Chapter 1

Industrialization and Immigration

1860-1914

1

Section 1: The Industrial Age

2

In the mid-1800’s the Industrial Revolution was beginning to take effect in the United States. This revolution saw a change from hand made goods to machine made goods.

3

However, it was not until the late 1800’s that America began to see a surge in industrial production and in the implementation of industrial businesses. This implementation would change the nation dramatically.

4

Causes of Industrial Growth

5

The New Steel Industry

6

One of the first factors that helped America grow as an Industrial nation was the development of a new way of making steel that was easier and cheaper.

This new process for creating steel used less coal than the older process. William Kelly, an American inventor was the first to perfect this process, but he did not patent the process. Instead, English inventor, Henry Bessemer later improved upon Kelly’s process and patented what became known as the Bessemer Process.

7

William Kelly Henry Bessemer

Making the production of cheaper increased steel production in this country by 350 times. Steel could now be used to create plows, barbed wire, nails, beams for buildings and rails for railroad tracks.

8

Thomas Edison and Electricity

9

During the 1800’s the use of electricity was increasing. The American inventor who found many ways to use electricity was Thomas Edison.

10

In 1876, Edison opened a laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. Edison hoped that this laboratory would be a place where he and other inventors would be able to work together inventing new things.

11

In the Menlo Park lab, Edison worked with assistants, George Hill, Lewis Latimer, E. T. Hughes, S. D. Mott and Francis Jehl to create inventions that received over 1,000 U.S. Patents.

12

One of Edison’s most famous inventions was the practical electric light bulb. Other inventors had already created electric lights, but they were too bright and unstable for use in the home. Edison figured out how to create a safe means to pass an electric current through carbonized bamboo that created a safe and cheap method to provide electric lighting to the masses. In 1882, Edison created the first permanent commercial power system in New York City.�Electric lighting slowly began to replace gas lighting.

13

Among Edison’s other inventions was the phonograph, or first record player.

14

Alexander Graham Bell and the Telephone

15

After years of experiments, Alexander Graham Bell, another accomplished American inventor, invented the telephone in 1876. Bell’s breakthrough turned out to be the result of an accident.

16

Bell was adjusting the transmitter in his laboratory and his assistant, Thomas Watson was in the other room with the receiver. Reportedly, Bell spilled acid on himself and said, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.” Watson burst through the door exclaiming that he had heard Bell’s voice through the receiver.

17

New Inventions lead to New Industries

18

New inventions often became the basis for new industries. The telephone industry grew rapidly after the invention of the phone.

19

Women often worked in the new job created by the invention of the telephone called the switchboard operator. Several other new inventions also provided new employment opportunities for women.

20

Christopher Latham Sholes made the first practical typewriter in 1867. The typewriter opened jobs for women. Elias Howe made the first sewing machine in 1846 and Isaac Singer made improvements to the sewing machine in 1851.

21

Clockwise from top left: 1867 version of the Sholes typewriter. Elias Howe sewing machine. Isaac Singer 1851 improved model. 1870 patent picture of new improved typewriter.

The Singer Sewing Machine became a bestseller and led to the creation of the new industries, like the garment industry. In factories the workers could produce ready-made clothes. Instead of the clothes being fitted to each buyer, clothes came in standard sizes and popular styles. Increasingly people bought clothes instead of making their own.

22

23

Section 2: Corporations Gain Power

24

​

In the decades, following the Civil War, the American business world was thoroughly reorganized. This reorganization changed the way businesses were managed and financed. This change would threaten business competition and the free market

Until the late 1800’s, most businesses were either owned by one person or by a small group of partners. The advancements in technology made many of these business owners want to expand their control over their product.

25

To raise the money to buy their competitors out, the businesses became corporations. A corporation is a business owned by shareholders, investors who buy part of the company through shares of stock.

26

In the late 1800’s, there were few laws to regulate the creation and management of corporations. Many of these corporations used strong arm tactics to force competitors out of business. This lead to the growth of a few powerful corporations that dominated the American business industry.

