AP US History
Chapter 19 - American Society in the Industrial Age
Notes Summary
Things to Focus On:
1. Change in middle-class life
2. Changes in urban infrastructure
3. Roles of women
4. Social movements
PLEASE READ PRIMARY SOURCE INFORMATION AS WELL (on website)
-Middle-Class Life
* Life became more formal - the business world seeped into the American
consciousness
o The March family in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1868-1869) vs.
The Lamphans in William Dean Howell's The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885)
* Family and spousal relationships were similarly stiff
o Middle-class mothers at the end of the century had 2-3 children, 4 or 5
fewer than their grandmothers
o Married later in life, practiced abstinence
o Dissemination of contraceptive devices and information/practice of
abortion
o Parents much concerned about status and prospects of children's
marriage partners
* Women still remained home to supervise children while men worked away
from home
* Family life - varying degrees of comfort
o Somewhat materialistic - ideal included fashionable clothes, large home
crowded with furniture, books, lamps
o "Culture of consumption"
o Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)
-Wage Earners
* Manufacturing and mining became more important, number of workers
increased rapidly (885,000 in 1860 to 3.2 million in 1890)
o More efficient methods of production increased output - rise in standard
of living
* Living conditions:
o Shortening work hours
o Could not earn enough to maintain family decently by own efforts
o Engineers paid 3x as much as track laborers ($1.00 to $1.25 a day) better-paid workers could pick up additional sums thru both legitimate and
criminal means
o Jobs became monotonous when machines took place of human skills machines made worker seem less important
o Pace of work and danger involved in working around heavy, high-speed
machinery increased accordingly
* Railroad management established rules for each job category to discipline
labor force
o Problems: avoiding work, evading regulations, drunkenness on job,
"inability to tell difference between road's money and their own"
* Businesses grew larger: contact between employer and employee
decreased, relationship less humane and more businesslike
-Working Women
* Many more working outside home - factories, textile mills,
salespersons/cashiers in department stores, nursing, domestic servants,
teachers, clerks, secretaries, operators of new typewriters (considered more
polite, easier to control, more honest by employers)
* Women paid substantially lower wages than men
* Opportunities for promotion for women were rare (manager positions almost
exclusively male)
-Farmers
* Rapidly being left behind for wealth, status in the cities
* Increase in farmers (2 million to 4.5 million from 1860 to 1890) and
production/output increasing, but industry expanding faster and decline in farmer
status
o Seemed provincial and behind times - "hicks"
* Waves of radicalism as frustrated farmers angered by decline in status major role in breaking down rural laissez-faire prejudices
o Legislation regulating railroads and warehouses
o Granger movement (Illinois, Iowa) -> cooperative experiments in
marketing of farm products, purchase of machinery, fertilizers, and other goods
* Prosperous in eastern states (urban markets), old Middle West (better
established), worse off in agricultural frontier (Texas to Dakotas and states of old
Confederacy) - starting from scratch
-Working-Class Family Life
* Great variance among families with same income/work depending on health,
intelligence, wife's ability as a homemaker or worker, famly's commitment to
middle-class values, pure luck, spending attitudes, number of children
* Wide variety in standards of living
-Working-Class Attitudes
* Increase in gap between very rich and ordinary citizens, but overall increase
in standard of living
* Wide spectrum of opinion on matters connected to their jobs
o Some content, some dissatisfied - strikes (found through surveys)
-Mobility: Social, Economic, and Educational
* Also geographical - only half of ppl recorded in one census still in same place
10 yrs later - Thernstrom: "transiency was part of the American way of life..."
