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Unit 3 Notes

American History 1866-1915

Among some of Mr. Edison’s inventions were the phonograph (record player), the movie camera, the microphone and the electric light bulb

Edison’s workshop was located in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

The transcontinental railroad was a railroad that went across the continent, linking the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

The Union Pacific-Central Pacific met at Promontory, Utah on May 10, 1869.

George Westinghouse’s airbrake made trains safer.

To pay the workers who laid and repaired the track, the railroads needed capital resources.

A capital resource is money to run a business.

To do this they found people to invest in their venture.

When you invest in a company you buy shares of a business in the hope of making money or earning a profit.

Businesses that sell shares of stock to investors are called corporations.Break in the Notes to Allow a New Student to Prepare a Presentation.

In the early part of the Industrial Revolution, iron was used to build bridges, buildings and railroads.

As locomotives got heavier, iron was no longer strong enough to support them.

Steel was needed, but steel was much more expensive to make than iron.

By the 1850s Henry Bessemer developed a way to make steel cheaply called the Bessemer Process.

During the 1860s entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie visited Britain and saw the process.

An entrepreneur is a person who sets up a new business, taking a chance on making or losing money.

Andrew Carnegie made the production of steel a major industry in the United States.

John D. Rockefeller was 24 years old when he set up an oil refinery in Cleveland, Ohio.

A refinery is a factory that makes crude oil into products people can use.

Rockefeller bought many refineries in the area.

In 1870 he consolidated these businesses into one business called the Standard Oil Company.

Before long, Rockefeller had a monopoly, or almost complete control of the oil business in the United States.

Both Carnegie and Rockefeller took advantage of the free enterprise system.

A free enterprise system is an economic system in which businesses have the freedom to offer many kinds of goods and services for sale.

Cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis and Atlanta became major railroad hubs.

A hub is is a city where many trains or planes make stops on their way to other locations.

The transcontinental railroad was build primarily by immigrants from China, Ireland, and Mexico. Many of the workers were also newly freed African Americans and Civil War veterans.

In the decades between 1890 and 1910, children between the ages 10 and 15 ranged from 1.5 million to 2 million.

Some workers spoke out about their working conditions. Others went on strike, or stopped work in order to get owners to listen to them.

Many workers joined labor unions. A labor union is a group of workers who join together to improve their working conditions.

One early labor union leader was Samuel Gompers.

Gompers organized a federation of skilled workers.

A federation is an organization of many member groups.

Gompers’ federation became known as the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

During one union strike against Carnegie’s steel factory 16 men were killed during a fight.

Some Chinese immigrants faced prejudice from people who were born in America.

Prejudice is a feeling some people have that makes them dislike members of a different race or culture.

Thousands of Asians entered the US through Angel Island, in San Francisco.

During the late 1800s immigrants from Mexico settled in the southwestern United States.

Soon barrios or neighborhoods of Mexican immigrants sprang up. People living in the barrios helped one another.

European Immigrants were by far the largest group to come to the US.

Between 1890 and 1920, nearly 16 million immigrants arrived from Europe.

Most European Immigrants arriving in the US entered through Ellis Island in New York.

Many lived in poorly built apartment buildings called tenements.

Naturalization is steps that immigrants take to become United States citizens.

In the early 1900s Jacob Lawrence wrote a book about African Americans moving to northern cities from the South called “The Great Migration.”

In the early 1900s 90% of African Americans lived in the South. Today, nearly half of all African Americans live in the North and West.

Jacob Riis (rees) wrote a book about poor living conditions in New York City tenements.

In one Chicago tenement, three out of every five babies born in 1900 died before they reached the age of three. This was mainly due to disease.

Jane Addams started the Hull House. The Hull House.

The Hull House was a settlement house that helped the cities poor with education, improving heath and safety conditions and fighting against child labor.

The Chicago fire of 1871 killed 300 people and left nearly 90,000 people homeless.

William Jenney built the world’s first skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois.

PART TWO

The Homestead Act encouraged people to settle on the Great Plains.

