Wyatt L.T. III The Industrial Revolution

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5% of the transcontinental railroad’s cargo had a destination for Asia,

whereas 95% was local. Nonetheless, the railroad changed the United

States forever. On May 15th passenger service commenced and carried

travelers between San Francisco and New York in one week. Passen-

gers traveling across country in the summer of 1869 paid $150 for a

first class ticket. Within a year the cost had dropped to $136, and a

third class ticket could be purchased for $65. The railroad lowered the

cost of transporting goods, and within a decade the railroad trans-

ported more than $50 million in freight coast to coast. It brought the

products manufactured in the east to the booming American population

beyond the Mississippi River. Mail once transported across country at

$2 per ounce cost only pennies within a year of the railroad’s initial

operation. The railroad also facilitated a production bonanza in the west

as it ensured the mining, agriculture, and ranching industries particu-

larly had a rapid and cost-effective means to ship their raw materials

and goods to markets and industrial centers either in the east or west. In

addition, the railroad provided a powerful stimulus to American culture.

Passengers traveling across the country began to absorb the enormity, di-

versity, and beauty of the nation’s landscape. Images of the frontier

became the subject for writers, painters, and sculptors. Time and dis-

tance compressed but the exchange of ideas among citizens expanded.

Within a few years a number of railroad lines snaked north and south

from the transcontinental railroad and opened up millions of acres of

land for settlement. By the end of the century additional lines had been

laid parallel to the original railroad thereby weaving a tight transporta-

tion network throughout the nation.

The U.S. Labor Force

The Dignity of Lowly Work

A lesson, Lord, those eighteen years to me;

Not elsewhere I could so divinely learn

That humble tasks are best, however I yearn

For higher sphere where I may work more free.

Blest were those patient toiling years to Thee,

If cross of death cast shadows on thy way,

What son was that so darkened in his light?

O Nazarene, out of their toils there came

That which we prize most dear – a brothers name.

As the United States entered the Industrial Revolution, it faced the same

labor shortage problem that Great Britain had encountered. What

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industrialization needed to take root was an adequate work force that

could peddle its labor to factory owners in return for wages. However,

in the early 19th century, nearly every adult white male still worked as a

farmer or in other self-employed positions such as mechanics, artisans,

or tradesmen, while women and children performed important tasks to

supplement the family income. Only 10% of the population could claim

to be employees or working for someone else. There were several rea-

sons for this situation. First, the westward expansion of the nation con-

tinued to open up new land and kept many men ‘‘down on the farm’’ as

land was cheap and plentiful. Indeed, the reverence for the agrarian

worker lingered for a long time in America as the poem below empha-

sizes:

It was no curse that said to men,

‘‘Labor thy lot shall be;

And with the seat upon thy brow

Thy hand shall nourish thee.’’

All who obey this high behest

Blessing in it have found;

And health and wealth are gathered best

By those who till the ground.

Second, manufacturing was already being done on a small scale with

the domestic or ‘‘putting out’’ system. Like his European counterpart, a

merchant distributed materials such as yarn, straw, or leather, for exam-

ple, to rural homes to be spun, plaited, or sewn, respectively. He

returned on a designated date to pick up the finished articles for sale.

Third, news of factory life emerging from Great Britain with its images

of disease, monotony, squalor, family separation, and crime initially

made American laborers more than wary of the experience.

For a few years, factory owners with facilities requiring only a

small number of workers managed to survive, usually by recruiting

widows and women with children and housing the family close to the

mills while the men worked in the fields. Child labor was regulated by

state laws in the 19th century. The first national child labor laws did

not appear until the early 20th century, and these were declared

unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

The labor situation in the

United States changed dramatically with the arrival new technology

that caused the creation of larger factories and required not a dozen

but perhaps hundreds of employees. An answer to this challenge

appeared with the approach advanced by Francis C. Lowell (see Docu-

ment 6) who in 1826 introduced one of the most innovative move-

ments in American labor history.

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THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Lowell had traveled abroad and while in Great Britain became fas-

cinated with the textile industry. Because the British government for-

bade the export of any industrial technology, it is said that Lowell

memorized what he observed. Upon his return to Massachusetts, he

and his partner, Nathan Appleton, began their own manufacturing

firm. Lowell’s experience in Great Britain convinced him that he

wanted a new type of labor force that did not resemble its impover-

ished laborers and their families. Thus, the saga of the Lowell mill girls

was born. Lowell recruited young women of sound character to his fac-

tory system and provided work, supervised housing, and regular pay

for a few years so they could return home with a dowry upon marriage.

