Transcript 5-3.4 Summarize the impact of industrialization, urbanization, and

5-3.4 Vocabulary
1.
2.
capital – accumulated goods devoted to the production of other goods.
wages – an amount of money that a worker is paid based on the number of
hours, days, etc., that are worked.
3. Labor – work.
4. industrial economy (society) – a society in which most people make their
living based on manufacturing.
5. agrarian economy (society) – a society in which most people make their living
by farming.
6. immigrant – a person who leaves one country to settle permanently in
another.
7. profit – the return on a business undertaking after expenses have been met.
8. monopoly – the exclusive control by one company or group over the means
of producing and/or selling a commodity or service.
9. labor unions – organized association of workers united in their view of wages,
hours, and working conditions.
10. Progressive reformers – people who, in response to industrialization after the
U.S. Civil War, worked to create social reforms, such as the creation of
settlement houses and the enactment of child labor laws.
11. mortgage – a legal agreement in which a person borrows money to buy
property (such as a house) and pays back the money over a period of years
12. foreclosure – a legal proceeding that bars or extinguishes a mortgagor's right of redeeming a
mortgaged estate
13. advocate – a person who argues for or supports a cause or policy
14. sanitation – the process of keeping places free from dirt, infection, disease, etc., by removing waste,
trash and garbage, by cleaning streets, etc.
15. constituents - any one of the people who live and vote in an area
16. collective bargaining – talks between an employer and the leaders of a union about how much a
group of workers will be paid, how many hours they will work, etc.
17. strikes – a period of time when workers stop work in order to force an employer to agree to their
demands
18. compulsory school – required by a law or rule
19. unconstitutional – not allowed by the constitution of a country or government : not constitutional
20. trusts – a firm or combination of firms or corporations for the purpose of reducing competition and
controlling prices throughout a business or industry.
21. Prohibition – another term used for the 18th Amendment, which prohibited (not allow) the making,
selling, and transporting alcohol in the United States.
22. Propaganda - ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to
help a cause, a political leader, a government, etc.
5-3.4
Summarize the impact of
industrialization, urbanization, and the
rise of big business, including the
development of monopolies; long
hours, low wages, and unsafe working
conditions on men, women, and
children laborers; and resulting reform
movements.
The growth of Big Business was both a cause and an effect of increased immigration.
• Cause: Big Business encouraged the United States Government to continue
an open immigration policy so that the workforce would be plentiful and
cheap.
• Effect: immigrants were attracted to jobs created by Big Business and
enabled the businesses to grow bigger because they worked for low wages
and therefore the businesses made greater profits.
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Big Business was also caused by:
Availability of natural resources (land)
New inventions and technologies
Capital for investments
The role of entrepreneurs who created monopolies
 Andrew Carnegie (steel industry)
 John D Rockefeller (oil industry)
 Monopolies kept wages low and labor unions from being effective
The Big Shift
• As industries grew, the U.S. shifted from an agrarian economy
based on agriculture to an industrial economy based on
manufacturing.
• Farmers were able to produce more crops because of
mechanization. As a result, the prices they got for their crops fell
(supply and demand). Unable to pay mortgages on land and
equipment because of low profits, many farmers lost their farms
to foreclosure and moved to the cities in search of jobs in industry.
• In the late 1800’s, many African American sharecroppers and
tenant farmers left the South for cities in the Midwest and the
Northeast in search of jobs in factories and to escape Jim Crow
Law.
• By 1920, the majority of people in the United States lived in cities.
Cities Grow
• As cities grew due to the increase in immigration and
movement from the farm, middle class Americans were
concerned about the living conditions and the corruptions of
city governments.
• Crowded conditions led to problems providing sanitation.
Issues related to water and housing contributed to
opportunities for corruption among city officials who were
often supported by their ethnic constituents.
• Middle class Americans lived in the cities too and paid taxes for
city government.
Progressive Reformers at the Economic Level
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Progressive reformers advocated the establishment of city
parks, beautification projects, safer housing, and sanitation.
They also promoted teaching immigrants to adapt to their new
country by establishing settlement houses where immigrants
were taught social skills.
Progressive reformers were also very concerned about unsafe
conditions in factories and about the long hours that workers,
particularly women and children, were expected to work.
They did not support labor unions’ actions such as collective
bargaining and strikes to address these issues. Instead, they
advocated the passage of laws.
Conditions in the factories were publicized by the increasingly
popular newspapers and magazines, illustrated with
photographs showing the unsafe working conditions.
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Writers of exposes about corporate power and unsafe working
conditions were called muckrakers, a term first used by
President Teddy Roosevelt, because they exposed the
corruption of the system.
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Reformers advocated restricting child labor and passing laws
requiring that children attend school. This was in direct
opposition to the wishes of many working class families who
needed the income provided by their working children. Workers
sometimes resented the interference of reformers in their lives.
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Some compulsory school attendance laws were passed at the
state level, but a federal child labor law was declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
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The federal government did not successfully enforce child labor
laws or minimum wage and maximum hours laws for workers
until the New Deal reforms following the Great Depression.
Progressives at the Federal Level
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Progressives feared that Big Business not only had too much control over the
economy, but also that trusts had too much influence over the American
government.
During the late nineteenth century, Congress passed a law declaring
monopolies, or trusts in restraint of trade, to be unlawful [Sherman Anti-Trust
Act, 1890]. However, this law did not end monopolies because the Supreme
Court limited its effectiveness.
When Theodore Roosevelt became president in1901, there was an assertive
(take action) progressive in the White House.
Roosevelt was encouraged by muckraking writers:
 Ida Tarbell – exposed oil trusts
 Upton Sinclair – exposed meat-packing trusts
Roosevelt began to use the old law to successfully break up trusts and earned
the name “trust-buster.”
Roosevelt also protected the rights of the consumer by pushing for the passage
of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act and he promoted
the regulation of railroads.
President William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson continued this work and
are known, along with Roosevelt, as the progressive presidents.
Progressive Reformers at the Social Level
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Progressives were also concerned about improving society by controlling the moral
behavior of all Americans and particularly of the immigrants.
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The movement to limit the consumption of alcohol [the temperance movement]
had been going on since the time of the American Revolution and got a popular
boost as a result of the influx of immigrants in the late 19th century.
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Some states passed prohibition laws and others passed blue laws to limit the sale
of alcohol.
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When World War I started, propaganda against the Germans, who were known for
their beer drinking and the voluntary rationing of grain, helped progressives push
through Congress a national prohibition amendment that was then ratified by the
states.
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The 18th Amendment outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages.
However, it could not stop people from drinking thus prohibiting illegal activities
such as bootlegging and speakeasies until repealed by the 21st amendment in the
1930’s.