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Crash Course 23 - the Industrial Economy

Added Jan 08, 2017 •

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Period 6 material on post Civil War industrialization

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hi I'm John Green this is Crash Course u.s. history and today we're going to discuss the economics and how a generation is going to be one of those boring ones with no Wars or general put cool last words or anything or I give him the pass I will give you a smooch of great man history but only a certain industrialization in the decades after the Civil War term having per capita about a third of Great Britain's industrial output to becoming the richest and most industrialized Nation on Earth hold on for Liberty stand because this happened mostly thanks to thee not particularly awesome Civil War which improve the finance system by forcing the introduction of a national currency and spurred Industrial ocean by giving massive contracts to arms and clothing manufacturer also boosted the telegraph which improved communication and gave birth to the Transcontinental Railway by the Pacific Play Act of 1862 all of which increased efficiency and productivity so thanks Civil War if you want to explain America's economic growth in a nutshell chalk it up to G D & L Gerard Depardieu and Lohan no geography demography and law yes geographically the huge country with all the resources necessary for an industrial boom like we had coal and iron and later oil initially we had water to power factories later replaced by Kool and we had amber waves of grain to feed our growing population which leads to the demography America's population Grew From 40 million and 1872 76 million and 1900 and 2/3 of that growth was due to immigration which is good for economies many of these immigrants flooded the burgeoning cities as America good from being an agrarian world nation to being an industrial Urban one like New York city became the center of Commerce and Finance in by 1898 had a population of 3.4 million people any industrial Heartland was in the Great Lakes region Chicago became the second largest city by 1900 Cleveland became a leader and oil refining and Pittsburgh was a center of iron single production even today the great City of Pittsburgh still employs 53 Steelers last but not least was the law the Constitution and its Commerce Clause made us a single area of Commerce giant Customs Union and as we'll see you in a bit doesn't preme Court interpreted the laws in a very business-friendly way also the American Constitution protects patents which encourages in turn it in division or at least it used to the American government played a role in American economic growth by putting up high tariffs especially on Steel massive land grants to railroads and by putting Native Americans on reservations also for important role in economics went to a depression in 1893 the US was it the time by Europeans as a developing economy and investments in America offered much higher returns than those available in Europe about your massive in 1884 the first time a majority of the workforce worked in non farming jobs by 1890 two-thirds of Americans work for wages rather than farming owning their own businesses and by 1913 the United States produced one third of the world's Total Industrial output now bring out the libertar stand awesome and even better we now get to talk about perennially underrated railroads let's go to the thought bubble although we tend to forget about them here in the US passenger rail system sucks railroads 19th century industrial success railroads increase to Commerce and integrated the American Market which about National Brands to Umber like Ivory soap and A&P grocery stores but railroads changed improved our economy and less obvious ways to for instance they gave us time zone which were created by the major railroad companies to make shipping in passenger transport more standards also because you recognize the importance of mail-order Empire and railroads made it possible for him and his eventual partner robot to ship watches and then jewelry head and pretty much everything including unconstructed freaking how throughout the country roads were also the first modern Corporation these companies were large they had many employees they spanned the country and that meant they needed to invent organizational did Tim putting the middle manager supervisors to supervise supervisors for the first time the owners are not always dated a manager is because railroads were among the first play traded Corporation they needed a lot of capital to build tracks and station so they sold shares in the company in order to raise that money which shares could then be bought and sold by the public and that is how runs created the first captains of industry like Cornelius they need to University after me Vanderbilt and Andrew me to Carnegie Mellon and Leland on in the University after my Stanford emblematic of the partnership between the national government and Industry the Transcontinental Railroad after all wouldn't have existed without Congressional legislation Federal and Grant and government-sponsored bondage are simple I guess the author the mystery document and if I'm wrong which I usually am I get shocked the belief is common in America that the day is at hand when corporations far greater than the Erie swing such power as have where in world history been trusted in the hands of mere private citizens controlled by single men like Vanderbilt will ultimately succeed in directing government itself are the American form of society there is now no Authority capable of effective resistance Corporation Spotify delicious dr. pepper I can taste all 23 of the chemicals Henry Adams how are the Phil Adams is in American history make the ponent of capitalism whatever considered both the greatest heroes and the