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Chapter 18 |
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By their centennial of 1876, Americans were rapidly developing their society. Most important in this development was an increase in industrialism and the effects of that industrialism on American culture and society.
INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
Several factors contributed to the rapid economic transformation of the era: an abundance of natural resources for materials, an increasing supply of laborers, an expanded consumer marketplace, increases in railroads for transportation, a plethora of confident investors for capital, and new technology and innovations. Federal, state and local government also fostered economic growth by providing monetary and resource grants to companies, stability, and freedom from regulation.
An Empire on Rails
Revolutionary changes in transportation and communication, including especially the growth of railroads, transformed American life.
“Emblem of Motion and Power”
By ending rural isolation, encouraging economic specialization, creating a national market, and capturing the nation’s imagination, the railroads transformed production, distribution, and business practices.
Building the Empire
By the end of the century, Americans, with substantial assistance from federal and state governments, had built almost 200,000 miles of track. Despite much waste and corruption, the railroads probably did more good than harm. For example, they saved the federal government $1 billion from 1850-1945.
Linking the Nation via Trunk Lines
Before the Civil War, railroad construction served local markets. After 1865, however, the railroads tied much of the nation together through a system of trunk lines over which passengers and freight traveled with relative speed, comfort, and safety. In the South, railroads were not consolidated and integrated into the national railroad system until after Reconstruction.
Rails Across the Continent
Congress voted to allow two companies, the Union Pacific, working westward, and the Central Pacific, working eastward, to compete in the construction of the first transcontinental railroad. Having begun in 1863, but lagging somewhat during the war, they completed the tracks in May 1869. By 1893, four more railroad lines reached the West Coast.
Problems of Growth
Overbuilding generated vigorous rate wars and intense competition for passengers and freight. At first, railroad managers tried and failed to reduce conflict through cooperation. After 1893, financiers like J. P. Morgan refinanced the railroads and took over the industry, constructing regional monopolies that effectively eliminated competition.
AN INDUSTRIAL EMPIRE
The Bessemer process made possible an industrial empire based on steel.
Carnegie and Steel
The process for manufacturing steel required great deal of capital, access to abundant resources, and sophisticated production techniques. These requirements limited the number of companies able to participate in the industry to the few that could afford it, including most notably Carnegie Steel Company. Steel companies like Carnegie’s grew very large and competition among them was fierce until Carnegie led the industry in a movement toward vertical integration as a means of eliminating competition. In 1901, J.P. Morgan acquired Carnegie Steel Company and several others, combining them into the country’s first billion-dollar corporation, U.S. Steel.
Rockefeller and Oil
The oil industry also boomed during this era with John D. Rockefeller as its undisputed king. He ordered the chaotic oil industry through consolidation, pioneering a new kind of business organization—the trust. By the 1890s, Rockefeller had recognized the cumbersome nature of the trust and reorganized Standard Oil into a holding company.
The Business of Invention
The business of invention also boomed—from fewer than 2,000 patents per year during the 1850s to over 20,000 per year by the 1880s and 1890s. These inventions transformed the communication, clothing, food, lighting, and power industries.
THE SELLERS
The advent of brand names, print advertising, chain stores, and mail-order houses in what is known as the “science of marketing” brought the new goods to households far and wide and initiated a new and seemingly unified community of consumers.
The Wage Earners
The labor of millions of men and women made the U.S. emerging economic empire possible. Their lives improved in many respects because of new goods, expanded health and educational opportunities, better wages and working conditions, and increased influence in national affairs.
Working Men, Working Women, Working Children
At the same time, life for workers was hard, especially unskilled laborers. They suffered grueling, often dangerous jobs, for relatively low pay. There were few holidays or vacations and no life or health insurance system. Men, women, and children were often forced to work in order to make ends meet. Women and children along with African Americans, Catholics, Jews, and immigrants carried an additional burden of discrimination.
Culture of Work
All workers found that the new factory system required difficult and often demeaning adaptations in age-old patterns of work. Most noteworthy of these changes was factory discipline. Workers worked indoors according to a clock with a strict hierarchy of supervisors and harsh rules. As industries grew, work became more and more impersonal. Even so, most workers accepted the system because it offered substantial social mobility.
Labor Unions
National unions gradually took shape during the era and approached the problems of labor in different ways. The Knights of Labor, for example, organized like a fraternal order and sought broad social reforms, while the American Federation of Labor organized craft unions of skilled workers and sought practical, immediate, and tangible improvements for its members. Few labor unions allowed women or African Americans to join.
Labor Unrest
Though workers joined unions for better wages, etc., they also found in them and other social and fraternal organizations companionship, insurance, job listings, and even food for the sick. Employees tried to humanize the factory while employers tried to determine wages and conditions on the basis of supply and demand rather than the welfare of the workers. This conflict of purposes often led to violent strikes. The injunction was the most useful tool employers had to end workers’ strikes.
Conclusion: Industrialization’s Benefits and Costs
To be sure, industrial growth meant progress and power but it also meant rapid change, social instability, exploitation of labor, and a growing gap between rich and poor.
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