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Labor and Industrialism. Learning Objectives. Interpret historical data on industrialization in the early 20 th century Understand the intellectual arguments behind the Gospel of Wealth Understand how Riis photos changed mindsets during the Gilded Age. Urbanization.
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Learning Objectives • Interpret historical data on industrialization in the early 20th century • Understand the intellectual arguments behind the Gospel of Wealth • Understand how Riis photos changed mindsets during the Gilded Age
Urbanization • 1850 15% urban; 85% rural • 1860- 20% urban; 80 % rural • 1870- 26% urban; 74 % rural • 1880- 28% urban; 72% rural • 1890- 35% urban; 55% rural • 1900- 40% urban; 60% rural • 1910- 46 % urban: 54% rural • 1920- 51% urban; 49% rural • 1930- 56% urban; 44% rural
Why do you think the size of industrial establishments grew after the Civil War? • What difference might this make to the lives of employees?
In what sense is the United States an industrial nation by 1900? • What public policy implications might this have?
Why do you think industrial output increased so rapidly in the late 19th century? • Which increased more rapidly--value added per worker in agricultural or in manufacturing and mining? Why?
Describe the general trend in the wages of American workers. • When did wages rise most rapidly? Most slowly?
RG Questions • Who were the “Robber Barons”? What tactics did they use to control the political and economic world (649-650)?
Rockefeller and Standard Oil • 1859- Drake Drilled first Oil Well • 1865-1870: Rockefeller starts refining oil • 1870’s Rockefeller founds Controls Standard Oil • 1871: Rockefeller formulated his plan for consolidating all oil refining firms into one great organization • 1872: Standard oil controls most refineries in Ohio • 1879, the Standard Oil Company did about 90 percent of the refining in the United States, with almost 70 percent being exported overseas.
Mergers and Monopolies • Vertical Merger: A merger between two companies producing different goods or services for one specific finished product. • Horizontal merger is a business consolidation that occurs between firms who operate in the same space, often as competitors offering the same good or service
Reading Guide Question • Define “laissez-faire” and “Social Darwinism” (653)
Gilded Age • "What is the chief end of man?--to get rich. In what way?--dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must."-- Mark Twain-1871 • The term Gilded age comes from Twain’s The Gilded Age: a Tale of Today
Economic Growth • By the beginning of the 20th century per capita incomes were double that of Germany or France, and 50% higher than Britain • real wages in the US grew 60% from 1860 to 1890, and continued to rise after that • between 1865 and 1898, the output of wheat increased by 256%, corn by 222%, coal by 800% and miles of railway track by 567%
Inequality • From 1860 to 1900, the wealthiest 2% of American households owned more than a third of the nation's wealth, while the top 10% owned roughly three fourths of it • US had the highest rate of accidents in the world. • In 1889, railroads employed 704,000 men, of whom 20,000 were injured and 1,972 were killed on the job • The U.S. was also the only industrial power to have no workman's compensation program in place to support injured workers
Krugman • Are we in a new Gilded Age? • What is more important • Gains in real income for the middle classes • Gains in real income for the poorest American • Decreasing inequality
Gospel of Wealth • Andrew Carnegie donated over 90% of his wealth and said that philanthropy was their duty—the "Gospel of Wealth". Private money endowed thousands of colleges, hospitals, museums, academies, schools, opera houses, public libraries, and charities. • John D. Rockefeller donated over $500 million to various charities, slightly over half his entire net worth
Andrew Carnegie • “Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to be solved. The laws of accumulation will be left free; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor; entrusted for a season with a great part of the increased wealth of the community, but administering it for the community far better than it could or would have done itself.”
George F. Baer • “The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for, not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom, has given control of the property interests of the country.”
Charles S. Peirce • “Here, then, is the issue. The gospel of Christ says that progress comes from every individual merging his individuality in sympathy with his neighbors. On the other side, the conviction of the nineteenth century is that progress takes place by virtue of every individual’s striving for himself with all his might and trampling his neighbor under foot whenever he gets a chance to do so. This may accurately be called the Gospel of Greed.”
John D. Rockefeller • God gave me my money.
Questions • How does wealth come about, according to the quotations—by exploitation or by the virtues of patience and frugality? • What is the role of the entrepreneur in promoting economic development? in helping the poor and disadvantaged? What are the business leader’s social responsibilities, if any? • How is economic inequality explained? • Can the private sector be trusted to serve the public interest?
Reading Guide Questions • How did German Immigrants influence the labor movement (658)? • Describe the effects of the Panic of 1873 (665-669) • Summarize the Great Uprising of 1877 (671-675).
Frank Bellew, "The American Frankenstein,”(1874 • What message does the cartoon convey? • Why did Bellew refer to the railroad as the "American Frankenstein?"
Burning of the Union Depot and Hotel in Pittsburgh, 11 August 1877 • What impact was the picture below likely to have on viewers? • Does the choice of this particular image reveal anything about the editor's opinion of the strike?
Strikers Clash With Sixth Maryland Regiment, 11 August 1877 • Why did the editors choose this particular scene to feature? • How are the militia portrayed in the illustration? • How are the strikers portrayed?
How did the artist depict women strikers? • How did the artist depict the police? • What was the overall message of the illustration?
"The Frenzy, and What Came of It?" Harper's Weekly • What did the illustration's background suggest? • Who were the two sitting figures supposed to represent? • What was the overall message of the picture?
Learning Objectives • Understand how art such as Riis’ photography and Nast’s cartoons influenced public policy • Analyze how successful was organized labor in improving the position of workers in the period from 1875 to 1900 • Identify the economic and political grievances of late 19th century American farmer
At the end of the 19th century, the largest worldwide population movement in human history brought a wave of immigrants to the United States. How many came? When did they come? Where did they come from? What types of work were they involved in? (29-31)
Describe the shift from home to factory work and from agriculture to industry • Describe the shift from self-employment to wage work • Describe the shift from water and animal power to fossil fuels
Jacob Riis • Jacob Riis published How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York (1890) • What technological Innovation allowed Riis to start photographing the slums? • What was tenement housing?
Tenement Reform • Physicians attributed 8,000 to 9,000 deaths a year to tuberculosis, mostly in the poorest and most unsanitary neighborhoods of the City. • The First Tenement House Act (1867) required fire escapes for each suite and a window for every room, loophole closed in 1879 by requiring windows to face a source of fresh air and light, not an interior hallway • New York State Tenement House Actof 1901 set minimum size requirements for the spaces (such as courtyards) onto which windows opened and mandated that one bathroom be installed inside the building for every two families
