The demand for cheap labor

was so great that even small

children, like these nine-year-
old boys, were sent off to work
with dangerous machinery.

Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish

immigrant, built a huge steel
empire based in Pittsburgh.

New industries such

as the automobile
industry quickly
transformed America
and its cities.

“Concentrate your energies,

your thoughts and your
capital. The wise man puts
all his eggs in one basket
and watches the basket.”
–Andrew Carnegie

86
 The terrible abuses of C H A PT ER 6
workers led to great
many protests
marches.

C A P T A I N S O F I N D U S T R Y

FROM FARM The discovery of oil in

Oklahoma and Texas created a
second gold rush—this time for

TO “black gold,” the nickname for

the valuable fuel source.

FACTORY1 8 7 0 – 1 9 2 0

Oil wells gushed. Smoke stacks

belched dark clouds skyward.
Whistles blew, machines whirred,
and the pace of life sped up as
people left small town life
behind to answer the call of
the great Industrial Age.

87
 Between the Civil War and World War I, the United States was
transformed from an agricultural to an industrial nation. WHY BIG BUSINESSES
PROSPERED
Before the Civil War 90 percent of all Americans were
farmers. Today only 2 percent are. Everything changed FASTER TRANSPORTATION
with the arrival of the Industrial Age.

The Business
of Being Big
Railroads, steamships, telephones, electricity,
automobiles. All of these things, combined with the
Rapid advances in transportation “shrank” the
arrival of a huge new labor force from overseas, nation. A trip from New York to California, that
brought sweeping change to America in the years once took several months, could now be completed
between 1870 and 1914. in days. Even many small towns had access to the
Virginian Cyrus McCormick’s reaper is a perfect railroads.
example of how things changed. His first reaper,
invented in 1831, could mow a field five times faster
than a person using a scythe—a stick with a curved
blade on one end. But McCormick kept working to
make his invention even better. Soon, to meet growing
demand for his machine, McCormick moved to Chicago
and opened a reaper factory. In the 1870s McCormick’s
company came out with a reaper that automatically
bound bundles of harvested wheat with wire. LOWER
Mechanization had changed the business of farming COSTS
forever. Some Americans, now freed from long days of
heavy labor, could turn their talents toward engineering Machines could now mass-produce things that used
and inventing new and even to be made by hand, such as shoes and furniture.
better ways to live. This led to lower production costs since it took less
time to complete finished
goods.
An
early ADVERTISING
ad for a “Buy this!” “Try that!”
reaper “Just 5¢!” As huge
printing presses cheaply
churned out magazines
and newspapers, big
businesses discovered
that advertising
made people spend
and buy more.

McCormick’s simple reaper

reduced labor needs and CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY
increased production so A generation of smart and daring entrepreneurs,
fewer farm hands were willing to take risks to succeed, changed the
88 needed. way American businesses worked.
 WHY INDUSTRIES GREW Words to Know

Mechanization
New energy sources like electricity ran
machines more efficiently, while trains and
steamships moved raw materials, such as steel (mek-uh-niz-ay-shun)
and cotton, more quickly and easily from field or The use of machines to replace
mine to factory or market. human or animal labor.

EASY ACCESS
TO MATERIALS
AND ENERGY
IMMIGRANT LABOR
There were plenty of people willing to work for
America’s new industries. Anxious for any jobs, new
immigrants willingly worked long hours for low
wages. Sadly, young children were another source of
cheap labor.
NEW
INVENTIONS
All those new
inventions—cars,
telephones, lightbulbs,
gramophones—
needed factories
built.
FINANCIAL RESOURCES
New ways to borrow money to start
businesses led to the rapid growth
of all sorts of new companies.
FAREWELL FARM,
HELLO CITIES
During the half-century after the
Civil War people flocked to
America’s big new industrial
cities—Detroit, Chicago, New
York, and Pittsburgh. Some
people were African Americans,
fleeing the Jim Crow South.
Others were immigrants who had
just arrived from Europe and were
desperate to work.
To meet the demands of new national markets,
factories churned out clothing, furniture, and all the
parts needed to make more machinery.
Mail-order catalogs, an exciting new “invention,”
brought all these wonderful
new items aboard
speedy trains to
people all across
America.
FINDING THE
MONEY TO
MAKE MORE
MONEY
How did people
start companies? A page from the 1908
Where did they get the cash Montgomery Ward
catalog offered a wide
needed to pay salaries and
variety of wagons for
build factories? Some folks
borrowed money from banks,
sale.
but many others sold small “shares” of their business
to people willing to take a chance on investing. When
a business started to make money, its shareholders
would get a percentage of the profits. That way of
funding new business became the cornerstone of
America’s economy. Many people made enormous
fortunes by offering financial resources to help new
businesses begin or expand.
89
 Captains of Industry
Railroads, steel, and oil were three big businesses that transformed America
in the years between 1870 and 1914. Meet three men who became mega-
millionaires by being the best at what they did.

