New BusinessmenII. Key features of corporationsWhich is most important? Debatable between countries and different peopleStandard Oil of New JerseyIn 1879, John D. Rockefeller and a handful of associates founded Standard Oil of New Jersey, the prototypical example of corporate consolidation and efficiency.Rockefeller was so successful that at his death, his personal fortune was estimated at $815,647,796.89, not to mention the $40 million in profits that the Standard Oil trust averaged every year. Moreover, if buying stock proved too arduous, Rockefeller sometimes hired armed Pinkerton Agents to "persuade" his competition to relinquish control.The Pinkerton Agents were famed for their club-wielding ability, and many a small business owner became familiar with the wrong end of those clubs.III. A Threat to the Pursuit of HappinessIV. Pursuit of PropertyImmigration Restriction League"This organization was founded in 1894 by a group of Boston lawyers, professors, and philanthropists who were alarmed by the large number of immigrants entering America each year.”The league urged that immigrants be required to demonstrate literacy in some language. In theory a literacy test would not discriminate against the people of any particular race, creed, or color.A literacy bill was passed by Congress in 1897, but President Grover Cleveland vetoed it. In 1917, however, as wartime hysteria fed American xenophobia, another literacy bill was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson.Why did immigrants settle in cities?Many immigrants came to America with little money to buy farms or expensive farming equipment.Others settled in cities because U.S. American agriculture was far different from what most had been accustomed to in Europe.Some, including many Slavs (polish, ukranian), simply came to America too late to acquire free or cheap land.Many go to ChicagoCity life: Sanitation terrible, waste dumped out the window; horses and horse waste everywhere, VERY bad smellOthers moved to cities for different reasons. They lived in tenements with privies.Many Irish opted for an urban life because they associated farming with the English landlords who had persecuted Irish tenant farmers.Immigrants, particularly Jews, settled in urban areas because their forebears had already established vibrant cultural, religious, and educational institutions throughout many of the nation's largest cities.Nevertheless, they all formed networks that resembled their own country. Reinforces their identityReactions of "Native" Americans to ImmigrationThe term "native," in this context, refers not to American Indians, but rather to Anglo-Americans who considered themselves "true Americans" even though their ancestors had been migrated from Europe just a few generations before.Increasingly, they and many other Americans blamed "radical" immigrants to for the nation's labor problems.Many of these upper class folks worked in the skyscrapers so they moved to the suburbs. Justifications for excluding immigrantsAnglo-Saxon MythDuring the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, many college professors, scientists, and other intellectuals, such as John Fiske, promoted the idea that human evolution had culminated in the Anglo-Saxon race. Represents mostly northern Europeans (german and english)Such thinkers argued that more "primitive" races (any "race" that did not originate in northwestern Europe) did not possess the mental, physical, or social capacities of Anglo-Saxons, who were responsible for the finer points of civilization."Scientific evidence" of the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race was hardly evidence at all. Some scientists believed, for example, that the slope of a person's forehead was a reliable indicator of their intelligence.As the logic went, Anglo-Saxons were more likely to have a high forehead; therefore, "scientists" (anglo-saxons) conjectured that Anglo-Saxons were necessarily more intelligentEugenicsThe "science" of eugenics claimed that heredity determined cultural and social patterns and, hence, that selective human breeding would advance civilization.Many Americans seized on eugenics to rationalize "scientifically" their racism. Since many Americans already assumed that southeastern Europeans, African-Americans, Jews, Asians, Middle Easterners, and American Indians were of "inferior" blood, eugenics simply gave them "scientific proof" that these "inferiors" were causing North America’s social problems.Scientists, politicians, and others relied upon the "evidence" of heredity to advocate such drastic measures as sterilization, controlled breeding, institutionalization, and even executions of the feeble. Trying to create “racial purity”People often associate such measures with Nazi Germany and Hitler's methods of "racial purification." Yet, proponents of eugenics and "racial purity" also enjoyed a great deal of popular support in the United States during the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.HIST 1312 1st Edition Lecture 3 Outline of Last Lecture I. West Affect on AmericaII. Why the West was Attractivea. LandIII. Images from the Westa. Fictional charactersb. Rise of big businessc. CowboysIV. The Native PopulationV. Closing of the FrontierOutline of Current Lecture I. The Gilded Agea. General themesb. New Businessmenc. PresidentsII. Key Features of CorporationsIII. Threat to the Pursuit of HappinessIV. Pursuit of PropertyV. Foreign ImmigrantsCurrent LectureI. The Gilded Age- The Gilded Age was a time of economic transformation in the United States. o Rich were getting richer and poor were getting poorer- lots of corruption in politics and businessThese notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.- Immediately following the Civil War, America's industrial output paled in comparison to the mighty industrial powers of Western Europe, especially Great Britain. However, by 1900, only Great Britain's industrial production exceeded the total industrial production of the United States. - Two major factors precipitated the rise of industry: 1. New Businessmen 2. New Ways of Doing Business General Themes1. Laissez-faire "1: a doctrine opposing government interference in economic affairs beyond the minimum necessary for the maintenance of peace and property rights." Source: Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1990). - Believers in laissez-faire economics wanted no