History 121United States Since 1877

Week Two:

The Machine Age &

The Vitality and Turmoil of Urban Life, 1877-1920

Overview

Mass production alters USA: from debtor, agricultural nation to industrial, financial, and exporting power

Begins early 1800s; accelerates late 1800s Change workers:

from producers of whole product to employees (repeat specialized, timed tasks)

Positive: New jobs, goods, and powerful corporations

Negative: uneven dist. of wealth & power

Map 18-1, p. 461

Birth of the Electrical Industry

Thomas Edison Spirit of invention Markets new products Electric Company generates/distributes

electricity Westinghouse makes long distance

cheap (transformers) Financiers (Morgan) form General Electric

In 1887, Thomas Alva Edison (1847–1931), shown here with the phonograph, moved his laboratory from Menlo Park to West Orange, New Jersey. Here, he invented the alkaline storage battery, the phonograph, and the kinetoscope, the first machine to allow one person at a time to view motion pictures.

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Henry Ford & Andrew Carnegie Ford: Visionary manufacturer, esp.

organization: Model T, 1908 assembly lines Spurs related industries (oil, rubber)

Five-Dollar-Day plan (1914): head off unionization workers become consumers (from $2-day)

Carnegie: mass produces steel: adapt British technology produce 60% of US steel (1900)

Ford Assembly Line Workers, c.1914Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village

This engraving of steel manufacturing at Andrew Carnegie’s plant in 1886 features a Bessemer Converter, which converts molten pig iron into steel. The process was named after Sir Henry Bessemer of Sheffield, England, who first patented the process in 1855.

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Chemical Industry & Southern Industry

Du Ponts fund 1st research lab (1911): Consumer products (film, plastics)

Southern industry use 2 main crops: cotton & tobacco Duke’s American Tobacco:

popularize machine-rolled cigarettes free samples and advertising

Textile mills move South Electricity replace water for power Southern labor cheaper because:

fewer unions women and children

Richmond Tobacco Factory, c. 1880Library of Congress

The processing of raw tobacco employed thousands of African American women, who sorted, stripped, stemmed, and hung tobacco leaves as part of the redrying process. After mechanization was introduced, white women took jobs as cigarette rollers, but black women kept the worst, most monotonous jobs in the tobacco factories. The women shown in this photograph are stemming tobacco in a Virginia factory while their white male supervisor oversees their labor.

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Frederick West Taylor and Efficiency

Nature of work change New managers control production Stress efficiency:

faster production; fewer skilled workers = cut costs and boost profits

Convert worker: from skilled producer (control labor) to unskilled employee (interchangeable part

on assembly-line)

p. 465

Women in the Work Force & Child Labor

Employers hire women to cut costs 1880: 2.6 million female employees 1900: 8.6 million (more than triple)

Menial jobs in textiles, food-processing Discrimination:

lower wages Child labor

Some states try to regulate: big companies (interstate commerce) evade families need income

As textile mills often employed young children, so too did the food-processing industry. In 1913, Rosie, age seven, worked full time at the Varn & Platt Canning Company, in Bluffton, South Carolina. She started at 4 a.m. every day and did not go to school.

Child Labor, 1913

Library of Congress

Fig. 18-2, p. 468

Industrial Accidents; Freedom of Contract

Accidents push families into poverty Employers evade responsibility 1913: 25,000 killed, 1 million maimed

Triangle Shirtwaist fire (1911) kills 146 Employers claim workers can leave if

unhappy Reality: difficult to find steady job

employers can pay low wages and fire workers who call for better pay/conditions

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, 1911Juanita Hadwin Collector. Triangle Fire Lantern Slides, Kheel Center,

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-3901

p. 469

p. 469

Labor Unions

Most early unions = “trade/craft” unions Limit membership

Knights of Labor = 1st broad-based union

Start 1869; 730,000 by 1886 Admit:

unskilled women African Americans recent immigrants (except Chinese)

At the 1886 General Assembly of the Knights of Labor, which met in Richmond, Virginia, sixteen women attended as delegates. Elizabeth Rodgers, the first woman in Chicago to join the Knights and the first woman to serve as a master workman in a district assembly, attended with her two-week-old daughter. The convention established a Department of Women’s Work and appointed Leonora M. Barry, a hosiery worker, as general investigator.