Lowell’s project has received both praise and criticism from some his-

torians. One school claims that his effort had commendable results

while other scholars opine that his approach did not have all the altru-

ism about which he boasted. While it is true that the hours were long

and the pay low (there was a strike over wages), many of the girls

looked back on the experience with gratitude for the opportunity to

work and make new friendships. By the 1830s women made up

approximately 80% of the textile mill work force in America. Some-

times factory owners recruited entire families, including the children,

or widows who had a number of mouths to feed. Within a few decades,

the toil of the factory worker began to be viewed as a positive and

uplifting experience and one that generated additional loyalty to the

nation as the following poem, ‘‘The Song of the Artizan [sic],’’ demon-

strates:

Sing, comrades, sing!

Not alone in the workshop’s clamor,

When wielding the saw and hammer,

In each of us, here, a king.

For as part of our noble nation,

We stand in a glorious station,

And learn to think, at every clink

Whatever the fools may say.

Despite the success of the Lowell enterprise, some proprietors struggled

with their workers. In 1846 one cotton mill owner, in an effort to

reduce costs, lowered wages by 25%. His pool of workers dwindled,

and he attempted to lure them back with a promise to restore wages to

their previous level. Unfortunately, his business collapsed because his

disgruntled employees had found other acceptable mill jobs.

Further-

more, in this early period of industrialization, the downside aspects of

the new society surfaced. The number of urban poor began to be a

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visible problem and attracted the interest of reformers. The following

poem, ‘‘Pity the Poor,’’ illustrates this concern:

The winter-times are coming fast,

Pipes loud and shrill the autumn blast.

And leafless limbs are quivering;

And the houseless ones are shivering;

With your eye

You may spy

Naked feet

Mid the sleet

Then pity, oh! Pity the poor

Who stand in the cold at your door.

Who are the poor?

The poor! The poor are everywhere

They who life’s labor never touch,

But at its table take too much,

Feel poverty’s severest clutch,

As I opine,

The work-house were a bliss to such

Poor soul less swine.

There are so many in this city,

Few to aid and few to pity.

The pool of available women to work in the factories dwindled by the

1840s, brought about in part by a decline in the birth rate in rural areas

just as the new source of labor arrived: immigrants. The use of immi-

grant labor began in earnest in the 1820s during the canal age. By the

1840s a steady, growing stream of German, Irish, British, Scandinavian,

and Polish workers escaping political upheaval, the collapse of the

potato crop, or just seeking employment opportunities for even the

most minimum of pay came to the United States. The labor force in one

factory in Massachusetts changed from being just 4% immigrant labor

in the mid-1820s to more than 50% two decades later. The immigrant

tide swelled rapidly: 8400 in 1820, 23,000 in 1830, 84,000 in 1840, and

310,000 in 1850. The initial immigrants were mostly agrarian workers

rather than industrial laborers. However, by 1850 just over 50% were

farmers while the laborer pool had increased to 38%.

Indeed, almost

one-half of the non-slave labor in the United States was performed by

immigrants on the eve of the Civil War. The torrent of immigration con-

tinued in the last half of the century and is estimated to have been 14

million from 1860 to 1900. This new immigrant pool of workers stood

in stark contrast to America’s first immigrants in the 17th century.

Whereas many of America’s first immigrants were literate and skilled,

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their 19th-century counterparts were for the most part uneducated,

unskilled, desperate for work, and easily exploited. These workers who

were willing to toil long hours for minimum pay began to replace

women and children in American factories and by the mid-19th century

nudged industrial development forward in the United States.

In many respects, the Civil War was a holding pattern in the

nation’s drive to industrialization. National productivity increased at

the slow pace of only 7% over the period 1860 to 1865, primarily

because all surplus labor had been siphoned off for the war effort. But

during the five years following the war that percentage increased six-

fold. Northern cotton textile production, which had actually declined

during the conflict, doubled in the first year after the war and then was

50% higher again by 1869. During the war there was little iron to spare

for capital or infrastructure uses because weapons created an insatiable

demand for iron. The situation reversed itself immediately, and pro-

duction increased from 1 million tons in 1865 to 3 million tons in

1873. Railroad construction actually declined during the conflict de-

spite Congressional approval of the transcontinental railroad. In 1865

just over 800 miles of new construction took place. By 1871, however,

nearly 50,000 new miles of track had been put into operation.

The war did encourage the growth of several industries. The

Union army required the production of more than four million uni-

forms and three million pairs of socks. This substantial requirement

led to the creation of ready-made sizes and the heavy reliance on the

sewing machine to produce the garments. The idea of ready-made

clothing was nearly foreign in 1860, but by the end of the century 90%

of men’s clothing fell into this category. Another industry that the war

stimulated was that of milling machinery. Early in the war, this ma-

chinery drilled holes in the key components of guns. By the end of the

war, this same procedure had been applied to the creation of cutlery,

tools, locks, locomotives, etc. But perhaps no industry represented the

new age dawning in the United States more than that of steel produc-

tion. In 1865 the nation produced 16,000 tons of steel. Sixty years later

the annual production was 56 million tons. The development of the

Bessemer process (see Biographies) influenced Andrew Carnegie to es-

tablish a steel-making plant in 1875, even in the midst of the deepest

economic downturn in the nation’s history. Carnegie had a keen vision

and became the epitome of the entrepreneurial spirit that dominated

the last three decades of the 19th century. Carnegie, like other notables

of big business such as Jay Gould, John D. Rockefeller, and Cornelius

Vanderbilt, demonstrated that talent, ambition, personality, and at

times the reliance ruthless tactics resulted in fabulous wealth and

influence. Carnegie introduced the age of steel in America, as steel

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became the basic building material of manufacturing industries. His

