Rise of Big Business in America

The Rise of Big Business in America

Throughout history, America has been known as the land of opportunity, a place where one can start their lives anew and achieve anything through hard work and determination. This "American Dream" is no better represented than through the life of Andrew Carnegie. The Carnegie family moved to America after the United Kingdom leapt into the process of industrialization and, over his lifetime, Carnegie successfully transformed himself from a poor Scottish boy living in America into one of the richest men who ever lived. There are many factors that could have caused this to happen; perhaps the failures of his father to adapt to industrialization gave him constant motivation, or perhaps his family chose the correct place to make their new home, in Pittsburgh, the capitol of the steel industry. Or maybe it was because Carnegie possessed all the right qualities to be a successful businessman. Regardless of how he achieved his fortune, Carnegie was a major contributor to the rise of big business in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His impact on American economics and society was extremely important to the development of a growing nation and helped create one of the world's strongest economies: his influence is still felt today.

Big business, primarily the corporation, is one of the major components of today's modern economic environment. Andrew Carnegie pioneered the corporation with his empire, Carnegie Steel. Although there are governmental checks on the massive power of a corporation today, they still provide most of the American economy's job opportunities, financial investments, and economic productivity. The transformation of smaller businesses to giant corporations brought enormous economic and social changes in the country and world. There were three key factors that caused this important process; first, new advances in technology allowed for the mass production of certain products at a higher quality for a lower price. This meant that quality goods were more affordable and available than ever before to the public. Second, new transportation methods allowed for the necessary materials to reach factories sooner than ever, which allowed the finished product to be created and shipped faster than mankind had ever seen. Lastly, the development of new financial investment institutions allowed more money to be made by both the public and the corporation itself. The stock market and commercial banks increased the accessibility of investment capital and allowed the public to buy shares of the corporation, thus increasing its value. Carnegie used all three of these factors to grow his business into an empire and his wealth to the likes few will ever reach. The factors of new technology, new transportation methods, and new financial investment institutions helped transform businesses into corporations that would effectively change the American social lifestyles and economic trends forever.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the world saw rapid technological advances in almost every aspect of living, ranging from faster methods of textile manufacturing to perfected techniques of creating steel. The technological progress in this age was a key factor in the forming of corporations. Before the end of the 19th century, small independent companies relied heavily upon manual labor from a small work force to fabricate their products. The company thrived or failed by the labor of a few, but this all changed when technological advances were introduced to society. Technology, such as the creation of the power loom mill, made people such as Will Carnegie and others in the small loom business obsolete because of the simple fact that they could not keep up with the production of new machines. "The Carnegies were among those whose way of life succumbed to the disorientations of machines." (Livesay 11) Machines rapidly killed the independent worker and small business and so the common man was forced to adapt or make little to no living at all. One way to adapt was to join what you could not beat, and many people found the best option was to work for those same bigger businesses that took their jobs from them by using new technology. Also, new technology permitted producing larger quantities of the product because instead of relying upon manual labor alone, the product was made by machines with men overlooking the process. Products could be made faster than ever and the surplus of the product that the machine created allowed for it to be sold at a lower price, making it affordable to more people than ever. Thus, society was able to purchase more products that improved their lifestyles, such as the refrigerator or the telephone, greatly changing the way the average American citizen lived. Carnegie successfully transformed society through his perfected steel production technology. By using advances in technology, specifically the Bessemer process, Carnegie, like hundreds of others in that time, found a way to create mass quantities of a product and was able to sell it at lower prices around the world. "Eventually the Lucy produced more than 100,000 tons a year, confounding critics..."(98 Livesay). Thanks to technology his market was huge, making his profit huge as well. It allowed him to create vast amounts of steel and sell millions of tons of it for a reasonable price. Without new technology, this production would be impossible. This process was happening throughout the country not just with steel, but with thousands of other products. Americans were able to buy better quality products for cheaper. When citizens of a country are buying new things every day, the economy is going to thrive. The creation of the corporation changed the economic and social scale of America in a positive way because both the economic state of the country and the lifestyle of the population greatly improved.

Now that new technology has allowed mass amounts of a product to be produced, the only thing left to do it get the product to the consumer. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a huge leap in the methods of transportation. The improvements in the transportation of goods, specifically the railroad, allowed big businesses to ship their goods across the country at ease, expanding their target consumers to a national or even global scale. Before the development of the railroad, a business was frequently restricted to selling their product to a local or regional market alone. The development of the railroad allowed distribution to be an easier task. The improvements in transportation allowed businesses to sell their products to hundreds of thousands of more potential buyers, which is an extremely simple way to make more profit and expand your business. Moreover, new improvements of communication the transportation helped