Federal Government helped finance the construction of Transcontinental RR construction through land grants (see map on P. 505)
Union Pacific was built westward from Omaha, Nebraska (using Irish immigrant workers) to meet up with the Central Pacific built eastward from Sacramento (using Chinese laborers)
Central Pacific was financed by the Big Four: Stanford, Crocker, Huntington, and Hopkins
"Wedding of the Rails" occurred in Ogden, Utah in 1869
Only James J. Hill's Great Northern R.R. (Duluth to Seattle) was built without government aid
Major Eastern Line was the N.Y. Central R.R. built by Cornelius Vanderbilt
R.R. Corruption: Credit Mobilier, Political Bribery, Monopolies, Combination called pools
R.R. Pools were agreements between railroad corporations to provide the business in a given area and share the profits
Farmers protested by forming the Grange that put pressure on State Legislatures to regulate the railroads
1887 - Interstate commerce commission (ICC) prohibited rebates, pools, and required published rates
Other business combinations to avoid competition included:
Vertical Integration (Carnegie-Steel): mining to marketing trust (Rockefeller-Oil): large scale business combination interlocking directorate (Morgan-Banking): same officers on various board of directors
Steel Industry given boost by the Bessemer process
1990 - Carnegies sold out to J.P. Morgan who launched U.S. steel. America's first billion-dollar corporation
Gospel of Wealth: self-justification by the wealthy based on god's will natural selection
Trust also sought refuse behind the 14th Amendment: corporations were defined as a legal "person" and therefore could not be deprived its property by a state without "due process of the law"
1890 - Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed to forbid combinations in restraint of trade but was primarily used to curb the power of labor unions
By 1880, Northern capital began to erect cotton mills in the south, largely in response to tax benefits and the prospect of cheap and nonunionized labor
Note: By 1900, 1/10 of the people owned 9/10 of the wealth!
Working class was exploited by:
Injunctions ordering strikers to cease striking
Lockouts of rebellious workers
Yellow dog contracts against joining a union
Black lists of agitators
Supreme Court decisions which favored corporations
Early efforts at forming Labor Unions:
1866 - National Labor Union: A social-reform union killed by the depression of the 1870's
1869 - Knights of Labor: The "One Big Union" that championed producer cooperatives and industrial arbitration
1886 - American Federation of Labor: An association of skilled workers' unions pursuing higher wages, shorter working hours, and better working conditions
By 1900 organized labor in America had begun to develop a positive image with the public (Labor Day was made a legal holiday in 1894)