AMERICAN SOCIETY IN THE INDUSTRIAL AGE

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AMERICAN SOCIETY IN THE INDUSTRIAL AGE

• CHAPTER 18 (484-509)

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MIDDLE-CLASS LIFE

• Families were generally smaller than before
• Young people increasingly were able to marry for
  true love rather than purely social reason
• Men worked away from home in shops, offices,
  and factories
• ¼ of all urban families employed at least 1
  servant
• Consumerism fashionable clothes, nicer homes,
• Keeping up with the Jones

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SKILLED AND UNSKILLED WORKERS

• 885,000 in 1860 to 3.2 million in 1890
• Standard of living slowly increased, as did
  working conditions Labor Unions
• Skilled workers could make a decent living
  unskilled workers could not
• Big Business had more control over their lives
• They were more subject to the cycles of business
  and economics

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WORKING WOMEN

• More women were working away from home as
  manufacturing moved from their homes to the
  factories
• Women came to dominate several job types
  salespeople, cashiers, nurses, teachers, and
  secretaries few however were promoted to
  leadership positions

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FARMERS

• Farm production was increasing, but its place in
  the national economy was declining
• Farmers suffered a decline in status they were
  backward, provincial, and hicks
• Hard work, long hours, rural life
• Frontier farmers had it very difficult

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WORKING-CLASS FAMILY LIFEWORKING-CLASS ATTITUDES

• Income may be a few hundred dollars per year
• Huge variations in conditions much like today
• It is all about how they spent their money
• Considerable dissatisfaction among workers
• Strikes, bad conditions, low pay, etc.
• The rich were growing richer, but more people
  were growing rich still it was difficult to
  move up

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WORKING YOUR WAY UP

• Many Americans believed in opportunity
• Many Americans were constantly on the move
• Public education opened many doors
• Attendance increased from 6.8 million in 1870 to
  15.5. million in 1900
• Trade schools came into being
• Rags to riches was still very rare, most business
  leaders were from well-to-do families

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THE NEW IMMIGRATION

• Industrial expansion increased the need for
  labor, thus immigration increased as well
• European farmers could not keep up with American
  and Russian wheat
• Farm machinery destroyed the peasant economy of
  Europe as well
• Many came to America in search of better
  opportunities 1 in 3 industrial workers were
  foreign born in 1870

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NEW IMMIGRANTS FACE NEW NATIVISM

• Many of these new immigrants maintained close
  times to their homelands including traditions,
  languages, and customs
• Most were poor, unskilled workers
• Americans found them harder to assimilate as
  citizens
• Americans also feared these immigrants taking
  their jobs

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NEW IMMIGRANTS FACE NEW NATIVISM

• Sentiment began to rise to keep them out the
  less white they were, the more they attempted to
  keep them out
• Nativism being against anyone non-native
• A literacy test bill passed both houses of
  Congress in 1897, but President Cleveland vetoed
  it

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THE EXPANDING CITY AND ITS PROBLEMS

• Many of the new immigrants packed into the major
  cities but so did many Americans
• 1890 1 in 3 lived in a city, by 1910, nearly 1
  in 2 did
• Ethnic neighborhoods developed, further
  inhibiting assimilation
• Crime increased, as did unsafe conditions

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TEEMING TENEMENTS

• Sewer and water facilities could not keep up
• Rivers became increasingly polluted and smelled
  terrible
• Cities grew so fast that streets remained unpaved
  and buildings were unsafe
• Light, air, and space were all squeezed out
  this caused increases in disease, crime, etc
  people had to dump their waste on the street
• In the 1880s, real laws began to pass requiring
  minimum standards on construction and such

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THE CITIES MODERNIZE

• Sewage systems came into being
• Trees were planted
• Dirt, noise and pollution were cleaned up
• Streets were paved
• Urban transportation developed from horses to
  trains which was much cleaner
• Bridges and suburbs created more and better
  living spaces
• High-rise building became normal skyscraper and
  skyline entered the English language

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LEISURE ACTIVITIES MORE FUN AND GAMES

• Cities became the centers of artistic and
  intellectual life in America
• American Museum of Natural History (1870)
• Metropolitan Opera (1883)
• Breweries and saloons exploded
• Golf, tennis, bicycling, amusement parks, picnic
  areas, and spectator sports became ever more
  popular baseball, football, and basketball

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LEISURE ACTIVITIES MORE FUN AND GAMES

• Baseball 1876 the National League was formed
• 1901 the American league formed
• Basketball invented by James Naismith in 1891
  for the YMCA
• Football Codified by Walter Camp at Yale around
  1900
• Collegiate sports were crucial to the beginnings
  of many of these and other sports and events

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CHRISTIANITYS CONSCIENCE AND THE SOCIAL GOSPEL

• Modernization was not solving all of the problems
  found in the city
• Many churches stressed ones own responsibility
  for ones sins - Ultimately, many of these
  churches and their members left the cities
• Gradually, some began preaching a Social Gospel
• Rather than simply preach that the poor should
  stop drinking, gambling, and otherwise wasting
  money, they would provide food and other
  resources to allow them to change for the better

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CHRISTIANITYS CONSCIENCE AND THE SOCIAL GOSPEL

• Social Gospel advocates were often supporters of
  child labor legislation, big business regulation,
  taxes on incomes and inheritances
• Washington Gladden Applied Christianity
• He favored labor, factory inspection laws, and
  regulation of public utilities
• Charles M. Sheldon In His Steps - people
  should ask What would Jesus do? before adopting
  any course of action

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THE SETTLEMENT HOUSES

• Early community centers
• Located in poor areas to offer services to those
  who would use them
• right living through social relations
• the first-hand knowledge the college classroom
  cannot give
• Many idealistic young men and women work in these
  centers
• They simply could not keep up with the masses of
  immigrants entering the city each year

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CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS

• Blacks, immigrants, the poor those unable to
  take advantage of new opportunities
• Human values seemed to be in danger of being
  crushed by impersonal forces
• Many had a negative view of progress
• Divorce was up, heart disease was up, mental
  illness was up people were getting burned out
  
• Some took a balanced approach the modern world
  offered many possibilities along with many perils