CONTENTS I. INDUSTRIAL AMERICA AT THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR II. THE FIRST GREAT AMERICAN TRUST III. THE EPIC OF STEEL IV. THE TELEPHONE: AMERICA'S MOST POETICAL ACHIEVEMENT V. THE DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC UTILITIES VI. MAKING THE WORLD'S AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY VII. THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF THE AUTOMOBILE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTETHE AGE OF BIG BUSINESSCHAPTER I. INDUSTRIAL AMERICA AT THE END OF THE CIVIL WARA comprehensive survey of the United States, at the end of the CivilWar, would reveal a state of society which bears little resemblance tothat of today. Almost all those commonplace fundamentals of existence,the things that contribute to our bodily comfort while they vex us witheconomic and political problems, had not yet made their appearance.The America of Civil War days was a country without transcontinentalrailroads, without telephones, without European cables, or wirelessstations, or automobiles, or electric lights, or sky-scrapers, ormillion-dollar hotels, or trolley cars, or a thousand other contrivancesthat today supply the conveniences and comforts of what we call ourAmerican civilization. The cities of that period, with their unseweredand unpaved streets, their dingy, flickering gaslights, their amblinghorse-cars, and their hideous slums, seemed appropriate settings forthe unformed social life and the rough-and-ready political methods ofAmerican democracy. The railroads, with their fragile iron rails, theirlittle wheezy locomotives, their wooden bridges, their unheated coaches,and their kerosene lamps, fairly typified the prevailing frontierbusiness and economic organization. But only by talking with thebusiness leaders of that time could we have understood the changes thathave taken place in fifty years. For the most part we speak a businesslanguage which our fathers and grandfathers would not have comprehended.The word "trust" had not become a part of their vocabulary; "restraintof trade" was a phrase which only the antiquarian lawyer couldhave interpreted; "interlocking directorates," "holding companies,""subsidiaries," "underwriting syndicates," and "community ofinterest"--all this jargon of modern business would have signifiednothing to our immediate ancestors. Our nation of 1865 was a nation offarmers, city artisans, and industrious, independent business men, andsmall-scale manufacturers. Millionaires, though they were not unknown,did not swarm all over the land. Luxury, though it had made greatprogress in the latter years of the war, had not become the Americanstandard of well-being. The industrial story of the United States inthe last fifty years is the story of the most amazing economictransformation that the world has ever known; a change which is fitlytypified in the evolution of the independent oil driller of westernPennsylvania into the Standard Oil Company, and of the ancient openair forge on the banks of the Allegheny into the United States SteelCorporation.