27

John D. Rockefeller, the son of a con artist, worked as a bookkeeper and in produce in his early life. Despite these humble beginnings, Rockefeller would acquire enough money to open an oil refinery with his brother in 1863. This small refinery would become the starting point of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company. This small company would one day make him the richest person in American history.

28

Rockefeller believed that the best way to make money was to put your competitors out of business. A company that wipes it competitors and controls an industry is called a monopoly. Rockefeller made deals with the railroads to ship his oil for much cheaper than this competitors. Rockefeller would then lower his prices to the point that other refineries could not compete. Once the competing refinery was bankrupt he would buy it for much less than it was really worth. When the railroads decided to charge Rockefeller more money to ship his oil, he built pipelines across the country to carry his oil for free.

29

One of Rockefeller’s most famous moves to drive his competitors out of business was the formation of the trust in 1882. A trust is a legal body created to hold stock in many companies, often in the same industry. Most competing companies chose to join Rockefeller’s trust rather than be forced out of business. By 1890, Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust controlled 95% of all oil refining in the U.S. and was able to set a high price for oil. Consumers had to pay Standard Oil’s high prices, because they could afford to buy from anyone else.

30

As the head of Standard Oil Company, John D. Rockefeller earned over a billion dollars. He did this by what many people would call dishonest methods. Rockefeller became known as a Robber Baron, or a business leader who gets rich by the use of dishonest methods.

31

Andrew Carnegie, unlike Rockefeller, tried to beat his competition in the steel industry by making the best and cheapest product on the market.

32

To do this, Carnegie sought to control all the processes necessary to make steel. He bought iron mines as well as the railroads and the ships that were used to bring the iron ore to his steel mills. Carnegie’s company, U.S. Steel dominated the steel industry from 1889 to 1901.

33

Andrew Carnegie has been categorized as Robber Baron by some, but not for how he eliminated his competition. Carnegie while honest in his dealings with the people he competed against, was ruthless in how he dealt with the people who worked for him. Carnegie would often hire strikebreakers to deal with workers who went on strike against his company.

34

When Carnegie decide to retire, he sold his U.S. Steel Company to the nation’s top banker, J.P. Morgan. It is said that Morgan while at dinner with Carnegie, asked him how much it would take to buy U.S. Steel. When Carnegie passed Morgan a note with $480 million written on it, Morgan simply took out his checkbook and wrote the check.

35

Morgan made his money by loaning money to the inventors and industrialists who were trying to make their companies into monopolies. He would then wait until the companies were successful to offer to buy the original owners out.

36

Rockefeller and Carnegie both started with nothing and turned themselves into billionaires. Acting on an article written by Carnegie called “The Gospel of Wealth” both men became noted philanthropists, or people who give large sums of money to charity.

37

Rockefeller gave money to create the University of Chicago and Rockefeller University in New York City. Carnegie gave money to create universities and thousands of public libraries. During their lives, Rockefeller gave over $500 million and Carnegie over $350 million to charity.

38

In the second half of the 19^th century American industry experienced ups and downs. This pattern of good and bad times is called the business cycle. During very good times, called booms, people buy more, and some invest in businesses. During very bad times, called busts, spending and investments decrease. Industries lay off workers and make fewer goods. Businesses may shrink or even close. A period of prolonged extremely low activity is called a depression.

39

During the late 1800’s there were two harsh depressions. The depression of 1873 lasted five years and saw three million people lose their jobs. The depression of 1893 saw thousands businesses fail, including over 150 railroads.

40

Despite the tough times in America for most, many business owners remained successful and made large sums of money through the depressions. The richest Americans celebrated and often flaunted their fortunes by spending their money on mansions, fine furniture and other trappings of wealth.

41

Images of the opulence of the very wealthy from top left: Living Room, Dinning Room, Gold Place Settings and Gold Chandelier.

42

The rags to riches stories of John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie made many Americans believe that they too could grow rich.

43

The reality though was that most people who made millions had not been born in poverty. Many who belonged to the upper class, attended college and began their careers with the advantages of money or family connections.

44

99% of the people in America would never make as much money in their entire lives as most of the business owners could make in one day.

