Robber Baron Document Rankings

Power Rank 1:  Document Number: 16

Why do you believe it best represents the era you have been studying?.

Document 16 would have been a representive of an individual who believed that having wealth was not only not a bad thing, but was a good and essential thing for the growth of the country.

Power Rank 2:  Document Number:  12
Why do you believe it best represents the era you have been studying?


Document 12 represents a person's view that the products of labor should go to the laborers and that much of what the wealthy capitalists did was hurting workers and the country as a whole.

Power Rank 3:  Document Number: 5

Why do you believe it best represents the era you have been studying?

Big cororation trusts were extremely powerful and looked at the government as unimportant and unable to control them.

Power Rank 4:  Document Number: 9

Why do you believe it best represents the era you have been studying?

This document represents an attitude that most public would consider as a robber baron. Vanderbilt didn't care about the public and was in business only to make a profit.

Power Rank 5:  Document Number: 18

Why do you believe it best represents the era you have been studying?

This is an example of the good that could be done by extremely wealthy individuals.  Rockefeller gave over half a billion to various charities which benefited many thousands of people.

Age of Railroads

1. What problems did employees of the railroad companies face?
      
     Railroad employees faced numerous problems. The railroads payed all of their employees poorly, the working conditions were often terrible and dangerous and accidents and diseases injured and killed thousands of men each year. In addition the railroads controlled not only the work lives of the employees but also their personal lives. 
 
2. What was it like to live as a Pullman employee in the town of Pullman?


     The town of Pullman provided for almost all of a workers' basic needs. The citizens of Pullman resided in clean, well built brick houses and apartment buildings. The buildings had at least one window in every room which was considered a luxury for people who live in a city. There were also town services and facilities including doctors, shops, and an athletic field. However, under the surface the resident employees were not happy as they were strictly controlled in every way by the railroad. For example,  they were not allowed to pass anytime on their front steps or to drink alcohol. This tightly controlled environment and Pullman's refusal to lower rents after cutting his employees pay led to a violent strike in 1894. 

3. Who was involved in Crédit Mobilier, and what was the purpose of this company?   


    Credit Mobilier was made up of stock holders in the Union Pacific railroad who in 1864 created a construction company calling it Credit Mobilier. Stock holders included well known and respected federal officials such as Vice President Schuyler Colfax and congressman James Garfield, who later became president. The stock holders created the company out of a desire for control and monetary profit. They gave the company a contract to lay track at two to three times the actual cost and pocketed the profits.    

4. In what ways did the railroad companies use their power to hurt farmers?


     Railroads used their powers in a number of ways that especially effected farmers. The railroads miss used government land grants by selling them to other businesses, rather than to settlers as the government had planned. The railroads also made formal agreements to fix prices in order to keep farmers in their dept. Also, they charged different costumers different rates. They often demanded more money for short hauls-as there was no other carrier- than they did for long hauls.
 
5. Why didn’t the decision in the Munn v. Illinois case succeed in checking the power of the railroads?

     The case of Munn v. Illinois gave the states the right to regulate the railroads for the benifit for farmers and consumers. It also established the federal government's right to regulate private industry to serve the public interest. However, the railroads continued to fight and in 1886 the supreme court ruled that a state could not set rates on interstate commerce.

6. Why didn’t the Interstate Commerce Act immediately limit the power of the railroads?

     The Interstate Commerce Act, passed in 1887, re-established the right of the federal government to supervise railroad activities and created a five member interstate commerce commission (ICC) for that purpose. However, the ICC had problems regulating railroad rates as the railroads continued to resist and there was a long legal process. A heavy blow to the commission came in 1897 when the supreme court ruled that it could not set maximum railroad rates. Not until 1906, did the ICC get the power it needed to be effective.

Big Business and Labor

1. What is it?                    B.  How did it help businesses such as the Carnegie Company and tycoons like Andrew Carnegie?

1. Vertical integration

A.  Vertical integration is a process of buying out suppliers in Carnegie's case, coal field, iron mines or freighters and railroad mines (resources, manufacturing, and distribution)-in order to control the raw materials and transportation systems.
 
B.  By using a vertical integration system, Carnegie was able to control much of the steel industry.
2. Horizontal integration

A. In the process known as horizontal integration companies producing similar products merge.


B. Carnegie became more powerful by gaining control over his suppliers and limiting his competition, he controlled almost the entire steel industry.

3. Social Darwinism

A. Social Darwinism is a theory that grew out of Charles Darwin's theory of biological evolution which states that some individuals of a species flourish and pass their traits along to the next generation while others do not. A process of "natural selection" enabled only the best adapted to survive.


B. This promoted the theory that success and business were achieved by the most able.

4. Monopoly

A. A monopoly is a complete control over an industries production, wages, and prices.


B. A firm that bought out all of it's competitors could gain a monopoly and getting complete control, thus getting all of the profits of an industry.

