1. The Protectors of Our Industries-APPARTS ANALYSIS

2. Economic and Social Problems
The Industrial Age (The Gilded Age)

3. What was the Gilded Age?
the Industrial Age following the Civil War, from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 to the turn of the twentieth century.
The term was coined by writers Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, satirizing what they believed to be an era of serious social problems hidden by a thin layer of gold.

4. 1. Urban Decay
Overcrowded cities, high crime, gang fights, violence, drug addiction (cocaine)
Cities not equipped to deal with overcrowding
Not enough police, fire fighters, hospitals
Poor housing- tenements decrepit
No sewage or garbage removal
Rats, disease, and roaches everywhere
Polluted drinking water

5. Real Gangs of New York

6. TENEMENTS WERE APARTMENT BUILDINGS WITH MANY SMALL ROOMS WHERE WHOLE FAMILIES WOULD LIVE, CROWDED TOGETHER WITHOUT ADEQUATE AIR, WATER OR SANITARY FACILITIES
link to tenement museum site

7. “Dumbell” Tenement, NYC

8. “Dumbell “ Tenement

9. Jacob Riis: How the Other Half Lived (1890)

10. Video clip on Jacob Riis and Colonel Waring sanitation problems- (7:28-until Cities Part 3-4) photographer on tenement conditions

11. “5 CENTS A SPOT” THE PRICE FOR A BED FOR THE NIGHT by Jacob Riis

13. 2. Corrupt Politicians
Political machines- controlled almost every major city
Politicians did favors and helped the poor in return for votes, accepted bribes
Elections were “fixed”, votes stolen, miscounted, false ballots, dead people “voting”
Tammany Hall- the most famous and corrupt political machine-led by the corrupt Boss William Tweed

14. The New York County Courthouse- “the house that Tweed built”

15. 3. Business Corruption
Business Mergers- several companies were combining into single mega-companies to form monopolies ( 1 business with complete control over an industry)
Social Darwinism- big businesses believed it was OK for the larger businesses to crush the smaller businesses (survival of the fittest and strongest)

16. Social Darwinism British economist. Advocate of laissez-faire.
Adapted Darwin’s ideas from the “Origin of Species” to humans.
Notion of “Survival of the Fittest.”
Herbert Spencer

17. Social Darwinism in America
Individuals must have absolute freedom to struggle, succeed or fail.
Therefore, government intervention to reward society and the economy is futile!
William Graham Sumner Folkways (1906)

18. New Business Culture: “The American Dream?”
Protestant (Puritan) “Work Ethic”
Horatio Alger [100+ novels]
Is the idea of the “self-made man” a MYTH??

19. New Type of Business Entities
Trusts- 2 types:
Horizontal Integration (more common- trying to gain control of the entire market by buying out competing companies)  John D Rockefeller
Vertical Integration: (US STEEL controlling all aspects of production, the raw materials like buying out coal fields and iron mines)
Gustavus Swift  Meat-packing
Andrew Carnegie  U. S. Steel

20. Standard Oil Co.

21. Robber Barons-many of the big business owners were called this by those who criticized them

22. The Gospel of Wealth: Religion in the Era of Industrialization
Wealth no longer looked upon as bad.
Viewed as a sign of God’s approval.
Christian duty to accumulate wealth.
Government should not help the poor.
Russell H. Conwell

23. “On Wealth” The Anglo-Saxon race is superior.
“Gospel of Wealth” (1901).
Inequality is inevitable and good.
Wealthy should act as “trustees” for their “poorer brethren.”
Carnegie gave away 90% of his fortune to help society
Andrew Carnegie

24. 4. Poor Working Conditions
Workers in the factories faced with hour work days, horrible and unsafe working conditions, little pay
Workers went on strike and even sometimes rioted for better working conditions
Workers formed Labor Unions to fight for more control over pay and working conditions
Child labor- little children worked long hours, under dangerous conditions, no child labor laws

25. Child working in a Clothing Factory around 1900

26. Children working the steel mills in Pittsburgh

28. Young Boys working in at a textile mill

29. Triangle Waistefactory Fire video clip (Cities episode 4-5; 7:18-

30. Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Asch Building, 8th and 10th Floors

32. Typical NYC Sweatshop, 1910

33. Inside the Building After the Fire

34. 10th Floor After the Fire

35. Dead Bodies on the Sidewalk

36. Scene at the Morgue

37. JOHN SPARGO-CHILD LABOR
John Spargo was a British reformer who moved to the United States in He became an influential muckraker with the publishing of his book The Bitter Cry of the Children in The book detailed the plight of working children.
“Work in the coal breakers is exceedingly hard and dangerous. Crouched over the chutes, the boys sit hour after hour, picking out the pieces of slate and other refuse from the coal as it rushes past to the washers. From the cramped position they have to assume, most of them become more or less deformed and bent-backed like old men…
The coal is hard, and accidents to the hands, such as cut, broken, or crushed fingers, are common among the boys. Sometimes there is a worse accident: a terrified shriek is heard, and a boy is mangled and torn in the machinery, or disappears in the chute to be picked out later smothered and dead. Clouds of dust fill the breakers and are inhaled by the boys, laying the foundations for asthma and miners’ consumption.”