45

Many people called this time period of perceived wealth that could be achieved by anyone the Gilded Age. The name for this era was created by writers Mark Twain and Charles Warner. To gild is to coat and object with gold leaf. Just as gold leaf can disguise an object of lesser value, the wealth of a few masked society’s problems, including corrupt politics and widespread poverty. In 1890, the average income for 11 million of the nation’s 12 million families was $380 a year, well below the poverty line.

46

Section 3: Immigration and Urbanization

47

Industrialization Changes Cities

48

Industrialization Changes Cities:��New materials and inventions helped to speed industrial growth. This growth caused far-reaching changes in American society.��The Industrial Revolution changed not just how people worked, but also where they worked. Since colonial days, most Americans lived and worked in rural areas. In the late 1800s, more and more people moved to the cities to find jobs.

49

Industries were drawn to cities that offered good transportation and plentiful workers. Increasing numbers of factory jobs became available in cities, followed by more workers to fill those jobs. The growth of cities that resulted from these changes is called urbanization.

50

In the late 1800s, a new type of building called a skyscraper helped cities to absorb millions of people. To the people of the early 20^th century, skyscrapers look tall enough to scrape the sky. They increased the amount of housing and work space available within a city.

51

One invention that made it possible to build skyscrapers was the electric elevator. In 1889, Otis Elevator Company installed the first electric elevator. Buildings could now be more than a few stories tall.

52

The use of steel also helped engineers construct taller buildings. In 1885, the Home Insurance Building in Chicago became the first skyscraper. It boasted and iron and steel skeleton that could hold the immense weight of the skyscraper’s floors and walls. The building climbed only ten stories, but it was a radical departure form the normal four story buildings of earlier decades. Skyscrapers changes city skylines forever.

53

Just as electricity changed the way people lived inside buildings. It also changed the way they traveled around cities. Before industrialization, people walked or used horse-drawn vehicles to travel over land. But by 1900, electric streetcars in American cities were carrying more that 5 billion passengers a year.

54

By allowing workers to live further away from their jobs, public transportation helped new suburbs develop. It also helped cities to expand. Some suburbs wanted to merge with the city they bordered in order to be served by the city’s transportation system. In 1889, Chicago annexed several suburbs and more than doubled its population and area.

The New Immigrants

55

Until the late 1890s, most immigrants to the United States came from northern and western Europe. But after 1896, immigrants came mainly from southern and eastern Europe, including southern Italy, Poland and Russia. This later group became known as “new immigrants.”

56

The majority of these new immigrants were poor and could not afford first or second class tickets to America. They were forced to journey to America aboard luxury cruise liners in steerage.

57

Images of Immigrants traveling in steerage.

58

The journey was difficult but the new immigrants usually sustained themselves with the hope of a new life in America, which had become known as “The Land of Opportunity.”

59

For most European immigrants, Ellis Island was the first stop. There they were processed before they could enter the United States.

60

First, they had to pass a physical examination. Those with serious health problems were sent home. Immigrants who passed the physical examination were then asked for their name, occupation and financial situation.

61

Unescorted women had to have person there to pick them up or a pre-paid ticket that took them to their destination.

62

Ellis Island

63

In 1910, Asian immigrants began to land at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. In Angel Island’s filthy buildings, most Chinese immigrants were held for weeks while they were processed.

64

Angel Island

65

American cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago attracted immigrants with the promise of jobs. While European immigrants settled mostly in the East and Midwest, Asian immigrants settled in the West. Immigrants from Mexico settled in the Southwest.

66

Newer immigrants had a tendency to seek out people form the old country to help them find jobs and housing. People with similar ethnic backgrounds often moved to the same neighborhoods. As a result, ethnic neighborhoods with names like “Little Italy” and “Chinatown” became common in America.

67

Section 4: Reactions to Immigration

68

Immigrants were eager to become part of their new country. However, many native-born Americans regarded immigrants as a threat.

