Assignment 1.2: Industrialization After the Civil War
David T. LaPradd
Strayer University

After the Civil War, the mass production of steel helped shape America. The mass production of steel allowed the country to increase the manufacturing of the equipment. This was significant in the production of the railway tracks and allowed the country to grow. This growth provided jobs for the working class, the ability to move the goods produced to the marketplaces, and moved the people for the expansion to the west. The early production of steel was costly and time consuming. In England, Henry Bessemer developed an inexpensive way to mass produce steel. The key principle behind his patent was to remove the impurities from the iron by oxidation with air being blown through the molten iron. The iron heated up with the oxidation and kept it in a molten state. This new process changed the manufacturing of a rail that took two weeks to produce down to 15 minutes. Andrew Carnegie brought this process back to the United States. Carnegie saw all of the possible uses of this mass produced steel but before he could realize the materials potential he had to convince the public of its strength. He was charged with building the first permanent bridge to cross the Mississippi River by Tom Scott. Building the bridge utilizing this new processing of steel was what he needed. The bridge took four years to build and had many cost overruns. When it was finally completed no one would use his bridge because they were afraid of it collapsing. He had to come up with a way of convincing people it was strong and safe. He read that an elephant would not cross a structure that was not stable. He used this as a marketing stunt by setting up a parade to cross the bridge led by an elephant on its grand opening, it worked. Eventually, Andrew Carnegie established a steel company which controlled every phase of business from raw materials to transportation, manufacturing, and distribution The mass production of steel brought down the cost of the rails needed for the trains. The primary entrepreneur of the railroad was Tom Scott. He expanded the railway system from coast to coast. For the first time, goods from the American interior could be shipped directly to the Atlantic, and vice versa. However, the railway system was over built and not enough traffic to sustain them. John Rockefeller, an oil entrepreneur made an agreement with Tom Scott to ship his oil at a discounted rate. This was not enough to sustain the railroads so Scott backed out of the deal for the discounts and Rockefeller pulled his oil from the trains. Rockefeller built steel pipelines to move his oil from the wells to market. This devastated the railroad system and almost the collapsed the steel industry. However, with the slowdown of the production of steel for the railway system, structural steel became the next big contribution to steel literally shaping America. The railroad industry was laying off people so they began to migrate to the cities to find work. With this migration people needed places to work and live. Buildings were being built and they began using steel structures to support them. The first skyscraper was built in Chicago in 1814. As Alan Greenspan put it “America grew up vertically on steel”. With people migrating to the cities it caused transportation problems in the inner cities. Between 1870 and 1920, almost 11 million Americans moved from farm to city, and another 25 million immigrants arrived from overseas. By 1920 more people lived in cities than on farms. Although railways were available to carry people over longer distances outside the towns and cities, the shorter, inter-city transportation was from horse-drawn carriages. This caused numerous issues; number of horses, the horses had to be fed, watered and stabled and the manure was overwhelming. One answer to this was lowering the number of horses by using horse drawn trams running on rails within the city. The rails made it easier for the horses to pull and they could pull more with reduced friction of the rails. The horses were replaced with steam engines and later with electric engines through the contributions of Nikola Tesla and the entrepreneurship of George Westinghouse’s investments in Tesla. Americans weren’t the only people migrating to the cities but more immigrants were coming in daily. They provided a workforce for the factories and steel mills that were in need of unskilled workers. Many were previously farmers in their country of origin. The industries took advantage of the immigrants and paid poor wages and dangerous working conditions. The workers rebelled against the conditions. This proved fatal in the Homestead Steel Strike of 1892. Carnegie’s partner, Henry Frick, brought in Pinkerton’s to control the striking workers. The Pinkerton’s were professional guards. There was a clash between them and the striking workers that resulted in nine workers being killed. With majority of the immigrants having a background in farming they