The people who settled these areas were known as homesteaders.

A homesteader was required to live on their land for at least five years.

Trees for building homes were scarce on the plains. Many settlers build homes from sod. Which was plentiful.

New models of windmills let farmers pump water from hundreds of feet below the ground.

A stronger plow invented by James Oliver helped homesteaders cut through the thick sod.

A bonanza farm is large a farm that that makes a profit.

Bonanza forms were run like factories. Managers ran the farm and farm workers had specialized jobs.

Mangers bought seed and equipment in large amounts, so they paid lower prices. Before long, farmers were producing more food than people needed. This caused prices to fall.

The low prices forced farmers to leave their farms on the Great Plains.

Some farmers moved to the cities while others stayed and rented the land they once owned.

In the late 1800s, farmers began to unite together to do something about their problems.

Some joined the National Grange, an organization of farmers.

Grange is an old word that means “farm.”

Joseph McCoy, a cattle trader, built large cattle pens called stockyards near some railroad tracks in Abilene, Kansas.

Cattle ranchers started moving herds of cattle to the cow towns.

The best way to get cattle to the cow towns was by cattle drive.

These trips were called long drives.

Many ranchers wanted to let their cattle graze on huge open grasslands of the Great Plains.The US Government who owned the land allowed the ranchers to use this land as open range, or free grazing land.

The most important event in ranch life was the roundup.

The cattle were marked with a brand. A brand is a small piece of iron with a long handle. The iron was heated and pressed against the animal’s hide leaving a mark.Cowhands learned many of their skills from the Mexican vaqueros, the first cowhands.

In 1874, Joseph Glidden invented a new kind of wire that could be used to make fences. This new kind of wire became known as barbed wire.

The new fences caused anger from both ranchers and farmers. Both began cutting each others fences and were even shooting each other over the fences. These fights called range wars, went on throughout the 1880s. These wars were caused by the use of barbed wire.

The government told ranchers to move their cattle or buy the land. Before long the days of the open range and growth of the cattle kingdom were over.

Prospectors – people who searched for gold, silver, or other mineral resources.

Mining Booms – times of fast economic growth.

Mining Busts – times of bad economic growth.

In the 1860s, big mining companies began to take the place of individual miners.

The mining companies used steam powered drills and shovels to break loose tons of rock.

They transported the material to processing plants by trains to look for valuable minerals.

As mining camps grew into towns, families began to arrive. But there was no law and little order.

In some communities groups of people would form Vigilance Committees.

Vigilance means watching over something or someone.

When the mines ran out of gold silver and copper, some mining towns became ghost towns.

The railroads made it easier for settlers to live in the West.

Railroads carried people and supplies to farms, ranches and mining town.

Buffalo Bill Cody killed enough buffalo to feed 1000 workers for more than a year.

In the 1860s about 15 million buffalo lived on the Great Plains. Within just 20 years, fewer than 1000 were left.

In 1875 gold was discovered on the Great Sioux Reservation.

The US Government sent soldiers in to take back the land they had given the Sioux Nation.

General George Custer took his soldiers to the Little Bighorn River in 1876 to take back land the government had given the Sioux people.

In 1877 the government told the Nez Perces to leave the area they were living in to move to a small reservation in Idaho.

Chief Joseph said no.

The US soldiers chased the Nez Perces for more than 1700 miles because they were trying to escape to Canada.

In 1877 the government told the Nez Perces to leave the area they were living in to move to a small reservation in Idaho.

Chief Joseph said no.

The US soldiers chased the Nez Perces for more than 1700 miles because they were trying to escape to Canada.

The most important resource that the Indians had was the buffalo.

By 1880 almost all the American Indians in the US had been moved onto reservations.

Among the last to give up were the Apaches, who were led by Chief Geronimo.

Geronimo’s surrender ended years of war between the Indians and the government.

Once on reservations, each adult male Indian received 160-acre plot an was told to raise crops.

This new system was difficult for Indians to accept.

It was not until 1924 that the US Government granted citizenship to the Indians.

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