Smokestack America

 A New Industrial Society

A move away from rural agricultural ties to urban life, industrialization and mechanization are big business.

1. 1. Aspects of incorporation
      1. separation of ownership from management
         1. absentee owners, middle or upper class while workers are lower class or immigrants
         2. white collar management, bastion of middle class wealth
      2. diversification of production facilities
         1. divide production into specialties, mass produce that item and send through other plants to finish
         2. one corporation produces many products, less single product lines
      3. creation of national marketing systems
         1. advertising and marketing
         2. newspapers and magazines, retail catalogs: Sears & Roebuck and JC Penney
      4. formation of new organizational structures
         1. large corporations–combine several parts of industry into one, consolidate resources and eliminate competition
         2. complex hierarchy of authority–CEO, VP, middle manager, supervisor, worker
   2. large scale corporate enterprises usually led by prominent figures, such as John D. Rockefeller (oil magnate), John Pierpont Morgan (Wall Street financier, formed US Steel), Jay Gould (RR speculator), Andrew Carnegie (steel magnate) some of best known
      1. Called “robber barons” or “captains of industry“–either way have positive impact of spearheading American economy and taking it global yet abuses of those same companies of resources and labor created negative results in American life like pollution and tenements
      2. Andrew Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth”
         1. Three modes of distributing wealth: bequeath to descendants, bequeath for public purposes, administered by possessors while living (active donation and use of funds, each generation makes own way)
         2. those who are wealthy are honor bound to help others help themselves, not through charitable gifts of money, but through means for self-improvement (i.e. libraries, arts, parks, recreation)
         3. did not feel that all persons equal or deserving of wealth, only if smart enough and work hard enough to achieve it
         4. very patriarchal attitude and sense of noblesse oblige: bestowing favors of “superior wisdom, experience, and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves…”
         5. rich are “trustees of the poor”: keeps them from squandering money recklessly, sensibly reinvests in the economy instead of spending, makes for a stable economy (“best minds” have the most wealth)
   3. New business techniques
      1. cost-analysis approach and vertical integration–incorporating all aspects of production within one company (Carnegie)
         1. Carnegie Steel: owned mines, smelting places, factories to produce, RR to ship (cost savings, reduce production cost for greater profit margin)
      2. efficiency experts/number crunchers–how to get the most work and product for the money; deception and aggression as necessary (Rockefeller)
         1. Standard Oil: horizontal integration–own all the competition, “corner the market” idea so control all production & price of that item
         2. board of trustees: legal device to centralize industrywide control, removes legal responsibility from owner or one person
         3. Trusts (1882): group of trustees (usually leading producers in the industry) received the common stock of different corporations in exchange for trust certificates, thereby effecting legal control by the trust over the properties of the participating firms, able to control prices and outputs of products
         4. Political/Government response: 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act forbade collusion by independent firms but did not necessarily outlaw the activities of holding companies created by the legal union of previously separate businesses, general law that lacked ability to easily prosecute much less define what was or was not a trust
         5. United States v. E.C. Knight (1895): Supreme Court ruled that control of manufacturing did not constitute restraint of trade, the rate of corporate consolidations increased after ruling (merger mania)
      3. cost-cutting, consolidation, mass-production/economies of scale, aggressive marketing to increase consumer demand

 Changes for Workers

1. 1. 3.2 million workers in industry by 1900–native born, immigrants, young women(especially clerical after typewriter emerges)
   2. Altered work habits and destroyed much of the role of artisans: factories and specialization reigned supreme
      1. large numbers of adolescents (age14-18) worked as did young women, often immigrant women (daughters) worked to supplement the family income yet usually only until married
      2. exception are black women: large numbers (up to 75%) worked after marriage, paid less overall and primary breadwinner often
      3. certain industries segregated by race: southern textile mills were whites only, garment industry in north dominated by Slavic and Jewish women, domestic service dominated by black women, Chinese dominated laundries and mining (RR too)–fast efficient workers and generally paid lower wages than white men
   3. Labor disputes and Unionism
      1. government on the side of business, Pullman Strike (1894) used federal troops to put down railroad strike and impose work
      2. unions had been illegal largely up to the 1860s so not heavily organized until 1870s
         1. National Labor Union (1866): advocated self-employment for all as means of cooperation to stop wage system (died out)
         2. The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor (1869): largest labor organization of the 19th Century, led by Terence V. Powderly
            1. all wage earners, skilled and unskilled, as members, did not exclude by race or gender either (exception–Chinese denied acceptance)
            2. Platform/Goals:
               1. land set aside for homesteading
               2. abolition of contract and child labor
               3. monetary reform
               4. graduated income tax
               5. producer’s cooperatives (workplace cooperation versus wage system)—short-lived because other businesses saw as too much competition (no credit or wholesale prices extended)
               6. advocated eight-hour day (collapsed in Panic of 1873, revived in 1880s)
            3. Haymarket Square Riot (Chicago, IL May 4, 1886): deathknell of Knights of Labor, fear of rioting and industrial upheaval, employers root out union members to keep businesses safe
      3. American Federation of Labor (1886): led by Samuel Gompers, accepted wage system and organized skilled workers
         1. denied access to unskilled labor, females, and racial/ethnic minorities (very exclusive and restrictive), less threatening to business so achieved some respectability
         2. became the “aristocrats of labor”–highest paid workers
         3. Platform/Goals: (primarily short term)
            1. higher wages
            2. shorter hours
            3. collective bargaining
   4. Individual Reformers
      1. usually someone from within the industry raised protest, unemployed worker or labor organizer
      2. Mary “Mother” Jones: reformer and worker’s rights activist, had been widowed early in life–lost her husband and children to disease/disaster (some say scarlet fever or flood)
         1. fought for safety and sanitation, protested the use of child labor and overlong hours
         2. particularly concerned with miners though she agitated for same rights and safety across several industries (including mills, factories, sweatshops)
         3. in article, advocating abolition of child labor: maimed or killed, no education, illnesses, ill-paid
      3. Objections/Problem:
         1. A major conflict arose between reformers idealism and goals vs the practical needs of families caught in a system which still favored child labor.
            1. Parents/moms say need their children to work to live and make ends meet, (1) family income depended on more than 2 providers (2) women had lower paying jobs for some fields initially and lacked resources, especially if husbands/fathers dead or abandonment (3) mills, mines or other businesses only hire kids for many jobs during this time–legally hire at 12 but lied if younger to get job and employers were not required to verify.
         2. Thus, the ability of employers to hire children would become the next focus of reformers and lead to a variety of rules regarding child labor based on industry, age or family need.