The Industrialization of America: The Age of Steel

Ellis Island

Engine 119

Industrialization

If a farmer living in 1500 were suddenly transported to the year 1800, he might notice change, but it would hardly be startling. Most labor was still accomplished by human muscle and animal power, ships were propelled by wind and sails, and transportation even over modest distances was measured in days or weeks, not hours. But if you took a farmer or artisan from 1800 and set him on the ground in 1900, the changes he would see would no doubt be overwhelming.

Although we cannot imagine life in the year 2100, it must be said that up to this point in our history the 19th century was the century of the greatest change in the history of man. True, the airplane, spaceship and atomic bomb were products of the 20th century, but those inventions were not unimaginable in 1900, and they did not have the overwhelming impact of, for example, the train powered by a locomotive that forever changed man's appreciation of the concept of time. When the first transatlantic cable was laid in 1858 and Queen Victoria exchanged a message with the President of the United States, people thought a miracle had been wrought.

The acceleration of change between the end of the civil war and the turn of the century was truly astounding. The inventions of Thomas Alva Edison, the entrepreneurial genius of Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie and the other so-called “robber barons,” and the contributions of thousands of other imaginative men and women changed daily life in America, often for the better, but also for the worse. In 1820 the factory had been a small, family-oriented business with perhaps a dozen or 20 employees. The textile mills of New England were larger, as were the ship yards along the Atlantic Coast, but in most businesses the owner was also the manager, and he knew the name and something of the life of everyone who worked for him.

Three of the Best Known “Robber Barons”
Rockefeller	Vanderbilt	Morgan

By 1880 factories were employing hundreds, even thousands of workers, and the owners and upper-level managers rarely saw their workers on a day-to-day basis and had little concept of life in their factories. But the advances were impressive: the light bulb, high-grade steel, mechanical devices of all sorts, mass production, the skyscraper, electric power, internal combustion engines, the transcontinental railroad, canned food and ready-made clothing, indoor plumbing, artificial lighting, and countless other advances transformed the lives of all Americans.

At the lower end of the economic scale, life did not necessarily get better. As millions of immigrants poured into the country, cheap labor was the norm, and although workers attempted to organize themselves for better pay and working conditions, they knew that the hordes pouring through Ellis Island and other ports of entry would provide workers eager to displace them even at wages scarcely enough to live on. As machines took over much of the process of manufacturing, workmanlike skills often became irrelevant. A man might stand all day pulling a handle or turning a valve or doing some other mindless, repetitive task, which meant that he could be replaced in minutes should he suffer an injury or illness.

As the cities rose and bridges, rail lines, and port facilities expanded, the progress was visible everywhere, even if thousands were too tired or absorbed in their own misery to notice. Large businesses required clerks, accountants, and other white-collar workers, and the new middle class prospered as never before. The weekend, usually consisting of a free half-day on Saturday and all day Sunday, gave workers a chance to rest. As the workday shortened and leisure time increased, the abundance of cheap newspapers and magazines provided endless sources of information for the literate and curious. Schools and universities expanded dramatically, although among very poor people, children were often sent to the factory rather than to school, and truant officers often roamed the halls of the factories, driving students back to the classroom.

The status of the working man was recognized when the first Labor Day was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, and the paid summer vacation became an expectation for many middle-class workers. Although health insurance, unemployment insurance and accident benefits did not evolve fully until the Progressive Era, millions of Americans found life easier and more pleasant.

Industrialization in America, though slow to start because of the Civil War, took off in the last half of the 19th century, so that by the year 1900 American steel production had outstripped that of the rest of the world by a wide margin. The United States had over 200,000 miles of railroads by 1914, about as many as the rest of the world put together. American farm products and manufactured goods were sent abroad in a growing American fleet of merchant marine vessels, and American travelers toured the globe in search of interesting spectacles.

The age of industrialization was also age of exploitation—of people, land, and resources—and while many benefited from the results, many also suffered. As industrialization and urbanization changed the face of America forever, those who took the time to look backward were astounded at how far the nation had come in just a few decades.

The War between Capital and Labor

As we live in an age in which workers are protected by federal and state laws as well as by sound business practices, it is hard for us to imagine a time when workers—especially unskilled, often immigrant workers—were completely on their own and at the mercy of their employers. Before the industrial age, factories and workplaces were small enough that the owner knew everyone by name and often worked alongside his or her employees. The age of the huge factory and impersonal management changed all that, and the patent unfairness with which workers were treated became a scandal. For one small example, if a worker was injured on the job by faulty machinery or other cause over which he or she had no control, there was no mechanism for providing compensation, and if a worker sued, he or she had to prove that it was not worker negligence that caused the accident. It is very difficult to prove a negative in such circumstances.

