33.8 America: a.d. 1801 to 1900  (Page 23/31)

We have previously mentioned the Homestead Law of 1862 by which anyone could obtain 160 acres of western land by agreeing to work it and produce a crop within 5 years. This was made possible by three agricultural advancements, the windmill, a special plow

Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876 and Thomas A. Edison the incandescent light bulb in 1879. By 1885 the Bell Telephone Company had over 134,000 subscribers in the United States. Shipping tonnage on the Great Lakes increased from 100,000 in 1865 to 25,000,000 in 1901, with wheat and iron forming the chief cargoes. Pittsburgh became the center of the northern Appalachian coal fields and Birmingham, Alabama the hub of the southern Appalachian fields. Steel production reached 10,000,000 tons by 1900, outstripping the British output, yet farm products still greatly exceeded those of industry.

But over-production of goods and raw materials, over-capitalization of railroads and feverish speculation in securities brought financial panics in 1873 and 1893. After the latter, particularly, there were labor strikes with terrible violence. Trusts were formed, including the railroads and there were some very questionable business practices. The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 was the federal government's first attempt to regulate the railroads and break up the trusts. The first ready-made plates for use in photography were developed in the 1880s and Henry Ford made his first twin-cylinder, water-cooled, 25 mile an hour car in 1896, although mass production did not materialize until after the turn of the century. (Ref. 213 )

In spite of the financial panic of 1873, factories tripled their output between 1877 and 1892 so that the United States became the leading industrial power of the world. The panic of 1893 occurred when the Democratic Party was in power, and it subsequently became stigmatized as the party of depression. Born as the son of a poor weaver in Scot- land, Andrew Carnegie went from oil to building to buying up iron and steel mills and then to railroads and steamship lines. His monopoly of steel helped him to weather the 1892-3 depression and 9 years later he sold his steel interests out to the United States Steel Corporation for $250,000,000, after which he started his career of fabulous philanthropy. (Ref. 8 , 151 )