Rise of the nation after the civil war

U.S. (after 1865)

In a society built on the machine there is a diminution in the value and independence of the individual." -- Bertrand Russell

Society today revolves around the machine. Witness how quickly a modern office comes to a standstill if the Internet is down, or how children will wander around their home, aimless and bored, if the cable connection has been lost. It is very tempting to be sympathetic to the claim of the British philosopher Bertrand Russell that in: "a society built on the machine there is a diminution in the value and independence of the individual." But African-American slaves of the pre-industrialized South would hardly agree, as their bodily labor sustained the economy of the agriculturally-based region, unlike the free-wage North. True, Northern workers were treated cruelly in many instances, but only the most ardent pro-slavery advocates stated that working for pay in a factory was equally bad as working under the lash of an overseer for no money at all in a cotton field. Even early American colonists of the North, tied to the rigors of work on the family farm might also beg to differ that the machine enslaved the free farmer. Although inequities surely remained in the New South, the introduction of industrialization at least allowed for more social mobility than an economy once based purely upon land ownership.

The Great Depression, when industrial production came to a standstill in many areas of the nation, coupled with the Dust Bowl eradication of most farmer's profits also highlight how living 'in touch' with the land hardly breeds independence, as does liberation from so-called wage slavery to machines. The persons who wore sandwich boards proclaiming they would work for food, some of whom may once had comfortable office jobs, would hardly agree that their new, less technical way of making a living was less liberating. The Great Depression was only alleviated by the New Deal of President Roosevelt when such desperate American workers were put to work performing public works jobs, which stimulated the economy by infusing wages earned by people building up the infrastructure of the nation.

One component of the New Deal, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) changed the lives of the impoverished residents "The TVA developed fertilizers, taught farmers how to improve crop yields, and helped replant forests, control forest fires, and improve habitat for wildlife and fish. The most dramatic change in Valley life came from the electricity generated by TVA dams. Electric lights and modern appliances made life easier and farms more productive. Electricity also drew industries into the region, providing desperately needed jobs" ("From the New Deal to a New Century: About TVA," TVA Government Website, 2007) Before the infusion of new technology and means of farming and producing, these people of the Tennessee Valley were enslaved to poverty, to outdated ways of making a living that prevented them from realizing their individuality or enjoying their existences beyond manual labor and toil.

The Great Depression ended after the rapid mobilization necessitated by America's entry into World War II. Although no American would have hoped for war, the complete industrialization of formerly fallow aspects of American industry enabled many Americans to become financially independent again, and proved particularly personally empowering for many women, who were encouraged to work outside the home in nontraditional, better paying factory jobs rather than work at home -- or at non-industrial jobs. A return to industrialization and the expansion of technology empowered all workers, and brought dignity and security to the lives of many Americans, dignity that they had not known since before the Great Depression

After the end of World War II, one might argue that fear of new technology, in the form of the prospect of the Soviet Union using the atomic bomb against America, allowed for the rise of McCarthyism. However, it is important to remember that fear of the unknown and the alien, in this case, the Soviet Union, is not endemic to industrialized society alone. When the playwright Arthur Miller wished to make a historical parallel in the past with McCarthyism, he went all the way back to the Salem witchcraft trials. Fear of the unknown rather than technology itself caused witch hunt -- the fear of old women in colonial America and the fear of bogeyman communists in post-war America.