migrated west. By 1860, more than one-half of the American population was located west of the Appalachian Mountains. The land in the New England states was rocky but the land to the west was richer. The infrastructure in the west was improving with the railroad. With the rich soil to produce the crops and the railroad to get their crops to the markets made it an ideal situation for an immigrant to thrive. The open lands of the west were also prime territory for the cattlemen. There were approximately 5 million longhorn cattle in Texas in 1865 but there was no market for them in the South. There was, however, a market in the north. The ranchers that transported their cattle to the North were be paid ten times what they were worth in the South. For the most part, they transported their cattle by train to Chicago. According to The American Cattlemen’s Association “one cattleman bought 600 cows for $5,400 and sold them in Chicago for $16,800.” Joseph McCoy was the driving force in the cattle industry in Chicago. He was the entrepreneur of the cattle industry of the time. There were many entrepreneurs of the time. For instance, Andrew Carnegie controlled the steel industry, Henry Frick controlled the coal industry, Rockefeller controlled oil, and Tom Scott controlled the Railroad industry initially. Each dominated their field. They controlled the prices and the workforce with a firm hand. This sort of treatment towards their workers could only be tolerated for so long until the workers realized the wealth was made on their backs. This became obvious by the uprisings. One of the first entrepreneurs that made significant changes in the pay and working conditions was Henry Ford. He increased wages, working conditions and made the way for an eight hour day. This was later adapted into legislation. The politicians at the time didn’t involve themselves in the labor conditions. Their thought pattern was that it should be worked out among the employers and employees and government should not be involved. This was proven by the dismissal of the law suits filed as a result of the Homestead Steel Strike of 1892. This began to change as the people demanded better working conditions. The migration of people to the cities pooled political power to the voters of these cities and the political leaderships found in these cities. The politicians recognized this and ran campaigns to initiate legislation to limit the child workforce, the hours worked in a day, etc. The second industrial revolution provided work to not only the immigrants but to the unskilled workers American workers. This provided a support channel for their families and themselves. They worked hard under arduous conditions and America was built though their hard work. They also were provided an ability to advance themselves. A prime example of the ability to advance themselves is Andrew Carnegie. He was in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland and immigrated at 13 in 1848. He went to work in factory earning $1.20 a week but became one of the richest men of his time. This was the dream of most immigrants and one of the primary reasons to come to America. Andrew Carnegie built the steel industry from the ground. Through the use of mass producing steel at a reasonable cost people like Tom Scott and Henry Ford were able to provide the affordable transportation needed make the country smaller in its ability to move the people and goods from coast to coast like it never had before. The efforts of the farmers, cattlemen and manufactures were no longer limited to local markets. Through the efforts of Scott, Carnegie and Ford they were able to expand their markets to areas where they may be sold at a higher profit and there was more of a demand. The mass production of steel advanced the second industrial revolution. Through Carnegie’s efforts he brought the process from England and allowed our country to flourish quicker than in any other time. The use of the steel provided jobs, allowed the railroads to be built cheaper and quicker, cheaper tools for farming, stronger bridges to be built, other manufacturers such as Ford to build goods for the common man. From the simple shovel to the first skyscraper in Chicago, steel shaped America to what it is today.

References
History Channel. (2015, Jan). Andrew Carnegie. Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/andrew-carnegie-9238756#synopsis
History Scene. The Second Industrial Revolution, 1870-1914. Retrieved from http://www.ushistoryscene.com/uncategorized/secondindustrialrevolution/
History On the Net. (2014, April 08). American West - The Cattle Industry Retrieved from http://www.historyonthenet.com/American_West/cattle_industry.htm
The Open Door Web Site. Urbanisation and Public Transport. Retrieved from http://www.saburchill.com/history/chapters/IR/062.html
Prezi. (2010, June 10). How Transportation Changed During Industrial Revolution. Retrieved from https://prezi.com/u4ucacytbqqw/how-transportation-changed-during-industrial-revolution/