do now: create a t chart showing the pros and cons of industrialization
TRANSCRIPT
Do Now: Create a T chart showing the pros and cons of industrialization.
Westward DevelopmentIndustrializationUrbanization
Westward Expansion
Industrialization/Mechanization
Urbanization
Do Now: What can you infer from these graphs?
Railroads
At the center of economic growth and change in America
During the late 1800s, the amount of RR track, freight, and passengers more than doubled.
Single largest employer Led to the rise of the steel industry
732000 tons in 1978 to 10188000 by 1900
Factories
Blast Furnaces
Bessemer Process
Benefits of the RR
Employment Sharp increase in GDP Time Zones
The US Attorney General: Need Not Change
Easier to travel Cheaper and Faster Shipping Helped increase factory production (raw
materials) Mail Order Catalogs Eventually helped labor rights movement
Shortcomings of the RR
Corruption Industry leaders found ways to take
advantage of the farmers Shipping Prices and Control of Grain
Elevators Treatment of workers was awful
1/400 died 1/26 major injury ¼ of all US Steel (Pittsburgh) died
Growing Socioeconomic Gap in US
Railroad and Grain Elevator
1860
1890
Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Gould, Fisk, Frick Duke and Morgan
One View
Filthy Rich and Livin’ it Up Railroads—Vanderbilt Steel—Carnegie Rockefeller—Oil Duke—Tobacco Morgan—Banking
Public Perception– Outrage
Corruption included Bribing congressmen
Often had more political power than congressmen
Manipulating Stock Prices Bought and sold stocks to drive prices up and down hurting their
investors as well as those of other companies
Exploiting Workers Horrid working conditions with low pay
Ruining Competition Building enormous trusts that squashed the competition
Consequences- Good and Bad
Sherman Antitrust Act- Senator Sherman
Attempt at regulating Trusts--Ineffective
“Every contract, combination in the form of trust or
otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade
or commerce among the several states is
hereby declared to be illegal”
Failed to address the issue Out of 8 cases brought before the court regarding this
act, 7 were won by the corporations. One case stated that manufacturing was not considered
trade or commerce therefore did not apply
Factories and Factory Mechanization
Positives Electricity
From Nil to 1/3 of all Factories in the late 1900s began using electric power (steam prior)
Machines took skilled labor’s place What implications might this have GDP Increased
Negatives Safety Pollution
A Better Life or Growing pains
Streetcar
What are some of advantages and disadvantages of technological revolutions
Do Now: Who, what, where, when, why It has been well said that the modern city is a stronghold of
industrialism quite as the feudal city was a stronghold of militarism, but the modern cities fear no enemies and rivals from without and their problems of government are solely internal. Affairs for the most part are going badly in these great new centres, in which the quickly-congregated population has not yet learned to arrange its affairs satisfactorily. Unsanitary housing, poisonous sewage, contaminated water, infant mortality, the spread of contagion, adulterated food, impure milk, smoke-laden air, ill-ventilated factories, dangerous occupations, juvenile crime, unwholesome crowding, prostitution and drunkenness are the enemies which the modern cities must face and overcome, would they survive. Logically their electorate should be made up of those who can bear a valiant part in this arduous contest, those who in the past have at least attempted to care for children, to clean houses, to prepare foods, to isolate the family from moral dangers; those who have traditionally taken care of that side of life which inevitably becomes the subject of municipal consideration and control as soon as the population is congested…
Herbert Croly's The Promise of American Life
New Philosophy about government’s responsibility to address the new issues
Is the government responsible for solving economic, political and social issues?
Progressivism in Government
The challenge confronting early twentieth-century America, according to Croly, was to respond to the problems that had accompanied the transformation of America from a rural, agricultural society into an urban industrial one.
Filled with faith in the power of government, Progressives launched reform in the areas public health, housing, urban planning and design, parks and recreation, workplace safety, workers' compensation, pensions, insurance, poverty relief, and health care.