Historian Page Smith examines this era in Volume 6 of his “People's History of the United States” and calls the events surrounding what is known as the industrial revolution “The War between Capital and Labor.” It is an apt title: the two sides were indeed at war, with armies of armed men fighting on both sides. The level of human violence and destruction of property did in fact often create warlike conditions.

American Industry on the Rise

• Carnegie and Steel
• Rockefeller and Oil
• Vanderbilt and the Railroads
• Edison and the Business of Invention

The so-called Robber Barons were men of great achievement but could also be cold, ruthless, calculating and impervious to the negative effects of what they were doing. They built great institutions, amassed great wealth, did much good and much harm. Individually and collectively they have been studied in detail.

The Workers: The Worker in the Western World has a troubled history. Thomas Hobbes described life in nature as poor, solitary, nasty, brutish, short—and for many workers that was the case. Various political theories attempted to explain or find solution for the plight of the working classes. Socialists saw evil as an inevitable result when capitalism was left to its own devices; Liberalism called for freedom from oppression, first from government, then from business; Communism—Marxism and Leninism—saw the history of man as the history of class struggle. The ultimate goal of Communism was labor ownership of the means of production and a state run by the proletariat, theoretically in a classless society.

Classical economists saw labor as commodity, to be bought and sold according to market demands, and were pessimists about hopes for the working poor. Adam Smith held government intervention harmful and advocated international division of labor. Thomas Malthus argued that the immediate plight of the working class could only become worse. If wages were raised, the poor would produce more children and drive themselves back to the poverty level. If they could be persuaded to raise their standard of living, maybe the cycle could be broken. David Ricardo formulated the “Iron Law of Wages.” If wages are raised more children will be produced; they will go into the market place and reduce the value of labor; fewer children resulted, and then cycle would repeat. Wages always work toward minimum level. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels saw posited a history of oppression, outlined in the Communist Manifesto of 1848. Marx’s sister, Eleanor Marx Aveling, and her husband traveled the U.S. and reported on labor conditions. Marx had seen slavery in South as logical extension of capitalism. (Marx wrote for the New York Tribune during the American Civil War.)

Andrew Carnegie expressed bitterness about the war between capital and labor. He saw the move toward cooperation as opposed to competition as “the destruction of individualism, private property and the law of accumulation.” The wealthy should use their millions to aid the public—“raise the moral and intellectual level of the masses”—and not hand out quarters to the poor. He claimed that the ideology of capitalism rested on natural and divine laws. “In the long run wealth only comes to the moral man”—material prosperity makes the nation “sweeter, more joyous, more unselfish, more Christlike.” Such arrogant capitalistic notions were resisted vigorously by the poor.

Capitalists often failed to understand their workers. Employers sought docile, sober workers who would do their jobs reliably without complaining. By 1880 five million Americans were engaged in manufacturing, construction, and transportation. They were paid employees, not producers and were dependent upon hourly wages and the good will of their employers. The worker was seen as “a mere machine”—he could not make the simplest decisions and had no self-respect. The degradation of the skilled labor class was one of the major grievances of labor. Wages were not enough to support a family—work was marred by inequities and corruption. Working families could survive only by “ruthless underconsumption.” Workers were victims of business cycles—the winds of change swept many away. Piece work and lower wages were introduced to reduce labor costs. Whereas workers in earlier times had worked alongside their employers, now they were separated—managers of large business rarely had personal contact with workers.

Women and Children in the Labor Force. Many new jobs for women were created during the industrial age. From 1880 to 1900 the number of employed women went from 2.6 to 8.6 million. In 1880 4% of clerical workers were women; by 1920 the figure was 50%, but women could not get management positions. Although middle class married women were able to stay at home, among the poor, women—and children—had to work. (Truant officers who patrolled factories to get children into school were thwarted by struggling parents who needed the extra income.) A state of quasi-slavery existed where parents bound children to work, but child labor would not be squarely addressed until the Progressive Era.

Unions were generally hostile to women; men believed women shouldn't work for wages because they undercut wage levels. Some separate women's unions did exist, and they sought special legislation for female workers, etc. The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union led a massive strike against New York City sweatshops. Union leaders came from the middle class and were not militant, but insistent. In the 19th century no special concern existed over children or women doing hard work—they had always worked within the family on farms, etc. By 1890 18% of the labor force consisted of children between the ages of ten and fifteen.

