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Period: to
The Industrial Revolution
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Bessemer Process
The Bessemer Process was the first method for making steel cheaply and in large quantities. In the Bessemer Process, air is blown through molten metal because the oxygen combines chemically with carbon and other impurities and burns them out of the molten metal. Then the purified molten metal can be poured into molds. -
Edwin Drake
Edwin Drake constructed a large crane, also known as a derrik, and it was used to drill oil. On August 27, 1859, the drill dropped into a crevice at 69 feet and slipped down six inches. When the workers pulled the drill out, they found oil pooling from the Earth's surface. The Drake well would remain a "pumper" and oil had to be mechanically pumped from the ground. -
Christopher Sholes
Christopher Sholes was the creator of the first practical type writer, and he introduced the keyboard layout that is used today. He had to keep rearranging the keyboard layout to prevent levels from jamming when frequently used keys were utilized. -
Credit Mobilier Scandal
The Credit Mobilier Scandal was illegal manipulation of contracts by a construction and finance company associated with the building of the Union Pacific Railroad. The incident established Credit Mobilier of America as a symbol of post-Civil War corruption. -
Transcontinental Railroad Completed
The Transcontinental Railroad was a railroad that that linked America's east and west coasts. Constructing the railroad presented a daunting task requiring the layering of over 2,000 miles of track that stretched through some of the most forbidding landscapes on the continent. Progress was slow initially, but eventually the railroad was completed in 1869. -
J.P. Morgan
J.P. Morgan started his own private banking company in 1871, it was called J.P. Morgan & Co. His company was so powerful that the U.S. government looked to the firm for help during the depressio of 1895. The government later filed suit against the company over conserns about monopolies. He was critized for creating monopolies by making it difficult for any business to compete against his. -
Munn v. Illinois
The Munn v. Illinois case was brought to the U.S Supreme Court. Munn was a partner in a Chicago warehouse firm, and he had been found guilty by an Illinois court of violating the state laws providing for the fixing of maxium charges for storage of grain. The case involved an Illinois statute that set the prices grain elevators were allowed to charge their customers, the farmers, in any city with a population exceeding 100,000. This limited the effect of the law to elevators operating in Chicago. -
Alexander Graham Bell
At the age of 29, Alexander Graham Bell invented his telephone, and in 1877 he formed the Bell Telephone Company. -
Thomas Edison
In 1879, Thomas Edison created the light bulb. To create the light bulb he used lower current electricty, a small carbonized filament, and an improved vacuum inside the globe. He was able to produce a reliable, long-lasting source of light. Edison's light bulb was the first source of light that was practical for home use. Eventually he also invented an electric lighting system that contained all the elements of necessary to make the incandescent light practical, safe, and economical. -
John D. Rockefeller
John D. Rockefeller built his first oil refinery near Cleveland. By 1882, he had a near-monopoly of the oil business in the U.S. He organized the Standard Oil Trust, a business trust that would serve as a model for the creation of other kinds of monopolies. His business practices eventually led to the passing of antimonopoly laws. -
Haymarket Riot
The workers at McCormick Harvesting Machine Company in Chicago demanded 8 hour work days. The company locked the workers out of the factory and hired strikebreakers. On May 4th, the workers met at Haymarket Square in Chicago to protest against the company and against the police. The police were brutaly treating the protesters. As a result of the Haymarket riot, many people were killed, and the American labor movement was dealt a severe setback. -
Interstate Commerce Act
The Interstate Commerce Act was created to oversee the conduct of the railroad industry. The railroads became the first industry subject to Federal regulation. -
Sherman Anti-trust Act
The Sherman Anti-trust Act was the first federal act that outlawed monopolistic business practices. It was the first measure passed by U.S Congress that prohibited trusts. A trust was an arrangement by which stockholders in several companies transferred their shares to a single set of trustees. The Sherman Act authorized the Federal Government to institute proceedings against trusts in order to dissolve them. -
Homestead Strike
The Homestead Strike pitted Carnegie Steel Company against the nation's strongest trade union, the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. The strike won the steel workers a three year contract. Andrew Carnegie was determined to break the union. The union would not accept new conditions that Carnegie suggested so a violent strike broke out, many were killed. -
Eugene Debs
In 1893, Eugene Debs was elected the president of the American Railway Union. In 1894, he led a successful strike against the Great Northern Railroad. Two months later he was jailed for forming a strike. In jail he was introduced to the ideas os Marx and socialism. When he was released from jail he annouced that he was a Socialist. He formed the Social Democratic Party, which eventually became the Socialist Party. -
Pullman Strike
Workers from the Pullman Place Car Company walked out of the factory because there was a decline in wages. The boycott was centered in Chicago but it crippled railroad traffic nationwide. The government eventually intervened by forbidding all boycott activity. -
Henry Ford
Henry Ford started his career out as an engineer. In 1896, Ford completed his own self-propelled vehicle: The Quadricycle. Ford was not the first to create a self-propelled vehicle with a gasoline engine, but he was one of several automotive pioneers who helped the United States become a nation of motorists. -
Mother Jones
Mary Harris Jones was known as "Mother Jones" after she addressed the railway union convention. The summer of 1897, over 9,000-member Mine Workers called a nationwide strike of soft coal miners, and the miners laid down their tools. Mother Jane went to Pittsburgh to assist the miners in their strike. She was deeply affected by the "machine-gun massacre" in Ludlow, CO. when National guardsmen raided a tent colony, striking miners and their families. She went across the country telling the story. -
The Wright Brothers
Wilbur and Orville Wright visionary inventors. They spent many years trying, and re-trying to get an airplane to fly. Even after many failures, they never gave up. They designed many different series of gliders. In 1900 the brothers were able to fly the first plane. Their 50 pound glider with a 17 foot wingspan was the first piloted glider. -
Lochner v. NY Decision
The Supreme Court's decision declared unconstitutional a New York law limiting bakery workers to no more than ten hours per day or sixty hours per week. They hoped this law would eliminate the employers' abuse of these workers.