CORNELIUS VANDERBILT: SHIPPING AND RAILROADS

An early riser and compulsive worker,
Vanderbilt was running a profitable ferry
business in New York by the age of 16. Thirty
years later he had built up that business to
the point where he controlled a huge fleet of
steamships servicing ports all along the
Atlantic Coast. “I have been insane on the
subject of money-making all my life,” he said.
Becoming rich was his goal and he set out to achieve it. 1794-1877
Vanderbilt began buying up struggling railroad companies.
He made sure his railroads ran on time and provided great service.
By the 1870s his empire covered the entire Northeast all the way to Chicago,
and he became the largest employer in America, as well as one of the wealthiest.
Money-crazed, he lived life with gusto. He built several huge mansions, gave
generously to many causes, and started a university in Nashville, Tennessee.

ANDREW CARNEGIE: STEEL

Even as a 13-year-old immigrant from Scotland, young Carnegie knew the
value of hard work. He got a job at a cotton mill in Pennsylvania, but longed to
go to school. Since that was impossible, he located a small library and read
everything he could get his hands on.
While working as a messenger boy, then a telegraph operator, and eventually,
a railroad company clerk, Carnegie saved his money. He began investing in
companies that made train cars, built bridges, locomotives, and rails—all of
which needed great quantities of steel. He figured, “Why not own a steel mill?”
Soon he was running the biggest, most profitable steel mill in America.
In 1901 he sold his companies and did something totally wonderful with his
money. He gave 90 percent of it away to build more than 2,500 public libraries
throughout the English-speaking world. His wealth built schools and colleges,
1835-1919 and to this day Carnegie’s money is still helping needy organizations.

WHAT IS STEEL?
Here’s the recipe. Make iron (found in a type of rock),
then mix with the carbon from coal. Add limestone. Heat
the mixture in a blast furnace, then expose it to pure
oxygen. While it is still very hot, it will be a kind of steel
soup which can be poured into molds and formed into
sheets or shapes. When it cools, it becomes a super-
strong material— perfect for building bridges,

90
locomotives, and skyscrapers.
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER: OIL
With a strict, Bible-quoting mom, and a
traveling salesman father who sold
useless “medical cures,” Rockefeller got
mixed messages about life. He chose to
listen to his mom. He worked hard, saved hard, and learned to be
charitable. He loved math, so he studied business and at age 16 went to
work. Rockefeller was a hard worker—honest and eager to learn. By the
time he was 19 he decided to start his own business.
He realized that Cleveland, Ohio, where he lived, was a perfect location for
storing and shipping raw industrial materials. The city was midway between
the East Coast and Chicago and had both rail and water transportation. Oil
was beginning to be used as a fuel source, but it needed refining to be
usable. Rockefeller decided oil was the perfect product to distribute.
Rockefeller was a “control freak” and got involved in every part of
1839-1937
the refining process, from barrel-making, to manufacturing the
pipes to move oil, to shipping the oil. He began buying up all his
competitors. Standard Oil, Rockefeller’s new business, soon
WHAT IS REFINING?
When oil was first found while drilling
became an enormous company—eventually controlling 90 percent
for water and salt, it was considered
of the oil industry. At that time, oil made life better for Americans,
junk. At the time, most people lit their
from heating homes, to providing light, to fueling automobiles as homes with whale oil. But as whales
they began driving down America’s roadways. were overhunted, people discovered
Rockefeller’s mother’s lessons of generosity stayed with him. that oil could be used for light and
After his ruthless rise to riches, he used much of his fortune to heat. Oil is complicated. Gasoline,
fund medical research and public health efforts. He left a charitable kerosene, and diesel fuel all come from
trust behind that is still a major philanthropy that works to oil, but each must be separated in a
improve life all over the world. unique way to be useable. That is
called refining. Refining uses heat and
WHEN DOES BIG GET TOO BIG? chemicals to extract the part of the oil
Rockefeller’s Standard Oil soon controlled the entire oil business. that is best suited for heating homes,
When this happens, it is called a monopoly. Just like the game of driving cars, lubricating machines, or
the same name, people who have monopolies can charge too much other uses.
for their product and have too much influence on political
decisions. Many people were outraged about the
power held by these huge corporations, and
eventually the U.S. government stepped in and
broke up some big companies into smaller
businesses.

