U.S. History Chapter 10

U.S. History Chapter 10

The New Industrial Age:

Major inventions changed life
- Electric motor
  - More flexible than steam
  - Did not need to be near water
  - Allowed factories to be located anywhere
- Trolley cars
  - First used in Richmond - 1888
  - Spread cities outward
- Light bulb
  - Thomas Alva Edison
- Telephone
  - Alexander Graham Bell
  - Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers - Library of Congress
- Typewriter
  - Created office work for women
- Airplane
  - 1903
  - Wright Brothers
  - Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers - Library of Congress
  - Developed gradually
  - Used in World War I
Industries flourished
- Inside an American Factory - Library of Congress
- Steel
  - Pennsylvania
- Iron
  - needed to make steel
- Coal
  - Mined in West Virginia
  - Needed to make steel
- Oil
  - Whale oil used for lamps
  - Later oil drilling began for lamps and then for cars
- Railroad
- Automobile
  - Internal combustion engine
  - Not invented by any one person
  - Started as a plaything for the rich in the 1880's
  - Henry Ford made available to average person
    - Model T
      - Under $300
      - Assembly line
  - Led to further urban sprawl
Rise of Big Business
- Captains of Industry
- Trusts - a business combination in which management and control of the member corporations are vested in a single board of trustees who are thus able to control a market, absorb or eliminate competition, fix prices
  - Advantages
    - More efficient
    - Reduce waste by eliminating duplication
    - Install new and more productive equipment
    - Sell products for less because they buy in large quantities
    - Able to wait for a profit on new products
  - Disadvantages
    - No competition
    - Creation of robber barons
- Social Darwinism
- Sherman Antitrust Act - 1890
  - Enforcement was almost impossible because wording was vague