Industrialization

views updated

INDUSTRIALIZATION

In the years following the American Civil War (1861–1865), the twin pillars of capitalism and industrialization catapulted the American economy to the forefront of world commerce. Oil, steel, rail, mining, and agricultural industries all enjoyed tremendous growth in the latter part of the nineteenth century as Americans harvested the riches of its natural resources, land, manufacturing technology, and a large labor pool from increased immigration.

America's tremendous industrial and financial growth in the last decades of the nineteenth century was due in large part to the entrepreneurial boldness and business instincts of a number of industrial and financial tycoons who came to be known as the "Robber Barons." J. P. Morgan (1837–1913), John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937), Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877), Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919), James J. Hill (1838–1916), Jay Gould (1836–1893), and others guided their diverse business interests to unprecedented levels of profitability. The monopolies of the Robber Barons enabled them to eliminate less powerful competitors, raise prices, and subsequently realize huge profits that were pumped back into their businesses. But the federal government gradually began to heed the voices of small business owners who called for reform and the cries of American workers who had begun launching the country's first organized labor unions in the face of company-sponsored violence. In 1890 the Sherman Anti–Trust Act was enacted in an effort to curb the power of the trusts. But the Robber Barons continued to maintain their dominant positions in the American system. Blessed with access to abundant natural resources, valuable technological advances, a growing labor force, and a congenial political environment, these men and the monopolies that they held dominated the American economy. For a generation after the Civil War, the political power of the presidency paled in comparison to the economic power of the Robber Barons.

The railroad industry especially transformed the business landscape of America. By the early 1850s several railroads had established lines that allowed them to transport freight between the Great Lakes region and the East Coast, and new railroad construction projects proliferated across eastern America. This ever-growing network of rail lines, many of which spanned relatively short distances, came to be seen as a more timely, reliable, and inexpensive way to transport goods, compared to other options. The explosive growth of the railroad industry in the eastern states, coupled with the potential wealth contained in the country's western territories and the country's attendant desire to expand in that direction, convinced growing numbers of people that a transcontinental railroad stretching from coast to coast should be built. Begun in 1863, the effort was hampered by the Civil War and the daunting obstacles of western geography and weather. But on May 10, 1869, the rail lines of the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific were finally joined in Utah. Celebrations of the epic achievement erupted across the nation as Americans hailed this giant step forward in the country's westward expansion.

Farmers benefited from increased mechanization, sophisticated transportation options, and scientific cultivation methods. Nonetheless, the financial situations of many farming families grew precarious in the 1880s and 1890s. Record crop yields resulted in lower prices while production costs increased, a combination that threw many farmers into debt. They responded by forming farmers'alliances that insisted on populist reforms. Many of their reform themes, such as the institution of referendum, recall, and petition, and the direct election of senators were dismissed as outlandish when first articulated, later became cornerstones of progressive reform in the early 1900s.

The surging economic and technological growth of the United States engendered tremendous changes in the character of American life in the last decades of the nineteenth century. The rural agrarian culture of previous generations gave way to an increasingly urban and industrial one as manufacturing plants proliferated and cities mushroomed in size. The nation's urban population rose 400 percent between 1870 and 1910.

Still, for many Americans city life was less an immediate experience than a distant and powerful lure. Yet the attraction was powerful, for the population drain from the countryside was particularly noticeable, especially in the Midwest and East. As the 1870s and 1880s witnessed the worst agricultural depression in the country's history, large numbers of farmers moved to the city. Jobs, higher wages, and such technological wonders as electricity and the telephone gradually drew many failing farmers to the cities.

Joining these erstwhile farmers in the cities were an increasing number of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe, who, like their American counterparts, came mostly from the countryside and knew very little of urban life. These "new" immigrants—in comparison to the more established generation of largely Protestant "old" immigrants from the western and northern European countries of Britain, Ireland, Germany, and Scandinavia—were Italians, Austrians, Hungarians, Poles, Serbs, and Russians, mostly Catholic or Jewish. As the African American emigration out of the South to northern and midwestern cities, the "new" immigrants typically congregated in the urban centers of the East, particularly New York.

As Americans moved to the cities, they were not necessarily happy with the change. Cities of the late nineteenth century grew without planning, with a minimum of control, and typically by the dictates of industrial enterprise. U.S. cities seemed to harbor all the afflictions that plague modern society: poverty, disease, crime, and decay. For members of the urban working class, hardship and uncertainty often marked their lives. Layoffs were common, and as much as thirty percent of the urban work force was out of work for some period of the year. Even steady work brought frequently brought exhaustion. "Scientific Management," a phrase coined by Frederick Winslow Taylor, invaded the workplace and the disciples of efficiency used stop-watches to "time" the performance of a job in order to figure out how to get more productivity out of the workforce. Child labor was common as well, and in 1900 as many as three million of U.S. children were forced to work on a full-time basis to help support their families. Living conditions in the cities were often deplorable, with thousands of families forced to reside in slums that were breeding grounds for typhoid, smallpox, cholera, tuberculosis, and other diseases that swept through the cities on a regular basis. City tenement housing quickly degenerated into slums that not only bred vermin and rotten odors, but also brought poverty, prostitution, and organized crime. In 1881 the homicide rate in America was 25 per million; in 1898, the rate had risen to 107 per million. Diseases such as cholera, typhoid fever, and diphtheria increasingly plagued cities and wreaked havoc on the working-class population.

Several factors exacerbated the problems in American cities. In the 1880s and 1890s the gulf between social classes was dramatically widened. The term "Gilded Age," coined by Mark Twain, came into common use and indicated corruption, profiteering, and false glitter. In both Chicago and New York, elegant and lavish homes were often built on the same street or within view of the slums. A few blocks from New York's elite Fifth Avenue, the desolation of Shantytown with its Irish paupers and roaming livestock posed a sharp sixty-block contrast. While a relatively high degree of residential mobility did exist, ethnic neighborhoods like Little Italy, Poletown, and Greektown also served to highlight and define urban poverty.

In addition, the industrialization of the United States produced a fundamental reorientation of consumption. As the nation's manufacturing plants and farms produced even greater quantities of goods and products, an increasingly consumer–oriented economy emerged. Products of convenience—such as processed and preserved foods, ready-made clothing, and telephones—appeared and were made available to a far greater number of consumers than ever before.

Leisure time activities blossomed as well. Revolutions in transportation, technology, and urbanization all fostered an environment conducive to the pursuit of recreational activities. Americans with money in their pockets and time on their hands looked to spend both on entertainment, and businessmen rushed in to supply consumers in this newest of lucrative economic niches. Organized sports, previously the province of the wealthiest American families, were embraced by all classes as spectators and participants. Circuses, vaudeville shows, theatrical dramas, and musical comedies attracted tens of thousands of citizens.

See also: Child Labor, City Planning, Immigration, Frederick Winslow Taylor