Apush Gilded Age

The Gilded Age * During the Gilded Age, American businesses were transformed: * Massive corporations replaced small, family businesses * New technology, transportation, marketing, labor relations, & efficient mass-production * By 1900, the U.S. was the most industrialized country in the world * 19th-century inventors led to an “Age of Invention”: * Cyrus Field’s telegraph cable * Business typewriters, cash registers, adding machines * High-speed textile spindles, auto looms, sewing machines * George Eastman’s Kodak camera * Alexander G. Bell’s telephone * By 1905, 10 million Americans had phones; (Bell Telephone Co became AT&T) * Thomas Edison, the “Wizard of Menlo Park,” created the 1st research lab in New York * Edison Illuminating Co was the to 1st use electric light in 1882 * Tesla’s alternating current (AC) allowed electricity to travel over longer distances & to power streetcars & factories * New technologies allowed for increased industrial production * New machines were incorporated into the first assembly lines which allowed for continuous & faster production of goods * The railroad linked every region of America & allowed for a mass consumption of goods * The Midwest Made Meat for America * A new-and-improved “market revolution”: More regional specialization made mass production & mass consumption possible * Chicago → meat, * St Louis → beer, * Minneapolis → grain * New Methods of Marketing * Marketing became a “science” Advertising firms boomed * Department stores like Macy’s & Marshall Field’s allowed customers to browse & buy * Chain stores like A&P Grocery & Woolworth’s “Five & Ten” * Mail-order catalogues, like Montgomery Ward sold to all parts of America * New Forms of Business Organization * New types of business