greatest villains of the era which is why they are known both as captains of industry and is robber barons depending on whether we are mad at the well they often came from Humble Origins to risks and became very wealthy and their methods were frequently unscrupulous I mean they often drove cim turns out a business in generally cared very little for their workers robber barons and or captains of industry was Cornelius Vanderbilt Who Rose from humble beginnings and Thailand to make a fortune and transportation through fairies and shipping and then eventually through railroads although he wants referred to trains as them things that go on land John D Rockefeller who started out as a clerk for Cleveland Merchant and eventually became the richest man in the world ever yes including Bill Gates breathlessly buying up so many rivals that by the weight 1880s Standard Oil controlled 90% of the US oil industry which back of the price of gasoline up to like $0.12 Skyland so what you had one of the cars in the world then you were mad industries were organized many of the robber barons formed pools and Trust control prices in limit the negative effects of competition with competition is it overtime it reduces boat prices and profit margins which makes it difficult to become super rich chicken with another Innovation firms bought up all aspects of the production process from raw materials to production to transport and distribution like the Farmer's Meat Company bought its own rail cars ship meet for instance about things like conveyor belt and when he found out that animal parts could be used to make glue he got into the glue making business horizontal integration was when big firms bought up small ones the best example of this was rockefeller's Standard Oil which eventually became so big incidentally that the Supreme Court for standard oil to be broken up into more than a dozen smaller oil companies by the way over time is ExxonMobil so that worked out where is giant of Finance JPMorgan who at his death left a Fortune of only 68 million not counting the art that became the backbone of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Turnigy to remark in Surprise and to think he was not a rich man speaking of people who weren't rich on song because what he got three shared shall we say smooch unevenly which raise the standard of living for the average American worker in fact it was among the highest in the world what do to a growing population particularly of immigrant workers there was job insecurity and also booms and busts meant depressions in the 1870s and 1890s which hit the working where the heart is commonly worked 60 hours per week with no pensions or injury compensation and the us at the highest rate of industrial injuries in the world and average of over 30 5000 people per year died on the job these conditions and the uncertainty of Labor markets led to unions which were mostly local but occasionally National Union was the night turn the labor headed by Terence V powderly which Grew From nine members in 1870 to 728000 by 1884 the Knights of Labor admitted unskilled workers black workers and women but it was in repre blee damaged by the Haymarket riot in 1886 of policeman killed one of the strikers and in response there was volley in Chicago's Haymarket Square at which a bomb killed seven police officer then firing upon the crowd that are convicted of the bombing and although utterly denounced anarchism the public still Associated the Knights of Labor with violence and by 1902 its membership I shrunk considerably 2-0 picked up by the American Federation of Labor under Samuel L Gompers do all of these guys have great last names they were more moderate than the anarchist in the Socialist International workers of the world focused on bread-and-butter issues like pay hours and safety found in 1886 the same year as the Haymarket Riot the AFL had about 250,000 members by 1892 when was 10% of whom were Iron and Steel Workers all the to be fair almost everything made him throw up and also the corporations were big because they were can we had nothing to fear from monopolies pseudoscience was used to argue the government should regulate business or pass laws to help poor people it is sure the rich that the poor were poor because of some parent evolutionary flawed thus enabling tycoons to sleep at night you know on a big pile of money surrounded by beautiful women in born on Fitness of workers you when's continue to grow and fight for better conditions sometimes fine with mine went to the homestead steel strike of 1892 and the Pullman rail strike of 1894 when Strikers were killed great deal of property was destroyed in the late 1870s and early 1880s the United States had five times as many unionized workers as Germany at a time two Nations had similar population of the United States and its citizens to imagine freedom without a more economic system America was becoming less what more free even as it became more prosperous growth and prosperity and corporate he resembles the early Century you aren't alone that industry became the leading driver in the global economy world history terms in the ideas and Technologies of post-civil War America gave us the ideas that still Define how we all of us not just Americans think about opposites like and failure or wealth and poverty it's also when people began to discuss the ways in which inequality could be the opposite of Freedom thanks for watching I'll see you next week crash course he produced and directed by Stan Miller our script supervisor is married to Dan Cody associate producer is Danica Johnson the show is written by my high school history teacher rohlmeier rosianna halse Rojas and myself and Tina stock Cafe Play My Hometown don't forget to be awesome

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Crash Course 23 - the Industrial Economy

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