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The Impact of Industrialization

Page history last edited by Mr. Hengsterman 1 year, 1 month ago

 

The Impact of Industrialization on American Society [1865 to 1900]

              While Industry makes the country smaller and brings people into an integrated marketplace with new

                consumer products, their only avenue for participation is as an overworked and underpaid factory worker

 

 

“The American Beauty Rose can be produced in all its splendor only by sacrificing
the early buds that grow up around it”
John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

 

   

 


Questions to consider
1.  How did industrialization, mechanization, and specialization impact the work a day world for the American worker?

2.  What role did the state and federal government play in controlling the new industrial economy?

3.  What were the notable ideologies of the time?

 

 

 


INDIVIDUALS ROLE IN THE ECONOMY


 

Image result for Gilded Age Millionaires Party

 

POV Wealthy Class: A class of millionaires emerged for the first time ever. Tycoons like Carnegie and Rockefeller made fortunes.  This type of wealth was championed by “Social Darwinism” where the strong win in business.  “The American Beauty Rose can be produced in all its splendor only by sacrificing the early buds that grow up around it”  John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

 

 

 

POV The Working ClassUnfortunately, many of the mega-industries, like railroads, grew at the expense of the “little man’s” interest. As businesses, they were out to make money, and they did. But the working man cried foul. To right these wrongs, the beginnings of anti-trusts began (to bust the monopolies) and organized labor got a jump start (although they were still rather ineffective). 

 


The United States has always been stratified, but during the Gilded Age the gap grows 

 SLAVERY INDUSTRY 
All encompassing system that impacts people (slaves and masters) at all levels and relationships on the plantation.  Impacts the human relationships beyond the work a day world...WHY?
It impacts how workers move around, how they work, and the role in  the new consumer market and how they spend their leisure time

 

 

 

 

The replacement of the producer by the employee

Most workers no longer were their own bosses. Instead, they were paid for time on the job.  Job and worker/boss relationship becomes more impersonal and detached 

 

The independent spirit of the average Industrial worker D;I;E;S

 

 

Images of the Industrial worker 1908-1912 from the Lewis Hine collection; Industrial Accidents.pdf

 

 

 

 

Industry can create very different outcomes at the same time

Unifying elements

Makes country smaller,  drops travel time, and brings people into an integrated marketplace (same consumer goods)

 

Railroads 1870-1890 (MAP)
 

 

Middle class develops (white collar) staffing offices of huge companies to buy modern goods

 

Dis-unifying elements

Workers can not afford the new goods - WHY? 

 

They only avenue for participation is as an overworked and underpaid factory worker (IMAGES: the Industrial worker)

 

The leads to labor conflicts (MAP) 1880-1890 (Management  vs. labor) MAP

 

These conflicts will disrupt the entire economy  ZINN?

 

 

 

 

At the turn of the century, when the average worker earned $8 to $10 per week, Rockefeller was worth millions.  Annual wages of railroad workers, according to the report of the commissioner of labor in 1890, were:

$957 for engineers (the aristocrats of the railroad)

$575 for conductors

$212 
for brakemen

$124 for laborers.


Railroad work was one of the most dangerous jobs in America;
2,000 railroad workers were being killed each year, and 30,000 injured. The railroad companies called these "acts of God" or the result of "carelessness" on the part of the workers, but the Locomotive Firemen's Magazine said: "It comes to this: while railroad managers reduce their force and require men to do double duty, involving loss of rest and sleep . . . the accidents are chargeable to the greed of the corporation."  from A People History of the United States  - Robber Barons and Rebels   Industrial Accidents

 

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/10-year-old-works-alongside-father-in-weapons-factory-1378728823-slideshow/

 

 

GILDED AGE: INDUSTRIALIZATION - ppt download

 

 


Carnegie vs. the Railroad Workers  (Image)   
Industrial Wages 1890


Gilded Age Hourly Wage - Graphic

Gap Between the Rich and the Poor (Video Clip)

 


 

Pin on 1900 Unit

 

 

http://faculty.weber.edu/kmackay/notable_labor_strikes_of_the_gil.htm

 

 

 THE ROLE of the GOVERNMENT in THE ECONOMY

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/05/30/the-role-of-government

 

 

"Anti-Trust Legislation" handout and Landmark Anti-Trust Cases chart. Answer the questions on both handouts.

 

 

 

 


LAISSEZ-FAIRE ECONOMICS:  Until the New Deal (1930's), the U.S. employed a system of laissez-faire capitalism.  The government felt that the free market economic system would operate best with little or no interference by government. 


 

Munn vs. Illinios 1877

Interstate Commerce Act,  1887

 

Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Company vs. Illinois1886

 

Sherman Anti-Trust Act, 1890

United States v. E. C. Knight Company1895

 

 


ADVOCATES FOR  UNBRIDLED (unrestrained or uncontrolled) CAPITALISM


 

Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner - Social Darwinism "survival of the fittest" 
Social Darwinism, originally advocated by Herbert Spencer, was taken over by Yale professor and stated that the survival of the fittest implied that the gov’t should stay out and let the rightful winners take their share. Monopolies = natural accumulation of power.

 

Andrew Carnegie - The Gospel of Wealth (1889) " Wealth carries moral responsibilities"

According to Carnegie, it was the responsibility ophilanthropyby the new upper class of self-made rich. The central thesis of Carnegie's essay was the peril of allowing large sums of money to be passed into the hands of persons or organizations ill-equipped mentally or emotionally to cope with them. As a result, the wealthy entrepreneur must assume the responsibility of distributing his fortune in a way that it will be put to good use, and not wasted on frivolous expenditure. In this he represented a captain of industry who had risen to power by his own hand and refused to worship.

 


 


Arguments for Government intervention regulation  Some favored gov’t regulation or even socialism:

These individuals will be explored in greater depth during our study of Topic #13 - Social Thought in the Gilded Age


Lester Ward  sociologist who appealed for gov’t intervention and a cooperative philosophy in Dynamic Sociology,

 

Edward Bellamy wrote of a utopian, council of elders controlled city where jobs were managed by a small elite in Looking Backward.

 

Henry George, Progress and Poverty: advocated a 100% tax on wealth after a certain level (real estate values, for example)

 

Henry Demarest Lloyd -- Wealth against Commonwealth (1894): criticized Standard Oil

 

Thorstein Veblen -- The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899): criticized the nouveau riche

 

Jacob A. Riis -- How the Other Half Lives (1890): exposed the dirt, disease, vice, and misery of the rat-infested New York slums (heavily influenced TR)

 


 

 

 


Ideologies challenging Capitalism  - Comparative Economic Systems

Communism and Socialism - explain the origins and difference / cow analogy


 

 

Cows and Ideologies Geopolitics and Big Business 

Confused about the difference between socialism, Communism, and the politics of huge corporations? This basic “dictionary” may help.

 

How Andrew Carnegie Turned His Fortune Into A Library Legacy
http://www.npr.org/2013/08/01/207272849/how-andrew-carnegie-turned-his-fortune-into-a-library-legacy

 

 

A Locked Door, A Secret Meeting And The Birth Of The Fed

http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/11/11/455675540/episode-505-a-locked-door-a-secret-meeting-and-the-birth-of-the-fed

 

 

 

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