Technology and the Rise of Big

Business
 Review: Railroads
• Increased railroad construction following
the Civil War
• Went from 35,000 miles of track in 1865 to
over 193,000 miles of track by 1900
• Made possible by Americas growing steel
and oil industries
• Why did the USA experience an economic
boom alongside the growth in our rail
system?
 Telegraph
• Invented by Samuel Morse in 1832
• The telegraph machine received coded
messages across electric wires connecting
long distances
• Morse Code is a system of dots and dashes
that correspond to letters of the alphabet
• Telegraph operators would decode these
messages
• Why is this significant?
 Telephone
• Invented by Alexander Graham Bell in
1876
• Allowed for instant voice to voice
communication over electric wires
• Fun Fact: Alexander Graham Bell
originally suggested “Ahoy” as the
greeting one should use on the telephone
• How is the development in technology
impactful?
 Lightbulb
• Developed by Edison in the 1870s
• One of the thousands of patents that
Edison held
• Allowed for cheaper and safer lighting, the
alternative at the time was oil lamps
 Class Discussion
• How were the growth of the rail system and inventions like the telephone,
telegraph, etc. important for the growth of the American economy?
• How would these inventions effect average Americans at the time?
 John D. Rockefeller Part 1
• Began his career as a clerk in the agricultural
section
• Entered the oil refining business in 1863
• In order to be used, crude oil needs to be
refined into kerosene
• Rockefeller began by founding a business to
transport petroleum products
• He then created a business to make barrels
• Rockefeller did this to cut costs, this process
is called “vertical integration”
Vertical Integration
 John D. Rockefeller Part 2
• Rockefeller founds Standard Oil in 1870
• Began buying out less efficient competition
• Built pipelines to transport oil as railroads
were too inefficient
• By 1879, Rockefeller directly controlled 90%
of oil refining capacity in America
• In 1882 Rockefeller combined his many
refineries in the Standard Oil Trust
 Andrew Carnegie Part 1
• Immigrated to America from Scotland as a
young boy, grew up very poor
• Began working in the railroad industry, worked
his way up through the ranks
• By the 1860s, Carnegie moved to the steel
industry founding The Carnegie Steel
Company
• Was among the first to use the Bessemer
process, which produced steel more efficiently
 Andrew Carnegie Part 2
• The Carnegie Steel Company was the first
company to be valued at one billion dollars
• Carnegie also implemented vertical integration
into his company
• Carnegie was tremendously generous with his
money, funding libraries and higher education
across the nation
• Gave away $350 million by the time of his
death, this would be billions in today’s money
A Depiction of a Robber Baron