“The Rise of Smokestack America”

• During the Industrialization Period many changes were occurring, such as steel rails and farm reapers were changing into mass produced parlor sets.


• The nation that first depended on farm life was turning into an industrial world working solely with machines and industrial workers.


• There was enormous economic growth from 1860 to 1900.


• Even though many changes were taking place in the economy of the nation, still many were too poor to even take advantage of what was being produced.


• The Bessemer converter was a new way of making steel that was both cheaper and more durable.  The steel that was used on train rails was being worn out very quickly and there had to be something done to improve on it.


• During this time in history, many more people were given opportunities to work, also helping the increase of the product to increase immensely.


• By 1900 steam engines powered almost everything. (80 %) That was until electricity became the most popular power source.


• In 1880, Thomas Edison invented the light bulb and even set up a company in New York where electricity was provided to customers.


• After the Civil War, railroads increased in size and how many workers had to be working on them.  It was very difficult to handle the size of the railroads because of all the work that had to be put into them.  It took a lot of work and a lot of workers, a lot of something that wasn’t really available.


• Small businesses were now a thing in the past.  The average workplace had about 500 – 1,000 workers, if not more.


• By 1898, John D. Rockefeller refined almost 84 percent of the nation’s oil.


• Many foreign countries saw the new railroads as a good investment. A railroad system, alone, cost close to $1 billion, and the completion of the actual railroad would cost another $10 billion. (Americans started to invest their incoming economy rather than use it because they would get a lot of help from the foreign countries that thought of it as a good investment.) One new way of investing incoming money was in building investment bank houses.  An example of one of these houses was Morgan & Co., started by John Pierpont Morgan who was an investment banker.)


• Stocks were another major improvement in the nation’s economy. Many people, at first, were scared because the truth was that they were a lot more risky than bonds.  But when John Pierpont Morgan started investing money into stocks, they became very popular.  These stock markets and investment banks were very important in the growth of the nation’s economy.

Jessica Furtado            Ap History

Describe ten facts (or statistics, events, individuals, issues, etc.) that represent some of the main ideas of your reading.

1. Federal and state governments forcefully promoted railroad construction with land grants from the public domain.  The local governments gave the railroad stations everything from land to tax breaks.  The first transcontinental railroad was finished in 1869.


2. Other industries also drastically grew such as the iron and steel firm who employed fewer than 100 workers in 1870 and thirty years later the average work force was quadrupled.  Business expansion was accomplished in 2 ways Vertical integration (adding operations before or after the production) and horizontal integration(bringing economies greater profits by controlling prices)


3. Urban Expansion in the Industrial age went from the most favored local markets, specialized services, offered workers, and railroad links to raw materials and distant markets.  Rather than commerce or finance fueling urban expansion like before the Urban area was introduced to a booming industrial growth.


4. In 1880-1900 a mass migration from Europe sending 40 million people to the united States made up ¾ of the Northeast and the rest settled in cities across the nation.  Many of these “old immigrants” came from the British Isles, Germany, and Scandinavia and were made mostly up of Irish and Germans.


5. The number of immigrants include:




1. United States                       34.2 Million


2. Argentina and Uruguay         7.1 million


3. Canada                                  5.2 Million


4. Brazil                                     4.4 Million


5. Australia and New Zealand   3.5 Million


6. Cuba                                       .9 Million


6. The Industrial City had a new physical outlook.  Slums were considered disturbing because so many people lived in them while business centers were areas of wholesale activity that provided housing for workers. The Suburbs were considered “pure are, peacefulness and natural scenery.” 


7. Industrialization created the start of economic and social polarization.  The average income of a middle class worker increased about 30 percent between 1865 and 1890.  Many middle class women acquired leisure time and enhanced their purchasing power.  Women were given more property rights during marriage, and were allowed to join organizations such as literary societies, charity groups and reform clubs.


