U.S. History / Unit 5: Industrialization, Immigration and the Gilded Age
5.1 The Second Industrial Revolution
Notes
After the Civil War, new technology and resources turned the United States into the world's leading industrial power by 1900.
- The Bessemer process made strong steel cheaply, used for railroads, bridges and skyscrapers.
- The transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869 at Promontory Summit, Utah. Chinese and Irish immigrants did much of the work.
- Railroads created a national market, and the U.S. adopted standard time zones (1883) to keep train schedules.
- Inventions: Alexander Graham Bell's telephone (1876); Thomas Edison's practical light bulb (1879) and research lab at Menlo Park.
- Oil refined into kerosene, and later gasoline, became a huge industry.
Practice
Which innovation made it possible to produce steel cheaply and in large amounts?
Blowing air through molten iron removed impurities, making steel cheaper.
Why did railroad companies push for standard time zones in 1883?
Each town had set its own time by the sun, which made schedules confusing.
Completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 most directly:
It cut cross-country travel from months to about a week.
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