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Who were the Progressives? Many middle class protestants
Women such as Jane Addams and Florence Kelley Fundamentalists such as Walter Rauschenbusch
and William Jennings Bryan Writers (Muckrakers) for the new and popular
magazines such as McClure's, Everybody's, Pearson's, Cosmopolitan, and Collier's
Lincoln Steffens, Upton Sinclair and Ida Tarbel Authored articles exposing the evils of American society—
political corruption, stock market manipulation, fake advertising, vice, impure food and drugs, racial discrimination, and lynching
Socialists led by Eugene Debs Politicians such as Roosevelt, La Follette, Wilson African Americans such as Wells, Dubois,
Washington
Issues Addressed by Progressives1. Social2. Moral 3. Economic 4. Political
Examples Child Labor City issues Labor issues Immigrant Culture Corruption in Government Drinking African American Lynching and
Racism Industry Monopolization / Trusts
Note: Some of these issues overlap of course
The Underlying Philosophies
1. The Federal Government should play a key role in solving problems
The nations new industrial/urban character requires regulation
2. The church should play a role in reestablish morals in American society– Social Gospel
Believe most problems stem from the loss of Christianity
MuckrakersExposing these Issues
Popular magazines became a new trend.
Journalists began using these as a vehicle to expose corruption
Results were powerful
Term coined by T.R.
Muckrakers
Upton Sinclair– Novel– The Jungle
Lincoln Steffens– The Shame of the Cities
Ida Tarbell– The History of the Standard Oil Company– 19 part expose in McClure's
Jacob Riis– How the Other Half Lives
Settlement Houses An Their Supporters
Jane Addams Daughter of rich banker /
politician
Visits Toynbee Hall, A settlement house in London
Moves into Hull House in Chicago with Ellen Starr
Together they Fought for Child labor restrictions,
sanitization of city, 8-hour work day, women’s suffrage, protection for immigrants and better working conditions
Author and Nobel Peace Prize Winner
Children Playing in the Hull House
Hull House + ~400 Other Settlement Houses…
Worked to assist urban poor, especially immigrants, children and women by:Providing services
such as education and domestic training
Child careEntertainment
Social clubs, playgrounds, reading groups, orchestra, etc.
Health Care
Worked to solve bigger problems such as: Child Labor Prostitution City corruption City renewal Educational
practices Women’s Suffrage
Challenges and Solutions
The New Immigrant
Problem Solution “The Blight of the City” 1900-1910 8.2 million
immigrants Seen as uneducated, dirty
and uncivilized Most were Catholics, peasants Most had darker skin then
earlier immigrants Lived in squalid conditions Drinkers Sometimes anarchists Seen as morally deficient Took jobs
Restrict immigration 1921 and 1924 immigration
quotas (National Origins Act)
1921—2% based on 1910
1924—2%based on 1890
Assimilate the immigrants Some believed this impossible Jane Addams believed
immigrants could share their culture but needed refinement
The New Colossus Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,With conquering limbs astride from land to land;Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall standA mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her nameMother of Exiles. From her beacon-handGlows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes commandThe air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame."Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries sheWith silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Women’s Views
Progressive women did not like that many immigrant women turned to prostitution
Mann Act 1910– Cannot transport women over state lines for “immoral purposes” Allowed government to interfere with private life
Jack Johnson arrested for transporting his secretary across state lines even though it was consensual.
Immigrant men spend free time in saloons tainting their moral fibers and spending the little money they made.
Immigrants are the fuel for the Machine Bosses
Number of ImmigrantsNumber of Immigrants
18201820 8,3858,385
18301830 23,32223,322
18401840 84,06684,066
18501850 369,980369,980
18601860 153,640153,640
18701870 387,203387,203
18801880 457,257457,257
18901890 455,302455,302
19001900 448,572448,572
19101910 1,041,5701,041,570
19201920 430,001430,001
19301930 241,700241,700
19401940 70,75670,756
19501950 249,187249,187
Immigration in America
Views of the Newcomers
What class of our citizens most strenuously resist the moral restrains of the community.... who among our population give unrestricted and unregulated license to the ten thousand drinking places in the city, which are the chief receptacles of drunkenness, debauchery, villainy, and disease? It is the residuum or dregs of four millions of European immigrants, including paupers, felons, and convicts that have landed at this port within the last twenty years.