* Social mobility: 1/4 of manual laborers rose to middle-class status; Italian and
Jewish immigrants of 1890's had risen from unskilled to skilled jobs a decade
later
o Result of economic growth of nation, energy/ambition of ppl, public
education system
* Education compulsory after Civil War - growth of cities provided [pop] and $$
necessary for mass education
o However short sessions, poorly trained teachers
o Steady growth and improvements followed - attendance to public schools
increased, public expenditures for education increased
o Offering vocational courses, science in addition to other general
education
* Organized labor first suspicious of manual training, but later realized its
usefulness
* Education helped young ppl rise in the world, but rags-to-riches stories were
not common - unrealistic expectations probably reason for both widespread
worker dissatisfaction with life and worker's hard working attitude
-Reason for "New" Immigration
* Industrial expansion increased need for labor - stimulated immigration
* New era in transatlantic travel with development of steamships (English liner
Great Eastern)
o Competition between lines (North German Lloyd and Holland-America)
drove down cost of passage
* Improvements in transportation in Europe allowed easier importation of
goods (especially wheat from US, Russia) - disaster for farmers in Europe and
collapse of peasant economy
o Loss of livelihood encouraged farmers to emigrate to Europe - economic
betterment
* Political and religious persecution
* 1/3 industrial workers = foreign born
* Private agencies served as link between new arrivals and employers looking
for labor
o Immigrant banks - recruited labor in old country, arranged transportation,
housed newcomers in boardinghouses while finding them jobs
+ Ex: Padrone system of Italians and Greeks
o A few companies brought in skilled workers under contract - somewhat
like indentured servant system
o Foran Act (1885) outlawed the practice
-The Old Immigrants and the New
* "New" immigrants
* "Birds of passage"
* Family immigrant
* Family groups
* Refugees
* Cultural differences affected their relations w/ native-born Americans and
other immigrant groups
o Italians (smooth adjustment b/c of close family and kinship ties) vs.
Polish immigrants in Buffalo
* German-American vs. Irish-American Catholics - diff attitudes that caused
them to clash over policies of Catholic University in Washington
* "Older" American citizens wrongly concluded that new immigrants were
incapable of becoming good citizens, should be kept out - wanted some
restriction on immigration
o Social Darwinists and ppl obsessed w/ "racial purity" also alarmed by
new immigration
o Workers, fearing competition of immigrants, also spoke out against
immigrants
* Employers not disturbed by influx of potential workers but by supposed
radicalism of immigrants
* Nativism flared up again - disliked Catholics and other minority groups
o Largest nativist organization of pd: American Protective Association - to
resist "Catholic menace"
o Protestant majority treated "new" immigrants as underlings, discouraged
their efforts to climb the social ladder
* However, neither labor leaders nor important industrialists took a broadly
antiforeign position; no interference w/ religious freedom
* After Exclusion Act (1882), meaningless 1885 ban on important contract
labor, no further restrictions imposed on immigration until 20th century - idea of
literacy test for admission passes both houses of Congress but vetoed by
President Cleveland
-The Expanding City and Its Problems
* Americans favoring restricted immigration played up the fact that immigrants
were overcrowding cities
o Housing, public health, crime all became problems
* Immigrants came to the cities because industrial jobs were there, and nativeborn Americans were moving there as well
o Expansion of industry was main cause of city growth
* American cities developed many ethnic neighborhoods, promoting diversity
and contributing to the American "melting pot"
* Immigrants were accused of resisting Americanization and blamed for urban
problems; however, the rapid urbanization and influx of farmers into the cities
was more to blame than the immigrants were
-The Urban Infrastructure
* Sanitation was an enormous problem; sewer and water facilities could not
keep up with needs, and drinking water contained large amounts of chemicals
* Roads were being made too fast to be paved (Chicago had more than 1400
miles of dirt streets in 1890)
* Housing couldn't keep up with the rising demands
o Property values skyrocketed, builders crammed housing units into every
possible foot of space
o Fire hazards
* All of these conditions caused riots and widespread anger
o New York City riots of 1863: sparked by dislike of the Civil War draft as
well as city conditions
* Few movements began to improve conditions
o The magazine Plumber and Sanitary Engineer sponsored a contest to
pick the best design for a tenement
+ James E. Ware's "dumbbell" apartment house, calling for 24 to 32
four-room apartments on a plot of ground only 25 by 100 ft.
