INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

The advent of the Industrial Revolution towards the end of the nineteenth century raised numerous economic and political questions for the United States that neither the populace nor the government was prepared for. 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 exploited the riches of its natural resources, land, manufacturing technology, and a large labor pool from increased immigration. In cities across the United States, all of these elements came together to form the ingredients and the momentum behind the Industrial Revolution.

America's tremendous industrial and financial growth in the last decades of the nineteenth century were 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, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, James J. Hill, Jay Gould, 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. 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 and public ridicule.

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 privileged 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 they held dominated the U.S. economy. So much so that, for a generation after the Civil War, political power of the presidency paled in comparison to the economic talent and power of the robber barons.

The railroad industry particularly transformed the business landscape of the United States. By the early 1850s several railroads had established lines that allowed them to transport freight back and forth between the Great Lakes region and the East Coast, and new railroad construction projects were generating 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 than other options previously available. 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 nation's accompanying 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 railroads 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 unions and alliances that insisted on populist reforms. Many of their themes, dismissed as outlandish when first expressed, later became cornerstones of progressive reform in the early 1900s.

The surging economic and technological growth of the United States caused tremendous changes in the character of American life during the last decades of the nineteenth century. The rural farming culture of previous generations gave way to an increasingly urban and industrial one, as manufacturing plants sprang up 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. The attraction was powerful, for the drain on the countryside was particularly noticeable, especially in the Midwest and in the East. As the 1870s and 1880s witnessed the worst agricultural depression in the country's history, large numbers of farmers succumbed to the temptations of urban promises and packed their bags. Jobs, higher wages, and such technological wonders as electricity and the telephone gradually took its toll on rural defenses.

Joining these farmers 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, as they were called—as opposed to the more established generation of largely Protestant immigrants from the western and northern European countries of Britain, Ireland, Germany, and Scandinavia—came largely from Italy, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, and Russia and were predominantly Catholic or Jewish. These "new" immigrants typically congregated in the urban centers of the East, particularly New York.

As Americans gradually came to favor urban over rural life, there was much about the Industrial Revolution that would justify the prejudices of the old rural ideals. Cities of the late nineteenth century grew without plan, with a minimum of control, and typically by the direction of industrial enterprise. Accordingly, American cities seemed to harbor all the afflictions that plague modern society: poverty, disease, crime, and decay. For members of the urban working class, life was often marked by hardship and uncertainty. Layoffs were common, and as much as 30 percent of the urban work force was out of work for some period during the year. Child labor was common as well, and in 1900 as many as three million of America'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 brought unsanitary living conditions, but also increased 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 working-class populations. Several factors made many problems in American cities more pronounced. In the 1880s and 1890s the gulf between social classes was dramatically emphasized. 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, presented a sharp 60-block contrast. While a relatively high degree of residential mobility did exist, ethnic neighborhoods such as Little Italy, Polonia, and Greektown also served to highlight and define urban poverty.

The industrialization of the United States also produced a fundamental reorganization of public consumption. As the nation's manufacturing plants and farms produced 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 favorable 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 to supply consumers in this newest lucrative economic niche. Organized sports, previously the territory of only the wealthiest American families, were embraced by all classes of spectators and participants. Circuses, vaudeville shows, theatrical dramas, and musical comedies attracted tens of thousands of citizens, too. As one commentator on the times noted, "while telephones, typewriters, cash registers, and adding machines sped and made routine the conduct of business, cameras, phonographs, bicycles, moving pictures, amusement parks, and professional sports defined the mass popular culture that still dominates our times."

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

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