38. Big Business and Child Labor Cartoon

39. “Galley Labor”

40. 5. Unsafe Food
Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” exposed unsanitary conditions (rats, roaches, maggots, etc.) in the meatpacking factories
Muckrakers- journalists who exposed society’s “muck” and corruption

41. THE MUCKRAKERS
Upton Sinclair
Lincoln Steffens
Jacob Riis
Ida Tarbell

42. MOVIE MADE FROM THE BOOK IN THE EARLY 1900’S
UPTON SINCLAIR
MOVIE MADE FROM THE BOOK IN THE EARLY 1900’S
HIS BOOK, THE JUNGLE DESCRIBED THE FILTHY CONDITIONS IN THE MEAT PACKING INDUSTRY AND LED TO THE PASSAGE OF THE FEDERAL MEAT INSPECTION ACT OF 1906

43. EXCERPT FROM THE JUNGLE
“…old sausage that had been rejected, and that was moldy and white – it would be dosed with borax and glycerin, and dumped into the hoppers, and made over again for home consumption. There would be meat that had tumbled out on the floor, in the dirt and sawdust, where the workers had tramped and spit uncounted billions of consumption germs. There would be meat stored in great piles in rooms; and the water from leaky roofs would drip over it, and thousands of rats would race about on it. It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned bread out for them; they would die, and then rats, bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together… the meat would be shoveled into carts, and the man who did the shoveling would not trouble to lift out a rat even when he saw one – there were things that went into the sausage in comparison with which a poisoned rat was a tidbit.”

44. 6. Social and Economic Inequality
The days of the Jim Crow Laws continued for blacks especially in the south
Wealth in the hands a few- in 1900, 1% of the US population owned 90% of the country’s wealth
Only 7% of the adult population had a high school diploma in 1900.
Only 25% of Americans owned a home
Women still could not vote
Women sought universal suffrage (the right to vote for all)

45. Woman’s Suffrage Movement

46. STATES THAT GAVE WOMEN THE SUFFRAGE BEFORE THE 19TH AMENDMENT

47. THE STRUGGLE FOR WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE

49. NOT ALL WOMEN WERE IN FAVOR OF VOTING

50. AFRICAN AMERICANS FACED MANY HARDSHIPS
THE MAJORITY WERE POOR
THEY LIVED FOR THE MOST PART IN THE SOUTHERN STATES
THEY WORKED AS TENANT FARMERS AND HIRED HANDS ON SOMEONE ELSE'S LAND
JIM CROW LAWS SEVERELY RESTRICTED THEIR FREEDOM
DE JURE SEGREGATION WAS IN FORCE
PLESSEY V FERGUSON (“ SEPARATE BUT EQUAL”) WAS THE RULE
BLACK SCHOOLS WERE INFERIOR TO WHITE SCHOOLS
BLACKS HAD NO CONTROL OVER LOCAL POLITICS EVEN WHERE THEY WERE THE MAJORITY

51. The Progressive Response to Society’s Problems

52. Progressivism
The progressives were people who sought to solve all society’s problems during that time
Lasted from the 1890s-1918
Worried about the effects of industrialism, urbanization, political corruption, etc
The progressives had differing opinions on how to solve the problems
“new” was the word as the century turned

53. Goals of the Progressives
Increase the role of government to help solve the societal/environmental problems
Protect the innocent (children) and less fortunate (poor)
Voting rights for all (white and black, men and women)
Make the rich pay taxes
Education for all

54. Progressive Reformers

55. President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt (The progressive President)

56. Mother Jones-labor reformer-fought for better conditions for workers

57. IDA TARBELL-muckraking journalist
Miss Tarbell, in her book, revealed after years of diligent research the illegal means used by John D. Rockefeller to monopolize the early oil industry.

58. Alice Paul-woman’s rights activist

59. William DuBois-African American Civil Rights leader

60. Reporters

61. Eugene Debs-believed socialism is the way to go

62. JD Rockefeller wealthy industrialist
Social Darwinism is his philosophy
Called a greedy “robber baron” by his critics

63. Andrew Carnegie and US Steel
Drew’ went from rags to riches to become another very rich dude
Carnegie’s Pittsburgh, PA-based company (US Steel) controlled over 80% of all steel production
Donated 90% of his fortune to help society
Called a greedy “Robber Baron” by his critics