The United States in 1876 Centennial Exhibition Celebrates Progress and Technology Economic Depression and Social Strife An Industrial Economy Agriculture and Industry Agricultural expansion production spurt new technologies falling prices Industrial expansion leading industries: machinery, iron, and steel reasons emergence of business cycles Railroads Wave of railroad construction New techology and managerial methods Economic and cultural impact Public regulation Railroad mergers Big Business The rise of big business Structural characteristics of big business distinct operating units hierarchical management with salaried executives Changes in business practice mass distribution mass production Paths to bigness vertical and horizontal integration pools, trusts, holding companies, and mergers Regulation by the states Sherman Anti-Trust Act Industry and Technology Emergence of science-based industries New technological systems railroads telegraph telephone electricity Sources of technological advance European scientists independent inventors corporate research labs The Center and the Periphery The South Dependence on agriculture, particularly cotton Persistent poverty The West The peopling of the trans-Mississippi West sources of migration desire to settle and farm challenge of farming: aridity Trend away from consolidation farming cattle ranching Extractive industries tied to global markets and outside capital Classes Changes in Class Structure Emergence of a national elite Rise of the new middle class Huge and growing working class Jobs and Incomes Divisions within the working class skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled men vs. women Workplace hazards physical dangers and disease job insecurity Impact of workplace technology Immigrants and Migrants Scope of immigration Sources: "new" vs. "old" immigrants Global phenomenon Immigrants a significant proportion of the working class Social Mobility The ideology The reality