5. Holding company

A. A corporation that was created to do nothing but to buy out the stocks of other companies.


B. It provided horizontal integration and allowing a company to gain more control over an industry.

6. Trust

A. A trust was competing companies joining together and turning their stock over to a group of trusties who were people who ran the separate companies as one large corporation. In return, the companies earned dividends on profits earned by the trusts.


B. Businesses tycoons could gain total control of the companies through trusts.

7. The perception of tycoons as “robber barons”

C. How did it harm businesses such as Standard Oil and tycoons like John D. Rockefeller?

The perception of tycoons as "robber barons" harmed businesses because the perception of robber barons where industrialists who gained huge profits through questionable and perhaps illegal business practices. Their power alarmed and caused fear among many. 

8. Sherman Antitrust Act

C. How did it harm businesses such as Standard Oil and tycoons like John D. Rockefeller?

The Sherman Antitrust Act caused businesses such as Standard Oil to reorganize into single corporations. As the Sherman Antitrust Act made it illegal to make a trust to form a trust that interfered with free trade or in the states or other countries.

Expansion of Industry

Factor 1: Abundant Natural Resources

A. Which resources played crucial roles in industrialization?

   

Oil, coal, iron and steel played a crucial role in industrialization.

B. How did Edwin L. Drake help industry to acquire larger quantities of oil?

 

In 1859, Edwin L. Drake used a steam engine to drill for oil in Pennsylvanian and with that success, removing oil from beneath the earth became practical and available.

C. How did the Bessemer process allow better use of iron ore?

 

The Bessemer process injected air into molten iron to remove the carbon and other impurities. This technique was a cheap and efficient way to produce steal and by 1880, American manufacturers used this method to produce more than 90 percent of the nations steel.

D. What new uses for steel were developed at this time?
 

Although the railroads were the biggest consumers of steel there were other uses including barbed wire, and farm machines. It also made new construction methods possible including steel cables for the Brooklyn bridge and steel frames for the first skyscrapers.

Factor 2: Increasing number of Inventions

A. How did Thomas Alva Edison contribute to this development? 

 

Thomas Alva Edison established the world's first research lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey. There he perfected the incandescent light bulb. Later, he invented a complete system for producing and distributing electing power. The harnessing of electrical power completely changed business in America. Electric power ran machines from fans to printing presses. It was a convenient inexperience source of energy which when it became available in homes, spurred the invention of appliances which saved time and energy. Electric street cars made travel cheap and helped with the outward spread of cities. Even more important, electricity gave manufactures the freedom to locate their plants wherever they wanted not just near power sources such as rivers. Because of this, industry was able to grow as never before.

B. How did George Westinghouse contribute to it? 

 

Westinghouse was an inventor who with Edison helped to add new developments that made electricity saver and less expensive.

C. How did Christopher Sholes contribute? 

 

Sholes invented the typewriter in 1867, effectively revolutionizing the world of work. It created new jobs for women.

 

D. How did Alexander Graham Bell contribute? 

 

Alexander Graham Bell invented perhaps the most important invention next to electricity by creating the phone in 1876. The phone opened the doors to a worldwide communications network.

Tarbell's History of Standard Oil

1. How did Rockefeller set out to acquire control of the oil industry?

     Rockefeller set out to acquire control of the oil industry by knowing every detail of the oil trade. He wanted to be able to reach its furthest point at any time and to control even the smallest factor. This was the way Rockefeller wanted to do business. In the 1870's he already controlled oil refining and transportation. He set out to acquire complete control of the oil industry by organizing the oil markets of the world. He wanted all the markets of the world to belong to him. He set out to replace independent agents and jobbers with his own employees. He mapped out the United States and appointed agents among regional divisions including the southwest and the south. The entire oil buying territory of the country was covered by local agents who reported to division headquarters who reported to the head of the state marketing department whose reports went to general marketing headquarters and so on until they reached John D Rockefeller himself. Mr. Rockefeller's moto was "The coal, oil business belongs to us." This was his guiding principle in acquiring control of the oil industry.

2. Do you think Rockefeller deserved to be called a "robber baron?" Why or why not?

      A "robber baron" is is a derogatory term for a business man or industrialist who used questionable business practices in order to achieve great wealth, often by taking advantage of the disadvantaged or poor. Rockefeller became an incredibly wealthy man. He no doubt employed some business practices that may not have been entirely ethical and may have been questionable and were at the least extremely aggressive. He wasn't satisfied with merely being wealthy, he wanted complete control of the oil industry so that if you wanted to buy oil, refine it, or transport it you had to go through John D Rockefeller. On the other hand, the contributions that Rockefeller and other great industrialist made to the growth of the United States as a power must certainly be considered when you are deciding whether to label him a robber baron. Rockefeller and others like him followed the American Dream of achievement. In spite of this, I believe that anybody who uses unethical business practices to obtain great wealth should be considered a robber baron.