Why So Many?
Escape from poverty in their home country
“The streets of America are paved with gold.”
Italians faced poverty and hardship
Jews escaping persecution in Russia Pogroms- massacres of Jews Response by Czar- push Jewish into designated
neighborhoods.
Voyage
Steamship took 2-3 weeks. Most in steerage (open lower section
of ship) No privacy- Very Unsanitary 1/3 returned home after earning $ 1890-1920 10 million
Italians Greeks Slavs Jews and Armenians
70% came through New York City
Italians on a ship deck
Heading into NY
Artist Depiction
Entry and SettlementImmigrants were examined for diseases
If diseased then quarantined or deported
Settled near others from their countryGhettos were densely
settledRestrictive Covenants
(agreements among homeowners to keep certain people from renting or buying)
Asian Immigration
Chinese helped build railroad in the mid 1800s
After paying passage they settled and worked side by side with the general population.
Chinese worked for lower wages upsetting labor unions
Scientific fallacies showed Asians as being an inferior race.
Building the Railroad
Other Immigrants
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 Prevented the immigration of new Chinese. Those
who had already established residency were allowed to come and go.
Japanese also faced restriction Segregated schools in California were outlawed
due to an American-Japanese agreement Web Alien Land Law banned alien Asians from
owning farmland Mexican Immigrants
Hired as cheap labor to work in mines and farms in the southwest.
The immigration restrictions placed on European immigrants in 1921 (Immigration Restriction Act) led to an abundance of jobs which led to a huge influx of Mexican immigrants.
Immigrants and the Expanding City Most immigrants settled in cities Growth due to transportation,
elevators, tenements, factory jobs, mechanization of farming.
Population growth due in large part to influx of immigrants.
Vegetable Stand
Bocce Ball
Corruption
The System Politicians hired friends
(spoils system) City officials would
accept bribes in return for contracts
Links to org. Crime Elected officials would
establish a “Machine” which would guarantee their continued position Provided immigrants with
jobs, fuel, food, etc in return for votes Wide-Spread Election Fraud
Nast’s Cartoons
Cartoon 2
What tells in holdin your grip on your district is to go right down among the poor families and help them. I've got a regular system for this. If there's a fire in Ninth or Tenth or Eleventh Avenue, for example, any hour of the day or night, I'm usually there with some of my election district captains as soon as the fore engines. If a family is burned out I don't ask them if they are Republicans or Democrats, and I don't refer them to the Charity Organization Society, which would investigate their case in a month or two and decide if they are worthy of help about the time they are dead from starvation. I just get quarters for them, buy clothes for them if their clothes were all burned up, and fix them up until they get things runnin' again. It's philanthropy, but it's politics too - mighty good politics. Who can tell me how many votes one of those fires brings me? The poor are the most grateful people in the world, and, let me tell you, they have more friends in their neighborhoods than the rich have in theirs...
Another thing, I can always get a deserving man a job. I make it a point to keep track of jobs, and it seldom happens that I don't have a few up my sleeve ready for use.
I hear a young feller that's proud of his voice... I ask him to join our Glee Club. He comes up and sings, and he's a follower of Plunkitt for life. Another young feller gains a reputation as a baseball player in a vacant lot. I bring him into our baseball club. That fixes him. You'll find him working for my ticket at the polls next election
I rope them all in by givin' them opportunities to show off themselves off. I don't trouble them with political arguments.
--George Washington Plunkitt, Politician, New York, 1889
Benefits of the Machine
The other side of the argument: Provided services
for immigrants Job search Lawyers Fuel, food, clothes Etc.