Words to Know

Monopoly (muh-nop-uh-lee)
A product or business with many
buyers but only one seller.

Philanthropy (fill-an-thruh-pea)
A political cartoon from 1904
shows Standard Oil as a giant
An organization that helps people by giving them octopus strangling the nation.
money or offering volunteer helpers.
91
The effects of
industrialization led to In the late 1800s half the people working in the
the rise of organized textile mills of the Northeast were kids your age.
labor and important And so what if they had to work long hours for
workplace reforms. low wages in unsafe conditions? They were lucky
to have the jobs!
A nine-year-old oyster

Little Laborers
They were young boys and girls—some as young as
worker pries a shell
apart with a knife.

first-graders—working 12 hours a day, and often way into

the night. They worked in dangerous textile mills, where
clanging machines caused many of them to lose their
hearing or their fingers. They worked in mine shafts that
were pitch black except for the flicker of tiny gas lanterns
atop their hats. They worked in cotton fields and
cranberry bogs, backs bent and fingers raw. They stood CHILD’S “PLAY”
on street corners selling newspapers in the freezing cold Here are some of the jobs kids had.
and pouring rain. They wielded sharp knives, prying
In the days before
shellfish apart. Child labor was America’s sad secret in NEWSIES TV and the Internet,
the years between the 1870s and the 1930s.
people got the latest
Surely there were laws to protect these children! Well,
news from news-
there were. One law said kids under the age of 14 could papers sold by small
ONLY work 12 hours a day and not one second more. children on street
corners.
WORK, WORK, WORK!
In the early America of small
farms, families depended on
everyone—even very young
children—to help with planting, Urgent messages
picking, and preserving. But with the sent by
arrival of the Industrial Age, life took telegraph were
a dark turn for many children. Their delivered by
days were filled with work and no youngsters who
play. were “on call”
day and night.
MESSENGERS
EY E WIT N ESS TO
HISTORY
Photographer Lewis Hine traveled all over
the U.S. documenting the lives of child
workers. He describes a mine:
“The dust was so dense at times as to
obscure the view. This dust penetrated the
PIECE-
utmost recesses of the boys’ lungs. A kind
WORK
of slave-driver sometimes stands These children worked well into the night,
This ten-year-old “trap over the boys, prodding or kicking earning 35 cents for every 1,500 artificial
boy” worked in a dark them into obedience.” flowers they made. The flowers were used
mine shaft 12 hours a day,
to adorn clothing and women’s hats.
opening and closing doors
for 60 cents a day.
 WHEN I GROW UP
I WANT TO BE…
Some children worked in “street trades”—selling
newspapers, delivering telegrams, shining shoes,
and running errands. Others worked at home
alongside their parents, doing piecework—sewing
on pockets or attaching tags—a thousand at a time
for a few pennies. Boys went off to work in the
mines where their small size was an advantage for
squeezing into tight places. Textile mills and glass
factories eagerly employed children who toiled for
pennies a day, and the food industries hired small A ten-year-old
children to shuck oysters, clean shrimp, and stuff cranberry picker
sausages. Children were often beaten for working wades through a
too slowly. It was a difficult life. mushy bog.

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE This poster argued

How could America prosper with a generation of against child labor.
children who worked all day and barely went to school?
Something had to be done. Several organizations were started to
protect factory workers from bosses who exploited them. These new
groups, called trade unions, were formed, and by the late 1800s the
first proposals to reform child labor laws began to be discussed.
In 1904 the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) was founded to
end the tragedy of small children who had been deprived of their
childhoods, but it would take more than 30 years to have national
laws put into effect.

