Progress and Poverty in Industrial America

Peter Pappas

Progress and Poverty in Industrial America Curated and designed by Peter Pappas www.peterpappas.com All historic source material in this book is believed to be in the public domain and thus not subject to use restrictions. The author takes copyright infringement seriously. If any copyright holder has been inadvertently or unintentionally overlooked, the publisher will be pleased to remove the said material from this book at the very first opportunity.

The learning activities and the selection of public domain content, as compiled in this book constitutes an original work of authorship by Peter Pappas. All rights reserved. Published in 2013 by Edteck Designs for Learning, Inc.
 ©2013 by Peter Pappas


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1 Progress and Poverty in Industrial America

Breaker boys
 Woodward Coal Mines. – Kingston, Pennsylvania 1900

New 21st century technologies and the emergence of a global

Essential question: How do we evaluate the social costs
 and benefits of technological innovations?

economy have produced both progress and poverty in contemporary America. Economic indicators point to a shrinkage of the middle class and a growing divide between economic "winners and losers." Since the recession of 2008, increasing numbers of Americans have seen their standard of living decline. 
 A few, characterized as “The One Percent,” have prospered. The American public and

Tea Party Protest
 Hartford, Connecticut
 April 15, 2009

political leadership are divided over both the root causes and the policies to address the growing gap between rich and poor.

In a similar fashion the industrial revolution of the late 19th 


Historic Context

century produced economic "winners and losers" as it 
 transformed American society from a traditional agricultural economy to a modern industrial power. The period between the Civil War and WWI saw tremendous industrial and commercial expansion. Throughout the 19th century, Americans had faith in the idea of progress, and many people viewed this economic growth as evidence of the superiority of the American system. But while increased production did improve the general standard of living, industrialization concentrated wealth and power in the hands of a few "captains of industry."

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For the millions of Americans who worked in the new factories and mines this economic revolution meant long hours, low wages and dangerous working conditions. As new technologies and economic growth impacted every aspect of American society, it created both new opportunities and greater social divisions between rich and poor. This eBook gives you chance to "be the historian.”
 As you analyze each document, take into account both 


Historian’s process

the sources of the document and the point of view that's expressed. • Who created the document? • What was the creator's goal? • How does the document reflect its historic time period? • How do multiple documents support or contradict one 
 another? • What historic “voices” are missing from this collection women, immigrants, minorities, workers? 
 Use these guiding questions to stop and think more deeply about each document: • What does the document tell you about America at the turn of the 20th century? • How do these historic themes of “progress and poverty” relate to issues in America today? Take a position on these questions and defend it with 
 evidence from the documents and your understanding of contemporary America.

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Here are some ideas for sharing what you've learned:

Product

1. Compose an essay or blog post 2. Draw an illustration, create an infogram, post a video 3. Role-play a debate - Hine vs Carnegie? or 
 Conwell vs a supporter of the Occupy Movement? 4. Start a discussion on Facebook, curate a photo gallery on Flickr, create a new Twitter hashtag 5. Research the world around you and leave a document for a future historian

Glass works. Midnight. Location: Indiana. 1908 August Photograph by Lewis Hine

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1. Statistics on American Industrial Growth The Industrial Revolution of the late 1800’s transformed humanity's age-old struggle with material scarcity by using capital, technology,
 resources, and management to expand the production of goods and services dramatically.

Year

GNP (per capita)

Employed children under 15 years of age (in millions)

Infant mortality rate

High school graduates

Telephone Usage

(deaths under 1 year of age per 1000 births)

(percentage of 17-yearolds who have a HS diploma)

(number of telephones for every 1000 people)

1870

$531

0.7

170

2.0%

0

1880

$744

1.1

161

2.5%

1

1890

$836

1.5

163

3.5%

4

1900

$1011

1.8

141

6.5%

18

1910

$1299

1.6

117

9.0%

82

Study the data in the table above and identify three US economic trends. Are they positive or negative? What do the trends tell you about progress and poverty during that era?