Built and maintained infrastructure
Employed immigrants
Shutting down the City Machines City Commission PlanEstablished a
commission:Each member would be in
charge of a certain dept. Based on scientific
management
Consequences to the City Commission PlanVoting done on city-wide
level instead of by ward Only those with $ could
gain support through campaigning
Usually in smaller cities
Civil Service ExaminationsIntroduced to award based on
qualifications rather than association
Required to gain entry into political position
End Party-Based ElectionPrevented candidates for
running based on party Helped to prevent party
dominance From Private to Public
OwnedUtilitiesTransportationBy 1915 2/3 of all cities had
city owned utilities
Solutions at the State Level Corruption (much like that of the cities) led to: Direct Primaries– People
elect representatives 17th Amendment of the
constitution—Direct Election of Senators
Referendum—Direct ballot question to veto a law to be voted on
Initiative– Direct ballot question to make a law
Recall– Ability to remove elected official from office.
Personal Registration Laws Secret Ballots Non-citizen=No Vote
Labor lawsChild laborMinimum wageMaximum hoursCompulsory SchoolHealth and safety
regulationsPensions Unemployment
insurance
Robert La Follette and Wisconsin Progressivism
Wisconsin a hotbed for progressivism
“Fighting Bob” La Follett elected governor in 1900
Elected Senator in 1906
Direct Primaries New Taxes on RR Regulated RR and
Utilities Civil Service Law 1st
State income tax Restricted child labor Limited work hours Minimum wages for
women
Individual Issues: Labor Problems Solutions No regulations on hours
and conditions led to Chronic fatigue
Steel workers– 72-90 hours per week and 1 24hr shift every 2 weeks
Average 60hr wk.(10x6) Many injuries and deaths Lack of parental
guidance at home Poor pay
1900 $400-$500 per year unskilled and $1500 skilled
Eventually Hours and wages
regulated Minimum wages,
Conditions improved EX—FDA– Meat
inspection act
Unions
Unions Strikes
Knights of Labor (KOL) Industry sectors More inclusive
American Federation of Labor (AFL) Skilled labor
IWW Open to almost all
worker
Pullman Strike– Railroad shut down
Homestead Strike– Steelworkers strike
Ludlow Strike—United Mine Workers (UMW) strike
Results were always the same, the government sided with the businesses
Note: T.R. Eventually arbitrates a UMW strike siding with the workers in 1902 (more to come)
Triangle Shirtwaist1 of many accidents
Event Possible Cause
March 25th, 1911 Fire sweeps through the
8,9 and 10th floors of Triangle Shirtwaist Company
146 workers dead
Fire in rag bin Fire ladders could not
reach past 7th floor 50%+ NY workers
above 7th floor No exits, doors locked
and open inward
Note: 1914—35,000 dead and 700,000 injured
The individual issues: Child Labor
Child Labor
Children employed in many industries
Many women opposed Industry leaders exploited
children Not in school Competition for others Early 1900s– 25% boys and
10% girls
Some said it “build character”
Sometimes it was necessary
Mr. Coal’s Story
Newsies
In 1866, a reformer named Charles Loring Brace described the condition of homeless newsboys in New York City:
I remember one cold night seeing some 10 or a dozen of the little homeless creatures piled together to keep each other warm beneath the stairway of The [New York] Sun office. There used to be a mass of them also at The Atlas office, sleeping in the lobbies, until the printers drove them away by pouring water on them. One winter, an old burnt-out safe lay all the season in Wall Street, which was used as a bedroom by two boys who managed to crawl into the hole that had been burned.
In 1872, James B. McCabe, Jr., wrote:
There are 10,000 children living on the streets of New York.... The newsboys constitute an important division of this army of homeless children. You see them everywhere.... They rend the air and deafen you with their shrill cries. They surround you on the sidewalk and almost force you to buy their papers. They are ragged and dirty. Some have no coats, no shoes and no hat.
Tenements
Immigrants usually lived in very tight conditions in tenement houses
Eventually laws were passed that improved tenements some 1879 Law– Window to open air required Dumbbell Tenement– New design allows
some air and light
Riis and his findings
The law defines it as a house “occupied by three or more families, living independently and doing their cooking on the premises; or by more than two families on a floor, so living and cooking and having a common right in the halls, stairways, yards, etc.” (Riis 13)
Conditions
The sanitary conditions in the tenements were very poor. The outhouses were rarely cleaned, causing very noxious odors to permeate the tenements houses, especially near the windows. The sewage, dirt and other unhealthful things caused many diseases, and the close proximity of the residents to each other meant that diseases were easily spread.
