MASS PRODUCTION OF AUTOMOBILES
Assembly-line system
“I am going to democratize the
automobile” – Henry Ford
Situation
1907 – Ford lowered prices and sales went
up
1908 – Introduced Model T “Tin Lizzie” $850.00 stripped down
1913 – adopted meat packers’ techniques
and created a moving assembly line
Situation
1913 – sold 248,000 cars – produced 1
every 93 minutes
1925 – turned out a new car every 10
seconds
Situation
Situation
Situation
Situation
•1904 – large corporations controlled 2/5
of the capital in the US
•Resulting in Oligopolies
i.e. 6 financial groups dominated
Railroad Industry
•1909 – 1% of industrial groups produced
½ of all manufactured goods
Situation
DEBATE: Critics wanted to break the
trusts up – others argued that large-scale
business was a mark of the times
Situation
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
•Describes the filthy conditions in
meatpacking houses
•Got the attention of the public and the
government
Civil Reformers
“TRUST BUSTER” – not entirely
accurate
•Distinguished between “good” and
“bad” trusts
•Promised to protect the “good”
and control the “bad”
Roosevelt
•February 14, 1902 – brought suit against the
Northern Securities Company for violation of
the Sherman Antitrust Act
•Company controlled the rail networks of
Northern Pacific, the Great Northern and
the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy
railroads –JP Morgan and Rockefeller
•5-4 Supreme Court ruled to dissolve the
Company.
Roosevelt
•1902 – 1904 – Roosevelt moved against the
beef trust, the American Tobacco Company,
the Du Pont Corp, and Standard Oil
Roosevelt
•WAS HE REALLY AGAINST BIG BUSINESS??
•1904 – during bid for re-election he asked
for support from big business – including
$150,000 from J.P. Morgan
•1907 –allowed Morgan’s US Steel to
absorb the Tennessee Coal and Iron
Company
Roosevelt
Roosevelt is portrayed as
Jack the Giant Killer and
the Giants are the
Captains of Industry and
Wall Street
•Despite Roosevelt’s reputation as the “Trust
Buster” more Trusts were “busted” by Taft
•Man-Elkins Act of 1910 – placed telephone
and telegraph companies under government
control
TAFT
•“rule of reason” – allowed Supreme Court to
determine whether a business exerted a
“reasonable” restraint on trade
•1911 – sued US Steel for 1907 acquisition of
Tennessee Coal and Iron Company
TAFT
•Banking Reform – Federal Reserve Act
•Gave President more control over the
banks
•Established Federal Trade Commission – to
oversee business methods
Wilson
•Clayton Antitrust Act (1914)
•Prohibited unfair trade practices
•Forbade pricing policies which created
monopolies
•Made corporate officers personally
responsible for anti-trust violations
Wilson
Mass Production’s goal = to make
each product exactly the same
By 1920 – almost ½ of all
industrial workers labored in
factories which employed more than
250 people
SITUATION
RESULTS:
Workers lost control of
workplace
Conveyer belts were sped-up to
heighten production
SITUATION
FREDERICK WINSLOW TAYLOR
“Scientific” labor management
Train workers for particular tasks
Time and motion studies
Differential pay rates that rewarded
those who worked fastest
SITUATION
Jobs became monotonous and
dangerous
Meat cutters sliced fingers and hands
46 steel workers were killed in just
one mill in 1906
SITUATION
MARCH 1911 – Triangle Shirtwaist Co. Fire
Seamstresses were trapped in the
building because exit doors had been
closed & locked by the company to
prevent theft and to shut out union
organizers
SITUATION
Workers stampeded down the narrow
staircases and the single fire escape
Others leaped from the building’s top
floors
146 people died
SITUATION
•Samuel Gompers
•American Federation of Labor [AFL]
•Union for skilled workers
•Industrial Workers of the World [IWW]
•Union for unskilled workers and foreign
born laborers
Civilian Reformers
HENRY FORD
Introduced $5 day – doubling wage
rate for common labor
Reduced working day from 9 to 8
hours
Personnel department to place
workers
Civilian Reformers
FORD’S POLICY PRODUCED RESULTS:
•Turnover declined
•Absenteeism declined
•Output increased
•IWW was pushed out
Civilian Reformers
•LOUIS BRANDEIS
•Muller v. Oregon
•The “Brandeis Brief”
•Used medical evidence to support
claims that poor working conditions lead
to unhealthy workers
Civilian Reformers
ANTHRACITE COALMINERS’ SRIKE – PA
140,000 miners walked off the job
Roosevelt ordered Army to prepare to
seize the mines – leaked word of his
order to Wall Street
