Ch.15-18 Test 1 (America's Story 2)

America's Big Business in the 1870s

• The 1870s marked a period of significant business growth and the rise of prominent business figures.
• The oil, railroad, steamship, and steel industries were central to the wealth and job creation of that era.

The Rise of Oil

• Oil was essential for machinery before automobiles existed.
• Oil is the substance from which gasoline is derived.
• The Seneca Indian tribe in present day New York discovered a dark oily substance on ponds and streams.
• This was called "rock oil" and was used as a tonic for almost 200 years.
• In 1855 oil was refined into lighting and heating solutions.
• After the discovery, oil became a precious commodity and oil wells were drilled across the country.

John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil

• In 1870, John D. Rockefeller established the first major American oil company.
• Within two years, Standard Oil controlled over 25% of American oil refining.
• Rockefeller made deals with railroads to make distribution cheaper.
• He was taught not to be lazy or stingy from a young age, Rockefeller was known for his hard work and generosity.
• Rockefeller donated at least 10% of his income to his church.
• He gave large sums of money to schools, colleges, hospitals, and medical research.
• A philanthropist is someone who gives money to help worthy causes
• Rockefeller faced criticism for his controversial business practices and excessive power.

Cornelius Vanderbilt and Transportation

• Cornelius Vanderbilt displayed entrepreneurial skill from a young age.
• Vanderbilt began his business career in the 1800s at the age of 16, starting a ferry service.
• His ferry operated between Staten Island and Manhattan, New York.
• He expanded his business by acquiring steamboat companies and managing railroads.
• In 1847, Vanderbilt became president of the Stonington Railroad Company.
• The gold rush began in 1849.
• Vanderbilt shifted his focus from local steamboats to ocean-faring steamships.
• His steamships transported passengers to California via the Isthmus of Panama; Passengers then traveled across the isthmus by mule train or canoe.

Vanderbilt's Influence

• Vanderbilt had a successful business transporting passengers to Panama, and returning ships were laden with passengers and gold.
• He supported the Union Navy during the Civil War by donating and outfitting a ship for battle.
• Post-war, Vanderbilt regained control of the railroads.
• Vanderbilt's railroad competition improved service, many criticized his business methods.
• Many called him a ruthless "robber baron."
• Like Rockefeller, the way he made profits and his power were controversial.

Andrew Carnegie and Steel

• Andrew Carnegie was born in Scotland in 1834, and his family immigrated to the US when he was 13.
• To support his impoverished family, Andrew worked in a factory as a bobbin boy.
• Carnegie worked as a telegraph messenger and was promoted to operator.
• Like Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln, he acquired knowledge through reading.
• In 1853 at age 18, Andrew began working for Pennsylvania Railroad Company as a secretary and telegraph operator.
• Although his salary doubled, he pursued further opportunities such as superintendent of the Pittsburgh Division of the railroad.
• Carnegie invested his earnings in the burgeoning steel industry as steel became more valuable.
• Carnegie became the most influential figure in the steel industry, owning the largest steel operation in the country.
• Steel was used to make railroad tracks, tall buildings, bridge pilings and bonnets.
• Like Rockefeller, Carnegie donated his wealth, providing funding to over 3,000 libraries, schools, colleges, and universities.
• Carnegie's motto was "not to make money as idol but to give it away to worthy causes."

The Great Chicago Fire

• The Great Chicago Fire began around 11 p.m. on October 8, 1871.
• The autumn of 1871 was hot and windy, causing the flames to spread.
• Unlike the fire department systems of today, fire department systems were very different in 1871.
• Fire Department watchman Mathias Schafer, was stationed in the courthouse cupola.
• Scanning the city for fires, Schafer noticed a light in the southwest.
• Via a voice tube, he instructed night operator William Brown to activate the fire alarm, ringing the courthouse bell and fire department bells.
• Schafer directed Brown to strike box 342, about a mile from the fire's origin, at the Chicago Fire on October 8, 1871.
• Schafer told Brown to strike box 319 instead as he realized that he had made an error.
• Brown refused, anticipating the dispatch of firefighters to the vicinity of the fire.
• Firefighters were already exhausted from extinguishing a mill fire.
• Their fire hoses were in bad condition and their water supply was low.
• Confusion about the fire’s location caused a half-hour delay.
• The fire was out of control by the arrival of firefighters.
• Chicago's primarily wooden structures quickly ignited, allowing the fire to spread rapidly.
• Wooden structures, roads, firewood, coal, and lumber yards fueled the blaze.
• Southern winds intensified the fire, creating an inferno of flames and collapsing buildings.
• Initially, residents watched firefighters without concern from their windows and roofs.
• Residents panicked and sought refuge in the Chicago River as the disaster worsened.

