Week 2 Questions

1. Henry Ford was an engineer that worked for the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit. In 1896, he produced the first of the famous automobiles that would eventually have his name. Ford was dedicated to produce a reliable automobile that would be affordable for everyone; and in 1908, it was finally debuted as the Ford Model T. in order to keep up with the demand of the Model T, Ford began to practice mass production that would revolutionize American industry. By 1910 the automobile began to reshape the American social and cultural life. It also affected the nation’s landscape.
Cornelius Vanderbilt was one of the country’s largest steamship operators, but in the 1860s he switched from the steamship industry to the railroad industry. He managed many railroads between Chicago and New York and established a railroad combination. This achievement contributed to the growth of the modern corporation

2. After the Civil War, business organizations began selling stock to members of the public in order to raise money for their company. At this time, Americans began to realize that purchasing stock could be a good investment because they only had “limited liability”. This meant that they only risked what they invested and not any debts the business could gain. This stock selling allowed entrepreneurs to gain large sums of capital (from the investors) that they could put toward projects in their corporations. There were also new management techniques that took place in the corporate organizations. Since large national enterprises needed structures that were more systematic and administrative than the past local businesses these managerial techniques were introduced. They relied on the division of responsibilities, modern cost-accounting pr...

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...ry. The Amalgamated had no power to resist and its decline was symbolic of the general erosion of the union strength. The Pullman Strike consisted of railroad workers that went on strike and gained support of the American Railway Union to refuse to handle Pullman cars and equipment. Within days, transportation from Chicago to the Pacific Coast was paralyzed. Railroad operators asked the federal government to send army troops to Illinois because the strikes were preventing the movement of mail. A federal court then issued an injunction forbidding the union to continue the strike, when they defied it, they were arrested and imprisoned. After they were imprisoned the strike quickly collapsed. Unions altogether only consisted of 4% of the industrial workforce. Ethnic tensions, as well as gender divisions caused the union to not make as big an imprint as it should have.