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Industrialization

Introduction

After the Civil War ended in 1865, the American economy was transformed by the industrial revolution, in which the city of Chicago was its leader. In the last 30 years of the nineteenth century, the industrial revolution transformed the city of Chicago into America’s second largest city and leading industrial center, as well as the world’s fastest growing city. By the second half of the nineteenth century, Chicago developed into “the prototypical industrial American city”, where foreign visitors came to view the future of American industry.[6] Unlike established east-coast cities like Boston and New York, Chicago’s economy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries came to be dominated by giant industrial enterprises that exerted strong international economic power.[7] The industrialization of Chicago was a harbinger for the sweeping economic changes that the United States underwent in the late 19th century.

Origins

Ever since its first settlers founded it in 1785, Chicago grew and developed because its location was ideal for commerce.[8] In 1673, French explorer Louis Jolliet discovered with the help of Native Americans that Chicago’s location on a very small and low divide between the Chicago and Des Plaines rivers was an extremely effective portage that connects the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River systems. After Fort Dearborn was erected in 1803 to secure the burgeoning village from Indian attacks, Chicago began to rapidly expand. When New York State’s Erie Canal connected the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, Chicago was viewed as the western terminal port in the Great Lakes, linking it to world markets.[9] In return, the Illinois government began planning the Illinois & Michigan Canal that would connect the Great Lakes with the Mississippi River system via the Chicago River.[10] Chicago thus developed into major water transport hub by the 1830s by shipping Midwestern agricultural products to the east coast and then eastern manufactured goods to the booming Midwest region.[11] The first manufacturers came to Chicago in the 1830s to process farm produce and natural resources that were shipped in and out of the city—thus Chicago’s first industrial development was due to its superb location for transportation.[12/] In 1847, Cyrus McCormick decided that Chicago’s transportation advantages and proximity to rapidly developing Midwestern agricultural lands to set up his famous McCormick reaper works, which began one of Chicago’s most important industries—the production of agricultural machinery.[13] By 1848, the first railroad opened, connecting the growing city to the East Coast by the “iron horse.” By 1856, 10 large “trunk” railroads ended in Chicago, increasing the city’s position as one of America’s most important crossroads for rail and waterborne trade.[14] The development of the surrounding Midwest also spurred the growth of industry in Chicago in that the city was the terminal market for Midwestern grain and timber from Michigan and Wisconsin.[15] Chicago’s superb water and rail transportation advantages caused a number of manufacturers to decide to set up production lines in the growing city.[16]

During the Civil War, Union military forces used Chicago’s extensive rail and water transportation network to procure and ship vital supplies and munitions for the war, encouraging many entrepreneurs to set up shop in the city.[17] In addition, the Union blockade of the Confederate Port of New Orleans shut down shipping traffic on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, which significantly reduced trade and commerce in Cincinnati and St. Louis, Chicago’s two principal rivals at the time for economic preeminence in the nation’s midsection.[18] Because Chicago was at the crossroads of the nation’s most extensive rail network, most of the trade and shipping originally bound for Cincinnati and St. Louis was instead routed through Chicago during the Civil War.[19] By the end of the Civil War, Chicago was poised for its most extensive period of industrialization yet.

The vast expansion of the American railroad network increased the potential market size for Chicago’s manufacturers and encouraged the founding of massive industrial enterprises. Because Chicago was the eastern terminus of the major western railroads and the western terminus of the major eastern railroads, Chicago was the central transfer point for people and freight moving across the United States.[20] The amount of commerce and freight moving through Chicago made the burgeoning city an ideal location for new industrial enterprises.[21] This transportation network also expedited the procurement of raw materials from the surrounding regions and the easy shipment of manufactures to the rest of the new, rapidly growing national market.[22] After the Civil War ended in 1865, industries increasingly employed the economies of scale to organize and integrate production, which meant that the processing and final fabrication of manufactured goods occurred in large cities with the best access to widespread consumers and Chicago was the most prominent example of this.[23]

Leading Industries

As Chicago became the nation’s leading railroad center following the Civil War, merchants and budding industrialists flocked to set up shop in boomtown Chicago, developing the city’s steel, meatpacking, railroad, and mail-order catalog industries by the turn of the century. Chicago’s central, Midwestern location encouraged a plethora of industries to develop and prosper well into the 20th century.

Meatpacking

The city of Chicago developed into the international center for meatpacking by the 1870s. Between 1860 and 1920, Chicago was the undisputed meatpacking center of the world.[24] By 1890, the Chicago meatpacking industry had developed into the largest concentration of labor and capital in the world. After the establishment of the Union Stock Yards, the American meatpacking industry came to be dominated by the Armour, Swift, Morris, and Hammond packing companies, all of which based their operations at the Union Stockyards.[25]

Like other industries before and after it, Chicago’s famous meatpacking industry developed in the city due to its superior rail transportation advantages. By the Civil War, Chicago’s extensive railroad network tied its booming Midwestern hinterland region to the city and the large markets on the east coast.[26] Before the Civil War, Cincinnati was the center of the American meatpacking industry, using its location on the Ohio river to ship packed meat throughout the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys.[27] Cincinnati’s meat packing industry was dealt a fatal blow during the Civil War when the Union army blockaded the Mississippi River, severely restricting meatpacker’s access to their markets and the Union army directed their contracts for processed pork and beef to Chicago packers because its rail based transportation network was deemed more efficient and secure during wartime.[28] In order to prevent cattle and hogs being driven through city streets, leading packers and railroads formed the Union Stock Yard and Transit Company in 1865 south of city limits that was accessible to all rail lines serving the city. These “stockyards” were a system of holding pens that spanned 475 acres, housing animals waiting to be slaughtered.[29] By the mid 1870’s, major packers had located their slaughterhouses next to the stockyard , resulting in a massive consolidation of industry.