69

Some Americans have described the United States as a melting pot, or a place where cultures blend. The new Americans attempted to blend into American society quickly like they were told the earlier immigrants had. This process of blending into a society is called assimilation. To assimilate, new immigrants studied English and how to be and American citizen.

70

Often times new immigrants learned the language and customs of America from their young children who would attend school while they were at work.

71

Many workers began to assimilate to retain jobs. Employers and labor unions both tried to “Americanize” immigrant workers by offering classes in citizenship and English. Yet, at the same time immigrants were learning about America, they were changing America. Immigrants did not give up their cultures completely. Despite their efforts to assimilate, immigrants faced prejudice from native-born Americans. Many Protestants feared the arrival of Catholics and Jews. Others felt that the new immigrants would be to easily influenced by corrupt politicians. This led some native-born Americans to push for immigration restrictions.

72

Many native-born Americans also feared they would have to compete with immigrants for jobs. Immigrants often took whatever jobs they could get, working for long hours, low wages, and in unsafe conditions. Many found jobs in sweatshops – hot crowded, dangerous factories – for about ten dollars a week.

73

Some Americans worried that there would not be enough jobs for everyone. These fears led to increased opposition to immigration. In 1882, Congress began to pass laws to restrict immigration. They placed taxes on new immigrants and banned specific groups, such as convicts and people with mental illness. Nonwhites faced deeper prejudice than European immigrants, and Asians faced some of the worst. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. It banned Chinese immigration for ten years.

At the same time, Mexican and African-Americans who came to the American Southwest were forced into peonage. In this system of labor, people are forced to work until they have paid off their debts. Many were cheated into this system which was not much above slavery. In 1911, the U.S. Supreme court ruled that peonage violated the 13^th Amendment.

75

The growing population led to overcrowding and disease. Soon political organizations and reformers were working to improve conditions.

76

The concentration of people in cities increased the danger of disaster because people and buildings were packed closely together.

77

Fires and natural disasters were not the only danger for city dwellers. Poverty and disease also threatened lives. Many people lived in tenements, run-down and overcrowded apartment houses.

78

Old buildings, landlord neglect, poor design and little government control led to dangerous conditions in many tenements. Landlords often didn’t care about safety, renting spaces to as many people as possible to make as much money as possible.

79

Inadequate garbage pick-up also caused problems as tenants sometimes dumped their smelly garbage into narrow air shafts between tenements. Many tenements had no running water. Sewage flowed in open gutters and threatened to spread disease among tenement dwellers.

80

A neighborhood with such overcrowded, dangerous housing was called a slum. The most famous example was New York City’s Lower East Side, but every major city had their own slums.

​

​

Many Americans were disgusted by poverty and slums. Urban reformers fought for changes that would solve these problems. Some reformers opened settlement houses to help immigrants and the poor improve their lives. Settlement houses offered, daycare, education and health care to the needy.

81

Many settlement house founders were educated middle-class women. Jane Addams, an urban reformer and suffrage leader, founded Chicago’s Hull House in 1889 with Ellen Gates Starr.

82

Hull House provided families with a place to stay as well as a place to feed and educate their children.

83

Hull House provided services to families with children of all ages, from the very young in need of daycare to the teenage student in need of regular classes like physical education.

84

Some reformers were inspired by the work of the middle-class women and founded the social gospel movement, which was based on Christian values and led by Protestant ministers. The movement worked for labor reforms, such as abolishing child labor.

85

Political machines were another type of organization that addressed the problems of the city. A political machine is an illegal gang that influences enough votes to control a local government. Political machines gained support by trading favors for votes. Machine bosses gave jobs, cash or food to supporters. In return, supporters voted for the machine. Sometimes more than once. Machines demanded bribes and used extortion to affect government actions.

86

The most famous political machine was Tammany Hall in New York City. It was led by William Marcy Tweed. Along with his greedy friends, Boss Tweed stole enormous amounts of money from the city.

87

Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed were so powerful that they were able to influence the Presidential Elections of 1888 and 1892.

88

Despite such political corruption, political machines did a number of good things. They built parks, schools, sewers, roads and orphanages in many cities. Machine politicians often helped immigrants get settled by helping them find jobs or homes. Many immigrants gratefully supported the political machine after this kind of help.

