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Chapter 19 - Production and Consumption in the Gilded Age 1865-1900

19.1: The Rise of Industry, the Triumph of Business

  • The 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia was not so much a celebration of the United States Revolution as a century earlier industrial and technological pledge.

  • To distribute the increasing volume of goods and create a trustworthy market, companies required new marketing techniques at a national and, in some cases, international scale.

  • The other means of growth, a horizontal combination, meant that the single product was subject to increased market control.

  • The standard oil company, founded in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller was the most renowned case.

Oil Company

19.2: Labor in the Age of Big Business

  • The rapid growth of industry, particularly steady production mechanization, dramatically changed relations between employers and employees, and created new categories of workers.

  • Founded in 1869 by a group of Philadelphia garment cutters, the Noble and Holy Order of Workers became the biggest workers' organisation.

  • The 1886 events marked the rise of the American Federation of Labor, a very different kind of organization (AFL).

19.3: The New South

  • In the 1870s the region enjoyed great potentiality by its abundant natural resources of coal, iron, turpentine, tobacco, and lumber in a vocal and powerful new Southerner group led by Henry Woodfin Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution.

  • Southern industry has made little progress in improving the working lives of the majority of African Americans, who make up a third of the population of the region.

  • There were no greater effects of modern industry than in the Piedmont, from southern Virginia and Carolina central to northern Alabama and Georgia.

19.4: The Industrial City

  • The city population doubled the population of the whole nation. Only 16 cities in 1860 had a population of more than 50,000.

  • Faced with an explosion in population and an unprecedented building boom, towns encouraged the development of a large number of beautiful and useful structures, including commercial offices.

  • By enabling large numbers of employees to live in communities far from their place of work, mass transport has dramatically increased the metropolitan area.

19.5: The Rise of Consumer Society

  • The era after the civil war was marked "The Gold Age" by Mark Twain, a humoristic and social critic, which encouraged the growth of a new business class that pursued money and leisure and established domestic networks to strengthen its power.

  • The rich have created a new type of "conspicuous consumption," according to economist and social critic Thorstein Veblen.

  • In the last half of the century, a new middle class was formed that was very different from its predecessor.

    • The older middle class included small business owners or superintendents, doctors, lawyers, teachers, ministers and their families.

  • Immigrants were often weighed against their memories of the old country by their material abundance in the United States.

19.6: Cultures in Conflict, Culture in Common

  • Business and civic leaders realized that an educated population in a democratic society had the skills and knowledge to maintain industry and government.

  • Established in 1877, Boston's women workers were given a variety of courses by the Women Educational and Industrial Union.

  • Most major cities reserve open land for people to enjoy their leisure time.

    • Central Park in New York opened in 1858 for skating ice, providing the model for the systems of urban parks throughout the US.

  • By the end of the century, the younger members of the urban middle class had begun to find common ground in pastimes of the lower class, in particular ragtime music.

  • The 'rag' quickly became the main element of entertainment in the new cabarets and nightclubs, which was introduced in many northerners by the African American composer Scott Joplin at the 1893 Chicago World Fair.

Male and Female Numbers

19.1: The Rise of Industry, the Triumph of Business

  • The 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia was not so much a celebration of the United States Revolution as a century earlier industrial and technological pledge.

  • To distribute the increasing volume of goods and create a trustworthy market, companies required new marketing techniques at a national and, in some cases, international scale.

  • The other means of growth, a horizontal combination, meant that the single product was subject to increased market control.

  • The standard oil company, founded in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller was the most renowned case.

Oil Company

19.2: Labor in the Age of Big Business

  • The rapid growth of industry, particularly steady production mechanization, dramatically changed relations between employers and employees, and created new categories of workers.

  • Founded in 1869 by a group of Philadelphia garment cutters, the Noble and Holy Order of Workers became the biggest workers' organisation.

  • The 1886 events marked the rise of the American Federation of Labor, a very different kind of organization (AFL).

19.3: The New South

  • In the 1870s the region enjoyed great potentiality by its abundant natural resources of coal, iron, turpentine, tobacco, and lumber in a vocal and powerful new Southerner group led by Henry Woodfin Grady, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution.

  • Southern industry has made little progress in improving the working lives of the majority of African Americans, who make up a third of the population of the region.

  • There were no greater effects of modern industry than in the Piedmont, from southern Virginia and Carolina central to northern Alabama and Georgia.

19.4: The Industrial City

  • The city population doubled the population of the whole nation. Only 16 cities in 1860 had a population of more than 50,000.

  • Faced with an explosion in population and an unprecedented building boom, towns encouraged the development of a large number of beautiful and useful structures, including commercial offices.

  • By enabling large numbers of employees to live in communities far from their place of work, mass transport has dramatically increased the metropolitan area.

19.5: The Rise of Consumer Society

  • The era after the civil war was marked "The Gold Age" by Mark Twain, a humoristic and social critic, which encouraged the growth of a new business class that pursued money and leisure and established domestic networks to strengthen its power.

  • The rich have created a new type of "conspicuous consumption," according to economist and social critic Thorstein Veblen.

  • In the last half of the century, a new middle class was formed that was very different from its predecessor.

    • The older middle class included small business owners or superintendents, doctors, lawyers, teachers, ministers and their families.

  • Immigrants were often weighed against their memories of the old country by their material abundance in the United States.

19.6: Cultures in Conflict, Culture in Common

  • Business and civic leaders realized that an educated population in a democratic society had the skills and knowledge to maintain industry and government.

  • Established in 1877, Boston's women workers were given a variety of courses by the Women Educational and Industrial Union.

  • Most major cities reserve open land for people to enjoy their leisure time.

    • Central Park in New York opened in 1858 for skating ice, providing the model for the systems of urban parks throughout the US.

  • By the end of the century, the younger members of the urban middle class had begun to find common ground in pastimes of the lower class, in particular ragtime music.

  • The 'rag' quickly became the main element of entertainment in the new cabarets and nightclubs, which was introduced in many northerners by the African American composer Scott Joplin at the 1893 Chicago World Fair.

Male and Female Numbers