Industrialization: The Free Nation

Dat Chenh

Prof. McNee

History 313

03/13/2017

The Free Nation Industrialization. An inevitable event which took place during the late 19th and early 20th century also known as the second industrial revolution; marks an important turning point for life inside the United States. The most important contribution to the revolution was steel. With growth in production along with the significantly lower cost compared to iron, steel was the answered to new inventions in construction such as skyscrapers and in transportation such as trains and railroads. While the rise of industry brings many jobs and wealth to American soil, it also brings changes to working class Americans. During this time period, American’s life gone wild by industrialization,

When a man named Andrew Carnegie, a lucky refugee among the “25 million” (McNee, Immigration) immigrants coming from the European countries to the United States in hope for liberty and jobs, he then later became one of the richest man in the world and revolutionized the American’s industry by invested all his fortunes into the steel industry.

Because of his idea of “hard-driving” (McNee, Industrialism) way of labor, Carnegie doesn’t want to replace his old equipment at the steel mills for a new one; instead, he drives the equipment to produce until it exploded as it will reduce costs and is more efficient.

Trades and businesses were blooming because of the “Great merger movement” (McNee, Industrialism). When a group of “Investment bankers, like J.P. Morgan & CO.” (Brandeis, 7) had direct access to large sum of people’ money through insurance companies, has joined together; for many investors “lacks the ability, the facilities” (Brandeis, 9) to invest on their own, they need advice from investment bankers. Investment bankers controlled which companies are being invested in which then allowed them to “became the directing power in railroads, public service, and industrial companies”

As gold was discovered at the “Black Hill 1876” (McNee, The West) along with the construction of railroads, Native Americans and their buffalos became the victims of the industrialization. From living in the plains with many tribes, the Indians found themselves being ‘push’ away from their homes by US military. By the year 1900, “2/3 of Native Americans lands” (McNee, The West) were forcefully taken away, and their population dramatically reduced to “25 thousand” (McNee, The West). Native Americans weren’t the only victim of the industrial revolution. Since the mining was controlled by big companies because deep mining required special machinery, immigrants were forced to work for these companies and had to work in dire working conditions. Consequently, conflicts arise between immigrants and Americans because the Americans saw them as competing for jobs, and coal miners went on violent strikes for better pay by not allowing any person to enter the mine. Hence, the West was yet industrialized as to where the industrialization