Industrializing America: Corporations and Conflicts 1877-1911 PDF

Industry, Corporations, Farmers, Labor, & Conflict Chapter 16: 1877-1911 Tremendous GROWTH! And Interconnections bt agricul’re, technology, transportation, engineering, innovations, immigration, capitalism, government, etc. Rebecca Edwards Eric Hinderaker Robert O. Self Jam...

Industry, Corporations, Farmers, Labor, & Conflict Chapter 16: 1877-1911 Tremendous GROWTH! And Interconnections bt agricul’re, technology, transportation, engineering, innovations, immigration, capitalism, government, etc. Rebecca Edwards Eric Hinderaker Robert O. Self James A. Henretta America's History Ninth Edition CHAPTER 16 Industrializing America: Corporations and Conflicts 1877–1911 Copyright © 2018 by Bedford/St. Martin’s Distributed by Bedford/St. Martin's/Macmillan Higher Education strictly for use with its products. Not for redistribution.  Before we get into that: “New South” - extractive industries & boosters and Loading… “Modern Cities” - Immigration, Parks, & Infrastructure Extractive Industries Loading… Modern American Cities  Technology (eg. electric power) & Immigration Ellis Island, NY Many European countries & China (until 82) (Before 1880, most from N & W Europe; After 1880 most fr South & Eastern Europe; more men!) Push & Pull Factors  Immigration: The Key to American Identity? Perhaps immigration is the key to national character since memory of displacement from somewhere else is a common experience of all Americans in a country without a rooted national tradition. All Americans are united by a commitment to the future. This makes them a future-looking people, and gave America the values of idealism, self-sufficiency, flexibility, adaptability to change, and a desire to conform to peers instead of to ancient ways. Partial quote (and paraphrased) by John Higham, historian Emma Lazarus, 1883 The New Colossos Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand Loading… A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame, "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" by Emma Lazarus, New York City, 1883 This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND  II. Immigrants, East and West A. Newcomers from Europe 1. Immigration between the Civil War and WWI (>25 mill) 2. Immigrants and labor = “ideal” labor supply  II. Immigrants, East and West—cont’d A. Asian Americans and Exclusion. Chinese immigrants. The Burlingame Treaty but couldn’t apply for cit’ship, 1868. Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882. Korean and Japanese immigrants  I. The Rise of Big Business A. Innovators in Enterprise – Overview: 1. Production and sales increased due to efficiencies 2. Railroads initiated management revolutions 3. Standard Oil and the rise of the trusts (monopolies) 4. Assessing the industrialists (hated & lauded) 5. A national consumer culture (cheaper goods; department stores; advertising; newspapers; magazines) Social Order Changed in “Gilded Age” Classes increasingly separated New rich – excessive & extravagant consumption Middle Class – professionals, men & women; focused on “virtues.” Women question: more college-educated women; “neurasthenia”; Jane Addams & Social Settlements; Ladies Home Journal Working Class – immigrants, but also rural poor women & children & men (What was it like?) Rise of Big Business / Corporations Captains of Industry or Robber Barons Carnegie - steel - Vertical Integration (G. Swift?) Rockefeller - oil - (Vertical AND) Horizontal Morgan - consolidation/finance Engineering Applied to Labor: Scientific Management Cost Accounting Gustavus Swift Frederick Taylor  I. The Rise of Big Business—cont’d A. The Corporate Workplace Managers and salesmen – (white collar not blue collar) Headquarters make decisions (purchasing/accounting) Women in the corporate office (opportunities & limitations)  I. The Rise of Big Business—cont’d C. On the Shop Floor—cont’d 1. Sharper class distinctions 2. Health hazards and pollution 3. Unskilled labor and discrimination Social Darwinism -Based on Darwin’s Origin of the Species, 1859 -Justified vast discrepancies of wealth -Carnegie’s take on this was his “Gospel of Wealth” (in documents) Workers’ Response What was it like to be a worker? “Workingman’s Prayer” from labor publication  A Workingman’s Prayer for the Masses (from Nat’l Labor Tribune, 1894) Oh, Almighty Andrew Philanthropist Library Carnegie, who art in America when not in Europe spending the money of your slaves and serfs, thou art a good father to the people of Pittsburgh, Homestead and Beaver Falls. We bow before thee in humble obedience of slavery.... We have no desire but to serve thee. If you sayest black was white we believe you, and are willing, with the assistance of... the Pinkerton’s agency, to knock the stuffin[g] out of anyone who thinks different, or to shoot down and imprison serfs who dare say you have been unjust in reducing the wages of your slaves, who call themselves citizens of the land of the free and the home of the brave.... Loading… Oh, lord and master, we love thee because you and other great masters of slaves favor combines and trusts to enslave and make paupers of us all. We love thee though our children are clothed in rags. We love thee though our wives... are so scantily dressed and look so shabby. But, oh master, thou hast given us one great enjoyment which man has never dreamed of before—a free church organ, so that we can take our shabby families to church to hear your great organ pour forth its melodious strains.... Oh, master, we thank thee for all the free gifts you have given the public at the expense of your slaves.... Oh, master, we need no protection, we need no liberty so long as we are under thy care. So we command ourselves to thy mercy and forevermore sing thy praise. Amen!.  