Thomas Edison: The Stubborn Inventor

• Edison was curious about nature as a child.
• Young Edison, was curious about why the mother goose sat on her eggs for a long time.
• Mother explained that it was to keep the eggs warm for her young to hatch..
• Edison sat on the eggs for hours after long hours, until his family came looking for him at dinner time.
• Unable to ask questions to strict teachers in school, Edison was homeschooled by his mother.
• Edison then asked many questions and had freedom to explore and discover new things.
• To discover and answer all of his questions, Edison read intensely, with a focus on chemistry and electricity.
• At age 11, Edison decided that he would become an inventor.
• To pay for his experiments, Edison started selling newspapers on the train at age 12.
• Selling newspapers helped make some money, but Edison knew he would need more money if he wanted to do all the experiments he had thought about.
• He decided to write and print his own newspaper, buying an old printing press and putting it in the baggage car of the train.
• People bought his paper; they liked his stories and his spelling made people laugh
• Edison's lost hearing in one ear following an incident where a man helped him onto a train by grabbing his ear.
• Later, Edison said, “I have not heard a bird sing since I was 12 years old"
• At 15, Edison learned telegraphy, and spent the next five years working as a telegraph operator.
• By the late 1867, Edison moved to New York City, and worked on machines for the following three years.
• He became well known as someone who could come up with ways to make the machines run more productively.
• However, Edison wanted to invent instead.
• Edison married Mary on Christmas Day in 1871, where he had a daughter: Madeleine Edison.
• By 1876, Edison saved enough money to buy land in New Jersey.
• Edison called his new property and building his invention factory at Menlo Park, a two-story wooden building surrounded by a fence.
• He worked almost around the clock in his invention factory and hired woodworkers, mechanics, and glass blowers.
• Undeterred by laughter, Edison focused on his hard work and perseverance for his inventions.
• His workers were worried that Edison became crazy due to the suffering from mental exhaustion when he worked on "talking machines".
• While operating the machine, Edison stated, ""Mary had a little lamb...", and the device repeated him.
• Edison's creation, the Phonograph became world renowned ("talking machine"; a record player, a way to play music before radio).
• Edison wanted his invention of a light source to be affordable, safe, odorless, and silent.
• Edison worked to make his glass blower manufacture a thin and clean transparent glass bulb.
• Two wires were then placed in the bulb with a thread going between them.
• Upon connecting the wires to electricity, the thread filament combusted.
• Edison was able to discover the "Light Bulb" by pumping oxygen from the bulb.
• Edison died at 84, with 1,093 patents, including: first movie camera, phonograph and record, and the light bulb.

Alexander Graham Bell: The Inventor of the Telephone

• Alexander Graham Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847, almost exactly one month after Thomas Edison.
• Bell and Edison were friends and collaborators.
• Like Edison, Alexander was homeschooled.
• Alexander finished school when he was 15.
• He became interested in helping people who were deaf because his mother, Eliza, had become deaf when he was 10 years old.
• His father and grandfather (both speech therapists) were his amazing teachers during homeschool.
• Alexander loved his mother and wanted to help her because she had taught him so many things and had encouraged him to work hard.
• He developed unique signs and motions to communicate with her.
• After finishing school, he became a teacher at the Weston House Academy at age 16, with some students older than him.
• He taught music and speech and was highly respected by his fellow teachers, who never knew how old he was because he acted responsibly.
• Alexander also worked on inventions to help deaf people.
• He worked very hard teaching and inventing.
• Alexander's family was struck by tragedy when his brother, Edward, died of tuberculosis when Alexander was 20, followed by brother Melville three years later.
• The family moved from Scotland to Ontario, Canada, then to Boston, Massachusetts, so Alexander went to work with the deaf.
• He also continued working with his speech and elocution inventions.
• Alexander taught deaf students and worked with their families to understand better.
• In 1873, Alexander met 16 year old Mabel Hubbard.
• Alexander spent time with the Hubbard family, where Mabel's father, Gardiner G. Hubbard, became interested in Alexander's inventive ideas.
• Alexander shared ideas for an improved telegraph that could send multiple tones of sound over the wire at once.
• Each message would have its own sound, and it was called his invention the harmonic telegraph.
• Mr. Hubbard and Thomas Sanders, father of another private student, became Alexander's partners and provided financial backing for his experiments and inventions.
• He moved the harmonic telegraph with his new assistant, Thomas Watson.
• They were getting closer to the idea of a telephone.
• A speech therapist is someone who works with people who have voice, speech, or language disorders.
• In 1875, Bell and Watson began to "electric speech machine", or as what is now called, the telephone.
• Elisha Gray was also working on inventing telephone.
• Both were racing to see who would gain the patent for a telephone.
• The patent office received Alexander's patent request only hours before Gray's.
• The patent officials had to review both requests and decide who had invented first.
• On Alexander's birthday, March 3, 1876, he received patent number 175565 for his invention.
• Alexander had married Mabel, and Gardiner Hubbard had gone from financial partner to father-in-law.
• Alexander, Gardiner Hubbard, and Thomas Sanders, then formed the Bell Telephone Company in July of 1877.
• Soon Western Union Telegraph Company, was partnering with Elisha Gray, and Thomas Edison to create phones.
• Soon Western Union had telephones that worked like Alexander's.
• Western Union had an edge compared to Bell Telephone because they could simply use their old telegraph wires.
• Bell Telephone sued Western Union in the fall of 1878, noting that Alexander held patent for the telephone.
• This was a big court case which got the attention of the entire nation.
• The US Supreme Court ruled in Bell Telephone's favor in 1879.
• Only Alexander's company could sell telephones until 1893.
• Alexander and Mabel had two girls, and they lost two little boys as infants.
• The Bell family had a home in Nova Scotia, reminiscent of Scotland.
• He raised sheep and studied nature at his new home.
• Alexander was a first member of the National Geographic Society.
• Alexander always considered himself a teacher of the deaf.
• Alexander Graham Bell lived for 75 years, and died at Beinn Bhreagh on August 2, 1922, with his family.