89

Section 5: African American Discrimination

90

An American Story�African-American sisters Sarah and Elizabeth Delany grew up in North Carolina in the early 20^th century. They witnessed first had how racial discrimination in the South worked.��“We were about five and seven years old… Mama and Papa used to take us to Pullen Park… and that particular day, the trolley driver told us to go to the back. We children objected loudly, because we always liked to sit up front… but Mama and Papa just gently told us to hush and took us to the back.” – Having Our Say by�Sarah L. Delany and A. Elizabeth Delany��As you will read in this section, discrimination was common throughout the U.S. in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

91

In America, many whites considered themselves superior to Asians, Native Americans, Latin Americans and African Americans. Racist beliefs inspired acts of violence and racial discrimination. Some of the most widespread discrimination was directed against African Americans. Racist attitudes towards African Americans had existed in America since the introduction of slavery. In colonial times, the low social rank held by slaves led many whites to assume that whites were superior to blacks. Reconstruction briefly gave African Americans equal rights in the South, but when Reconstruction ended in 1877, white Southerners struck back sharply.

92

Whites weakened African American political power by restricting their voting rights. Southern states passed laws that set up literacy tests, or reading tests to prevent African Americans from voting. White officials made sure the blacks failed the literacy tests by giving them unfair exams. For example, white officials sometimes gave blacks tests written in Latin.

93

Another way whites kept blacks from voting was by issuing a poll tax. Poll taxes kept many blacks from voting because they didn’t have enough money to pay the tax.

94

Such laws threatened to prevent poor and uneducated whites from voting, too. To keep them from losing the vote, several Southern states added grandfather clauses to their constitutions. Grandfather clauses stated that a man could vote if he or his ancestor, such as a grandfather, had been eligible to vote before 1867. Before 1867, most African Americans, free or enslaved, did not have the right to vote because the 15th Amendment had not been passed yet. Whites could use the grandfather clause to protect their voting rights. Blacks could not.

95

In addition to voting restrictions, African Americans faced Jim Crow laws. “Jim Crow” was a character in a minstrel show that made fun of African Americans. Jim Crow laws were meant to enforce segregation, or separation, of white and black people in public places. As a result, separate schools, trolley seats an restrooms were common in the South.

96

Besides racial discrimination, African Americans in the South also faced violence. The Ku Klux Klan, which first appeared during Reconstruction, used terror and violence to keep blacks from challenging segregation.

97

African Americans who attempted to challenge segregation, were dealt with in very violent manners. The most frequent method the Ku Klux Klan used to punish those blacks who did try to vote or challenge Jim Crow laws was lynching, or hanging without due process of law.

98

Between 1885 and 1900, more than 1,500 African Americans were lynched. The lynched were usually left as a warning to any other African Americans who sought to challenge white supremacy.

99

Ida B. Wells, an African American journalist from Memphis, led the fight against lynching. After three of her friends were lynched in 1892, she launched an anti-lynching campaign in her newspaper.

100

When whites called for Wells herself to be lynched, she moved to Chicago and continued her work against lynching. Wells was not alone. Many blacks moved to the north to escape discrimination. The laws of the north did not allow for discrimination, but some Northern whites still discriminated against blacks.

101

In 1908, whites in Springfield, Illinois, attacked blacks who had moved there. The whites lynched two blacks within a half mile of Abraham Lincoln’s former home.

102

African Americans resisted discrimination, but they had little power to stop it. In 1892, Homer Plessy, an African American, sued a railroad company, arguing that segregated seating violated the his 14^th Amendment right to “equal protection under the law.”

103

In the case Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruled the “separate but equal” facilities did not violate the 14^th Amendment. This allowed Southern states to maintain segregated facilities.

104

The separate facilities were never equal. White-controlled governments spent money to improve and build new facilities for whites.

105

106

While allowing the facilities for African Americans to decay, become outdated and remain inferior to white facilities. African Americans would have to organize to fight for equality.