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The Haymarket riot of 1886 was one of the most violent incidents of labor unrest in the late nineteenth century. This drawing, from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, shows workers fleeing while police beat demonstrators with nightsticks. As this clash was occurring, a bomb, allegedly set off by anarchists, exploded, killing both police and workers.

The Haymarket Riot, 1886

Library of Congress

American Federation of Labor

Alliance of craft unions Major labor organization by late 1880s Gompers focus on better pay/conditions Exclude immigrants and blacks because:

pay fears prejudice immigrants and blacks serve as strikebreakers contrast with Knights

Samuel Gompers, AFL, 1887

Pullman Strike, 1894Pullman strikers outside Arcade Building in Pullman, Chicago. The Illinois National Guard can be seen guarding the building during the Pullman Railroad Strike in 1894.

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

Western miners (1905) Welcome unskilled workers like Knights A radical union:

accept violence/class conflict advocate socialism

Hold protests across USA Membership small Hurt by government persecution

Women Unionists

Most craft unions (AFL) exclude women: Women form separate unions Men dominate leadership Telephone = female-controlled union Women’s Trade Union League (1903):

lobby for better conditions/hours and vote

In 1919 telephone operators, mostly female, went out on strike and shut down phone service throughout New England. The male-dominated leadership of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, to which the operators belonged, opposed the strike, but the women refused to back down and eventually achieved several of their demands against the New England Telephone Company.

Female Telephone Operators' Strike, 1919

Corbis-Bettmann

The Experience of Wage Work

Most workers do not join unions 1900: 1 million of 27.6 million workers Getting and keeping job = priority for most Intense competition for jobs Seasonal nature of work with layoffs Some form fraternal societies for help

Social Changes

Consumer-oriented society changes: dress with ready-made clothing diet with canned food habits with home appliances

New industrial elite emerge: 1920: richest 5% earn 25% of income

Size and income of middle class expand Post-1900 life expectancy increases More attend school = path to middle class

W. K. Kellogg Advertisement

Using color, large-scale scenes, and fanciful images, manufacturers of consumer goods advertised their products to a public eager to buy. This ad from the W. K. Kellogg Company, maker of breakfast foods, shows the increasingly common practice of using an attractive young woman to capture attention.

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The Modern Bathroom

The modern bathroom, with sink, tub, and flush toilet, marked an unheralded but noteworthy feature of American living standards. It improved habits of personal hygiene, increased household water consumption, altered patterns of waste disposal, and occupied a new and private realm of domestic space.

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Department Store

Advertisement

Offering a wide variety of goods and services, such as prescriptions, meats, furniture, loans, medical help, and restaurants, this late-nineteenth-century department store in Chicago epitomized the new conveniences of consumerism. It even featured a grand fountain as an easily recognized meeting place.

Chicago Historical Society

Corporate Consolidation Movement

Recurring boom/bust cycles hit economy Business leaders centralize for stability Use corporations: raise capital, ltd. liability Massive conglomerates dominate Pools to trusts to holding companies &

mergers Ruthlessly take control of small competitors Horizontal & vertical integration

JDR’s Standard Oil refines 84% of US oil by 1898

p. 480

Justification & Criticism

Social Darwinism: survival of the fittest Demand government aid (tariffs, loans)

Gospel of Wealth (Carnegie) Justified wealth/power w/ philanthropy

Critics: greedy monopolies exploit workers, stifle competition, & corrupt politics

Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) example of early big business regulation

Industrial Development

By 1920, 51% of Americans urban Cities = centers of industrial growth Provide capital, workers, & consumers Most have variety of factories

Specialize in 1 product (clothing, NYC) Shape of city change

From compact to sprawling Spurred by mass-transit work in urban core; live in suburbs

p. 489

Taken from J. B. Legg’s architecture book, this page illustrates the ideal suburban home. His book, published in 1876, was aimed at the prospering middle class.