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2. Selected Inventions by Thomas Alva Edison Prolific inventor Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) had a profound impact on modern life. In his lifetime, the "Wizard of Menlo Park" patented 1,093 inventions, including the phonograph, the kinetograph (a motion picture camera), and the kinetoscope (a motion picture viewer). Edison was not only a renowned inventor but also a prominent manufacturer and businessman.

Thomas Edison 1922

Scroll down for information about a few of Edison’s inventions

“I want
 a phonograph in every American home...”
 ~ Thomas A. Edison

Automatic Telegraph Automatic telegraphs used machinery to transmit messages at higher speeds than those sent and received by Morse telegraph operators. Hand operators averaged 25-40 words per minute while the transmission speeds of automatic telegraphs ranged from 60-120 words per minute for the ink recording automatic telegraphs used in England to 500-1000 words per minute for Edison's chemical recording system. Automatic telegraphs were most economical for long messages, such as the news reports sent by the Associated Press. The more common short business and personal messages sent by telegraph were transmitted more economically by hand operators.

Describe how Edison’s inventions impacted American life.

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3. An excerpt from Russell Conwell’s Acres of Diamonds 1870. Baptist minister and founder of Temple University, Russell Conwell (1843 –1925) first delivered his sermon-lecture “Acres of Diamonds” in 1861 as an eighteen-year-old boy. The talk was about a man who wanted to find diamonds so badly that he sold his property and went off in futile search for them; the new owner of his home discovered that a rich diamond mine was located right there on the property. Conwell elaborates on the theme through examples of success, genius, service, or other virtues involving ordinary Americans contemporary to his audience: "dig in your own back-yard!.” Russell Conwell c 1904

The message was so well-received that he delivered it some 6,000 times over the next fifty years and received more than $8 million in proceeds including royalties on the printed version.

"I say that you ought to get rich, and it is your duty to get

“You have no right to be poor. It is your duty to be rich ...”

rich.... The men who get rich may be the most honest men you find in the community. Let me say here clearly .. . ninety-eight out of one hundred of the rich men of America are honest. That is why they are rich. That is why they are trusted with money. That is why they carry on great enterprises and find plenty of people to work with them. It is because they are honest men. ... ... I sympathize with the poor, but the number of poor who are to be sympathized with is very small. To sympathize with a man whom God has punished for his sins ... is to do wrong.... let us remember there is not a poor person in the United States who was not made poor by his own shortcomings. ..." According to Conwell, what are the root causes of wealth and poverty? 8

4. An excerpt from Henry George’s “Progress and Poverty” 1879 Henry George (1839 – 1897) was an economist, land reformer and writer. George edited the San Francisco Chronicle and in 1871 founded the San Francisco Daily Evening Post. He detailed his economic theories in the book Progress and Poverty (1879). This famous work of social protest was widely read and inspired the creation of many “Henry George Societies” - organizations that promoted George's economic views.

“It is true that wealth has been greatly increased and that the Henry George 1865

average of comfort, leisure, and refinement has been raised; but these gains are not general. In them the lowest classes do not share. ... The new forces [of progress] ... do not act upon the society

“It was as though an immense wedge were being forced, not underneath society but through society.”

from underneath ... but strike it at point intermediate between top and bottom. It was as though an immense wedge were being forced, not underneath society but through society. Those who are above the point of separation are elevated, but those who are below are crushed down.”

Develop a drawing that summarizes Henry George’s assessment of industrialization. Use your drawing to diagram some of the other documents in this activity.

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5. An excerpt from Andrew Carnegie's “Gospel of Wealth” 1889 A Scottish immigrant, Andrew Carnegie (1835 – 1919) once worked as a telegraph boy for $2.50 per week. Self-educated, he rose through a series of jobs in the railroad and iron foundry business to the presidency of the Carnegie Company, a business he sold for $250 million in gold bonds when he retired In 1901. During his lifetime Carnegie donated about $350 million to various charitable causes, and he was largely responsible for the development of free public libraries.