* However, conditions in tenements were still incredibly unhealthy
-The Cities Modernize
* The basic facilities became improved
o New York City created a Metropolitan Health Board in 1866
o Urban transportation moved away from horse-drawn cars when the
electric trolley car was invented in the 1880s; commuters and shoppers could
now come from the residential districts to the business districts
o City area expanded enormously, and economic segregation defined the
city structure
+ Wealthy moved away from the center, leaving the poor in the older
neighborhoods
o Bridge designs were improved (Brooklyn Bridge), aiding transportation in
and out of the cities
o To conserve space, architects built upward-->skyscrapers
-Leisure Activities: More Fun and Games
* Theaters, museums, and opera houses
o Less sophisticated forms of recreation also existed (saloons)
* Sports for leisure were becoming widely accepted (golf, tennis, bicycling)
* More parks and green areas were implemented in cities
* Spectator sports
o Horse racing, boxing, baseball, football and basketball found their
beginnings in this time
o Sports were still considered "manly" sports and unfeminine
-The Churches Respond to Industrial Society
* While modernization improved infrastructure, it did not solve most of the
social problems, so urban religious leaders started to look at the situation
o Churches lost control over poorer sections because they brought little
comfort and hope for a better life
o Conservatism rose--> the poor were seen as to blame for their own
situation
o Some preachers worked to improve the lot of the poor
+YMCA, Salvation Army, etc.
o "Social Gospel" evolved out of this time: improving living conditions
rather than salvation
+ Advocated for civil service reform, child labor legislation, regulation of
big corporations, and heavy taxes on income and inheritance
+ Most influential preacher of Social Gospel: Washington Gladden
-Favored factory inspection laws, strict regulation of public utilities
and other reforms that would improve living conditions for the working population
o The Social Gospel movement led to some ministers moving all the way
to socialism
o Literature: Looking Backward (Edward Bellamy), In His Steps (Charles
M. Sheldon)
-The Settlement Houses
* Although millions read In His Steps and other Social Gospel literature, it was
more inspirational than practical
o Social Gospel ideals became epitomized in settlement houses
o Settlement houses: community centers in poor districts that provided
services for anyone who needed it
+ Workers were mostly idealistic, wealthier young people
+ First American example was the Neighborhood Guild, opened on the
Lower East Side of New York in 1886 by Dr. Stanton Coit--by the turn of the
century, there were 100 of them established, mostly in larger cities like Chicago,
Boston, and New York
o Women were incredibly important in the settlement houses because they
found an outlet for their hopes and energies
o The settlement house workers acted because they expected to benefit
morally and intellectually themselves by experiencing something far different
from their ordinary life, not because they felt an obligation to help people less
fortunate than they were
+ Worked for establishment of schools, day-care centers, libraries, and
foster homes
o Almost everyone appreciated the values of the settlement houses-however, the settlement houses seemed to be fighting a losing battle
+ The problems could not be taken care of by private methods--the
government would have to be brought into the situation
-Civilization and Its Discontents
* The majority of the population (esp. residents of small towns, comfortably
wealthy, shopkeepers, etc.) were happy with their civilization
o Blacks, immigrants, and poor citizens as well as humanitarian reformers
were unhappy b/c of such heavy industrialization
+ Gap between rich and poor was widening as monopolies grew bigger
+ Human values were becoming obsolete as corporate forces grew
stronger--> wealth=success
+ Divorce rate was rising as well as heart disease and mental illness
* Despite many benefits of industrialization, people were not happy or fulfilled
Relation to today
* Immigrants are still the scapegoat for modern day problems (overcrowding,
jobs, etc.)
* We still live in the same heavily industrialized society
* Divorce rate at 50%, heart disease a big problem
o People are still unhappy