¶ … Changing Landscape: How industrialization and other social changes transformed the face of 19th century America

The late 19th century in America was characterized by seismic political shifts in the ways in which Americans conducted their economic lives. In addition to the changes the Civil War wrought in America, there was also an increasing divide between the needs of urban and rural Americans. The U.S. was becoming more ethnically diverse due to the rise of immigration and newly freed African-Americans were attempting to find their political voice. The increasingly dominant urban culture of the North along with the interjection of new political parties and cultures was profoundly threatening for many Americans and raised charges that America was becoming more "European." This concept meant very different things to people, depending on their perspective. For rural farmers it meant the dismaying rise of big business and banks which had become the power elites of the changing nation. For native-born whites, it meant the rise of Catholic immigrant groups and also the desire of African-Americans to attain political parity. And for all Americans, new sexual mores were discomforting, as prostitution and other urban vices became more immediately obvious in the new cities.

In the South during the 1870s, in response to the economic difficulties rural America had experienced after the failure of agricultural collectives, the Farmer's Alliance Movement attempted to give a voice to an increasingly disenfranchised sector. Most popular in the South and Midwest, the movement was even able to empower black farmers and for a while racial unity between black and white farmers seemed like a real possibility. The rise of the Populist Party as an alternative to the two-party system exemplifies the extent to which agrarian workers felt alienated from the dominant political discourse of the era. For a brief period of time for African-Americans, the Populist Party seemed to provide an alternative to the growing racial segregation and efforts to disenfranchise blacks by the Democratic Party.

However, ultimately the Populist movement and its advocacy of 'free silver' versus the gold standard was a failure as was an effort to create a Southern political system based upon class versus racial alliances. "There was, it appeared, only one issue on which all the business interests could agree, and that was on the necessity of maintaining the gold standard against those who wanted to inflate the currency by coining silver" (Nasaw 142). In fact, many Populists, once they abandoned the movement, became advocates of white supremacy. The 'whiteness' of poor farmers became a sign of their social status and African-Americans were further subjugated as a result.

Despite the tensions riddling the South it should be noted that the North, however, was no oasis of racial tolerance. Although Northerners were blamed by Southerners for being carpetbaggers and destroying the Southern way of life during Reconstruction, the North was also deeply divided according to ethnicities. The rise of industrialization was accompanied by the subsequent rise in industrialization. Nativist sentiment ran deep. Slums, poverty, and tenement living amongst Irish and Italian-American immigrants caused a similar incitement of racial resentment against all groups not perceived to be whites, including African-Americans. Immigrants like the Irish were discriminated against and viewed as European interlopers and not 'white' -- immigrants made up the growing servant and laboring class.

Even the West was not immune from racism, however. The demand for more land to fuel the appetites of individuals looking to make their fortunes through homesteading resulted in the increasing encroachment upon Native American land. The impingement upon Native Americans was both territorial and cultural, cumulating in the Dawes Severalty Act (1887) which effectively enforced white cultural values upon native tribes and attempted to eradicate indigenous ways of life. The Dawes Act was yet another effort to homogenize the cultural ideology of America in the name of a 'melting pot,' but its effects were to limit the cultural development of Native Americans and to create a break with the way of life which had sustained the tribes in the past. Native Americans were to become the greatest losers in the increasingly industrialized nation.

The ideology which supported discrimination was known as Social Darwinism or the belief that the survival of the fittest, both racially and economically, justified social and political inequality. The economic plight of all disenfranchised workers was seen as natural, as were policies which supported industrialization. "The Gilded Age millionaires' rhetorical adherence to the doctrine of the 'survival of the fittest,' first articulated by Spencer and...

It was rather a celebration of the fruits of such competition: bigness, monopoly, and trusts" (Nasaw 144). This was a profound departure from an America which had been conceptualized based upon the Jeffersonian ideal of the gentleman farmer. Largeness was celebrated, as was the dearth of small farmers. Businessmen became a kind of new aristocracy in the capitalist environment of 19th century America. The rise of power of minority factions which was so feared by the Founding Fathers had become the reality.
Direct democracy and populism was characterized dangerously revolutionary. "Democracy had its limits, beyond which voters and their elected representatives dared not trespass lest economic calamity befall the nation" (Nasaw 148). America was not only more divided in terms of lifestyle, race, and religion -- it was also more divided in terms of the chasm between rich and poor. During this time period there was no progressive tax system and no social support network other than private charities for poor workers. Robber baron capitalists were able to accumulate seemingly untold wealth. Workers in factories, on railroads, and in mines labored in often horrific, unsanitary and dangerous conditions. As noted in Thomas Andrews' book Killer Coal, there was an acceptance that for the poor work took place in "prodigiously lethal places" to fuel the wealth of the elites (Andrews 129). Unionization and the rise of worker's rights movements attempted to restore some equilibrium the United States in terms of the rights allocated to different social factions. There was also pushback from many immigrant groups to the forced assimilation demanded by employers. The rise of the common school movement introduced a way to engage in bettering one's self and pulling one's self up by one's own bootstraps. This seemed more in line with the anti-aristocratic ideology on which the U.S. had ostensibly been originally founded and earlier populist movements such as Jacksonian democracy. However, not all Americans were able to benefit from these efforts to unionize and bring greater democracy to the emerging social structure. Although African-Americans via migration were part of the new, industrial America in both the 'New South' and the North, separate workplaces often prevailed -- by law in the South and by custom in the North.

African-American leaders were themselves divided as to what would best serve the community. Booker T. Washington advocated African-Americans seeking out an education in trade schools, believing that economic empowerment had to come before social change. But although Washington won the support of many white philanthropists, who praised his cautious conception of equality, black people did not see the improvement of their social status unlike white immigrant populations who were able to secure political patronage and support via collective action and the support of institutions like Tammany Hall in New York City. In response to the failure of Washington, the intellectual W.E.B. Dubois established the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) which specifically pursued political change and education for African-Americans. Naturally, this proved to be more threatening to many Americans than Washington's concept of gradual change.

The perceived increased sexual immorality in urban locations was also profoundly disturbing to many Americans. "The decline of the brothel and the subsequent diffusion of prostitution into neighborhood bars and clubs removed some of the exploitation associated with 19th century commercial sex" (Clement 47). But this 'empowerment' of women to sell themselves on the streets without being confined in brothels also made the act far more visible. There was also a rise in the 'grey area' practice of 'treating' or exchanging sexual favors for valuable items without a direct exchange of cash for sex. Urbanization brought about a curiously paradoxical equality for many women. On one hand, women earned less than men. On the other hand, the various opportunities offered by the city enabled them to secure financial independence outside of the household. Yet these vocations, whether legitimate employment in a factory or illegitimate sexual activity, were still dependent upon male financial power. Regardless, the spectacle of the prostitute which was so familiar in so many European cities became very common in America and was further testimony to the changing social climate as well as the persistence of economic inequalities that drove many women to desperate acts to survive.

America was thus in a state of upheaval from the Populist era onward, due to the changes created by industrialization. Industrialization was not simply a change in the way goods were made but also…