Immigrants, Industry and the City

Background of Industrial Revolution

• War of 1812• Transportation Revolution• Textiles• Artifical Power• Mechanization of Production• Replaceable Parts• Factory Production• Destruction of the Artisan Class

Inventing Technology

• Thomas Edison

• Chemistry– Charles Goodyear (Vulcanization of Rubber) --

1839– John Wesley Hyatt--Celluloid--1863– Leo Hendrik Baekeland -- Bakelite -- 1909– DuPont Corporation

• Information Technology

Rising Industry

• Agriculture– $1.5 billion in 1870; $7.5 billion by 1919

• Fuels

• Infrastructure

• Rising Factories:– 1859: 140,000– 1914: 268,000

Industry

• Steel– Bessemer Steel and Open Hearth Techniques– Applications– Rise: 13,000 tons in 1860 --> 1910: 28 million

• Andrew Carnegie

• Meatpacking and other Processed Foods

The Corporations

• Outlives its founders

• Limited liability of owners

• Fictive Legal Person

• Vertical Integration – Meatpacking

• Horizontal Integration– Standard Oil

Financing the Industrial Revolution

• Greenbacks• Silver• Rise of Wall Street• Bonds• Mergers

– Pools

– Trusts

– Holding Companies

Changes in Retailing

• Fixed Prices Replace Haggling

• General Store

• Department Store

• Chain Store

• Mail-Order House

Creation of Modern Labor Force

• 1870-1900 Transition

• Undercutting Artisans

• Multi-Job Families

• Unsafe Conditions

• Wage Issues

• Work Insecurity

• Long Hours

Female Labor

• 1880: 2.6 of 17.4 million workers are women

• 1900: 85% of female labor are unmarried and 25 or younger

• No Family Wage

• Inadequate Female Wages

Limited Professions

• Teachers

• Nurses

• Social Work– Social Housekeeping

• Domestics

Child Labor

• 4% of non-farm workforce in 1900

• Due to inadequacy of Adult Wages

• Protests begin in 1890

Women’s Entertainments

Business Ethics: The Self-Made Man

• The Algerian Dream

• Personal Property and Self Mastery

• Roots in American Experience

Business Ethics: Crush Everyone Else

• Laisez Faire

• Social Darwinism

• Contradictions:– Big Businesses had hard to overcome edge– Businesses loved government help--for them.– Businessmen hated competition and loved

monopolies...if they ran them.

The Gospel of Wealth

• Andrew Carnegie

• Advocated intelligent philanthrophy

• Creation of institutions of self-improvement

• Discouraged redistribution of wealth and poverty assistance charities

• Rejected leaving your fortune to your kids– Say no to Paris Hilton, etc.

Unions

• National Labor Union (1865-1873)

• Knights of Labor (1871-1932)

• American Federation of Labor (1886- )

• Strikes

• Great Uprising / 1877 Railroad Strike

• Homestead Steel Strike (1892)

• 1900: 7% of workers (3/4ths were AFL)

Supreme Court Backs Big Business

• Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)• Munn vs. Illinois (1877)• Santa Clar Co. V. Southern Pacific Railroad

(1886)• Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railroad Company

vs. Illinois (1886)• Pollock v. Farmers Loan and Trust Company

(1895)

First Efforts at Regulation

• Interstate Commerce Commission (1887)– 1897 Maximum Freight Rates Case

• Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)– United States vs. E. C. Knight (1895)

Immigration

Immigrants: Western US

• Japanese: 50,000 by 1900– Farm Labor

• Chinese: 125,000 by 1882– Mining, Railroads, and Support Businesses– Called California ‘Gold Mountain’– “Chinese Food”

Chinese Gold Miners

Eastern US Immigration

• Italians

• Jews

• Slavs

• Greeks

• Many are Catholic or Greek Orthodox

Greek Immigrants in Ethnic Dress

Immigrant Communities

• Women’s Roles

• Ghettos / Ethnic Neighborhoods

• Religion and Fraternal Organizations

• Linguistic Enclaves

Italian Society Parade

Internal Migration

• The Push West– 1900: The Frontier Closes

• “The Great Migration”– Moving North – Work Opportunities– Ghettos– Communal Institutions

The American City: Growth

• 1860: 25 million Rural / 6.2 mil Urban

• 1910: 50 million Rural / 42 mil Urban– 3 Cities: 1 million +– 5: 500,000 - 999,000

• New Immigrants

• Rural Migration

The American City: Neighborhood Specialization

• Districting

• Suburbs

• Urban Transportation: – Streetcards– Elevated Rail– Electric Streetcar– Subways– Effects

Problems

• Wastes– Improved Sewage– 1910: 10 out of 42 million Americans have access to

clean water

• Tenements– Poorly made– Poorly insulated– No fire codes– Cramped

Crime

• Mostly Urban

• Murders Quadruple (Lead?)

• Slums

• Prostitution– Regulators– White Slavery Panic– Anti-Vice Crusaders

Political Machines

• Urban Immigrants

• Bosses

• Corruption

• Social Services

• Upper Class Protest

New Urban Architecture

• Technology

• Skyscrapers

• Style

• Louis Sullivan

Education

• Innovators

• Country vs. City

• Rise of High Schools

• Classical vs. Modern Curricula

• Assimilation

• Universities– Land Grant and Co-Ed Universities

Sports: Baseball

• 1840: NYC Area• Pro Ball: 1869--Cincinnati Red Stockings• National League (1880s) - 8 million

spectators / year• 1899: American League• 1903: First World Series (Boston Americans

(AL) vs Pittsburgh Pirates (NL), 5-3 games.

Entertainment

• Theatre: Melodrama --> Realism

• Music

• Orchestras

• Black Music (Ragtime)

• New Theatre Forms

Motion Pictures

• Thomas Edison (1890s)

• 1895: First projected movies

• 1903: Great Train Robbery -- First full story

• 1905: 3,000 movie theatres

• 1914: 13,000 movie theatres / 5-7 million patrons a day

Sports

• Urban Need for Exercise and Entertainment

• Basketball (1891)

• Bicycling (1890s)

• Blue Laws

• Boxing (Jack Johnson 1908)

• Football

• Male Dominated