Transcript - Thomas C. Cario Middle School

The Gilded Age
8-5.5 Focus Question:
What factors led to the rise of
industry in South Carolina?
The Industrial Revolution
would be a time of great
innovation and new
technology that would amaze
and improve the world.
With a partner or your group,
come up with a top ten list of
the greatest inventions of all
time
The second part of the 1800’s was
one of important change and growth
for the United States.
Americans continued to move westward and
settle out west. This time is also known for the
rise of big business.
The expansion and growth of big
business is brought about by the
second Industrial Revolution.
New technologies, including improvements in
transportation and communications, along with
explosive population growth, contributed to the
rapid rise of industry in the United States.
What do you think
were the top ten
inventions of all
time?
http://www.watchmojo.com/video/id/12125/
By the turn of the century, the United
States was the world’s largest
manufacturer.
This period became known as the Gilded Age.
Railroads became the nation’s first big business.
Railroads boosted economic development. It was fast
and inexpensive. A network of railroads would boost
trade from coast to coast as the first Transcontinental
Railroad became a reality. Video clip: Transcontinental Railroad and Time Zones
http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/transcontinental-railroad/videos
The growth of railroads came slow to
South Carolina.
Rural areas and small towns would come to life
as a result of railroad expansion in South Carolina.
From Rags to Riches
Other businesses like iron, steel, coal, and lumber
expanded and grew during this era. Men such as
Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller would
start out with nothing and grow into wealthy
industrialists.
A Gilded Age mansion, the Breakers, Vanderbilt’s “summer cottage” in Newport Rhode Island
The Breakers, Vanderbilt's summer cottage, has 70 rooms.
Cornelius Vanderbilt established the family fortune in
steamships and later in the New York Central Railroad.
The United States had always
been a nation of immigrants.
After the Civil War, immigrants flooded the
United States looking for opportunity and a
better life. Many immigrants came from all over
Europe and provide the labor that booming
factories needed.
Describe the changes you see
Most of the growth during the Gilded
Age was in the Northeast.
But South Carolina’s economy would go through
major changes as well. After the Civil War, many
Southerners believed that the South should
diversify its economy.
People wanted a “New South,” one
that emphasized factories and cities,
not just farms and agriculture.
In part, due to the railroad boom, the
textile industry that had begun prior to
the Civil War eventually became very
important to South Carolina.
Textile factories spread throughout the Upcountry of South
Carolina. South Carolina had the cotton production and rivers
for energy.
By the early 1900’s, South Carolina
ranked number second in the textile
industry behind Massachusetts.
Textile mills would create thread, yarn or fabrics.
Unlike factories in the North that employed thousands of
immigrants and African Americans, mill owners in South
Carolina hired poor whites already living in the state or
nearby.
South Carolina did not attract a large number of foreign immigrants.
Doffer boys in Aragon Mills, Rock Hill, South Carolina, photographed by Lewis Hine on 13 May
1912. A doffer is someone who clears full bobbins, pins or spindles holding spun fiber such as
Factory jobs would attract farmers who
had lost their land, sharecroppers,
tenant farmers who were looking for
any kind of work.
Mill Towns
Mill Owners would build mill towns where their
workers could live. Homes rented for 25 to 50 cents
and typically had four rooms and a kitchen.
Many mill villages had a company store
where workers could buy food or necessities.
Many mill towns also had a school where children went till they
were 12. Then they went to work in the factory! Towns also had
churches, social clubs and sports teams.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FLq9JP7cXo
Conditions in textile factories were not healthy.
Loud machines, humid
conditions, and dusty air
had to be endured by
workers. They also had
to work long hours- 12
hour days Monday
through Friday, and then
9 hours on Saturday.
Factory workers got paid
low wages.
Textile workers were often looked
down upon as “lint heads.”
Workers in South Carolina earned less than half of
what mill workers in other parts of the United States
earned and women and children were paid even
less than men.
Terrible and Dangerous Working
Conditions
Workers often suffered from diseases of the lung
including tuberculosis from breathing in the cotton
fiber and from the crowded conditions of their
workplace. Workplace accidents that could end a
worker’s career were also an ever-present possibility.
Many families could not survive if every
member of the family did not work.
Women and children face the same dangers as men, but
were paid less because they wee considered weaker than
men.
Many workers felt helpless.
There was a constant fear of job los and unskilled
workers were easy to replace.
Workers were unable to organize to improve
their lot as union organizers were immediately
fired and the organized labor movement
consistently crushed by the mill owners.
Unions did not flourish in South
Young oyster shuckers at Port Royal in South Carolina
Carolina
Although workers outside of South Carolina were
somewhat more effective in organizing unions and
in launching some protests through strikes, the
national unions were not successful in improving
conditions.
New Industries in South Carolina
In addition to making textiles, businessmen came up
with other ways to use cotton. Cottonseed oil
became an important ingredient in margarine, salad
oils, and shortening.
Phosphates
One mineral South Carolina had a lot of was phosphate,
which was used as a fertilizer. The phosphate industry
became important to South Carolina’s economy for
about 20 years, especially in the Lowcountry. It would
start to decline after the hurricane of 1893. When rich
deposits were found in Florida, the South Carolina
companies went out of business.
The lumber industry would also thrive
in South Carolina.
South Carolina had many trees! Wood was used
for lumber, but also for paper and turpentine. In
1880, South Carolina was the number one
producer of turpentine.