This paper analyzes the major effects of industrialization in the United States between 1865 and 1920, focusing on three critical dimensions: urbanization, factory working conditions, and government economic policy. While industrialization drove technological advancement and created a prosperous middle class, it also generated severe challenges including overcrowded tenements, dangerous factory labor, child and female worker exploitation, and political corruption in rapidly growing cities. The paper examines both the positive developments—mass transportation, cultural institutions, and improved infrastructure—and the negative consequences that ultimately spurred labor movements and social reform efforts.
After the Civil War, the United States became a much more industrialized society. Between 1865 and 1920, industrialization improved American life in many ways. However, industrialization also created significant problems for American society. When industrialization—defined as the large-scale introduction of manufacturing, advanced technical enterprises, and other productive economic activity—came to the United States, it brought both positive and negative effects on the social, economic, and political aspects of American life. It was an important and dramatic change that transformed the way people earned a living, traveled, thought, and related to one another.
The three major aspects of industrialization during 1865 and 1920 that influenced U.S. society, economy, and politics were urbanization, working conditions, and a laissez-faire government approach to economic regulation.
Industrialization and urbanization went hand in hand. Cities offered large numbers of workers for new factories, and as more factories were built, more workers—both native-born and immigrant—moved to cities looking for jobs. Cities provided transportation for raw materials and manufactured goods, as well as markets for the consumption of finished products. By 1930, more than half of all Americans, including one million African Americans who had moved from the rural South to Western and Northern cities in search of jobs and to escape Jim Crow laws, lived in cities. The shift from rural to urban life had both positive and negative effects.
The negative effects of urbanization included crowded, unsanitary living conditions for workers and corrupt municipal politics. The construction of decent housing fell far behind the rapid growth of city populations; cities were not prepared for the influx. City housing primarily consisted of multifamily buildings called tenements, which were usually deteriorated, located in poor working-class neighborhoods, severely overcrowded, and inundated with violent crime. Cities also lacked adequate sanitation and water facilities. Poor families living in the slums could not afford proper diets and health care. They did not have the luxury of running water, and their sewage systems polluted their drinking water, which—along with air pollution from factories—aided in the outbreak of diseases like tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and cholera.
Urbanization also brought corruption from political machines, such as New York City's Tammany Hall. Tammany Hall was the name given to the Democratic political machine that dominated New York City politics from 1854 to 1954. It was a political force of hegemonic proportions, with immense power over the city's bosses, which allowed its members to enrich themselves and their associates through corruption and administrative abuse. William M. "Boss" Tweed's infamously corrupt reign was nefarious enough to incite an attempted reform in the early 1870s.
The positive side of urbanization was aided by new technologies to meet the challenges created by huge numbers of people living together. Subways, streetcars, and elevated trains provided mass transportation. Steel girders and elevators made suspension bridges and high-rise skyscrapers possible. Gas and electric lights made city streets safer, and growing health problems forced officials to design and build new water and sewer systems. Urbanization also brought cultural advances, including publicly and privately funded museums, theaters, and parks. There was also mass circulation of newspapers, magazines, and popular books because of printing presses. Organizations were founded—like Hull House, started by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in Chicago in 1889—by the middle class to help fix societal problems. Hull House was a model settlement house, a community center that provided education and services to the poor.
Working conditions changed dramatically with industrialization. Before the industrial revolution, factories were small; owners and employees knew each other and worked side by side. Once industry and manufacturing began to dominate the economy, that changed. Factory owners replaced small business owners. Manufacturing tasks that were once done by hand were now done by machines. More people were required to fill complex production and manufacturing jobs. This made work more regimented, less skilled, and very impersonal.
Conditions in factories were terrible. Factories required constant time-based labor and were extremely unsafe. They were run without safety regulations or protections, and employers instituted strict rules and punishment for those who disobeyed. Factories were dark, dusty, and dirty. The only light source was natural light, and there were very few windows. Machines were dangerous with exposed, unprotected parts and were operated by a few workers in crowded rooms. Before unions became influential, many workers labored long hours with few or no breaks, low pay, little or no benefits, and no worker's compensation. Women and children increased in the workforce to help support their families. They worked for far less than men and under the same dangerous conditions. Conditions in coal mines were equally bad. Coal miners worked in damp, cramped conditions and faced the danger of cave-ins and toxic gas every day. Workers who earned their livelihoods in the mines suffered long-lasting health effects, such as lung disease and stunted growth.
The U.S. government played an important role in encouraging industrial development. After the Civil War, the United States was able to industrialize at a rapid pace because of its economic system, which was based on the principle of free enterprise. The government maintained a laissez-faire policy. Laissez-faire is defined as the theory or system of government that upholds the autonomous character of the economic order, believing that government should intervene as little as possible in the direction of economic affairs. American business leaders preferred this laissez-faire economic policy. A laissez-faire economy depends on supply and demand to set prices and wages, which results in greater efficiency and more widely distributed wealth. There were no government regulations of business.
Laissez-faire policies allowed for unregulated wages, unregulated working conditions, low taxes, and high tariffs on imports. There were no government environmental regulations to protect air quality, water purity, or wildlife. The free enterprise policies of the American government encouraged the creation of huge industrial empires—corporations—by ambitious, intelligent, and often greedy entrepreneurs, giving rise to the anticompetitive practices of monopolies. During this time, tycoons such as Andrew Carnegie of U.S. Steel, John Pierpont Morgan of J.P. Morgan banking, and John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil Company put their mark on America.
There were many groups affected by industrialization in different ways. Working people were subject to low wages, long hours, and unsafe, unsanitary, and dangerous working conditions. They needed the protection of labor unions, like the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor. These labor unions were organized groups of workers who joined together to bargain collectively for better working conditions, better hours, and more money from business owners.
Female and child workers experienced the same working conditions as adult men; however, there were significant differences. Women were paid far less than men in the workforce, and children did not receive an education while working.
"How industrialization affected workers, farmers, women, children, and the middle class differently"
The industrialization of the United States was hard on many Americans, native and immigrant. However, the advantages that we have today are because of the drastic changes that industrialization created after the Civil War.
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