Inventors and Industries

• 1876 – the Centennial Exposition was opened showing American invents

• 19^th century – growth of manufacturing industries, production of coal and iron (Mesabi iron deposits found by brothers Merritt by the Lake Superior)

• railroads – very important, linked buyers and sellers all over the country

• by 1913 – 1/3 of the world’s industrial production poured from the U.S. Inventors:

  • Thomas Alva Edison – made more than 1 000 inventions, success in making practical use of electricity, formed Edison Electric Light Company, developed light bulb and built

electrical generating system (dynamos, underground cables, fuse boxes…)

• Eli Whitney – invented the cotton gin, began to make guns in the factory in the way of manufacturing called “American system” or “mass production”

• Henry Ford – made automobiles (Model T) which were put together from the same parts on moving assembly line – cheap and in large quantities

• the growth was controlled by wealthy and powerful businessmen who didn’t care about rights of the others – called “captains of industry”/ “robber barons”:

• Andrew Carnegie

  • became rich from his investments that he concentrated in the iron and steel business

  • owner of half the shares in the Carnegie Steel Corporation with income 20 000 times more than the average income

• John D. Rockefeller – king of the oil industry

• William H. Vanderbilt – railroad king

• they realized they can increase profits by swallow up their rivals and with no competitors raise the price whatever level they wished

• created “corporations” or wealthy, powerful “trusts” that controlled large parts of industry

• Americans were alarmed by their power, by contemptuous way they rejected criticism and public interest and that the country would be controlled by a handful of rich businessmen

The Golden Door

• 1886 - the U.S. got Statue of Liberty from the French to mark the 100^th anniversary of the War of Independence

• about 50 million people have immigrated to the U.S. – 75% of all emigrants in the world

• 1840-1860 because of hunger (Irish potato crops failed) and political unrest lots of immigrants arrived

• 1860s - during the Civil War was offered land to soldiers from Europe, mostly Germany

• later – emigrants from eastern and south Europe

• 1880s Jews entered U.S. because they were being killed in eastern Europe

• 1892 – government opened a special place to entry – Ellis Island where immigrants were examined for disease or whether they are criminal

• despite bad conditions (low paid jobs, foreign language) immigrants enjoyed the religious and political freedom

• Americans were worried, accused immigrants of lowering standards of education, bringing political ideas (anarchism, communism) and taking jobs away

• Chinese workers in California were willing to work for less money – 1882 – Congress banned Chinese/Asian immigration

• 1924 – the Reed-Johnson Immigration Act – no more than 150 000 immigrants a year

• people of similar origin often stay together in “China Towns” or “Little Italys”