Industrialization changed face of U.S.
The transformation of the United States from a country of farmers into an industrial powerhouse began in the textile industry of Great Britain, gained momentum in this country when it became literally steam-powered and directly led to unions and the progressive movement.
David C. Huseman, a professor at Butler County Community College who teaches courses on economics and American government, said the move to industrialization began in the 19th century.
In the late 1800s the majority of Americans worked on farms.
Then “people moved from the farms to factories, cities expand. There was significant immigration when manufacturing started to take over and change the ways that families earned a living,” Huseman said.
Deborah Kruger, an associate professor of liberal arts at BC3, said innovations in textile production in Great Britain could be considered the start of the Industrial Revolution. It triggered technological advancement, gave rise to the coal and iron industries and led to transportation improvements.
“It really began in the early 19th century,” said Krueger. Textile mills in England were replacing cottage industry piecework with centralized looms able to use fewer workers while producing more cloth.
This also was happening in France and later Germany, she said. “The steam engine was very important.”
Before them, the only source of power for machines was human and horse power and the water wheel.
“Textiles, a water-based system, switched to steam technology,” Krueger said. “You didn’t need to be near a water source. Steam provided an intense burst of energy. It allowed for more advanced, more heavy machinery.
“Before that, textiles were a cottage industry. Women with spinning wheels made parts of things,” Krueger said. An agent would collect the thread or cloth from the women’s homes.
“Then women were some of the best paid workers in England. But with the invention of the spinning jenny, a person could operate 17 spinning wheels at once,” said Krueger.
The spinning jenny was a frame that held multiple spindles, significantly increasing yarn production. The resulting reduction in labor led to lower production costs, making textiles more affordable.
And, Kruger said, American Eli Whitney contributed to the rise of the British textile industry with his invention of the cotton gin, which boosted the production of cotton by greatly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber.
Krueger noted Whitney also devised a precursor to the assembly line method of manufacturing by creating a rifle factory that produced firearms using interchangeable parts, foreshadowing the assembly line manufacturing process later used by Henry Ford.
More developments piggybacked off the invention of the steam engine, Krueger said. “There was the canal movement of the 1820s, then you’ve got the railroads, stern-wheelers. It was almost a snowball effect that takes us into the modern era.”
Helping to usher in that modern era, Huseman said, was the growing population in the United States, fueled by immigration.
The Library of Congress estimated nearly 12 million immigrants arrived in the United States between 1870 and 1900, the vast majority from Germany, Ireland and England. A relatively large group from China immigrated to the United States between the start of the California gold rush in 1849 and 1882, when federal law stopped their immigration.
“A growing population fueled industrialization. Increase in population meant you could build more things in a factory rather than making your living working on a farm,” Huseman said. Factory work meant long hours but steady work; 60 to 80 hours a week at a factory as opposed to 90 hours doing farm work. “That had a big impact,” Huseman said.
Krueger said one would find whole families working in different parts of a factory. “There was a whole shifting on how people worked. It became a wage economy. More and more people were working for a wage,” she said.
Krueger said agriculture was also caught up in industrialization. New machines and methods allowed for increased food production.
“With a reaper, one man could do the work of 12,” said Krueger. “It’s all tied together. It’s a fascinating century to study.”
Included in this change was the invention of the affordable automobile. Crops were once moved by horse and wagon, which had a limited service area. With the coming of the automobile there was a greater market for farmers’ agricultural products.
Industrialization led to increased urbanization as people moved to the cities to work in the new factories, railroads and shipping lines, Huseman said.
Krueger said there wasn’t much government control over the process. At the time, most people thought the government should confine itself to running the post office and fielding an army.
“There was an exploitation of the working class. Working conditions were bad, there was bad pay, long days and child labor,” said Krueger.
Factory owners often would pay a child lower wages to do the same work as an adult.
“Once you were in the system, you were not getting out of the mills or the mines. They are in there for life,” said Krueger.
Unions became more influential, resulting in higher wages and improved working conditions. Huseman cited the unionization of U.S. Steel in Pittsburgh in the early 1900s.
“It reduced the working week,” he said. “It was not uncommon to be working seven days a week. Unionization brought it down to six days.”
Unionization didn’t come without violence. In their quest for collective bargaining, unions would strike. Many of the strikes were put down by the federal government, at least until President Theodore Roosevelt set up a strike-settling commission to end a coal strike.
The U.S. Department of Labor called the Oct. 3, 1902, meeting Roosevelt called between strikers and mine owners in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania precedent shattering.
Worried the strike would cause a coal shortage that could lead to riots, Roosevelt sent telegrams to both sides summoning them to Washington, D.C.
According to the Labor Department, the meeting marked the turn of the U.S. government from strikebreaker to peacemaker in industrial disputes.
Huseman said industrialization equals manufacturing.
“The market was changing in the early 1900s. It was the establishment of department stores and mail-order catalogs. Goods were made available to the common person,” he said.
The limited use of electricity also affected industrialization, as manufacturing and factories could be established without having to be close to coal and gas sources or water power.
Huseman said the increasing industrialization also affected the nation’s politics. “It was most dramatically in those years when we had depressions,” he said.
“The Great Depression of the 1930s was the most severe in history. One in four Americans were jobless, banks were shutting down. The homeless wandered to the cities looking for work,” Huseman said. But he said there was also the Depression of 1882-1885.
That started when the nation’s railroad industry, which accounted for 15% of the American economy, suffered a decline in construction, which in turn led to a decline in the iron and steel industries.
Krueger noted even at the time of the Great Depression, 50% of the American population was still tied to the land.
“So, even if it was bad you could still feed yourself,” she said.
But from the efforts to climb out of the Great Depression came the New Deal of President Franklin Roosevelt. And out of the New Deal came further benefits for the working man: a minimum wage, 8-hour workdays. “The New Deal was the catalyst,” said Krueger.
Today, the government and unions are coping with the United States entering what is called a postindustrial economy, which Huseman defines as one changing from manufacturing to a service-oriented economy.
“Look around at the changes taking place. How do we buy things?” Huseman said.
But the transition is not without its own dislocations. Huseman said Butler’s own Clearview Mall is an example.
“Twenty years ago, Clearview Mall was a happening place,” he said. “Now it’s a change in habits that people are experiencing.”
Krueger said today the world is split between industrial and postindustrial nations. While most of the West and Japan are entering into a high-technology phase, China, Brazil and India are in their industrial phase.
