Draft Outline Julie Davis

9-10-08
Hist. 102
8:00-9:20 M&W

I. Big Business/Government/Workers
A. Big Corporations
1. Pools
A. Informal agreements among competing companies to act
together as one.
B. They were designed to remove the competition that led to rate
wars.
C. Without force of laws, pools failed in the end. The weaker ones
failed and the strong prevailed.

2. Horizontal Growth
A. Joining together with rival businesses that produced the same
goods and services.
B. Formal mergers spread and there was an economic panic in the
1890’s.

3. Andrew Carnegie’s Steel Production Company

A. In 1872 he visited the Bessemer process to make steel.
B. This trip influenced the rest of his business.
C. With his steel railroads and buildings all over Homestead and
Pennsylvania were built.
D. The key to his success was expansion.

4. John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Refinery.

A. He bought out competing oil refiners.
B.When desperate for business he bribed rivals, lied, and cheated
to get to the top.
C. The Trust: got stockholders to surrender their share in exchange
for some money.
D. Rockefeller was notorious for crushing rivals and fixing prices.
B. Government
1. Congress
A. Sherman Anti-Trust (1890) The right to regulate interstate
commerce.
2. Supreme Court
A. United States vs. E.C. Knight Co. The United States controlled
over 90% of sugar refining in country.
3. Presidents
A. Theodore Roosevelt was best for the country. He was
considerate for average people and big corporations as well.
C. Workers
 1. Unions
A. National Labor Unions
1. Workers controlled day, better wages, more free time.
2. By 1870 NLU ranks were more than 600,000.
3. Began to fail during depression of 1873.
4. Leaders of union were all skilled and unskilled workers.
B. American Federation of Labor (AFL)
1. Samuel Gompers, leader, Jewish immigrant.
2. Wanted organization, benefits, safe work places, fewer
hours, and higher wages.
3. By 1901 it was the most powerful union in the country
with over a million members, mostly skilled workers.
2. Children and Women workers
A. By the 1900’s the industrial labor force included 1.7
million children.
B. Children worked 60 hours a week on average.
C. Women earned half of what men made in wages.
3. Strikes/ Labor vs. Management
A. Great Railroad Strike
1. 1877, first nationwide strike.
2. Cut wages by 20%
3. It lasted 12 days, left 100 dead, and more than 10
million dollars worth of railroad property ruined.
B. Pullman Strike
1. George Pullman, management.
2. He laid off workers, cut wages but kept company
owned housing high.
3. In 1894 workers convinced the American
Railway Union to support them by boycotting all
Pullman car trains.
4. Strike quickly spread to 27 states and territories.
D. Revolutions
1. During the years of the Depression once America reached its
lowest point when things began to get a little easier, when people
got little opportunity back they realized they didn’t want to
continue in their old ways. This led to a revolution and the U.S.
began to improve from there.

II. Avoiding communism in the United States

The United States avoided communism and made a good decision for our
country. They realized the way they were leading our country was working
in our benefit. Big corporations as well as the regular worker were happy
with there status and wanted better for the country rather than a
communistic society.