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Hi, everybody, and welcome
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back to Heimler's History.
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In the last few lectures,
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we've been talking about the Gilded Age.
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And when I think of the Gilded Age,
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I think of a golden-covered turd.
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And here's what I mean.
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There was a lot of prosperity to be had
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during this time,
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but under that thin layer of prosperity,
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there was the larger reality of,
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you know, the turd.
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And in order to understand this age,
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we've got to talk about
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both the gold and the turd.
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Okay, this is getting out of hand.
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I've said turd three times.
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That's four.
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Oh.
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Let's get started.
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(It's time to kick it old school).
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[MUSIC]
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Okay, let's begin with the gold.
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Near the end of the 19th century,
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people began asking, "Why are
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the best men not in politics?"
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And do you know why?
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It's because all of those industrious men
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were off making metric
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buttloads of hoo-hoo.
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[MUSIC]
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All right, let me introduce you to two
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of these guys: Andrew Carnegie and John D.
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Rockefeller.
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Carnegie was a charming pint-sized
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Scotsman, and he was the king
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of the steel industry.
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He was an industrial genius,
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and he pioneered a very profitable
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entrepreneurial tactic
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called vertical integration.
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It meant that every part
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of the steel-making process passed
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through his company's hands.
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From mining the ore,
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to shipping it to the factory,
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to the smelting process,
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every hand that touched Carnegie Steel
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was employed by Carnegie.
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And what does that mean?
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More money.
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[MUSIC]
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But while Carnegie loved making money,
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and he was very good at it,
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he wasn't the cutthroat like John D.
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Rockefeller was.
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In fact, Carnegie believed that all
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the money that he had earned was something
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like a public trust, and that he was
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to use that money for the public good.
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This idea is what Carnegie called
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the "Gospel of Wealth,"
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and basically he scurried around to try
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to find as many public places that he
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could invest his money into as he could,
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places like libraries and concert halls.
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And all told, he found a home
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for about 350 million of his dollars.
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Now, I'm not saying there was no turd under
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the hood here, but Carnegie's was
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about the cleanest gold around.
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So, then let's talk about turds.
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Say hello to John D.
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Rockefeller.
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Now I'm not saying old
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Rockefeller himself was a turd.
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Everything he did was quite legal.
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But you did have to watch where you
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stepped when you were around him because
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you never knew what might end
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up on the bottom of your shoe.
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So, Rockefeller was the king of the oil
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industry, and he wasn't at all concerned
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about the bite of his
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scruples like Carnegie was.
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Whereas Carnegie mastered vertical
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integration, which could at least be
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justified on the grounds of controlling
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the quality of the product from the mining
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to construction,
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Rockefeller mastered what was called
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"horizontal integration,"
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which essentially meant that Rockefeller
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threw his corporate weight around until he
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gobbled up all his competitors and was
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essentially the only one selling oil.
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Now, the technical term for this is
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a monopoly, or more to the point, a trust.
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And in America we don't like this kind
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of thing because in a market economy,
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competition is essential to keep prices
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low and serve the customers well.
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And one of Rockefeller's favorite
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sayings was, "Let us prey."
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That's prey with an 'E,' not with an 'A.'
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And he reasoned that if all the other oil
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companies were weak enough to be eaten
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by him, then they deserved to be eaten.
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Later this became known as
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a phenomenon called "Social Darwinism."
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Essentially Charles Darwin said,
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when it comes to species,
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that the strong eat the weak,
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and only the fittest survive.
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And as the clamor rose against Rockefeller
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and his business practices,
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he responded essentially by saying, "Look,
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my wealth and my power
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prove that I am the fittest.
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I am the strongest.
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And if other people have to live
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in poverty and squalor, well,
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that just proves that they are
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the weakest and deserve to be eaten."
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And by the way, as far as it goes,
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that's a pretty good argument.
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If the laws of nature are read in tooth
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and claw, then why shouldn't the laws of
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everything else be read in tooth and claw?
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To me, given the truth of the premise,
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I would accept the conclusion.
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Now, I don't accept the truth
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of the premise, but I think
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Rockefeller had a good point.
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If Darwinian thought is the way the world
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works, then why not apply
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those principles to business?
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Now, in the age in which we live, where we
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just accept government intervention
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on business practices,
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it's hard for us to imagine just how
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hands-off the government was
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towards businesses back then.
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It was like laissez-faire gone wild.
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Now the conditions of the workers
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whom Rockefeller sacrificed in order
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to get to the top were pretty awful.
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Consider that these folks were working
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a minimum of 10-hour shifts, six days
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a week, and a sizeable portion worked 12
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to 14-hour shifts, which is to say
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many workers ate breakfast, lunch,
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and dinner at the factory
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and returned home only to sleep.
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But the reward of such long hours was
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extremely low wages and constant danger
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from unsafe machines
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and squalid working conditions.
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So, you know, worth it.
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Now, as it happened,
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those millions and millions of workers
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who, by their poverty,
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proved that they were only fit to be
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trampled upon by people like Rockefeller
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suddenly woke up and started organizing
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and demanding their
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rights and their dignity.
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And the way they fought back
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was by creating labor unions.
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You see, an individual laborer couldn't do
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anything about his lot in life,
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but when you join that one to another,
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and then thousands of others,
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all of a sudden they have a voice.
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One of the most significant labor unions
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was known as the "Knights of Labor,"
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and probably one of their most significant
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achievements was to agitate through
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a series of strikes for an eight-hour
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workday, and in many cases, they won.
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But as it turns out,
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the Knights of Labor were dealt a death
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blow in an affair that came to be
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known as the Haymarket Square Riot.
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So, in May of 1886,
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the Knights had scheduled a public protest
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in Chicago. And long story short,
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a radical anarchist threw a bomb
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into the midst of the gathering and killed
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or injured a dozen people,
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including police officers.
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Now as far as we know,
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the Knights had nothing to do with this
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bomb, but that didn't stop a lot
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of the newspapers from blaming it on them.
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And at that point,
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the Knights of Labor quickly faded.
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And in place of the Knights of Labor,
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other labor unions grew up,
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like the American Federation of Labor,
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and in many cases, they took up the same
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causes that the Knights had taken up.
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All told, by 1900 there were upwards
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of 23,000 labor strikes across America.
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The strikers won about half of their
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contests and lost about half,
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but it was serious progress in their eyes.
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The eight-hour workday was established,
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wages increased, and safety regulations
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for factories were slowly implemented.
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And as a sign that things were changing,
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in 1894 Congress established Labor Day,
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which was a symbol of the
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workers' right to rest.
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Now, a lot of people want to argue about
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the practices of business owners
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like Rockefeller and Carnegie.
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Some people want to call them captains
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of industry because they worked very hard,
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rose from nothing, established businesses,
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and became a symbol of the American dream
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in which anyone could get anywhere they
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wanted to provided they
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worked hard enough.
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Other people want to call them robber
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barons because they only cared about
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amassing wealth and they cared nothing
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about the people whose backs they
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trampled upon in order to get that wealth.
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But whichever way you see it,
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you have to understand
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that the coming-of-age of American
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industry was one of the most
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convulsive changes in American history.
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This nation began just like
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Thomas Jefferson dreamed,
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as a nation of farmers,
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but during the Gilded Age we became
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a nation of capitalists and city-dwellers
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and factory workers, and it was just going
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to take us a few years to figure
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out how to stand on these new legs.
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So, that's all for now.
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I'll see you next time.