Chapter 11 Summary

Chapter 11, “Robber Barons and Rebels” details events occurring in 1877 and beyond. During this time, labor was rewarded depending on race, sex, nationality, and social class. Steam and electricity replaced jobs and increased efficiency. New inventions, such as manufactured ice, the telephone, and the adding machine, allowed the meat industry and other companies to become feasible. The railroads became a big industry of the time, and bribed many officials. The monopolization of industries raised many wealthy business people. Such as, J. P Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie. The oil company under Rockefeller flourished.

Andrew Carnegie replicated the Bessemer Process in which he made his fortune through steel. He sold his steel company to J. P. Morgan. J. P Morgan formed the US Steel Corporation creating another monopoly.

In 1884 Grover Cleveland became president. He supported the large companies, and did not give aid to Texan farmers when they requested it. During 1889 through 1893 Benjamin Harrison was president. Throughout his term the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed it forbade combinations in restraint of trade. It was used to curb labor unions or labor combinations.

The Fourteenth Amendment was created to help freed slaves, but the corporations used it to call themselves people in court, and decreed that, as such, they could not be deprived of their property by a state without “due process of law”. During all this, education was spreading, and becoming easier to access. However, the government often used the school-houses to simply prepare the children to uphold the system.

Immigrants were poring into the country, and revolutionary talk began to stir the crowds. Many people resented the immigrants, and rioted against them.

Unions were formed to strike at the unfair employers. Many women joined the Knights of Labor to protest the wages and hours they were given. Many strikes came about that lead to the government and corporations granting the workers more favorable conditions.

In the year of 1893 depression hit; banks failed, and businesses closed. From 1860 to 1910 the US Army removed the Indians from the Great Plains, leaving the area wide for the railroads to move in

The population during this era grew very large, and most of the food products were sold in the United States. Inventions helped farming grow such as steel plows, mowing machines, reapers, harvesters, and improved cotton gins. Farmers had to take out loans and because they could not monopolize their product; they were often left in debt. To cure this, the sub-treasury plan was that the government would have warehouses of farm produce that the farmers contributed to, and then the farmers would get certificates from these wear houses. “The Alliance” (page 288) fell into the People’s party, and supported the sub-treasury plan.

Racism intensified and was often used to gain votes for election by playing on people’s feelings towards another race. Patriotism needed to increase in order for the nation to hold itself together. Two years after Mckinley became president, the United States declared war on Spain; war often brings out patriotism.