8.  The Average Number of Workers per establishment also increased drastically:




1. INDUSTRY                    1860     1900


2. Cotton goods                112         287


3. Glass                            81          149


4. Iron and steel                65            333


5. Hosiery and Knit Goods            46             91


6. Silk and Silk Goods      39              135


9. In the Family if the wife didn’t work outside jobs to pay for a living then her son’s would be forced to work to earn an income for the family.  In 1880 one-fifth of the nation’s children between the ages of 10-14 held jobs.


10.  Since women’s lives were changing so were men’s.  The occupation of a clerk was listed now as accountant, salesman, and shipping clerk thus opening up many job opportunities toward middle class men.  Americans required more education to prepare for new careers such as the clerks.  The Number of public high schools in the United States increased from 160 in 1870 to 6,000 in 1900.

* Railroads – after the Civil War, railroad mileage increased from 35,000 miles in 1865 to 193,000 in 1900.  They encouraged mass production, mass consumption, and economic specialization since they were able to deliver goods to different parts of the country.  Railroads promoted the growth of the steel and coal industries since they were used to build them.  In 1883 the American Railroad Association divided the country into four time zones.

• Eastern trunk lines - “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt used his millions earned from a steamboat business to merge local railroads into the New York Central Railroad (1867), which ran from New York City to Chicago and opened more than 4,500 miles of track.


• Railroad played a critical role in the trans-Mississippi West by promoting settlement on the Great Plains and by linking the West with the East which created one great national market.


• Some 80 railroad companies received more than 170 million acres of public land, more than three times the acres given away under the Homestead Act.


• The land grants and cash loans:  promoted hasty and poor construction and led to widespread corruption in all levels of government.


• During the Civil War, Congress authorized land grants and loans for the building of the first transcontinental railroad.  The Union Pacific was to build westward across the Great Plains; the Central Pacific layed track across mountain passes in the Sierras.


• General Grenville Dodge directed construction of the Union Pacific using thousands of war veterans and Irish immigrants.


• Charles Crocker recruited 6,000 Chinese immigrants, who blasted tunnels through the Sierras for the Central Pacific.


• A financial panic in 1893 forced a quarter of all railroads into bankruptcy.  J. Pierpont Morgan and other bankers quickly moved in to take control of the bankrupt railroads and consolidate them.


• Andrew Carnegie employed a business strategy known as vertical integration, by which a company would control every stage of the industrial process, from mining the raw materials to transporting the finished product.

Facts on the Reading:

-         A great increase in immigration started during the Second Industrial Revolution. The population rose greatly from around three thousand to nearly sixty-three thousand.

-         The corruption in Grant’s administration led to great depression and higher inflation in the nation. Among these was the great Credit Mobilier.

-         Many monopolies were being created and actually gaining recognition in the U.S.

-         An increase in racial discrimination and segregation in the South (Jim Crow Laws)

-         A feeling of animosity against Chinese immigrants coming into America for jobs and a better means of life.

-         The creation of a social classes triumphed over the country. Immigration also contributed to it making those immigrants in a social class of their own.

-         The idea of a technological advancement had erupted during the late 1800’s.

-         The use of electricity, telegraphs and railroads made its first steps into the world we know it to be today.

-         Many African Americans began to strike and were brutally attacked and actually jailed because they believed that they weren’t making fair pay. The racial predicament in the South though made it hard for them to voice their opinion because they would be beaten and jailed.

-         In Chicago the city was totally burned down and from there it was rebuilt like the building of our time. Building itself became more modernized.

-         Many workers have been on strike due to poor working conditions, immigrants taking their jobs and not enough pay.

C.Santos wrote:

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Facts on the Reading:

-         A great increase in immigration started during the Second Industrial Revolution. The population rose greatly from around three thousand to nearly sixty-three thousand.

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Ten Facts:

-In the 1900's the US became the leading industrail power in the world. The rapid growth of the economy averaged 4% a year.

-Businesses benefited from government policies.  These protected private property, subsidized railroads with land grants and loans, supported US manufactures with protective tariffs, and refrained from either regulating business operations or heavily taxing corporate profits.

