6.5 & 6.6: Innovation
6.5: Explain the effects of technological advances in the development of the United States over time.
6.6: Explain the socioeconomic continuities and changes associated with the growth of industrial capitalism from 1865 to 1898.
In the last set of notes, we talked about the development of the New South, and now, we’re going to be going over technological innovation and industrialization in America.
For the last few decades of the 19th century, ever since the end of the Civil War, industry in the United States had been rapidly growing and changing. Originally, people made things in order to use them or sell them locally but now, people were mass-producing goods and selling them all over the world. So what caused this changed and what made all of this production possible?
Steel and Natural Resources
Innovations in steel production also made it possible for industry to rapidly grow. In 1856, Henry Bessemer, an English engineer, patented the Bessemer process, a new way of making steel. This process involved blasting hot air through molten iron to get rid of impurities, creating stronger steel. This led to more steel being created and lower steel prices, allowing for the construction of more factories, railroads, and infrastructure.
Also, rapid industrialization was made possible due to greater access to natural resources such as coal and oil. Coal, especially anthracite coal in Western Pennsylvania, and oil were both burned as energy sources for factories and industries.
Railroads
To start, the railroad was a major advancement that enabled the expansion of industry. Railroads and trains made it incredibly easy to quickly transport goods across the country, regardless of location. After the Civil War, the government also began granting land and loan subsidies to railroad companies to encourage them to build railroads. Over 170 million acres of land were granted and five transcontinental railroads were built, each connecting the central United States to western cities. This allowed farmers and manufacturers to transport their goods to new regions and connected the country together, creatin a national market that led to mass production and mass consumption.
Economics
But inventions and innovations weren’t the only things that emerged during this period. Economics also changed and it was here that we see the rise of capitalism in America alongside some insanely rich corporations and business owners. During this period, capitalism took effect and the government started becoming less and less involved in the development of industry and trade in the country. The rise of laissez-faire government policies, with laissez-faire meaning “let alone” in French, led to many politicians being against the practice of intervention or business regulations. Private owners, which had already been present for quite some time now, took over and dominated the market. Now that the government wasn’t regulating the market as much anymore, large corporations came to dominate many industries all by themselves.
Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Vanderbilt
For example, in the 1850s, petroleum was discovered through drilling, causing the oil industry to rapidly grow. John D. Rockefeller quickly acquired a monopoly over the industry through horizontal integration, buying out all of his competitors until Standard Oil controlled almost 90% of the market by the late 1880s.
Similarly, the steel industry was dominated by Andrew Carnegie. He utilized vertical integration by purchasing all complementary industries related to steel production such as mining, processing, and distribution companies. However, in 1901 he sold his company and devoted himself to philanthropy. J.P. Morgan bought it and created the U.S. Steel Corporation.
In the railroad industry, Cornelius Vanderbilt and the Vanderbilt family merged local railroads along the northeast into the New York Central Railroad, connecting New York City to Chicago. The government’s land grants and subsidies to railroad companies led many people to invest in railroads. But then the Panic of 1893 bankrupted a quarter of all railroads, causing railroads to charge higher prices. George Pullman's sleeping cars also became popular during this time.
Communication and Electricity
Communication technology also led to industrial growth. In 1844, Samuel Morse invented the telegraph, a device that allowed people to communicate across long distances through electric signals. In 1866, Cyrus Field improved trans-Atlantic cables, linking telegraph networks between America and Europe. By the 1870s, these cables had reached every continent. Then, in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, a device that allowed people to actually hear the sounds of other people’s voices from far away. Within a year, Bell founded the Bell Telephone Company and telephones spread all throughout America.
In 1880, Thomas Edison patented the lightbulb. This was used to light cities all over the country and also allowed workers to work at night while still being able to see. In 186, George Westinghouse harnessed the power of electricity and, with Nikola Tesla, formed the Westinghouse Electric Company where they developed an alternating current motor to convert electricity into mechanical power. Now, factories could be powered by electricity instead of water or coal.
Economic Imperialism
Many industry leaders wanted America to develop an empire because they wanted to have access to land all over the world to sell their goods. For example, they were interested in acquiring islands in the Pacific and gaining influence in Asia and Latin America for their markets. These leaders also took part in bribing politicians to not pass regulations that would stop their business practices or reduce their wealth. Many created trusts, which were boards of trustees that would manage multiple companies instead of each company managing themselves. Holding companies were also established, which were companies that didn’t make anything and whose sole purpose was to hold the stocks and shares of other companies. These holding companies were meant to control multiple other companies in one group.
In these industries, a lot of the people there were mostly underpaid. Because there was little to no governmental regulation on wages, it made it easy for these industries to hire poor laborers and immigrants for very low wages. Even if these workers wanted higher wages, they couldn’t do anything about it because if they spoke out, the industries would just fire them and hire replacements, of which there were a lot of laborers and immigrants willing to replace them for lower wages. These factories hired women and children often as well, mainly because it allowed them to pay these workers a lot less than what they paid men. In these factories, these workers worked in terrible conditions and weren’t protected from any safety hazards on the job. Many faced injury and had to work long hours, some going from before sunrise to after sunset.
Ideologies of Industry
So why did people tolerate these business practices? Well, besides the laissez-faire capitalism and political bribing mentioned earlier, they also used Social Darwinism to convince others that these practices were okay. Social Darwinism, essentially, was the application of biological Darwinism to society. In nature, the strong eat the weak and the fittest survive. Social Darwinism takes that idea and applies it to society, in which strong nations should eat weak nations and in this case, strong companies should eat weak companies. They argued that all of these competition and exploitation and practices were natural, because it meant that the “strong/fittest” were demonstrating their superiority and success over the rest of the people. And that was how so much of the wealth in America ended up concentrated in the hands of businessmen such as Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Vanderbilt. Other people used religion as justification as to why these leaders were so wealthy. For example, John D. Rockefeller himself used his Protestant beliefs and work ethic to argue that his riches were given to him by God.
However some of these businessmen also advocated for helping the poor instead of keeping all of their wealth to themselves. For example, Carnegie believed in the Gospel of Wealth, the idea that those with extraordinary wealth had a God-given responsibility to invest it back into society and help those who were less fortunate through philanthropy. But he didn’t believe in giving out free money. Instead, he believed people should be given the resources needed to be successful and then have to work for it afterwards. As a result, he invested roughly $350 million to build libraries, concert halls, universities, and many other public institutions.
These businessmen were very controversial among the American population. For some, they were referred to as captains of industry who paved the way for prosperity, innovation, and growth in America. On the other hand, others referred to them as robber barons who were stealing from the poor and exploiting them for their own personal gain.