107

Two different leaders emerged from the African American community. They had different ideas about how to respond to the problem. Booker T. Washington was an early leader in the effort to achieve equality. In exchange for economic security, he thought that African Americans should not openly challenge segregation. He thought that whites and blacks could work together but leave separate social lives. This position became known as the Atlanta Compromise.

108

In 1881, he founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to help African Americans learn teaching or trades as well as patience, enterprise and thrift. Washington believed that this type of education would help African Americans gain advancement through economic security.

109

W.E.B. Du Bois, a sociology professor, disagreed with Washington. He believed African Americans should fight against segregation. He also thought that industrial training would limit African American workers to inferior jobs. Instead, he pushed for higher education for the most able African Americans, which he called the “Talented Tenth.” They would lead the struggle for equal rights.

110

In 1909, W.E.B. Du Bois, Jane Addams and other reformers founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

111

The NAACP played a major role in ending segregation in the 20^th century.

112

Section 6: The Labor Movement

113

In 1867, Mary Harris Jones lost her husband and four children to yellow fever. Jones moved to Chicago and became an effective labor leader who organized meetings, gave speeches and organized strikes. Workers loved her so much they called her Mother Jones.

114

Workers Organize

115

As industrialization expanded, standards of living generally improved. However, workers suffered from dangerous conditions on the job and in the factories, low wages and long hours. To improve conditions, workers began to organize.

116

Workers faced a long list of problems. Among them were:� 10-12 hour work days� no sick days� low pay� dull, repetitive jobs� unsafe and unhealthy � work conditions�

117

Many business owners of the late 1800s ran their factories as cheaply as possible. Many omitted safety equipment to save money. For example, railroads would not buy air brakes or automatic train-car couplers even though about 30,000 railroad workers were injured and 2,000 were killed every year.

118

In the late 1800s, the average weekly wage was less than ten dollars. This barely paid the bills. To get by, whole families worked, including the young children. If a worker missed work due to illness or accident on the job, the family usually went into debt.

119

Workers had little contact with the business owners, who kept their distance from the workers and their grievances. Workers began to feel that only other working people could understand their troubles. Discontented workers formed labor unions.

120

The first labor unions failed to gain much support. After the Civil War, national organizations such as the Knights of Labor were formed with much greater success. Unlike most labor unions of the day, the Knights of Labor allowed women to join and African Americans after 1878 to join as well.

121

Beginning in 1873, the U.S. fell into a depression. Over the next four years workers took pay cuts and about one-fifth lost their jobs. In July of 1877, the B&O Railroad declared a 10% wage cut. In response the workers refused to run the trains. President Rutherford B. Hayes called in federal troops. Before the two-week strike ended, dozens of people had been killed.

122

The Struggle Between Business and Labor

123

The growth of labor unions frightened many business leaders. In the last decades of the 1800s, conflicts between business and labor grew. Powerful unions could threaten the profits of the business leaders and their near complete control over an industry. In the business leaders’ fight with unions, they tried to portray unions leaders as people with extreme, un-American ideas.

124

They blamed the labor movement on socialists and anarchists. Socialists believe in socialism, a social system in which the means of production and the distribution of goods is controlled by a central government. Anarchists believe in anarchy, the abolition of all governments. Business and government leaders tried to break union power.

125

In Chicago, the McCormick Harvester Company locked out striking union members and hired strikebreakers to replace them. On May 3, 1886, union members, strikebreakers and police clashed. One member died. The next day union leaders called for a meeting at the Haymarket Square to protest the acts of violence that killed one of their fellow-workmen.

126

As police moved in to end the meeting, an unknown person threw a bomb. It killed 7 police and wounded about 60 people. The police then fired on the crowd killing several people and wounding about 100. This conflict came to be known as the Haymarket Affair.

127

Afterward, the Chicago police arrested hundreds of union leaders, socialists and anarchists. Opposition to unions increased and union membership dropped rapidly.

128

In 1886, the same year as the Haymarket Affair, Samuel Gompers, a labor leader, found a national organization of unions called the American Federation of Labor (AFL). He used negations, strikes and boycotts to achieve its aims. By 1904 it had 1.7 million members.