-"Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt got millions of dollars from the steam boat business. He used it to merge local railroads into the New York Central Railroad in 1867. It ran from NYC to Chicago and operated more than 4,500 miles of track.

-Congress authorized land grants and loans during the Civil War for the building of the first transcontinental railroad to tie California to the rest of the Union.

-James Hill's railroad, the Great Northern, was the only transcontinental railroad to be built without federal subsidies.

-A quarter of all railroads were forced into bankruptcy because of financial panic in 1893.

-Economy took a huge shift in the late 19th century.  Early facotories produced mostly textiles, clothing, and leather products.  After the Civil War, growth was in heavy industry and production of steel, petroleum, electric power, and the industrial machinery to produce other goods. -"Second Industrial Revolution"

-Andrew Carnegie in the 1850's worked his way up from being a poor Scottish immigrant to the superintendent of a Pennsylcania railroad.  He then began to manufature steel in Pittsburgh.

-The federal government realized that western railroads woul lead the wat to settlement, so they provided railroad companies with large subsidies in the form of loans and land grants.  About 80 railroad companies received more than 170 million acres of public land, more than 3 times given under the Homestead Act.

-Edwin Drake drilled the first US oil in 1859 in Pennsylvania. Four years later, John D. Rockefeller founded a company that would control most of the country's oil refineries.

: Railroads during Industrialization :

            During Industrialization, railroads were among the many things that were improved upon.  Before this time the railroads were easily worn out and weren’t that durable and dependable.  The main function of the railroads was as a way of transportation.  If they weren’t dependable and would easily be worn out there was no point of having them.  During the Industrialization period, railroads had become more useful and more popular than canals, which before this time were the main way of transporting goods.  Railroads during the 1840s and 1850s also were able to connect Ohio with almost all of the rest of the United States, which was a really great improvement.  During this period in time the mileage in railroads had also tripled from 1860-1880 and tripled again between 1880 and 1920.  The improvements of railroads also helped with the new industries of coal mining and in the production of steel because it was a more dependable way of transporting the goods required to get these jobs done. Another improvement that I forgot to mention was how not only were the railroads more durable and sturdy and dependable, but they were also cheaper to construct.  Being how they were becoming much cheaper to construct, it was obviously much more possible to make more of them and help out the country a lot more.

: Electricity during Industrialization :

            With the improvement of railroads and the invention of electricity the nation was slowly going from a rural country to a technological country that was relying on industries rather than farming.  There were three men responsible for electricity in the nation during the 1880s.  Those men were: 1. Charles Bush, who invented street lights

2. Thomas Edison, who invented the first light bulb 3. Benjamin Lamme, who basically improved on many patents that dealt with electricity.  With the help of all these men, electricity came to be what is now, which is an important part of everyday life.  Electricity, though, wasn’t necessarily used right away.  One example is in Ohio.  It wasn’t until about the late 1940s that they really used electricity and actually benefited from it.  Since people weren’t used to electricity it was very hard for people to adapt to new things.  All these new inventions were just the beginning of what the world has become now.

I am in the rise of the smoke stack America…

• Manufacturing replaced agriculture as leading source of economic growth between 1860 and 1900.


• About ½ the population of the US lived in poverty.


• By 1900 there were 3 times as many goods per a person than in 1865


• Per capita income increased 2% every year


• Steel developed, cheap to make and durable. Prices fell from $100 a ton in the 1870’s to $12 a ton in 1900


• Electricity, increased communication and faster transportation, encouraged mass production.


• In 1870 only 100 employed in iron and steel, by 1900 more than a 1000 factories employed 500- 1000 each, 450 others employed  over 1000


• In 1870 808 iron and steel companies competed, by 1900 less than 70 remained.


• More investment, as opposed to consumption.


• Great Britain, Germany and the US produced 2/3 of the worlds manufactured goods.