This bobbin girl at a textile mill in

Virginia had to make sure all the spools
were properly threaded at all times.

Injuries were an
everyday occurrence
in the dangerous
mills and factories.
93
The effects of industrialization led to the
rise of organized labor and important
workplace reforms.
As America’s businesses grew, people
were being forced to work longer
hours, in ever-worsening conditions,
for meager wages. The fight to
change things led to great struggles
and sometimes violence.
By the 1870s there was big trouble brewing in the rail yards,
factories, mills, and mines of America. Why? Wages were low,
hours long, and working conditions often extremely dangerous.
Workers were suffering crippling injuries. America’s workers
wanted more control over their work lives. They grew angry
watching the posh lifestyles of those who owned and managed
the companies they toiled for. What could they do?
TROUBLE BREWS
In the years after the Civil War, America went railroad crazy.

We Will Everyone wanted to build a railroad or own shares in a

company that did. Soon there were too many railroads. Many
began to fail. Investors who had seen the railroads as an easy

Not Work! way to get rich lost money, and the banks that had loaned
money to investors lost huge sums as well.
In a two-year period between 1873 and 1875, almost a quarter
of the railroads went out of business. As a result, thousands of
A call to action in businesses closed, people lost their jobs, and those who did
both English
have jobs saw their pay cut almost in half. Folks who earned a
and German went
out to workers. dollar a day were lucky.
The country had sunk into
an economic depression
that would last for five grim
years. Workers were angry.
It was time for action.

THE RAILROAD
STRIKE OF 1877
By 1877 huge numbers of
workers could not find jobs.
1877’s Great Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio
Strike lasted 45 days
Railroad cut its workers’
and spread to more
than 15 cities. It left wages and soon cut them
many dead and a deep again. At the same time, the
distrust between “boss” railroad announced a fat dividend (money paid to investors) of 10 percent for
and worker. shareholders. The desperate workers decided to go on strike in West Virginia,
and soon they stopped working in cities all across the country.
Neither side would budge. The workers knew it did them no good to simply
stop working. To get management’s attention they had to keep the trains from
Words to Know running. Violence against railroad property seemed one way to do it.

Depression Management asked the state governors to bring out the militia, and in Pittsburgh
(dee-presh-un) militiamen fired into a crowd and killed 20 people. One railroad owner was
An economic period quoted as saying if the striking workers were given “a rifle diet for a few days”
when many people we’d “see how they like that kind of bread.” For a few weeks, the nation seemed
cannot find work, heading into a new kind of civil war. President Hayes replayed the role of
prices drop, and there President Lincoln after Fort Sumter, consulting with his cabinet on strategy. He
is very little trade or was sympathetic to the workers—he wrote in his diary that they were “good
investment. men” —but in nine states he called out U.S. soldiers to restore order.
94
 THE RISE OF THE LABOR UNION
In the months after the Great Railroad Strike, workers talked about
Words to Know
ways to better their work lives. Many industries, from steel workers
Labor Union
to garment makers, began forming labor unions. But what if all the A group of workers who have
workers’ unions gathered together into one huge organization? banded together to improve
Surely they would be able to bring about swifter change. working conditions, get higher
Samuel Gompers, who had arrived in America as a 13-year-old wages, and shorter hours.
immigrant, helped build such an organization. Young Gompers
Sweatshop
worked long hours in a sweatshop, making cigars. In time, he joined A workplace that pays low
a union of cigar makers and rose to become its president. wages, has unsafe working
In 1886 Gompers became president of the conditions, and demands
American Federation of Labor (AFL), work quotas that are almost
which organized many of the labor unions in impossible to achieve.
the United States into one powerful group. In
the years to come, using strikes, boycotts,
and negotiations, the AFL became a forceful
voice for many of America’s workers. In the
coming years the AFL would fight for the
eight-hour work day, safer working
conditions, and other benefits for workers.
As security guards tried to protect
the “scabs”—the men taking the
striking Homestead workers’ THE HOMESTEAD STRIKE OF 1892
jobs—there were terrible acts of The march of progress sometimes brought trouble. In the steel
mob violence. mills, workers did dangerous work. The most experienced workers
joined a big union, but the skills required became easier to learn,
and men easier to replace. In 1892 Andrew Carnegie decided that
his Homestead steel mill in Pittsburgh would not renew its contract
with the union. He would cut wages. The workers watched as the
manager, Henry Frick, built a tall fence around the plant, topped
with barbed wire. On June 28, he locked the workers out.
The workers went on strike, but Frick hired nonunion strike-
breakers at lower wages. The union steelworkers blocked them so
Frick hired armed security guards. Once again, the strikers fought
back. This was war! Even after the security guards surrendered,
angry people from the community stayed on the attack. The
governor sent 8,000 troops. When a would-be assassin—not a
steelworker—tried to kill Frick, public opinion now turned against
the union men. Desperate for jobs, they returned to work at lower
pay and without their union. The men now worked 12-hour shifts—
the furnaces burning day and night. Every two weeks they got 24
hours off. On every other weekend, they worked 24 hours straight.
HOPE IN THE WORKPLACE
In spite of many violent clashes, the union movement was here to
stay. In the coming years, union actions would result in safer jobs,
decent wages, vacation breaks, and reduced work hours for many
millions of Americans.
95
The effects of industrialization
America was growing very rich, but it seemed as if “Big
led to the rise of organized
Business” had taken over running the nation. Too many
labor and important workplace
companies were making huge profits at the expense of the
reforms.
workers. Who would speak up?