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Population Growth

Some growth from annexing nearby areas Biggest factor = migration from

countryside and immigration from abroad Rural populace decline Low crop prices & high debts hurt farmers Move to cities for jobs & to escape

isolation

Map 19-1a, p. 4901880: 14 million Americans in cities

Map 19-1b, p. 490

1920: 54 million in cities (390% increase)

Inner City Living Conditions

Overcrowding, disease, poverty Biggest problem = lack of adequate housing High rents = 2–3 families occupy tenement apts

Tiny rooms lack windows, water, safe heat Result = disease, vermin, & filth

NYC regulates light, ventilation & safety of new buildings; not existing structures

Reformers reject public housing New systems of heat, light, & plumbing benefit

upper & middle classes first

The intersection of Orchard and Hester Streets on New York’s Lower East Side, photographed ca. 1905. Unlike the middle classes, who worked and played hidden away in offices and private homes, the Jewish lower-class immigrants who lived and worked in this neighborhood spent the greater part of their lives on the streets.

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p. 497

In his watercolor The Bowery at Night, painted in 1885, W. Louis Sonntag Jr. shows a New York City scene transformed by electric light. Electricity transformed the city in other ways as well, as seen in the electric streetcars and elevated railroad.

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Urban Poverty

Urban poverty still problem Americans debate whether to help poor Traditional belief: poor = lazy & immoral Aid to poor create dependence

Some reformers advocate government action to address poverty with safety & health regulations

p. 500

Managing the City

Governments slowly address new problems Many urban governments lack organization Germ theory: Clean water & waste disposal

= urgent needs Lack of 2 cause disease (yellow fever, typhoid)

Engineers purify water with filters & chlorine Improve waste disposal, street cleaning,

lighting, construction, & fire protection Street paving, steel-frame construction,

elevators, steam-heat improve urban life

Crime and Violence Homicides & other crimes (theft)

increase More reporting may explain growth

Nativists blame immigrants Native-born also participate in crime

Cities form professional police forces, post-1850 poor training, corruption, & ethnic/racial

prejudice

Political Machines

Political machines arise from confusion of politics (seek office for economic rewards)

Use bribery & graft Help urban newcomers with problems Machines: organizations with popular base Boss: professional politician who broker

diverse interest groups; often an immigrant For votes, boss help with jobs, food, law, etc.

New York’s New Solar System, 1899All politics revolves around “Boss”Croker

Political Machines (cont.)

NYC’s Tammany Hall personal gain, public accomplishments Profit from control of city contracts & jobs Profit from illegal actions (gambling) Construct vital public works

Bribes & kickbacks inflate costs to taxpayers Like business leaders, bosses use

politics for self-interest

The Tammany Tiger on the Loose

Civic Reform

Upset by corruption & taxes, middle/upper classes oppose bosses Advocate city managers & city commissions to

create efficient government by experts Reformers do not realize urbanities are

loyal to boss because boss help with problems

A few reform mayors use government to address poverty (Pingree of Detroit)

The Tammany Ring: Who Stole the People’s Money?

City Beautiful Movement

Architects try to make cities attractive, efficient w/ parks, wider streets Displace poor in process

Middle class moralists also stress holidays Christmas, etc; add Mother’s Day

(1914) Emphasize family as families face new

strains

Family Life & Leisure Family remain primary social unit Most households= nuclear family

Family size shrink: declining birth rate Stages of life (youth, parenthood, old age)

more distinct # of unmarried people increase

Boarding = common practice Leisure time expands

Sports, vaudeville, magazines, amusement parks Provide entertainment & escaper Create mass culture

Amusement centers such as Luna Park at Coney Island in New York City, became common and appealing features of the new leisure culture. One of the most popular Coney Island attractions was a ride called Shooting the Chutes, which resembled modern-day giant water slides. In 1904 Luna Park staged an outrageous stunt of an elephant sliding down the chute. The creature survived, apparently unfazed.

Amusement Centers

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Spalding’s Base Ball Guide offered fans nothing less than “the official records of America’s national game.” The first issue came out in 1877 and by 1889 the publication grew to 180 pages packed with statistics, editorials by players, photographs, and overall assessments of teams in the major and minor leagues.

Joe Weber and Lew Fields

Joe Weber and Lew Fields were one of the most popular comic teams in vaudeville. They and similar comedians used fast-paced dialogue to entertain audiences with routines like this one: Doctor: Do you have insurance? Patient: I ain’t got one nickel insurance. Doctor: If you die, what will your wife bury you with? Patient: With pleasure.

Corbis-Bettmann

Homework Assignment Compare the three main unions** that

emerged during the machine age. How did their goals or aims and membership differ?

Which union was the most exclusive? Most radical?

Give an example of how these unions both benefited and harmed the American workplace and workers.

**Knights of Labor, AFL, IWW