“... The law of competition ... It is here; we cannot evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every Andrew Carnegie, c. 1878

department. We accept and welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race. Thus is the problem of Rich and Poor to be solved. The laws

“The law of competition ... It is here; we cannot evade it ... and while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department.”

of accumulation will be left free; the laws of distribution free. Individualism will continue, but the millionaire will be but a trustee for the poor; entrusted for a season with a great part of the increased wealth of the community, but administering it for the community far better than it could or would have done for itself. Such, in my opinion, is the true Gospel concerning Wealth, obedience to which is destined some day to solve the problem of the Rich and the Poor, and to bring "Peace on earth, among men Good-Will."

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6. A letter from Andrew Carnegie to Dr. J.S. Billings, the director of the NY Public Library, 1901 Carnegie eventually endowed 2800 libraries across the country.

New York 12th March, 1901


“Sixty-five libraries at one-stroke probably breaks the record, but this is the day of big operations, New York is soon to be the biggest of Cities.”

Dear Mr. Billings, Our conferences upon the needs of Greater New York for Branch Libraries to reach the masses of the people in every district have convinced me of the wisdom of your plans. Sixty-five branches strikes one at first as a large order, but as other cities have found one necessary for every sixty or seventy thousand of population the number is not excessive. You estimate the average cost of these libraries at, say, $80,000 each, being $5,200,000 for all. If New York will furnish sites for those Branches for this special benefit of the masses of the people, as it is done for the Central Library, and also agree in satisfactory form to provide for their maintenance as built, I should esteem it a rare privilege to be permitted to furnish the money is needed for the buildings, save $5,200,000. Sixty-five libraries at one-stroke probably breaks the record, but this is the day of big operations, and New York is soon to be the biggest of Cities.

Andrew Carnegie Mansion New York City 2010

Very truly yours, 
 Andrew Carnegie

What responsibility does Carnegie assign to the millionaire? Did his library donations prove his point? 11

7. Excerpt from “In the Depths of a Coal Mine” by Stephen Crane - McClure's Magazine, August 1894. Stephen Crane (1871 – 1900) was the last of 14 children born to a Methodist minister who died when Stephen was nine. He lived the down-and-out life of a penniless artist who became well-known as a poet, journalist, social critic and realist. He began writing for newspapers in 1891 when he settled in New York City. After he wrote “Red Badge of Courage,” which earned Crane international acclaim at age 24, he was hired as a reporter in the American West and Mexico. He later covered the Spanish-American War for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World.

“We came upon other little low-roofed chambers, each Stephen Crane 1896

containing two men, a "miner," who makes the blasts, and his "laborer," who loads the coal upon the cars and assists the miner generally. Great and mystically dreadful is the earth from a mine's depth. Man is in the implacable grasp of nature. It has only to tighten slightly, and he is crushed like a bug. His loudest shriek of agony would be as impotent as his final moan to bring help from that fair land that lies, like Heaven, over his head. There is an insidious, silent enemy in the gas. If the huge fanwheel on the top of the earth should stop for a brief period, there is certain death. If a man escape the gas, the floods, the "squeezes" of falling rock, the cars shooting through little tunnels, the precarious elevators, the hundred perils, there usually comes to him an attack of "miner's asthma" that slowly racks and shakes him into the grave. Meanwhile the miner gets three dollars per day, and his laborer

Runaway mining cart

one dollar and a quarter.”

What cause was Crane trying to promote in this story? How do you think he would view the passages from Russell Conwell, Henry George and Andrew Carnegie? 12

8. Silent Movie By Edison Manufacturing Co. 1899 In 1898, the modern City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then an independent city), Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens County, and Richmond County (Staten Island). The population was expanding due to immigration. New York City industry and commerce were booming.

