Industrialization - Big Business and the West Time Line

By Kurissa

  • First Oil Well Is Drilled

    First Oil Well Is Drilled
    Edwin Drake drills the first oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania.

  • Transcontinental Railroad Completed

    Transcontinental Railroad Completed
    After about six years of manual labor, the last golden spike was driven in Promontory, Utah. The completion was celebrated by a ceremony when the golden spike was driven in.

  • Standard Oil Company

    Standard Oil Company
    Rockefeller started the Standard Oil company with his brother, William Rockefeller, Henry Flagler, and others in Cleveland, Ohio. By 1882 he had a near monopoly which, among his other business practices, resulted in anti- trust laws.

  • Bell Recieves a Patent for the Telephone

    Bell Recieves a Patent for the Telephone
    Alexander Graham Bell received his patent on this day, and three days later successfully tested the invention. However, there were many others( Elisha Gray, Antonio Meucci and Thomas Edison) who claimed to have invented the telephone first.

  • First TelePhone in the White House

    First TelePhone in the White House
    President Rutherford B. Hayes had the telephone installed in the Whites House’s telegraph room, even though the technology new so they had limited uses for it.

  • Incandescent Light Bulb

    Incandescent Light Bulb
    Thomas Edison perfected a high resistence, incandescent electric light bulb in his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. It worked by passing electricity through a thin platinum filament in the glass vacuum bulb, which delayed the filament from melting

  • Standardized Time Zones

    Standardized Time Zones
    Operators of the new railroad lines needed a new time plan that would offer a uniform train schedule for departures and arrivals, so they introduced four standard time zones for the continental United States which offered greater efficiency in production, safety, and scheduling.

  • Electric Trolley Line

    Electric Trolley Line
    The first electric trolley line was invented in Richmond, Virginia and was called the Richmond Union Passenger Railway.

  • Sherman Antitrust Act

    Sherman Antitrust Act
    The Sherman Antitrust Act was the first federal act to outlaw monopolistic business practices and regulated competition among enterprises by prohibiting contracts, combinations, or conspiracies “in the restraint of trade or commerce”.

  • Carnegie Steel Company

    Carnegie Steel Company
    In Downtown, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Carnegie founded his steel company, and eventually monopolized the industry in 1897 by controlling all the levels of production(distribution, finance, etc).

  • U.S. Steel

    U.S. Steel
    J.P. Morgan founded U.S. Steel by combining Carnegie Steel Company, the Federal Steel Company and the National Steel Company. This Became the first billion dollar company.