An Industrial Giant EmergesAn Industrial Giant Emerges 17

CONTENTS

457

having “democratized consumption” in the United States

by enabling “working-class families to buy former luxu-

ries like inexpensive flat-screen televisions, down com-

forters and porterhouse steaks.” A retailer helps society

best by lowering prices, or so the company contended.

The debate over the human costs of corporate effi-

ciencies echoes the one that accompanied the rise of

powerful industrial combinations during the last third of

the nineteenth century. Then, the power of the railroads

enabled them to bring substantial benefits to thousands

of communities; but this power also enabled the rail-

roads to ruin those who opposed their will. Industrial

corporations followed suit, especially in steel, iron, oil,

and electricity, providing millions with new and

improved products at lower prices. But the industrial

behemoths also controlled political processes and often

subjected workers to unsafe and exploitative conditions.

Reformers and labor leaders denounced this concentra-

tion of wealth and power. Some advocated regulation;

others called for revolution. Then as now, defenders of

big business pointed out its benefits: new technology,

better products, lower prices.

The question remains: Does the efficiency gener-

ated by economic concentration justify its threat to

smaller businesses and communities—and to democra-

tic institutions? ■

■Essentials of Industrial Growth

■Railroads: The First

Big Business

■Iron, Oil, and Electricity

■Competition and Monopoly:

The Railroads

■Competition and

Monopoly: Steel

■Competition and

Monopoly: Oil

■Competition and Monopoly:

Retailing and Utilities

■American Ambivalence to

Big Business

■Reformers: George,

Bellamy, Lloyd

■Reformers: The Marxists

■The Government Reacts to

Big Business: Railroad

Regulation

■The Government Reacts to

Big Business: The Sherman

Antitrust Act

■The Labor Union Movement

■The American Federation

of Labor

■Labor Militancy Rebuffed

■Whither America, Whither

Democracy?

■Mapping the Past:

Were the Railroads

Indispensable?

■John A. Roebling's design for the Brooklyn Bridge, then the longest

suspension bridge in the world, was widely hailed as an artistic masterpiece,

an illustration of the beauty of functional engineering.

Source: © 1993 E. Michael Beard http://www.errolgraphics.com.

HeartheAudio Chapter 17 at http://www.myhistorylab.com