The opening of the Brooklyn Bridge in May of 1883 did for the city what railroad expansion and the Erie Canal did for the nation.

New Brooklyn to New York via Brooklyn Bridge, no. 2 Sept. 22, 1899. Edison Manufacturing Co.

How was this film a symbol of progress in 1899? How do you think Americans must have reacted to the new technology of motion pictures?

Poster for Edison’s greatest marvel-The Vitascope c1896 13

9. Time Card for a Female Worker showing hours worked for two weeks by a woman at a fruit cannery. 1900

“Total for week
 117½ hours.
 She got for this work
 10 cents per hour.”

From records of the NYS Factory Investigating Commission. Time card dated June 26, 1911 showing hours worked for two weeks by Miss Jennie Hackemans or Hackemaus. She was employed in a fruit cannery. She worked 166 hours for the two weeks, earning $16.60. Accompanying information summarizes daily hours for first week and totals hours for first week as 117½ with the average wage at $0.10/hr.





 



 



 



 



 





How often did someone
 working over a 100 hours
 a week get to go to the public 
 library or the movies?


 


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10. Photographs by Lewis Hine Lewis Hine (1874 -1940), photographer, sociologist and humanist, is best known for his portraits of immigrants at Ellis Island. He traveled across the country documenting living and working conditions.

Photographs and notes by Lewis Hine

Lewis Hine

Vance, a Trapper Boy, 15 years old.
 
 $.75 a day
 for 10 hours work

How might Hine have responded to Conwell’s statement, “... there is not a poor person in the United States who was not made poor by his own shortcomings. ..."

Vance, a Trapper Boy, 15 years old. Has trapped for several years in a West Va. Coal mine. $.75 a day for 10 hours work. All he does is to open and shut this door: most of the time he sits here idle, waiting for the cars to come. On account of the intense darkness in the mine, the hieroglyphics on the door were not visible until plate was developed. Location: West Virginia. 1908 September


 


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11. Superba Washing Machine Sears Catalogue 1908

“Mother goes right on with her regular work while her little helper finds it easy to swing the Superba to and fro...
 
 Wash day is no harder
 a day for the family
 than any other day
 of the week.”

The laundry washing machine was hand operated 
 by rotating it back and forth.

Compare this young girl and the children in the Hines photographs. How did industrialization and new technologies impact their lives in different ways? 16

About the author Peter Pappas is no stranger to public education. In addition to his twenty-five years as a high school social studies teacher, he served as an Assistant Superintendent of Instruction. 
 Today working full-time as an educational blogger and trainer, Peter remains vital in providing instructional leadership to classroom teachers and administrators across the country. He helps foster the next generation of teachers as adjunct faculty at School of Education, University of Portland. His popular blog, Copy/Paste features downloads of his instructional resources, projects and publications. Follow Twitter @edteck.
 
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Media Credits Cover and title page - Breaker boys, Library of Congress (LOC) LC-D401-11590 Page 3 - Tea Party Protest - Wikimedia Commons Page 5 - Glass Works, Library of Congress / Flickr Commons Page 6 - US Census data Page 7 - Edison, Wikipedia / 
 Information & photos of inventions, Thomas Edison Papers Page 8 - Conwell, Wikipedia Page 9 - George, Wikipedia Page 10 - Carnegie, Wikipedia Page 11 - Carnegie Mansion, Wikimedia Commons Page 12 - Crane, Wikipedia / Runaway Mining Cart LOC LC-USZ62-95970 Page 13 - Film, Internet Archives / Poster LOC LC-USZC4-1102 Page 14 - Time card, NYS Archives NYSA_A3029-78_B1_F5 Page 15 - Hine, Avilés / Hine photo gallery: Vance | Glimpse | Fannie | Jennie Page 16 - Sears Catalogue 1908 Page 18 - Print, LOC LC-USZ62-19531

Top of the Heap
 “The Boss”
 Tobacco Ad
 Currier and Ives Print
 1880

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