Chapter 11, “Robber Barons and Rebels” details events occurring in 1877 and beyond. During this time, labor was rewarded depending on race, sex, nationality, and social class. Steam and electricity replaced jobs and increased efficiency. New inventions, such as manufactured ice, the telephone, and the adding machine, allowed the meat industry and other companies to become feasible. The railroads became a big industry of the time, and bribed many officials. The monopolization of industries raised many wealthy business people. Such as, J. P Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie. The oil company under Rockefeller flourished.
Andrew Carnegie replicated the Bessemer Process in which he made his fortune through steel. He sold his steel company to J. P. Morgan. J. P Morgan formed the US Steel Corporation creating another monopoly.
In 1884 Grover Cleveland became president. He supported the large companies, and did not give aid to Texan farmers when they requested it. During 1889 through 1893 Benjamin Harrison was president. Throughout his term the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed it forbade combinations in restraint of trade. It was used to curb labor unions or labor combinations.
The Fourteenth Amendment was created to help freed slaves, but the corporations used it to call themselves people in court, and decreed that, as such, they could not be deprived of their property by a state without “due process of law”. During all this, education was spreading, and becoming easier to access. However, the government often used the school-houses to simply prepare the children to uphold the system.
Immigrants were poring into the country, and revolutionary talk began to stir the crowds. Many people resented the immigrants, and rioted against them.
Unions were formed to strike at the unfair employers. Many women joined the Knights of Labor to protest the wages and hours they were given. Many strikes came about that