by 1 885, 250,000 of Edition’s electric light bulbs were in use, and the electric industry soon rendered kerosene obsolete, just as kerosene had made whale oil obsolete. Oil, however, was just beginning with the sloganeering internal combustion n engine. John D.

Rockefeller, ruthless and merciless, organized the Standard Oil Company of Ohio in 1882 Rockefeller crushed weaker competitors-?part Of the natural process accords Eng to him but his company did produce superior oil at a cheaper price. XIII. The Gospel of Wealth Many of the newly rich had worked from poverty to wealth, and thus felt that some people in the world were destined to become rich and then help society with t heir money. This was the “Gospel of Wealth. ” Social Darwinism ” applied Charles Darning’s surreptitiousness theories to easiness.

It said the reason a Carnegie was at the top of the steel industry WA s that he was most fit 3. To run such a business. Corporate lava,n. Years used the 14th Amendment to defend trusts, the judges gar deed, saying that corporations were legal people and thus entitled to their property, and plutocracy ruled. XIV. Government Tackles the Trust Evil 1. In 1890, the Sherman AntiTrust Act was signed into law; it forbade combinations (trusts, pools, interlocking directorates, holding companies) in restraint of trade e, without any distinction between “good” and “bad” trusts. O It proved ineffective, however, because it couldn’t be enforced. Not until 1 914 was it properly enforced and those prosecuted for violating the law were actually punished. W. The South in the Age Of Industry The South remained agrarian despite all the industrial advances, though Jam Buchanan Duke developed a huge cigarette industry in the form of the Aimer can Tobacco Company and made many donations to what is now Duke university. Men like Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper urged the South to industrialized.

The Impact of the New Industrial Revolution on America

As the Industrial Revolution spread in America, the standard of living rose, immigrants swarmed to the U. S. , and early Jeffersonian ideals about the dominance Of agriculture fell. Women, who had swarmed to factories and had been encouraged by recent inventions, found new opportunities, and the “Gibson Girl,” created by Charge s Dana Gibson, became the romantic ideal of the age.  Strong pressures in foreign trade developed as the tireless industrial machine threatened to flood the domestic market. XVI. The standard of living rose sharply and Americans enjoyed more physical co inform than their counterparts in other industrial nation.

Older way of life changed. Rural immigrants used to living by nature had to a adapt to factory whistles. Women were profoundly affected by the new industrial age. They were intro educed to the age with the typewriters and telephone switchboard, a new image of an independent and athletic girl came out. XVII. In Unions There Is Strength With the inflow of immigrants providing a labor force that would work for low wages and in poor environments, the workers who wanted to improve their condition NSA found that they could not, since their bosses could easily hire the unemployed to TA eke their places.