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Period: to
Industrial Revolution
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Bessemer Process Invented
The Bessemer Process was invented by Henry Bessemer. The process was an inexpensive industrial process that was used for the manufacture of steel. It worked through the decarbonization of cast iron by forcing a blast of air through the mass of metal when it was in the molten stage. This process removed impurities and led to an abundance of cheap steel. More steel could be produced, more steel products were made, new inventions came from this, and more money was made. -
Edwin Drake Strikes Oil
It was in Titusville, Pennsylvania where Drake finally struck oil nearly seventy feet down into the Earth, after many attemepts to do so before. Drake had originally tried building trenches to see if he could strike oil in the ground but those attempts proved to be failure. It wasn't until he constructed a derrick, or a large crane, that proved to be the success in pumping oil. This started an oil boom and would later help John D. Rockefeller start up his famous oil industry. -
Christopher Sholes invents the typewriter
Christopher Sholes invented the first practical typewriter and and introduced the layout that is still being used today known as the QWERTY. Working along with him also was Carlos Glidden, and Samuel Soule. In 1873 he sold his rights to the Remington Arms Company and the compaby began selling Remington typewriters, as Sholes continued to make improvements on the machine. -
Transcontinental Railroad completion
The Transcontinental Railroad was an American dream which was a railroad connecting the east and west coasts. The need for the railroad was due to the discovery of gold in California leaving many wanting to head to the west coast. It was 2000 miles of track which caused slow but intial progess joining two sets of railroad tracks and allowed for a much less time consuming trip from coast to coast. -
J.P. Morgan starts own private banking company
(No specific date) J.P was the son of a banker and he soon joined the family business to become one of the most famous financiers in history. His company became known to be J.P. Morgan &CO which became one of the leading financial firms and the country and was so powerful that the government looked to the bank for help with the depression of 1895. Hia business was criticzed for being a monopoly due to its great success. -
Credit Mobilier Scandal
The Credit Mobilier scandal was that stockholders in the Union Pacific Railroad formed the Credit Mobilier, the company, and gave it contracts to build the railroad, selling and giving shares in this construction to influential congressmen. It was designed to enhance profits from federal funding of the railroad through bribes to office holders. -
Alexander Grqaham Bell invents the telephone
Before Bell had begun hjis work on the telephone he had spent counltess years trying to perfect the harmonic telegrpah. Bell however got distracted by the prospect of transmitting the himan voice over wires. To promote his idea of the telephone Bell conducted series of public demonstrations and on July 9th, 1877 the Bell Telephone Company was established and the number of people who owned a telephone in the United States grew. -
Munn v. Illinois
What happened was Munn was a partner in a Chicago warehouse firm where he violated the maximum storage of grain.Munn appealed defending that the fixing of maximum rates constituted a taking of property without due process of law. The Supreme Court however uphelded the Granger Laws. -
Thomas Edison perfects the light bulb
Although Thomas Edison technically did not invent the lightbulb he is credited for perfecting it and being able to demonstrate the first one that lights for a long time. Edisont then set out to develop a company that would be able to deliver electricity to be able to light up the cities of the world. This led to him founding the Edison Illuminating Company, alter to be called General Electric Corporation. -
John D. Rockefeller monopoly of oil business
(No specific date) Rockefeller is one of the most well-known names when it comes to both oil and business. Rockefeller supported horizontal integration- a business practice in which one company;s ownership of ither companies in the same business, which undermines capitilism. Rockefeller did this when he organized the Standard Oil Trust and bought all the other companies and had near total-control of the whole business. -
Haymarket Riot
The Haymarket Riot had begun with workers from the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company in Chicago demanding for eight hour work days when they were doing sixty hours a week. During the rally a bomb exploded killing at keast one police officer and seven others and then the police did an open fire on the rioting crowd killing four and wounding many others. -
Interstate Commerce Act
Legislation passed this Act which gave the Federal Government the right to supervise railroad activities. It established that a five member enforcement board, known as the Interstate Commerce Commission, should be made in response to the public demanding railroads should be regulated. This Act wsa used to challenge the Laissez-faire economic idea. -
Sherman Antitrust Act
The Act was based on the power of the Congress to regulate interstate commerce declared that every contract and conspiracy in restraint of foreign trade was illegal. The Act authorized the federal government to institute proceedings against trusts in order to dissolve them. -
Homestead Strike
The homestead strike was another industrial dispute against labor. It started at the Homestead Steel Works where it was announced to workers that wages would be cut ny nearly twenty percent. The workers open fired on a barge filled with strikebreakers where a battle then ensued. The governor of Pennslyvania called for the state militia to gain control of the area again and the plant was reopened. -
Pullman Strike
The pullman strike was the most famous labor conflict in a time of economic depression and social unrest. It began with factory workers from the Pullman Palace Car Company walked out due to failed efforts of negotiating higher wages while instead their wages were declining. The workers asked help from the American Railway Union (ARU) which gave notice that the members would no longer work trains that included Pullman cars, and caused the federal government to get involved. -
Mother Jones addressed railway union convention
"Mother" Mary Harris Jones was labor activist and orator. Mother Jones traveled around organizing unions and known to be "one of the deadliest women" due to her fierce courage and unwillingness to back down on what she believes-shes served many times in jail. It was at this railway convention where the miners she spoke to began to refer to her as mother she was the symbol of resistance to millions of working men and women across the country. -
Eugene Debs forms the Social Democratic Party (SDP)
The path to starting the SDP was Debs reading the works of Kalr Marx and became a socialist believing that capitalism should be replaced. He then joined with Victor Berger Ella Reeve Bloor to form the party where Debs was the SDP's candidate in the 1900 presidental election. The party merged with the Socialist Labor Party to then form the Socialist Party of America. -
Wright Brothers make first succesful airplane
The Wright brothers spent months studying how propellers worked which led them designing a motor to be able accomodate a new 700 pound aircraft to be known as the flyer. The brothers built a downhill track to help the flyer pick up enough speed to fly-which did on the second attempt flying for 12 seconds, the first piloted flight in history. -
Lochner v. NY Decision
The case was that Joseph Lochner, bakery owner, had violtaed the Labor Law that no employee in a bakery is allowed to work more than sixty hours in a week. The Supreme Court ruled that a New York law setting restrictions on working hours for bakers was unconstituional and ruled in favor of Lochner because it contridicted the employer's liberty to contract for labor. -
Henry Ford designs the Model T
The Model T car was specifically designed to appeal the general public as before Ford had been making racecars which the masses could not find use for. The design was light, fast, strong, and made with vanadium steel. The car soon became so popular there were more demands than Ford could manufacture so he invented the motorized assembly line which moved cars to workers and sped up the time and reducing the cost to produce the cars.
