and Answers 100% Correct
nation's first big buisness - ANSWER - Railroads
Cornelius Vanderbilt - ANSWER - used his $$$ from steamboat business to merge local
railroads into the New York Central Railroad (1867) 4,500 miles of track
Eastern trunk lines - ANSWER - A trunk line was the major route between cities; w/ smaller
branches reaching w/ outlying towns (result of diff. gauges pre-civil war)
-Vanderbilt capitalized on connecting these
transcontinental railroads - ANSWER - Railroads connecting the west and east coasts of the
continental US
Union and Central Pacific - ANSWER - -Union Pacific (UP) Omaha Nebraska → Great Plains
-Central Pacific (Cali→East) Led by Charles Crocker
6,000 Chinese immigrants (UNSAFE+DANGEROUS)
American Railroad Association - ANSWER - created "standard time" for timezones
Railroads and Timezones - ANSWER - They needed to run on a consistent schedule so in 1884
four time zones were created (i.e Standard time by American Railroad Association)
Speculation and overbuilding - ANSWER - caused the Financial Panic of 1893
Jay Gould, watering stock - ANSWER - entered RR business for quick profits (made millions) by
,inflating the value of a company's assets + profits before selling its stock to the public
rebates and pools - ANSWER - RR companies would discount shipping for favored large
companies and then charge large amounts to small farmers
, Competing companies secretly agree to fix rates on goods and share traffic
bankcrupcy of railroads - ANSWER - Panic of 1893
J.P. Morgan and other bankers capitalized on this
Panic of 1893 - ANSWER - forced ¼ of RR's to go bankrupt
J.P Morgan + other bankers took of these RR's
By 1900, 7 GIANT systems controlled 2/3's of national RR's
MADE SYSTEM MORE EFFICIENT
RR Monopolies!!!
causes of industrial growth - ANSWER - -Treasure-House of raw materials (coal, iron ore,
copper, lead, timber, + oil)
-Abundant supply of labor (immigrants)
-↑ population + advanced transportation = US largest market IN WORLD for industrial goods
-Capital=plentiful (MANY investors; US and European)
-↑ Labor saving technology (444,000 patents from 1860-1890)
-Business friendly gov. policies, loans, grants,+ protective tariffs
Talented entrepreneurs= build vast empires
Andrew Carnegie - ANSWER - -steel monopoly had vertical integration
verticle integration - ANSWER - practice in which a single manufacturer controls all of the steps
used to change a raw material into a finished product
"Andrew Carnegie"
U.S. Steel - ANSWER - - Carngegie sells company for > $400 million to J.P. Morgan's company
United States Steel
-1st billion dollar company