129

The AFL had success, but national labor conflicts grew more bitter. In 1892 Andrew Carnegie’s U.S. Steel reduced wages at his steel mills. The union, in Homestead, Pennsylvania, organized what became known as the Homestead Strike, so the company locked the workers out and hired nonunion workers and 300 armed guards.

130

On July 6, a battle between the guards and the locked-out workers left ten people dead. The state militia began escorting the nonunion workers to the mills. After four months, the strike collapsed, breaking the union.

131

In 1894, workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company went on strike when they had their wages cut by 25%, however the company did not lower the rent in charged to live in the company housing. After the rent was deducted from their pay, many of the workers took home nothing and some even owed the company money.

132

When the Pullman company refused to negotiate, American Railway Union president Eugene V. Debs called on all railroad workers to refuse to handle Pullman cars. Railroad traffic in much of the country stopped. President Grover Cleveland called out the federal troops, which ended the strike.

133

Debs was arrested and put in jail.

134

The battle between labor unions and big business was far from over. In the late 1800s though, the labor unions were at a disadvantage due to the backing that big business had from the federal government.

135

The only major victory for labor unions in the 19^th century was the restrictions and laws passed against child labor. These victories paved the way for children like you to attend school instead of working in dangerous factories.

136

Section 7: Mass Culture

137

Changes in Education

138

Increases in immigration and improvements in agriculture, which caused less children to be needed to work on the family farms, lead to an increase in the number of kids who started attending school on a regular basis.

Most old schools, which were designed as one room school houses, were not able to accommodate the sudden increase in students. Some were forced to do the best they could, like using old coat closets as classrooms.

140

In response to the increase in student population, many states passed legislation to build bigger, modern schools that could handle the new students.

141

The growth of education increased the number of American readers. Reading became more popular and led to the growth of publishing, the industry that produces books, magazines and newspapers. Americans read large numbers of novels. Dime novels were especially popular, in particular with young adults. They sold for ten cents each and told exciting tales.

142

Americans were also reading more newspapers. Tough competition to get people to buy one newspaper over the other pushed newspaper publishers to try gimmicks such as going to press before all the facts were in to outsell their rivals.

143

For example, Joseph Pulitzer, owner of the New York World, and William Randolph Hearst, owner of the New York Morning Journal, were fierce competitors. They filled their pages with dramatic, often exaggerated stories and special features like comic strips.

144

In the late 1800s, American consumers could buy new products and experience new forms of entertainment. Mass culture is the set of ideas and values that arise when people are exposed to the same sets of information repeatedly. Movies, music, sports and advertising combined to shape modern American mass culture.

145

The rise of modern advertising in newspapers had a wide influence on American life. Advertising made people aware of new products and of places where they could buy them.

146

Department stores were a new type of store that consumers could go to and purchase all kinds of various items. From clothing to furniture to hardware supplies, the new department stores had it all.

147

If consumers did not live near a department store, they could use mail-order catalogs, like the one pictured to the left, to order goods that would be delivered by post.

148

This page and the following page have some examples of the various things a consumer could purchase through the mail-order catalogs of the early 20^th century.

149

150

In the late 19^th century, industrialization and urbanization created a new kind of society. Urban populations grew, and industrialization when combined with new labor laws that limited the work days and with new time saving inventions started to give more people free time.

151

This freedom from time consuming activities is called leisure time.

152

As the time people had to relax increased, the activities also changed. Cities had new parks, were dwellers could stroll wooden walkways, ride bikes, play sports and have picnics.

153

Cities even began to open up amusement parks, like Coney Island. Coney Island had shops, food, vendors and exciting rides.

154

One of the more exciting rides for people who went to Coney Island, was one the first roller coasters.

155

Between 1876 and 1915, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis and San Francisco all hosted a World’s Fair.

156

Other forms of entertainment include vaudeville, a mixture of song, dance and comedy.

157

Ragtime, a type of music that blended African-American songs and European musical forms, also became popular near the end of the 19^th century.

158