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Period: to
Industrial Revolution
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Bessemer Process
More HereNamed after Henry Bessemer, the Bessemer Process was the first cheap method for mass producing steel. By using a furnace shaped like a cement mixer, compressed air is blown into the bottom of the converter and the excess carbon is burned out. -
Edwin Drake Strikes Black Gold
More HereDuring the drilling process in an attempt to find oil, water becan to fill the drilled hole. In order to prevent this from happening, Edwin drove an iron pipe down through the bedrock, and then placed the drill inside of it to continue drilling. After nearly seventy feet of drilling, Edwin struck oil. -
Christopher Sholes and the Typewriter
More HereChristopher Sholes invented a machine that transfered inked letters onto a piece of paper one at a time. He organized them in alphabetical order, but then rearranged them due to jamming keys, and unintentionally invented the "qwuerty" keyboard. -
Transcontinental Railroad Completed
More HereThe transcontinental railroad had been a dream for many since the time of the goldrush, and it was finally made possible when the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 gave engineer Theodore Judah the money needed to contruct the railway. The railroad shortened the journey from the Eat Coast to the West Coast from months to days. -
John d. Rockefeller
More HereIn 1870, Rockefeller teamed up with his brother William and Samuel Andrews to create the Standard Oil Company, which quickly extended its control. Standard Oil used cutthroat practices, including monopolization, rate wars, intimidation, and rebates. In 1882, the Standard Oil Trust was formed, but 10 years later the Supreme Court forced the dissolution of the company into 20 smaller buisnesses. Rockefeller retired at this point. -
J.P. Morgan
More HereAfter working for his father, JP Morgan began his own private banking company in 1871, which became known as J.P. Morgan & Co. His bank became one of the most powerful banking firms and the country, and even the U.S. government looked to him for financial help during the Great Depression in 1895. During his career, Morgan was acused of creating monopolies and making it difficult for buisnesses to compete against his. -
Credit Mobilier Scandal
More HereThe Credit Mobilier Scandal was an illegal manipulation of the Union Pacific Railroad, revealing American corruption. Credit Mobilier was charging the Union Pacific Railroad vast amaounts of money, more than was actually required, and generating a huge profit for themselves. -
Alexander Graham Bell and the Telephone
More HereAlexander Graham Bell first set out to develope a more advenced telegraph with Morse Code, and he knew it would be difficult attempting to discover a way to convey the sound across a wire. In this process, he realized the process for the telegraph could also be applied to human speech, because it consists of many vibrations similar to Morse Code. -
Munn v. Illinois
More HereIn 1876, a case was brought to the Supreme Court involving Munn, a partener in a Chicago warehous firm, had been found guilty after violating the state law of maximum charging on storage of grain. He appealed to the Supreme Court, claiming that setting maximum prices was in a way a "taking of property" without due process of law. The Supreme Court upheld the Granger Laws, involving the public regulation of private buisnesses with the publics best interest at heart. -
Thomas Edison
More HereThomas Edison invented the "world phonograph" as it was called, which was a machine that used the vibrations of ones voice when speaking through the mouthpiece to record and reproduce sound. -
Haymarket Riot
More HereWorkers at McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. in Chigaco started a riot in hopes of achieving a shorter work day. On May 4th, a large riot was planned to protect police brutality from a smaller riot the previous day; the crows od 2,000 was peaceful at first, but when they were forced to disperse a pipe bomb was thrown into the police force and police opened fire onto the crowd, killing four rioters and several policemen. -
Interstate Commerce Act
More HereCongress passed the Interstate Commerce act in response to the high demand from citizens that operations in the railroads should be regulated; The Interstate Commerce Commity was created shortly after. From then on, railroads were privately owned, and the railroad companies held a monopoly on the areas they serviced, which allowed them to set the prices, exlude competitors, and control the market in several areas. -
Sherman Antitrust Act
More HereThis was the first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts. A trust was an arrangement where stockholders in several companies tranferred their shares over to a set of trustees. This act allowed the Federal Government to institute proceedings against trusts in order to dissolve them, and people who were found guilty of these trusts were fined up to $5,000 dollars and a year in jail. -
Homestead Strike
More HereIn 1892, depressions in the prices of steel caused wage cuts of nearly 20% or the workers in Homestead Steel Works. On July 6th, the displaced workers opened fire on Pinkerton agents who were brought in as strikebreakers. The governer of Pennsylvania called the state militia to reinstate management over the area, which cut wages even further than before and lenghtened work days, which was what the strikers were trying to avoid in the first place. -
The Pullman Strike
More HereThe Pullman Strike began when Pullman Palace Car Company factory workers decided to rebell when efforts to negotiate declining pay failed. The rebelling workers applied for the support of the ARU (American Railway Union), who decided to no longer use trains that had Pullman Cars; this negatively affected railroad traffic nationwide. -
Mother Jones
More HereThe summer of 1897, tens of thousands of miners laid down their tools in protest and Mary Jones assisted them, earning the name "mother" which stuck. Mary went on to resist violent occurances, like the "Machine Gun Massacre" killing 20 people, by spreading the knowledge to other people. She also assisted many other protests, and led a march of 100 children to president Roosevelt's Long Island home to show the New York millionaires their grievances. -
Henry Ford
More HereIn 1903, the Ford motor company was created with Henry Ford as vice president and chief engineer. Henry Ford realized his dream for building cars in 1908 when the Model T was built, since they were such an efficient form of transportation and also a growing industry. By 1918, half the cars in America were Model T's. -
The Wright Brothers
More HereAround 1902, the Wright Brothers designed a motor and created an aircraft that was sturdy enough to handle the motors weight and vibrations. It weighed 700 lbs, and became known as the Flyer. In 1903, a downhill track was designed for a speedy takeoff, and on the third attempt, the flyer got off the ground for a constant 12 seconds of flight time, the first ever successful piloted flight in history. -
Lochner v. NY Decision
More HereIn this legendary case, the Supreme Court had decided that the New York law for setting work hours in bakeries was unconstitutional. In 1897, New York had passed the Bakeshop Act, a labor law for bakery workers. Joseph Lochner was convincted of breaking this labor law when he allowed an employee to work over 60 hours in one week, and he had his case appealed to the Supreme Court. However, the law was deemed unconstitutional and the conviction of Lochner was reversed. -
Eugene Debs
More HereAfter leading the Pullman Strike in 1894, Debs became a featured speaker for the socialist party. He ran for president in 1900 as their nominee, but lost. His larger success was in 1912, when he campaigned against Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt.Debs recieved almost 1 million votes, 6% of the ballots cast. After being arrested for alleged Espionage, Debs was elected for the 5th time to run for the socialist party and campaigned from his jail cell and got over 1 million votes.