African American Progressives Booker T. Washington
Gradual rise of the race– conform to society and win over the respect of the whites through coformity
W.E.B. Dubois Immediate equality
Ida B. Wells Sought anti-lynching legislation
Refer to the readings for specific info.
Progressivism on a National Level
Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson among other national leaders began influencing change in America in the first two decades of the 1900s Socialist Leader, Eugene Debs, also
played a role in responding to the day’s issues
Theodore Roosevelt
Breaks from the Big-Business-friendly Republicans who dominated the party
Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Square Deal”
Bureau of Corporations established to investigate Northern Securities Company400 million dollar RR
monopolyTR wanted it dissolvedUsed the Sherman Anti-Trust
ActIn fact, it was dissolved with
Supreme Court approval. (Northern Securities Company v United States)
Hepburn ActThe ICC (created 1887) had little powerHepburn Act set maximum prices and required equal pricing (no favoritism)
Anthracite StrikeMiners wanted their union,
the United Mine Workers (UMW), to be recognized, a pay increase and an 8-hour workday.
When refused by the owners, the miners went on strike.
TR called the two to Washington and threatened to use federal troops
Ordered arbitrationStrike ended
1st Federal Govt. Support of Strike
TR’s Dinner Guest
TR invited Booker T. Washington to the White House for dinner. Southerners
protested Blacks
celebrated
1904 Election
Americans were excited about the actions TR was taking to balance the power between the rich and the working class.
TR promised the nation a “Square Deal”
1906 Reforms
The Hepburn Act gave the
government power to control RR prices
Revitalized the Interstate Commerce Commission established in 1887
Pure Food and Drug Act– labels on food Created the FDA
Meat Inspection Act– government monitored the quality and safety of meat
Conservation
Established the Department of Interior and the Department of Agriculture which designated some land off-limits to agriculture. Corruption led TR to replace politicians with
scientists.
National Forest Service– Gifford Pinchot Prevented mining and dams in certain forests Said trees need to be replanted when
harvested
Overview of Conservation150 National Forests
51 Federal Bird Reservations
4 National Game Preserves
5 National Parks
18 National Monuments
24 Reclamation Projects
"There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our people shoud see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children's children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred."
Theodore Roosevelt, Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter 1905.
Taft
Taft became president in 1909 Did not follow TR’s
lead as hoped Failed to lower tariffs
(angered public) Sided with Ballinger
(Sec of Interior) who was profiting from the sale of land designated by TR as preserved forest.
People were upset with Taft
Taft’s Reforms
Payne-Aldrich Tariffs Attempt to lower
tariffs but in fact protected many sectors which had an opposite impact
Trust busting 2x TRs Sugar, Standard Oil,
Tobacco, Morgan (oops)
Helped to endorse (ratified under Wilson) 16th Amendment–
Federal income tax 17th Amendment-Direct
Election of Senators Pinchot-Ballinger
issue Pinochet gone and
Ballinger in sketchy deals with preserved land.
TR’s “Bull Moose Party”
Split from Taft due to his lack of reform actions.
Ran against Taft for Republican nomination but lost
Split from Republicans and established a platform based on Regulations of Corporations Worker Protection Graduated Income Tax Women’s Suffrage
Wilson and “New Freedom”
Graduated from Princeton Presbyterian upbringing leads him to
become a moral idealist Wanted to consolidate power in government
win order to break up trusts Ratification of 16th and 17th Amendments Reduced Tariffs–
Underwood—Simmons Act Federal Reserve Act passed establishing the
Federal Reserve Banking system of today
7 Member Board
Appointed by President Head is NY fed chairman FOMC– Meet to determine policy 8
times a year Expansion or Contraction Interest Rates, Treasury Bills, Reserve
Ben Bernanke– Current fed chairman