AP US History 1                                                                                              Curt J. Santos

Lab Assignment                                                                                             4-310 A 1/18/06

         During the 1800’s many Chinese and Japanese immigrated to America over the years and began settling in California mostly around the San Francisco area. The migration of this group of people made a big difference in the Chinese population in America. The population went from around three thousand to about a million in the course of a few years. With the great amount of immigrants coming in there was great racial conflicts between Americans and the Chinese, especially when it came to jobs. Many of the new Chinese immigrants became either railroad workers, miners, and did other very menial jobs (cooks, servants, etc.). There was so much discrimination with the American people and the Chinese that the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was passed. This act allowed the U.S. to suspend immigration and lead to the suspension of Chinese immigration. Even though the Chinese help build the First Transcontinental Railroad they were still highly discriminated against. Even Grover Cleveland supported the Chinese Exclusion Act and allowed the states to enact any discriminatory laws up until 1950. These laws made it difficult for Chinese and Japanese immigrants to find work and own land. The act also denied citizenship to those Chinese who were living in the U.S. The Chinese did have a lot on America itself but weren’t getting the rights they deserved much like the African Americans. The Chinese were finally given their rights when the government decided it wasn’t right to pass discriminatory laws against immigrants. The Chinese did though create their own Chinatowns in the areas where they mainly settled and began to try and live their hard lives in America.

Quote by Grover Cleveland on the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882: “"an element ignorant of our constitution and laws, impossible of assimilation with our people and dangerous to our peace and welfare."

Work Cited:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_immigration


• Our History Book

John D. Rockefeller was a philanthropist, which means that he devoted his time and money to a charitable cause.  His philosophy on life was to make as much money as he could, and then use it to help people.  He helped found the Standard Oil company in 1870, and then within 40 years, he became the richest man in the world.  The company became the most profitable company in the world.

            He supported church institutions, and he gave ten percent of his checks to his parish.  He made the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission which demolished yellow fever and hookworm.  He was also very generous to children, and gave them money when he saw them on the streets.  In 1913, the Rockefeller Foundation was created to help medical issues and training, along with the arts.  Two of his ambitions were to make $100,000 and to live to be 100 years old.  He passed away on May 23, 1937, about two years before hitting 100.

INDUSTRIALIZATION AND LABOR UNIONS.

1.  The Business of Railroads –railroad mileage increased after the Civil War from 35,000 miles in 1865 to 193,000 in 1900.  Railroads encouraged mass production and mass consumption. They triggered economic prosperity since they were able to deliver goods to different parts of the country.  Railroads were built with steel and coal and therefore promoted the growth of the steel and coal industries.  The American Railroad Association divided the country into four time zones in 1883.  Its significance was a benefit to the improving of America.

 2.  Eastern trunk lines – In the early decades of railroading, 1830-1860, the building of dozens of separate local lines had resulted in different gauges (distance between tracks) and incompatible equipment.  “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt used his wealth earned from a steamboat business to merge local railroads into the New York Central Railroad (1867), which ran from New York City to Chicago and opened more than 4,500 miles of track.

3.  Western Railroads- The great age of railroad-building coincided with the settlement of the last frontier.  Railroad played a critical role in the trans-Mississippi West by promoting settlement on the Great Plains and by linking the West with the East which created one great national market.

4.  Competition and Consolidation-In the 1870s and 1880s, railroads, like other new technologies and industries, seemed to be overbuilt, making them unprofitable.

5.  At this time there were some railroad companies received more than 170 million acres of public land, more than three times the acres given away under the Homestead Act, and the land grants and cash loans promoted hasty and poor construction and led to widespread corruption in all levels of government.

6.  The Oil Industry- The first U.S. oil well was drilled by Edwin Drake in 1859 in Pennsylvania.  Just four years later, in 1863, a youthful businessman, John D. Rockefeller founded a company that would come to control most of the nation’s oil refineries by eliminating its competition.

7.  Andrew Carnegie- Carnegie employed a business strategy known as vertical integration, in which a company would control every stage of the industrial process, from mining the raw materials to then transporting the finished product.

8.  General Grenville Dodge directed construction of the Union Pacific using thousands of war veterans and Irish immigrants.

