Devine
Spring
2014
Study
Questions for Porter, “Industrialization and the Rise of Big Business”
1. How did the
pre-Civil War American economy differ from the post-Civil War economy?
2. In asking why the economy changed during the late
19th century, why are “greed” and the “evil genius of the Robber
Barons” answers that are too simplistic?
3. Despite some
uneasiness, why were most Americans willing to accept the new industrial
economy?
4. As the economy
industrialized who won and who lost?
5. Why did steel
become a “big business” whereas women’s fashion and jewelry did not?
6. How were the new
and powerful “big businesses” different than those that had preceded them?
7. How did the
railroads and telegraph create a “national market”? How did the emergence of
railroads enable companies to expand the scale and scope of their production?
8. What was “vertical
integration”? How did this process lead to the emergence of powerful big
businesses?
9. What strategy did
Rockefeller’s Standard Oil pursue that ultimately enabled it to control 90
percent of the nation’s oil refining capacity?