III. Labor Gets Organized A. The Emergence of a Labor Movement 1. Two strategies of labor advocates: broad political alliances (more 1870s-90s) OR trade unions that directly negotiated (more 20th C) 2. Great Railroad Strike of 1877 3. Creation of the National Guard to maintain order 4. Henry George and Progress and Poverty 5. Shared problems among rural and urban workers  Early Strikes - Efforts to Organize 1. 1877 Railroad Strike (began w/ B&O in WV) 1. (Led to SANDLOT INCIDENT in Chinatown, SF –> ‘82) 2. 1886 Haymarket Riot (after McCormick reaper works clash w/ police – Chicago) 3. 1892 Homestead Strike (PA) 4. 1894 Pullman Strike (outside of Chicago) Remember: Republican Party (pro-tarrifs – banking - corporations. Eg. Morrill Act, 1861) AND Public Anxiety about Anarchism from Europe Homestead Labor & Agricultural Organizations 1867+ Grange movement (angry about tariffs & RR & banks. Cooperation & mutual aid & own banks, insurance companies, etc.) (see next slide for quote.) 1870s Grange joined Labor Advocates = Greenback-Labor Party (regulation & 8 hr day; more $ in circulation; “Producerism”; Triggered some regulation; Radical (inter-racial) Grange leader, I. Donnelly: “In 1860 it cost nineteen cents to carry a bushel of wheat from Chicago to New York. In 1873 it costs thirty-seven cents -- nearly double! Why? There are now more railroads to carry the produce and more produce to be carried than in 1860. The reason is there is more robbery!” (c. 1873) Labor & Agriculture Organiz’ns, cont’d 1869+ Knights of Labor (most important) Some cooperation w/ Greenbacks; Shops owned by employees; Egalitarian - excluded only Chinese; Very political; Workplace safety, child labor; Leader: Powderly. By 1880s, growth and de-centralization: 100,000- >700,000. Had Leonora Barry. Brought down by Haymarket Riot. Public opinion turned against them. Labor & Agric’l Org’ns, cont’d 1870s Farmers’ Alliance (TX; cooperative stores; exchanges; price-support; warehouses; loans; govt intervention; became the POPULISTS; tried to get support from Knights of Labor) Some impact: Interstate Commerce Commsn  III. Labor Gets Organized—cont’d A. Farmers and Workers: The Cooperative Alliance—cont’d 1. The Populist Party (next slide) 2. The Hatch Act, 1887 – federal support for agriculture (research & education) 3. Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) = 1887 compromise 4. The Supreme Court and the ICC (Supreme Court undermined ICC & sided with RRs in 15/16 cases for 20 years)  POPULISTS: Aka the People’s Party, early 1890s Sweeping and significant Appealed to farmers & other “producers” (8 hr. day) Began in South and West Tom Watson, GA, led black-white alliance: “You are kept apart that you may be separately fleeced of your earnings... This race antagonism perpetuates a monetary system which beggars both.” Jill Lepore, historian: “Populism entered American politics at the end of the nineteenth century, and it never left. It pitted ‘the people,’ meaning everyone but the rich, against corporations, which fought back in the courts by defining themselves as ‘persons’; and it pitted ‘the people,’ meaning white people, against nonwhite people who were fighting for citizenship and whose ability to fight back in the courts was far more limited, since those fights require well-paid lawyers.” - Truths, 348 Democrats fended off Populist challenge w/ race Mary Elizabeth Lease, KS homesteader/lawyer “raise less corn and more hell” – MEL (see Lepore rdg) Labor & Agricultural Organizations, cont’d American Federation of Labor - also 1870s Not political, but focused on Trade Unions or Brotherhoods. Closed shops. Leader: Samuel Gompers. Didn’t challenge capitalism. Pure & Simple Collective Bargaining = simple goals (wages, hours, safety) and pure membership; Numbers grew! No black people or women. Why did they choose a different strategy?  III. Labor Gets Organized—cont’d A. Another Path: The American Federation of Labor 1. Trade unions, or “brotherhoods” 2. American Federation of Labor (AFL) 3. Samuel Gompers 4. AFL’s narrow base William Jennings Bryan, 1896 Populists joined the Democrats to support him. Supported free silver Inspired by the Social Gospel Wanted: Progressive Income Tax, Bank Regul’n, Right of Workers to Unionize Populists faded after this election McKinley vs. Bryan (“modern”: $10 mill vs. $300,000) WJB: “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” Interpretations of Wizard of Oz (Election of 1896?) Dorothy Witch of West (water) Scarecrow Tornado Tin Man Monkeys Lion Wizard Yellow Brick Road Emerald City Slippers (silver/ruby) The Wizard of Oz, 1900 book L. Frank Baum Politics after 1896 South was solidly Democratic - Redeemers: (black codes, vagrancy laws, convict labor system; fewer taxes & public facilities; less $ on education. Poverty & extractive industries in the South. “New South”?) North was mostly Republican. Voter participation started to decline. Does The Gilded Age deserve its name?