9.  Charles Crocker recruited 6,000 Chinese immigrants, who blasted tunnels through the Sierras for the Central Pacific.

·        Between the civil war and 1900, steam and electricity, iron, and steel replaced old fashioned methods in homes, streets, and factories

·        The telephone, typewriter, and “adding machine” speeded up the work of business

·        Immigrants would come from Europe and China to make the new labor force

·        Between 1960 and 1914, New York grew from 850,000 to 4 million, Chicago from 110,000 to 2 million, Philadelphia from 650,000 to 1.5 million.

·        The Union Pacific used twenty thousand workers—war veterans and irish immigrants, who laid five miles of track a day and died by the hundreds in the heat, cold, and the battles with Indians opposing the invasion of their territory.

·        In 1889, records of the Interstate Commerce Commission showed that 22,000 railroad workers were killed or injured.

·        The Standard Oil Company, by 1899 was a holding company which controlled the stock of many other companies. John D. Rockerfeller’s fortune was estimated at $200 million, until he would move into iron, copper, coal, shipping and banking, in which his profits would be $80 million a year, and his fortune would total to $2 billion.

·        Andrew Carnegie was saw the new Bessemer method of producing steel, and returned to the United States to build a million-dollar steel plant.

·        In 1886, court did away with 230 state laws that had been passed to regulate corporations.

·        The spread of public school education enabled the learning of writing, reading, and arithmetic for a whole generation of workers, skilled and semiskilled, who would be the literate labor force of the new industrial age.

The Rise of Smokestack America

1.) Manufacturing replaced agriculture as the leading source of income between 1860 and 1900

2.) By 1890 a majority of Americans held non-agricultural jobs and 1/3 of Americans lived in cities

3.) By 1900 three times as many goods per person existed as in 1860

4.) The income of workers increased by more 2% a year from 1860-1890.

5.) Andrew Carnegie used new processes and ways of organizing the steel industry which made the price of steel go down. When he first used the Bessemer process in his steel plant in the mid-1870s, the price of steel went from $100 a ton to $12 a ton by 1900.

6.) Thomas Edison set up a research lab with many specialists and facilities. In 1880 Edison developed the first safe lightbulb and also created a company in New York to build an electric generating station that would provide the city’s customers with electricity.

7.) The first transcontinental railroad was finished in 1869 and by 1890 there were 165,000 miles of tracks.

8.) American companies began to go overseas to expand their production in the 1880s. Singer Sewing Machine had a factory in Scotland and two decades later it employed 2,500 workers and 300 managers, manufacturing 400,000 machines.

9.) Between 1860 and 1900, overpopulation, depressed conditions, unemployment, and crop failures sent 264,000 Chinese immigrants to the United States.

10.) Middle class families in 1900 had an average of 3.5 children while working class and immigrant families had an average of 5.7 children.

John Davidson Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York in 1839. He attended the Cleveland Central High School and at 16 he became a clerk in a commission house. Determined to work for himself, Rockefeller saved all the money he could and in 1850 went into business with a young Englishman, Maurice Clark. The company, Clark & Rockefeller Produce and Commission, sold farm implements, fertilizers and household goods. He also was an American industrialist and philanthropist who played a pivotal role in the establishment of the oil industry, and defined the structure of modern philanthropy. Rockefeller strongly believed that his purpose in life was to make as much money as possible, and then use it wisely to improve the lot of mankind. In 1870, Rockefeller helped found the Standard Oil Company. Over a forty-year period, Rockefeller built Standard Oil into the largest and most profitable company in the world, and became the world's richest man. Rockefeller was extremely hard working. He traveled extensively, drumming up business throughout Ohio, and then would go to the banks and borrow large sums of money to handle the shipments. This aggressive style built the business up every year.

10 Facts – Robbers, Barons, and Rebels

1. Between 1860 and 1914, New York City grew from 850,000 to 4 million, Chicago grew from 110,000 to 2 million, and Philadelphia grew from 650,000 to 1 ½ million.


