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Period 6: 1865 - 1898
Chapter 16: The Rise of Industrial America, 1865-1900 [319 - 332]
Due Date: Mon. Jan. 22
-1900: US leading industrial power in the world
-Had raw materials essential to industrialization - coal, iron, ore, copper, lead, timber and oil
-Abundant labor supply including immigrants
-Growing population and advanced transportation network made US largest market
-Capital abundant
-Patent system and technology increased productivity
-Businesses benefited from gov policies (protected private property, subsidized RR, protective
tariffs, limited taxes on corporations)
-Entrepreneurs built and managed huge industrial and commercial businesses
The Business of Railroads (1830-1860)
- Created national market for goods and encouraged mass production, consumption, and economic
specialization
-Resources in RR building promoted growth of coal and steel industries
-RR time became standard time for all Americans
-Creating of stockholder corporation and development of complex structures in finance, business
management, and regulation of competition
-Eastern Trunk Lines
-Inefficiencies of railroads reduced after the Civil War by consolidating competing railroads in to
integrated trunk lines
-Trunk lines connected eastern seaports with Chicago and other midwest cities and set
standards for excellence and efficiency for industry
-Western Railroads
-Promoted settlement on Great Plains and linked West with the East to create national market
-Federal Land Grants
-Federal gov provided RR Co.s with huge subsidies (loans and land grants)
-Gov gave 80 RR Co.s more than 170 million acres
-RR might increase the value of gov lands and provide good rates for transporting troops
and mail
-Negative consequences
-Land grants and cash loans led to poor construction of RR and led to corruption
in gov
-Crédit Movilier
-Insiders used construction Co.s to bribe gov officials for profit
-RR controlled 1/2 land in some western states
-Transcontinental Railroads
-During Civil War congress authorized land grants and loans for first transcontinental RR
to tie CA to rest of Union
-Union Pacific (UP) started from Omaha, NE and built westward
-Employed thousands of war veterans and Irish immigrants under General
Grenville Dodge
-Central Pacific started from Sacramento, CA and built eastward
-Led by Charles Crocker
-Workers (incl. 6,000 Chinese immigrants) laid track and blasted tunnels through
the Sierra Nevada mountains
-RR joined May 10, 1869 at Promontory Point, Utah