Alarmed Morgan and the Union made a
settlement
Roosevelt
An independent commission appointed
by Roosevelt created a deal
10% wage increase
Cut in work hours
Roosevelt saw government as an honest
impartial broker
“Square Deal” for both labor and capital
Roosevelt
Backed laws to regulate safety in
mines and Rail Roads
Mandated 8-hour work days for
government employees
TAFT
1914 – Ludlow Colorado
State militia and mine guards fired
machine guns into tent colony of coal
strikers
Killed 26 men, women and children
Wilson sent federal toops to end the
violence
Wilson
Wilson signed Adamson Act – 1916
Imposed an 8 hour work day on
interstate Railroads
Wilson
1900 – More than 5 million women work
More women than men graduated from
high school – but most professions were
closed to them
Women attended “new business schools –
training in stenography, typing, &
bookkeeping
SITUATION
1920 – ¼ + of all employed women
held clerical jobs – many others taught
Critics – women’s employment
endangered the home
Threatened reproductive functions
Robbed them of their “special charm”
SITUATION
1900 – 1920 – The Birth rate did continue to
drop
1916 – 1 in every 9 marriages ended in
divorce, compared to 1 in 21 in 1880
SITUATION
MARGARET SANGER
PIONEER IN BIRTH CONTROL – LEAD TO
CREATION OF PLANNED PARENTHOOD
MARGARET DREIER
WOMEN’S TRADE UNION LEAGUE
1920 – 19TH AMENDMENT TOOK EFFECT
CIVILIAN REFORMERS
Ida Tarbell
Editor in Chief – McClure’s Magazine
Muckraking magazine that examined and
exposed the lives of the working class
during the Progressive Era
CIVIL REFORMERS
At first he believed it was a state
issue and refused to endorse woman
suffrage
1913 – 1st Mother’s Day
By 1916 – He came out in support of
giving women the right to vote
WILSON
1900 – 3 million + children worked
Nearly 20% of children between 5 and
15 held full or almost full time jobs
Thousands worked in the mines &
southern cotton mills
SITUATION
Individual States passed compulsory
education and minimum age laws
National Child Labor Committee
established
John Dewey – education is directly
related to experience – opened Lab School
in Chicago
CIVILIAN REFORMERS
Created the Children’s Bureau
TAFT
Keating-Owen Act
Prohibited shipment in interstate
commerce of products manufactured by
children under age 14
WILSON
Violence was common
1900 – 1914 White mobs murdered
more than 1,00 black people –
mutilating them and burning them alive
Race Riots broke out
1906 – Atlanta, Georgia
SITUATION
1908 – Springfield, Illinois
Often illiterate – they were forced
to sign contracts tying them to their
jobs
Armed guards controlled camps
and whipped anyone caught trying
to escape
SITUATION
Few Unions admitted blacks
Illiteracy rate dropped from 14% in
1900 to 30% in 1910
However, they didn’t have equal
school facilities, teachers’ salaries and
education materials
SITUATION
Niagara Movement
•Claimed for blacks, “every single right
that belongs to a freeborn American,
political, civil, and social; and until we
get these rights we will never cease to
protest.” – W.E.B. DuBois
CIVIL REFORMERS
NAACP
• Founded by: William E. Walling –
wealthy southerner & Settlement house
worker; Mary Ovington, a white
anthropology student; and Oswald
Garrison Villard, grandson of the
famous abolitionist William Lloyd
Garrison
CIVIL REFORMERS
NAACP cont…
•By 1910 – it had more than 6,000 members
•Of top 8 officers – DuBois was the only
black
•1911 – with National Urban League the
NAACP pressured employers, labor unions
and government on behalf of African
Americans
CIVIL REFORMERS
1912 – Election – appealed to black
voters
Once in office – appointed Southerners
to high office, and Southern
segregationist views on race dominated
the nations capital
WILSON
SITUATION
SITUATION
SITUATION
SITUATION
SITUATION
SITUATION
Social- Justice Reformers
launched crusade to remove evil of
drink from American Life WCTU
1920 – 18th Amendment – prohibited
sale and transportation intoxicating
liquors
CIVILIAN REFORMERS
1910 – Mann Act
Prohibited the interstate
transportation of women - attempts
to stop prostitution
CIVILIAN REFORMERS
Conservation
Along with Gifford Pinchot – he
supported the wise use of natural
resources, not locking them away
Placed power sites, coal lands & oil
reserves as well as national forests in
public domain
ROOSEVELT
INCOME TAX
Authorized by the 16th Amendment
1% on individuals and corporations
earning $4,000 annually
an additional 1% on incomes over
$20,000
WILSON