A Time for Change

The sweatshops of New York’s garment industry
were terrible places to work, but on the evening of
March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory
became a fiery tomb for 146 young immigrant women.
Their bosses had locked the exit doors to keep
workers from “stealing.” With flames engulfing the
factory, many girls tried to jump nine stories to safety.
Instead they leapt to their deaths.
THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT
America’s workplaces were dangerous and many big
companies were working their employees to death.
How many would have to die before something was
done? The Progressive Movement set out to make
needed changes.
The public outcry at the news of
the mass deaths was swift and
Words to Know loud. People demanded changes

Progressive that would safeguard workers.
(pruh-gress-iv)
Pushing for change in the hope it will improve life.

MEET THE MUCKRAKERS CHILD LABOR

In a classic book, one of the characters was Photographer Lewis Hine traveled
forced to endlessly rake filthy muck, never across America taking pictures and
looking up from his awful labors. Stuck in the interviewing working children.
muck forever, his life seemed hopeless. The When he asked one child if he
Muckrakers—a group of photographers and knew God, the boy answered,
“No, sir. He must work in a
writers—took their name from this character.
different mine.”
The Muckrakers vowed to make Americans
aware of all the injustice Jacob Riis took photos of orphans sleeping in the
in the nation. America’s streets of New York’s slums. His book, How the
newspapers and Other Half Lives, shocked middle-class
magazines were soon full Americans.
of stories of sadness and
scandal. Readers were
heartsick by what they
read and saw and cried
out for change.

