The Rise of Big Business

• Major shift from units of production to consumerism.
• Was due to the rise of mass-production techniques, industrialisation, etc.
• Sears and Roebuck - first catalogue.

• All benefited and complemented each other.
• Allowed for the growth of monopolies, and thus the super-rich.
• Steel
  • Ship building, factories, trains, etc.
• Rail road
  • Transportation links across America for trade, passengers, etc.
• Oil
  • Abundances of it - allowed machinery to work efficiently. (Mechanisation).

• Mark Twain.
• The period was glittering on the surface, but decrepid and corrupt underneath.
• Shady business practices, scandal-plagued politics, and vulgar displays = capitalism.
• Rich showed off their wealth.

• Improved production methods.
  • Machinery.
  • Each labourer operated different machines - division of labour.
• Development of new products.
  • Electric light (1879), petrol-engine car (1885).
• Natural resources.
  • Timber, water, oil, and steel.
• Growing population.
  • 25 million immigrants between 1870 and 1916.
• Distribution and communication.
  • American railway became nationwide transport network - 320,000km in 1900.
  • World's first transcontinental railway - coast to coast.
• Railways for economic growth.
  • Supplies and products.
• Investment and banking.
  • Investments and bonds.
  • Banks sprung up everywhere.

• Serious economic depression.
• Overbuilding and shaky financing of railroads, resulting in a series of bank failures.
• 500 banks were closed.
• 15,000 businesses failed.
• Numerous farms ceased operation.
• Estimated peak of 18 million unemployed.

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• John D. Rockefeller
  • Standard Oil Company.
  • Controlled 88% of oil refineries.
  • Ruthlessly eliminated competitors, used fixed prices, great negotiator, and studied manufacturing processes very well.
  • 1916 - world's first billionaire.
  • Gave away $530 million - black educational institutes, medicine, and Baptist Church.
• Andrew Carnegie
  • Steel industry.
  • Gave away $350 million - "the man who dies rich dies disgraced".
  • Sold steel empire to J. P. Morgan for $480 million.
  • Criticised because he preached philanthropy, but achieved his wealth through the destruction of the lives of competition and through harsh working conditions.
• Henry Ford
  • Model T Ford Car
  • Perfected the assembly line - employed unskilled workers.
  • 1924 - produced a car every 24 seconds.

• J. P. Morgan
  • Inherited $12 million.
  • Increased wealth through the creation of large companies and complicated finance deals.
  • The US Steel Corporation - first billion dollar company.
• William Randolph Hearst
  • American newspaper publisher who built the nation's largest newspaper chain.
  • Published stories of municipal and financial corruption.
  • Yellow Press - presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers.

• Derogatory term applied to some wealthy and powerful businessmen (24 of them).
• Businessmen who used what were considered to be exploitative practices to amass their wealth.
• Carnegie, Morgan, and Rockefeller are among the list.

• Derogatory term applied to some wealthy and powerful businessmen (24 of them).
• Businessmen who used what were considered to be exploitative practices to amass their wealth.
• Carnegie, Morgan, and Rockefeller are among the list.

• Progressive 'insurgent' Republicans.
• Campaigned for rights of ordinary people and against big business.
• Example: Ted Roosevelt - Bull Mouse Progressive Party (running against Taft).
• Believed in government intervention (against laissez-faire) and strong central authority was needed to prevent corruption and exploitation.
• Definition: groups of people who worked to influence and improve social welfare.

• Any of a group of American writers, identified with reform and exposé literature.
• They were basically journalists who exposed the corruption and exploitation fo big businesses in the early 1900s.
• Examples:
  • Ida Tarbell
    • Exposé - The History of the Standard Oil Company.
  • Upton Sinclair
    • The Jungle (1906) - the US meat-packing industry, and the books in the "Dead Hand" series that critique the institutions (journalism, education, etc.), that could, but did not prevent these abuses.
  • Samuel Hopkins Adams
    • The Great American Fraud (1905) - exposed false claims about patent medicines.

• Sherman Anti-Trust Act 1890
  • Oppose the combination of entities that could potentially harm competition, such as monopolies or cartels.
  • Basically put in place to end monopolies.
• The Square Deal 1904 (T. Roosevelt)
  • Enacted to regulate business.
  • 1 - Railroads rates were controlled by the government.
  • 2 - 1906 = Federal program of meat inspection.
  • 3 - 1906 = Pure Food and Drug Act
    • Forbade the sale and manufacture of fraudulently labelled food and drugs.
• Labour Unions
  • Improving the social conditions of workers.
  • The Knights of Labour Union.
  • The American Federation of Labour (AFL).
  • The Industrial Workers of the Worlds (IWW).

• Sherman Anti-Trust Law
  • Failed - use was patchy and the wording of the actual legal document was too vague. However, it was used to break up Standard Oil into 36 baby companies.
• Square Deal
  • Could have gone further but in general was innovative and successful.
• Knights of Labour
  • Failed.
• AFL and IWW
  • Reasonably successful in becoming powerful, however they didn't achieve much because they couldn't amount to the power of their bosses.

• Owned many newspapers and influenced Republicans a lot.
• Hears controlled many newspapers - press baron.
• Politics was laissez-faire, so had no control over business.