America: A Concise History (Ch. 17)

First multi-state, national strike in US - significant because ALL workers UNITE. Showed labor's potential power and a scared government and owners who called it a dangerous "insurrection." Worst violence in Pittsburgh. State militiamen bayoneted and fired on strikers and killed twenty. Workers went on a rampage destroying things (burned 40 buildings, 100 locomotives, 1,200 railroad cars). President Rutherford B. Hayes sent federal troops to end the strike.

The Panic of 1873 (and stockholder dividend) led to the strike and the NY Stock Exchange closed for 10 days, credit dried up, foreclosures and factory closings became common - of the country's 364 railroads, 89 went bankrupt

Arrived in America impoverished from Scotland, worked for Pennsylvania Railroad and climbed the managerial ladder - he then became an iron manufacturer and in 1872, built a massive steel mill outside Pittsburgh

First inexpensive industrial process for the mass-production of steel from molten pig iron. Bessemer process revolutionized steel manufacture by decreasing its cost and increasing the scale and speed of production of steel and decreasing labor requirements for steel-making.

Carnegie designed and built this because of the Bessemer process - it is the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel.

Controlled Pittsburgh region's coal mine. Pittsburgh grows as coal, iron, steel all meet on the Monongahela River.

Carnegie and Frick do this to take control of each component (iron, coal, etc) to make the final product (steel) and lower costs.

Stock deals, insider trading, and corruption (Credit Mobilier railroad scandal) grow more common)

insider trading and manipulation lead to huge profits - even though they, such as Jay Gould, rigged stock prices, he forced down rates and benefited shippers

Standard track gauge, Westinghouse brakes (pgh), bigger and faster locomotives

Caused by: railroad construction boom which led to growing debt and bankruptcies - many investors lost money