2. 22,000 railroad workers were either killed or injured in the building of the transcontinental railroad.


3. In the 1880s and 1890s immigrants were pouring into the country from Europe at a faster rate then ever before.


4. By 1880, the Chinese population in California reached 75,000 or 1/10th of the state population.


5. The Socialist Labor party was formed in 1877 and helped to organize unions among foreign workers.


6. In 1880, African Americans wage rose to $1 a day, from $0.75.


7. The year 1893 saw the biggest economic crisis in the history of the country. Wild industrial growth, financial manipulation, uncontrolled speculation, and profiteering were all very common.


8. The Farmers Alliance in the 1880s and 1890s later became known as the Populist Movement.


9. Farming soon became mechanized with steel plows, mowing machines, reapers, and improved cotton gins.


10. The crowded cities of the east needed food, consuming 82% of all food produced in the united states.

Basketball was invented in early December 1891 by Dr. James Naismith in a YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts.  He invented it because he wanted to create a tough and physically challenging game for his students to do in the harsh New England winters.  He nailed a peach basket to a 10 ft. track above the floor.  They played with a soccer ball and after each basket they had to poke the ball out with a dowel because the net retained its shape and the ball didn't fit through.  Basketball quickly spread through the USA and Canada through the YMCAs.  It actually became a popular sport where people loved to watch and many amautuer leagues popped up over the country.  Nowadays, basketball is one of the most popular sports with leagues ranging from little kids to the NBA, the highest paid league in the world.

http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/ppet/edwin/page1.asp?secid=31

http://www.answers.com/topic/history-of-the-petroleum-industry

THE BIRTH OF THE OIL INDUSTRY

In 1859, the world was changed forever by an event that took place near Titusville in northwestern Pennsylvania. Edwin L. Drake, on August 27, struck oil in the first commercially successful well drilled specifically for oil, launching the modern petroleum industry in the United States. Drake did not however discover oil, nor was he the first to find it in North America.  Native Americans had gathered oil from wood-cribbed seeps and springs along Oil Creek since the 1400s. By the eighteenth century, oil traded by Seneca Indians, called "Seneca Oil," was used medicinally by settlers throughout the region.  Settlers used oil as grease for useful wagons and tools along with medicine. The first oil corporation, which was created to develop oil, found floating on water near Titusville, Pennsylvania, was the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company of Connecticut (later the Seneca Oil Company).   Like I said, Edwin Drake then engaged to locate the oil there. Drake employed William Smith, an expert salt driller, to supervise drilling operations and on August 27, 1859, they struck oil at a depth of sixty-nine feet. So far as is known, this was the first time that oil was tapped at its source, using a drill. Petroleum was an unwelcome byproduct of salt wells drilled in Ohio, New York, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.  Many of the early explorers of America encountered petroleum deposits in some form.  Sometimes oil contamination was so great that the salt wells were abandoned, yet enterprising owners of one Kentucky salt well bottled the oil and sold it as medicine in 1829.  By 1858, large quantities of carbon oil were sold in New York City, quickly replacing other dangerous and more expensive lamp fuels. Petroleum from northwestern Pennsylvania became the chosen lubrication for the textile industry. Demand for oil drove the price from seventy-five cents to two dollars a gallon and set the stage for the drilling of Drake's well.  Edwin Drake set a notably solid basis in the oil industry with his well, leading up to today’s oil demand and economy.  The United States was blessed with plentiful supplies of oil its growth to the rank of a great power accelerated. In today's world as an oil-dependent power it must find alternate sources of energy or accommodate drastic changes in its way of life and position in the world.

