American Society in the
Industrial Age
UHS APUSH
Barnett
• I. Middle Class Life
▫ A. Civil War sapped reforming zeal
 1. Process of “incorporation”
 2. Less moral fervor…more substantiality
 3. Social Conventions check individualism
▫ B. Children
 1. 2-3
 2. Treasured
 3. Love
▫ C. “Culture of Consumption”
 1. Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)
▫ D. Real Cost of Living – Relatively Low
• II. Skilled & Unskilled Workers
▫ A. Wage Earners
 1. Growth
 1a. 885,000 in 1860
 2a. 3.2M in 1890
 B. Changes in work life
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1a. Shorter work day
2a. Alienation from labor
3a. Machines > Labor
4a. Danger
5a. More diffuse labor/management relations
• III. Working Women
▫ A. Still significant part
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1. Factory replaced household
2. Textile Mills employed large %
3. Salaries: Male > Female
4. New jobs
 1a. Department stores
 2a. Educated, Middle-Class – Nursing
• IV. Farmers
▫ A. Growing …
 1. Number of farms / Rural Population
 1a. 1860 – 2M / 25M
 2a. 1890 – 4.5M / 40.8M
▫ B. Overtaken by Urban/Industry
 1. Decline in status
 2. Result in social & economical radicalism
 3. Impact of Deflation
• V. Working Class Life
▫ A. Large variance in quality of life
▫ B. Attitudes: Largely dissatisfied
 1. Rising number of unionized strikes
 2. Rising income inequality at core
• VI. Mobility: Social, Economic & Educational
▫ A. Vast reservoir of rootless people
 1. Westward
 2. Rural to Urban
▫ B. Social
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1. Mobility usually accompanied by social improvement
2. ¼ of manual laborers rose to middle class
3. 1/3 unskilled Italian and Jewish immigrants -> skilled
4. Better life than parents
5. All thanks due to economic growth
▫ C. Education
 A. Groundwork for state supported schools (common school)
 1a. Horace Mann and Henry Bernard
 2a. Compulsory post Civil War
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Growth of cities provided critical mass & funding
1860 – ½ of children receiving formal “education”
1900 – Huge growth in % and funding (quadrupled!)
Secondary school still reserved for special ability or wealth
▫ 1890 – 0.3M of 14.3M children went beyond 8th grade (mostly private)
 3a. Calvin Woodward opened a Manual Training School (STL-1880)
▫ High demand for vocational & technical training
▫ Backed by industrialists
▫ By 1910, union support
▫ D. Hope?
 Why were workers not able to achieve a united class
consciousness during the late 19th century?
• VII. “New” Immigration
▫ A. Pull
 1. High demand for manual labor
 2. Cheaper & safer transatlantic travel
 1a. 1858 Great Eastern steamship
▫ B. Push – Geographic Shift
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1. Influx of cheap US & Russian wheat to E. Europe
2. Euro industrialization vs peasant economy
3. Political & religious persecution
4. “Pies and Pudding”
▫ C. Effect
 1. By 1900, ½ of industrial laborers foreign born
 2. Cases of skilled labor contracted in exchange for passage
 Outlawed by Foran Act of 1885
 3. Italian/Greek Padrone System
▫ C. Effect
 1. By 1900, ½ of industrial laborers foreign born
 2. Cases of skilled labor contracted in exchange for passage
 Outlawed by Foran Act of 1885
 3. Italian/Greek Padrone System
 4. New migrants (S. & E. European) harder to assimilate
 To 1880 – 200,000
 1880 – 1910 – 8.4M
▫ D. Backlash
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1. “Older” immigrants vs New
2. Social Darwinists – Herbert Spencer
3. Supposed Radicalism?
4. Increased Nativism
 1a. American Protective Association (1887) WASP
 2a. Immigration Restriction League
▫ Proposed Literacy Test (1897)
▫ Vetoed by President Cleveland – would be a “radical departure”
• IX. The Expanding City & Its Problems
▫ A. Immigrants blamed for urban issues
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1a. Housing
2a. Public Health
3a. Crime
4a. Immorality
5a. Ethnic neighborhoods
 “Each great American city became a Europe in microcosm”
 6a. Corruption of Boss Rule – Political Machines
 Tammany Hall & William “Boss” Tweed
▫ B. Teeming Tenements
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1a. Lagging infrastructure
2a. Rising Property Values & Lack of Zoning Laws
3a. Space = Privilege
4a. Jacob Riis’ How the Other Half Lives (1890)
5a. Rise of Crime
6a. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
• X. The Cities Modernize
▫ A. Improved Transportation Infrastructure
 1. Streets paved
 2. Electric Trolleys (1887) by Frank J. Sprague
 1a. Lessened pollution
 2a. Retail Benefits
 3a. Demographic Shifts and city areas
▫ Urban Ghettos
▫ Suburban areas
 3. Edison’s incandescent lamps
 1a. Nightlife & night transportation
 2a. Factories & shops longer hours
 4. Bridges – Brooklyn Bridge (1883) John Roebling
 5. Skyscrapers – Louis Sullivan
• XI. Leisure Activities
▫ A. Increased number of museums
▫ B. Large increase in number of saloons (3x)
 1. Opposed by Women’s Christian Temperance Movement
 2. Anti-Saloon League
▫ C. Spectator Sports
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1. Socio-economic middle ground
2. Formalization of team sports
3. Women excluded
4. New Form of National Hero
 4. New Form of National Hero
 1. Boxing – John L. Sullivan (1882)
 2. Baseball – NL is formed in 1876
 3. Basketball – James Naismith in 1891
 4. Football – First inter-collegiate game in 1869
 5. Increased number of parks & amusement parks
• XII. Churches
▫ A. Initially ignored overpopulation issues
▫ B. Focused on middle class
 1a. Henry Ward Beecher – Working class at fault for poverty
 2a. Many opposed unions
▫ C. Rerum Novarum (1891) – Pope Leo XIII
 1a. Criticized “unchecked competition”
 2a. Defended unions
 3a. Duty of government to care for poor
• XII. Churches
▫ D. New Social Gospel – Focus on living conditions rather
than saving souls (evangelical realization)
 1. Dwight L. Moody – Founded missions in slums
 YMCA (1851)
 Salvation Army (1880)
 2. Washington Gladden – Wrote Applied Christianity (1886)
 Defended labor rights & progressive reforms
• XIII. Settlement Houses
▫ A. Community centers located in poor districts
 1. Provided guidance and services
 2. Mostly staffed by young women
 3. Jane Addams – Hull House in Chicago (1889)
 1a. Homeless children from the inner city
 4. Lillian Wald’s Henry Street Settlement in NY (1893)
• XIV. Crossroads
▫ A. Those that flourished economically were optimistic
▫ B. Others were dismayed about the future
▫ C. Industrialization accelerated and exacerbated the
dichotomy