Once the Union Stockyards were established, Chicago’s meatpackers transformed the industry. The industrialist Philip Armour introduced a number of innovations in his meatpacking plants that were west of the stockyards, including the use of ice-cooled rooms to allow year round packing, steam hoists to elevate animal carcasses, and an overhead assembly line to move them.[30] Gustavus Swift pioneered refrigerating railroad cars, allowing fresh beef to be shipped throughout the United States.[31] They continued to expand the profits and scale of their businesses throughout the end of the 19th century by developing canned meat and turning previously discarded animal parts into glue, fertilizer, glycerin, ammonia, and gelatin.[32] By 1900, Chicago “Big Three” packers: Armour, Swift, and Morris controlled a complex industrial chain that spread from the Great Plains to eastern ports, allowing them to control livestock prices for the entire United States.[33] By 1900, the “Big Three” Chicago packers controlled 82% of the American meat market and employed 25,000 workers in the stockyards alone.[34]

Iron and Steel

Although Pittsburg is most famous among American cities for its steel industry, Chicago became one of the largest and most important steel producing regions of the world by the mid 19th century. The development of Chicago’s large iron and steel industry occurred because of its superb geographical location, highly developed transportation network, and entrepreneurial effort.[35] Since most of the iron ore used by the American steel industry during the 19th and 20th centuries was mined in northern Michigan and Minnesota, Chicago’s location at the southern end of Lake Michigan allowed steel mills easy and cheap access to vital iron ore shipments via large lake freighters.[36] In addition, Chicago’s status as America’s central rail hub by the 1860s ensured that steel mills would have easy access to coal shipped from southern Illinois and Appalachia. By the 1850s, giant iron-shaping foundries developed to supply railroad expansion radiating out of the city. By the 1860s, mills in Chicago fully adopted the Bessemer steel making process and the number and size of steel mills increased substantially. By the end of the nineteenth century, Chicago area mills began to consolidate and expand while simultaneously moving to the Calumet Region in southeastern Illinois and Northwest Indiana, in order to take advantage of extensive cheap land, with good access to the water and rail transportation at the southern end of Lake Michigan.[37] Chicago area steel companies sold huge amounts of iron and steel products to railroads, building companies, and manufactures throughout the Untied States. At the same time, the considerable expansion of local industry, such as the giant Pullman railroad car manufacturing company and the McCormick reaper works, created extensive local demand for steel that was produced in the region.[38] Chicago’s growing local market, along with its geographical and transportation advantages for steel production caused its steel industry to expand substantially throughout the first half of the 20th century. For example, even though the formation of U.S. Steel in 1901 consolidated many locally owned mills, U.S Steel built a huge new mill on the southern shores of Lake Michigan in 1906 in what would become Gary Indiana. Following World War II, the United States accounted for half of the world’s steel production, and production in the Chicago area accounted for 25% of total American production.[39]

Agricultural Machinery Industry

Chicago’s superior water and rail transportation links and location near the booming Midwestern agricultural region in the mid 19th century spurred the development of a dynamic agricultural machinery industry.[40] In 1847, inventor Cyrus McCormick chose Chicago as the location for manufacturing his successful mechanical reaper machine. McCormick’s reaper was a success and proved to be very popular with farmers developing the Midwestern agricultural regions. Like McCormick, other agricultural machinery producers were attracted to setting up shop in Chicago because the city’s superior rail transportation links to the Midwestern agricultural hinterland allowed easy access to their farmer customers.[41] By 1855, George Easterly built a Chicago factory to manufacture a grain header and John S. Wright began to manufacture a “self-rake reaper.” The sector continued to grow in Chicago, and by the 1870 Census, Chicago was home to over 4,000 agricultural machinery establishments—the most in the world.[42] This growth continued, and in 1902, the McCormick, Deering, and Plano companies merged to form the International Harvester Company, now known as Navistar. This new company controlled more than 80 percent of world production in the agricultural machinery industry, employing over 23,000 workers throughout the first half of the 20th century.[43]

Conclusion:

Although Chicago enjoyed particular dominance in the transportation, steelmaking, meatpacking, and agricultural machinery industries, the city was home to a plethora of successful, diverse industries during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By the 1880s, Chicago was unquestionably the industrial and transportation center of the United States. Before the 1880s, most manufacturing operations in metropolitan Chicago employed hundreds of workers. By the 1880s however, manufacturing in Chicago came to be dominated by giant industrial enterprises, like the Union Stockyards, the McCormick Company reaper works, and the Pullman Car Works that each employed tens thousands of workers. This shift towards mass-scale industry had a number of important effects: including the growth of the labor movement, a reduction in the number of women and children in the industrial workforce, and massive emigration and population growth in the Chicago area.

Effects of Industrialization:

The massive industrialization that Chicago faced in the late 19th century transformed the city from a sleepy town to a globally significant economic powerhouse and America’s second largest city. Millions of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were attracted to work in the boomtown city’s growing industries. Chicago in the second half of the 19th century grew more than any large city in the history of the Western world. In the 1890’s alone, the city’s population increased by 600,000 people alone. Starting in 1890, a new wave of immigrants from central and Eastern Europe began to pour into Chicago, seeking work in the city’s booming industrial sectors. By the turn of the century, for instance, Chicago had the third largest Czech population in the world after Prague and Vienna. In addition, hundreds of thousands of Poles were attracted to the opportunities for work in Chicago’s factories, giving Chicago the world’s second largest Polish population after Warsaw by 1910. Chicago’s dramatic economic growth from industrialization coincided with important changes in American culture and society, in which the city was at the center of these changes.

References

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