Rock oil distilled from shale became available as kerosene even before the Industrial Revolution began. While traveling in Austria, John Austin, a New York merchant, observed an effective, cheap oil lamp and made a model that upgraded kerosene lamps. Soon the U.S. rock oil industry boomed as whale oil increased in price.  Samuel Downer, Jr., an early entrepreneur, patented "Kerosene" as a trade name in 1859 and licensed its usage. As oil production and refining increased, prices collapsed, which became characteristic of the industry. Titusville and other towns in the area boomed economically due to the oil findings.  One of those who heard about the discovery was John D. Rockefeller.  Rockefeller became a leading figure in the U.S. oil industry. In 1859, he and a partner operated a commission firm in Cleveland. They soon sold it and built a small oil refinery. Rockefeller bought out his partner and in 1866 opened an export office in New York City.

Additional discoveries near the Drake well had led to the creation of numerous firms and the Rockefeller Company quickly began to buy out or combine with its competitors.  When the Civil War interrupted the regular flow of kerosene and other petroleum products to western states, pressure increased to find a better method of utilizing oil found in such states as California.  In 1900, it purchased the Pacific Coast Oil Company and in 1906 incorporated all its western operations into Pacific Oil, now Chevron.  In 1901 one of the largest and most significant oil strikes in history occurred near Beaumont, Texas, on a mound called Spindletop.  As Standard Oil grew in wealth and power, it encountered great hostility not only from its competitors but from a vast segment of the public. The Industrial Revolution had harmful effects on many farmers and residents of small-town America, yet the birth of the oil industry sparked creditable economic advancement for our country.  Therefore, the birth and follow through of the oil industry, like anything else, had its ups and downs throughout its span and will continue to live in industrial America. (all thanks to the original well of Edwin Drake and his help).

-kels

melissa wrote:

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John Davidson Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York in 1839. He attended the Cleveland Central High School and at 16 he became a clerk in a commission house. Determined to work for himself, Rockefeller saved all the money he could and in 1850 went into business with a young Englishman, Maurice Clark. The company, Clark & Rockefeller Produce and Commission, sold farm implements, fertilizers and household goods. He also was an American industrialist and philanthropist who played a pivotal role in the establishment of the oil industry, and defined the structure of modern philanthropy. Rockefeller strongly believed that his purpose in life was to make as much money as possible, and then use it wisely to improve the lot of mankind. In 1870, Rockefeller helped found the Standard Oil Company. Over a forty-year period, Rockefeller built Standard Oil into the largest and most profitable company in the world, and became the world's richest man. Rockefeller was extremely hard working. He traveled extensively, drumming up business throughout Ohio, and then would go to the banks and borrow large sums of money to handle the shipments. This aggressive style built the business up every year.

 

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Sarah Mulvey

January 18, 2007

of course i forget my works citied:

Industrialization and Labor Unions/Urbanization & Immigration

1.Railroads linked the country, increased mass production, and promoted the growth of industries.

2.Some immigrants emigrated to America to escape from joblessness in Europe. America held many job opportunities due to industrial jobs in the cities. Over 16.2 million came to America between 1850 and 1900

3.Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Banned any new immigrants from China

4.Streetcars made transportation easier. People in cities could work out of walking distance from their homes after streetcars were invented. Streetcars replaced cable cars and horse drawn carriages. Streetcars, however, divided the people in cities. Middle to upper class people moved to the parts of the cities that had streetcars and left the older parts of the cities to the poor. Most of these poor people were immigrants

5.Over crowed cities spread diseases such as typhoid, cholera, and tuberculosis

6.Families in cities were smaller and did not include extended family most of the time. Children were an economic burden so more and more people began to have less and less kids.

7.Vertical integration- one company controls all stages of a certain industry. This was introduced by Andrew Carnegie

8.Industrial warfare - many laborers were unhappy with the conditions they had to work under and the small wages they collected for their hard work. Many began to go on strike. Besides having to fight off local police, laborers also had to put up with employers binging in “strikebreakers” and being locked out, along with other things.

9.Skyscrapers. The first skyscraper made from steel was built by William Le Baron Jenny. Some of the inventions that made this skyscraper possible were the Otis elevator and the central heating.

10.The growth of Public schools resulted in 90% of the population being able to read by 1900.Early childhood education was also promoted with the introduction of the kindergarten. High schools focused on teaching young adults how to become better citizens.