96
 FIXING WHAT WAS BROKEN Words to Know
The Progressive Movement aimed to fix all that was broken in
Trust
American society, from abuses in the workplace to excessive
A group of companies that join
alcohol consumption to “political machines” that cheated to win
together to limit competition by
elections. So much needed fixing! Children belonged in schools, not
textile mills. The Progressive Movement took many forms, with very controlling production and distribution.
different calls for change being pushed by different groups. Even big
business saw that some regulation of the economy was needed. IN HIS OWN WOR DS
At the national level, these reforms included breaking up powerful An excerpt from Upton Sinclair’s book
industrial trusts that strangled their competition, reducing bad food The Jungle describes a Chicago
and medicine, and adding new national parks. At the state level, meatpacking facility:
new roads and schools were big priorities. At the local level, people “There would be meat that had
wanted parks, playgrounds, and improved housing. tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt
A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER and sawdust, where the workers had
The Progressive Movement brought great changes. Safety tramped and spit uncounted billions of
conditions were improved, work hours reduced, and the first child consumption germs. There would be
labor laws were passed. There were new amendments to the U.S. meat stored in great piles in rooms;
Constitution. Women wanted to vote and run for office. Aware that and the water from leaky roofs would
alcohol abuse was a terrible problem—a drunk man might get hurt drip over it, and thousands of rats
on the job or drink up his earnings—some women set out to ban would race about on it. It was too dark
the sale of liquor. Americans wanted change, but what exactly was in these storage places to see well, but
“progress”? Not everyone agreed. a man could run his hand over these
Many white Southerners wanted to try to “improve” politics and piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of
achieve “progress” in the realm of elections and lawmaking by the dried dung of rats. These rats were
keeping black men from voting or holding public office. To some nuisances, and the packers would put
Americans at that time, it seemed “progressive” to finally give poisoned bread out for them; they
some people the right to vote but take it away from others. would die, and then rats, bread, and
meat would go into the hoppers
together.”
THE MEAT INDUSTRY USELESS
Writer Upton Sinclair’s book, MEDICINES
The Jungle, sickened readers with There was absolutely no regulation of the drug industry
horrifying descriptions of filthy in the late 1800s. People could sell anything, and some
working conditions and the crushing of what they sold was deadly. Samuel Hopkins Adams
poverty of the people who wrote a series of very scary articles that, like The Jungle,
put food on our nation’s tables. helped bring about the passage of the 1906 Pure Food
and Drug Act.

POLITICAL CORRUPTION

Many elections were

“bought” by politicians
intent on staying in
power. Lincoln Steffens
wrote about government
corruption in The Shame
of the Cities, in 1906.
97
The effects of industrialization led to
the rise of organized labor and
important workplace reforms.
“And our shoes and stockings and
clothes and food are in there, too,
and they’ll never come out.”
Words to Know

Temperance
(temp-rince)
Drinking or eating in moderation.

Prohibition
Whiskey, Women,
and the Vote
The words said, “All MEN are created equal.” But what about
America’s women? Women worked alongside men while also raising
families, yet they had almost no voice and few rights when it came
to their own lives. That had to change!
In 1913 the city of Chicago had 5,200 grocery stores, but more than
8,300 places to buy liquor. The story was the same in nearly every
American city. In dark, smoke-filled saloons, weary men drank away
their sorrows, often spending most of the week’s salary. American
women, forced to feed their hungry children with little money, were
angry. They began meeting to fight the problem.
BAN THE BOOZE!
The Temperance Movement began long before the 1900s. But
during the Progressive Period, a more intense form, the Prohibition
Movement, gained support. No more drinking! Leading the way were
many of the women who bore the burdens of caring for their
families. As their protests grew, newspapers began writing about an
issue that was seen as a moral disgrace to the nation. Prohibitionists
were successful in many states, but

No Public
(pro-uh-bish-in) they wanted national laws. In early
A law that stopped the 1919 the 18th Amendment went
making, selling, and into effect. Making, selling, and
transporting alcohol were now

Drinking
transporting of
alcoholic beverages. against the law. Still, many

Repealed Americans found ways to evade the
law. Drinking in “secret” continued.
(ree-peeld) THE PROHIBITION ERA By 1933, it had become clear that
Canceled a law.
the amendment was not working.
The amount of drinking had barely changed, so
the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th.

Police and federal

18th Amendment
January 16, 1919
agents seized cases of
…the manufacture, sale, or transportation of
beer and alcohol and
poured them down city intoxicating liquors within, the importation
sewers. Still, people thereof into, or the exportation thereof from
figured out ways to the United States and all territory subject to
keep drinking. the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes
is hereby prohibited.
98
 Women FIGHTING
FOR
EQUALITY

Can Vote
THE SUFFRAGISTS
Susan B. Anthony
As life changed in the Industrial Age, and women were
and Elizabeth Cady
freed from the constant hardships of life on the farm, many
Stanton led the fight
were finally able to attend school. By the 1870s several
to allow women to
women’s colleges had opened their doors, and with
vote. They met for
increased educational opportunities came a new
the first time in 1851
awareness of how unfair life was for women.
and devoted their lives to gaining equal
In the 1830s women had been in the forefront of the
rights for women. Both women were
abolitionist movement to end slavery. Many of those
outspoken and fierce. Anthony was even
women began to see that their own lives were not much
arrested for trying to vote. Their struggles
better. They, too, had no voice in government and as a
inspired new generations of suffragists.
result had no rights. Women began meeting to figure out a
Nearly 70 years would pass before their
way to change the laws. They wanted to vote and were
dream came true of women everywhere in
willing to do whatever it took to make that happen—even
America being able to vote. Neither woman
if it meant getting arrested.
lived to see that day.
WOMEN ARE PEOPLE
TOO! IN HE R OWN WOR DS
By the early 1900s women from all
Ernestine Rose, a suffragist, wrote: Words to Know
across the country, and from all walks