Labor Conditions. Industrial safety was a large issue: factory work was very dangerous, and it was difficult if not impossible to hold factory owners responsible for deaths and injuries. Around 1900 25-35,000 deaths and 1 million injuries per year occurred on industrial jobs—many of them railroad jobs, which were especially dangerous. Fires, machine accidents, wrecks, etc. were common There was no federal regulation of safety and no enforcement of state or local safety regulations. Insurance and pensions were rare, and courts were not sympathetic to worker claims; no liability was seen if the worker was negligent, or if the employer was not. The burden of proof was on the injured party to prove he or she had not been negligent—and it is difficult to prove a negative. Poor English was a problem: Many could not read safety regulations, etc. Only about two percent of those injured or killed ever recovered on claims.
In all confrontations of the late 19th century, workers were generally losers. Immigrants and blacks were often targets of resentment because they were used as strikebreakers, or “scabs.” Generally the union movement was secondary to the general struggle for jobs—in the labor game it was a buyers' market.

The American Federation of Labor was a combination of national craft unions—it became known as the “aristocracy” of labor; it did not encourage unskilled workers. Samuel Gompers, former head of the Cigar Makers Union, was one of the founders of the AF of L in 1886 and became its president, a position he held for almost 38 years. The AF of L raided the Knights of Labor for members and leaders as it sought more influence. The Federation’s goals were limited to what was achievable within system that existed: shorter hours, better wages, and the right of collective bargaining. The AF of L did not threaten the capitalist system as Knights had done. They sought no “pie in the sky” solutions, but rather worked for a “gentle transition” to a better existence for workers and their families. Always pragmatic, they sought to let the power of labor grow gradually.
Specific goals of the American Federation of Labor included:

• “Job ownership”—the right to continue to work without being laid off arbitrarily.
• Immigration curbs to reduce the amount of cheaper labor.
• Relief from technological unemployment
• Labor legislation.
• Collaboration with employers.

Gompers was opposed to radicals and theorists; he sought practical solutions—wages, hours. He worked on legislation, but only as a secondary goal. He used the power of the strike carefully as a weapon to hurt profits and force stockholders to pressure management. He did not use strikes during bad times when scabs were available, but rather in good times, when it hurt owners more. Gompers was also opposed to a Labor Party—he did not want labor making commitments to parties. The AFL had over 1,000,000 members by 1901, and by 1917 it had 2.5 million members in 111 unions. Dues were collected for strike funds, etc. Eventually the AF of L became involved with politics and backed friendly candidates.

Progressive Relief. Once the Progressive movement got underway after the turn of the century, things slowly began to improve. In 1903 the Department of Commerce and Labor was established. It included a Bureau of Corporations to help corporations clean up their acts and avoid antitrust suits. In 1904 a National Child Labor Committee was formed to deal with the oppressive conditions under which children were forced to work. Without schooling they would be bound to a lifetime of dead-end jobs and drudgery.

The year 1905 saw the appearance of the Industrial Workers of the World, the I.W.W.—a radical Union. Their aims were to achieve worker solidarity, promote strikes and carry out sabotage where peaceful methods failed. Known as the “Wobblies” they proclaimed that “the final arm of labor is revolution.” They believed workers should seize and operate industrial machinery. Many leaders were communist oriented if not outright party members.

An I.W.W. leader, William D. "Big Bill" Haywood has been described as “one of the foremost and perhaps most feared of America's labor radicals.” He was a large man with a resonating voice and had little respect for the law. Haywood organized union activists, intimidated industrial managers and often found himself in trouble with legal authorities.

Labor discontent continued well into the 20th century. The Lawrence Strike of 1912 saw hundreds of women from many ethnic backgrounds brave police officers as they picketed a plant where they made coats for wages that made the products they produced unaffordable to themselves. In the early 1920s the West Virginia Coal Field wars saw violence in the streets, and in the 1930s the teamsters led by Jimmy Hoffa were often involved in violent confrontations. The United Mine Workers under John L. Lewis stuck in 1943 during the height or World War II, which created anger among the American people and led President Roosevelt to take over the mines.

Although industrial unions still have large memberships, most of the largest unions today are the service unions—hotel and restaurant workers, teachers, government employees—and though strikes are rare and violence even less frequent, worker organizations still support labor causes.

History 122 Part 1 | Assignments | Updated January 19, 2007