Chapter 19 Flashcards
Types of Goods
- consumer goods- things that people buy (durable or consumable)
- capital goods- things that businesses buy
Technology
Edison, Ford, Wright Brothers
Railroads
- 1880s- track gauge (standardized)
- 1883- time zones (standardized)
- Westinghouse:
- airlift brake- less employees needed,longer trains, same brake times
- automatic cupler- attach trains easier
Problems with Railroad Technology
- drove prices down for goods
- too many railroad companies and they always change trains
Solution to Railroad Problems
Morganization- system management tightened, rebates and drawbacks declined
- rebates- good customers get a percentage back for being good
- drawbacks- offering of money to a company who’s business is essential for the railroads
Mechanization
- anthracite coal- slower burning, cooler burning, consumer good
- bituminous coal- faster buring, hotter burning, capital good
- steel- used for railroads, more flexible, won’t crack
Expanding Markets to Expand Business
- advertising, mail order houses, and catalouges used more often
- chain stores- stores with multiple locations (Sears or Marshall’s)
- department stores- bigger scale stores that offered a multitude of goods, wide variety
Horizontal Growth
Eliminate competition to form a monopoly.
-Rockefeller- Standard Oil Company
Vertical Growth
Trying to gain more aspects of the industry rather than just the product itself.
-Gustavus Swift and Co.- invented refridgerated rail car, also had raw material, transportation, horse, buggie teams, and facotries. Lowered his price an pushed people out of business
Carnegie- made steel and created the finished product
Trust
Horizontally combined business that restricts trade and disgueses it holdings with company names
-Pujo Committee- Morgan and Rockefeller together had 22 billiom dollars, they could buy the South 3 times or the whole US west of the Mississippi
Holding Company
Hold their money and buy stock
-Northern Securities Company- broken up by Roosevelt with the Sherman Anti-Trust Act
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
If a company slows trade it is an illegal trust.
-US v EC Knight- 90% of sugar was with ECK and US couldn’t prove that it was slowing trade, this made the Act lay dormant
Gospel of Wealth
With great wealth come great responsibility
-Carnegie was lucky to get his fortune with his steel company, he came in the right industry at the right time
The Erie War
Gould, Fisk, and Drew against Vanderbilt
- the first 3 owned the Erie Canal in NYC
- Vanderbilt was a high school drop out and ended up dominating the water trade in NYC, he wanted the Erie Canal too
- he tried to buy 51% of stocks, but the 3 found out, so they made a bunch, kept half and put half on the market so Vanderbilt would never get to 50%
- tires to have gunfights and bribe politicians, but the 3 do the same thing
- the 3 end up buying all of Vanderbilt’s stocks to give him profit and keep doing the keep 51% thing to make more money
Edgar Thompson Works
Modeled how other steel factories would operate.
-makes the steel and the finsihed products (I-beams and railroad tracks)
National Labor Movement
Wages, work hours, and working conditions are unions’ bread and butter
Knights of Labor
1st national labor union, they represented skilled and unskilled labor, this watered union down. It was hard to represent unskilled labor, because no one cares if they leave
Haymarket Riot 1886
Protest on McCormick Harvesting, they wanted less hours and better wages, the police got a bomb thrown at them which killed some POPO
AFL
Gompers and Stausser
-represented skilled labor only, organized labor didn’t get what they want
New South
Henry Grady not very successful
- package of ideas to help improve economy of South
- says to get over slavery, King Cotton is gone
- South becomes mercantile to the North by supplying them with raw materials and markets
- abundance of cheap labor for cotton industry, factories near plantations, gave hope to the blacks that they might have some power
Expanding Cities
Frederick Law Omstead- designer of NY Central Park, more in SMO
New Immigrants
Catholic Churches- kept ethnicity separate with different types of churches for different immigrant groups
-more in SMO
Rise of Consumer Society
Veblen- “conspicuous consumption”- people who had too much money spent it on overly luxurious things
- new middle class- people can now move up in class
- 1870- 160 high schools
- 1900- 1600+ high schools