Suffragist
“Carry out the republican principle of
of life, began to join the battle. They
universal suffrage, or strike it from your
marched in parades, picketed the (suff-ruh-jist)
banners and substitute ‘Freedom and Power
White House, and held rallies. A few A person who argued
to one half of society, and Submission and
women ended up in prison for their for the right of women
Slavery to the other.’ ”
actions, then held hunger strikes while to vote.
jailed, which swayed public sympathies
even more. Women’s long fight for the
right to vote ended in 1920 with the
19th Amendment.

19th Amendment
August 18, 1920
The right of citizens of the
United States to vote shall not Women went on hunger strikes and
be denied or abridged by the picketed the White House in rain and
United States or by any State snow. They marched and endured
on account of sex. jail in their fight to get the vote.

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 A Big Business Timeline

1831 Invention of the 1869 The Transcontinental 1870s Cornelius Vanderbilt’s

mechanical reaper revolutionizes Railroad is completed. Rail travel railroad empire sprawls across the
wheat farming. changes America. Northeast to the Midwest.

1870 John D. Rockefeller lays the 1875 Andrew Carnegie buys 1873–1877 A national
groundwork for his refining his first steel mill in depression leads to struggles between
business—Standard Oil. Pennsylvania. rail workers and railroad companies.

1886 The American Federation 1892 The Homestead Strike is a 1900s The Progressive
of Labor is organized to represent dark moment in labor union Movement strives to fix problems
America’s skilled craft workers. history. of all sorts in American life.

1908–1916 Shocking photos 1919 The Prohibition Movement 1920 The 19th Amendment
of child laborers are printed in leads to the 18th Amendment, gives women the right to vote in
newspapers. which bans the sale of alcohol. every state and every election.

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 Explore and Review
Use pages 88–89 to answer questions 1–3.
1. Copy and complete this chart.
Reasons for the rise and prosperity of BIG Factors that resulted in the GROWTH OF
BUSINESS in America INDUSTRY in America
A. A.

B. B.

C. C.

2. How did mechanization influence both farm and city life? List specific examples from the text.
3. What did the creation of a mail-order catalog mean for many Americans?
Use pages 90–91 to answer question 4.
4. Match each captain of industry with the big business/businesses that led to success.
_____John D. Rockefeller A railroads and shipping
_____Andrew Carnegie B oil
_____Cornelius Vanderbilt C steel
Use pages 92–93 to answer question 5.
5. In a paragraph, describe child labor in the late 1800s. List and describe three jobs held by children.
Use pages 94–95 to answer questions 6–8 in complete sentences.
6. How did workers respond to the negative effects of industrialization?
7. What was the American Federation of Labor?
8. In a short paragraph, describe what happened during and after the Homestead Strike of 1892.
Use pages 96–97 to answer questions 9–10 in complete sentences.
9. What were the purposes of the Progressive Movement?
10. Name three changes in our workplaces brought about by the Progressive Movement reforms.

Use pages 98–99 to answer question 11.

11. Copy and complete the chart by placing each phrase listed below in the correct category.
• 19th Amendment • Women gained the right to vote
• Opposed to the making and consuming of alcohol • Prohibited the manufacture, sale, and
• Increased educational opportunities transport of alcoholic beverages
• 18th Amendment • Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

PROHIBITION MOVEMENT WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE

A. A.
B. B.
C. C.
D.

Apply Your Learning

• Big businesses in the late 1800s pushed America into an industrialized age. Today, the technology
industry has pushed the world into a computerized age. Do you think industrialization or technology
has had a bigger impact on American life? Why?
• Why did so many young children have to work in the late 1800s? Would you want any of those jobs?
Why or why not? At what age do you feel a person is old enough to work? Why?
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