Industrial America gave birth to corporate America with companies of steel, oil and railroad companies. Businesses such as Carnegie Steel owned by Andrew Carnegie became the world’s largest corporation, which was later bought out and changed the name to value at one billion dollars. Success stories of America being of “opportunity” gave a romanticized view of this young country, inviting immigrants from all over Europe to come to America. Their dreams of a better life full of prosperity were soon turned into a nightmare. In order to maintain and grow in the industrial age, employers used cost effective practices that was dangerous to the laborers, such as limited raises and zero job security. Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould and John D. Rockefeller …show more content…
When he was forced to leave the New York after his involvement in “Black Friday” where and his partners tried to corner the market in gold failed. Gould opened up the Union Pacific Railroad. Gould like other capitalist giants during the Industrial Era used cost saving techniques to keep a hold on the market, creating monopolies to buy out there competitors and control prices on the railroads. As the industrial industry grew so did other markets because of the transportation was faster for companies to distribute product over the country, of course this came at a high price. Small farmers were discriminated against if they had small commodities they were charged higher rates to ship smaller cargo as opposed to larger companies shipping mass products were charged less. Railroad companies often competed against each other for railways, larger railways bought out smaller often shorter tracks, eliminating options for farmers and other businesses. The people demanded that the government step in and regulate the private corporation and their prices resulting in the Interstate Commerce Act. This appointed a five-member board to oversee the railroad practice and was meant to regulate prices, and discourage price discrimination. What it did not do was give power to the government to enforce the law nor did