thrust dropped the price of steel from $50 a ton in 1875 to just $12 in

the 1890s. Railway rails converted to steel in 1881, and by 1890 nearly

100,000 miles of new steel track had been laid in the country.

state it most simply, between the years 1850 and 1870 the total dollar

value of the nation’s production more than quadrupled from $1 billion

to $4.2 billion.

After the Civil War the lot of most industrial workers had

improved, although long hours and taxing work remained the norm.

The increased speed and efficiency of industrial equipment also

encouraged employers to demand more from workers. Efforts by the

workers to organize were usually met with stiff resistance. Most early

unions met in secret because identification with unionism would often

result in the firing of a worker, and his public identification would

make finding other employment difficult. Trade union membership in

1869 was estimated at 500,000. That number had declined by 1878,

but a union voice remained active. In time two types of unions

emerged. The first took an idealistic approach that advocated

improved conditions not only for workers but also for society in gen-

eral. Thus, the creation of the National Labor Union in 1866 and the

Knights of Labor in 1869 stressed the eight-hour workday and educa-

tional opportunities, women’s rights, and temperance. The second type

of union worked for issues specific to members of its organizations

and did not seek broad reform. The creation of the American Federa-

tion of Labor (AFL) in 1886, a loose federation of a conglomerate of

different unions, is representative of this type.

The movement toward unionism was not entirely quiet. In an

apparent anomaly the number of strikes increased three-fold at the

same time that working conditions seemed to improve. For instance,

in 1880 some 762 strikes and lockouts took place, costing an estimated

$12 million in lost wages for laborers.

Some strikes gained wide-

spread notoriety. Two examples are the Haymarket Affair of 1886 and

the Homestead Strike of 1892. In the former a nationwide series of

strikes by industrial workers had the goal of an eight-hour workday.

On May 3, 1886 striking workers at the McCormick Reaper Works fac-

tory in Chicago clashed with police resulting in several deaths. The fol-

lowing evening a meeting was held near Haymarket Square under the

auspices of several radical labor leaders. Just as the meeting adjourned

a bomb was hurled into the group of police and gunfire erupted, kill-

ing a number of workers. Authorities rounded up labor activists and

trials quickly ensued. After a series of appeals, three labor leaders were

executed and several others went to jail. The Homestead Strike took

place several years later in Pennsylvania at a Carnegie steel plant with

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a strong AFL union tradition. Discussions between management and

labor representatives broke down over the issue of wage reductions.

Plant leadership closed the facility and called in the Pinkerton Detec-

tive Agency to break the strike line. A confrontation turned violent

and resulted in the death of 16 people. The National Guard arrived

and restored order within a short period of time. The workers who

returned to their jobs found themselves forced to endure twelve-hour

days, wages reduced by 50%, and the loss of extra pay incentives.

Despite these two extreme examples of labor unrest and the out-

break of other smaller confrontations, membership in union organiza-

tions on the eve of World War I only represented 15% of the non-

agricultural workers in the United States. Although health and safety

conditions did not improve substantially until the early 20th century,

workers for the most part did enjoy higher wages and fewer working

hours although on occasion they were tempered by extended periods

of layoffs created by the unpredictable business cycle. The factories

produced a seemingly endless variety of cheap goods. While the gap

between rich and poor grew, in reality the lower classes did not get

poorer because of their increasing purchasing power. Real wages—the

actual purchasing power of earnings—rose in the last three decades of

the 19th century, and the work week declined from 66 to 59 hours.

The U.S worker became increasingly competitive with his British coun-

terpart. The wages earned by U.S. workers in the late 19th century

illustrate this point. In 1892 the average annual wage for workers in

the U.S. cotton industry was $457.76, second only to Great Britain’s

$556.14. In the woolen industry the difference was $663.13 versus

$915.64. And in the glass related industries the United States actually

reversed the earlier situation and had wages measured at $859.64 com-

pared to Great Britain’s $501.69.

The U.S. Centennial Exposition

Similar to the British Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, the

United States hosted an exposition in Philadelphia to showcase the

nation’s cultural and industrial achievements during its first century.

The U.S. Centennial Exposition marks the moment that the United

States industrial prowess had reached a level of sophistication that

would thrust it to world supremacy within half a century. President

Ulysses S. Grant opened the exposition on May 10, 1876. The exposi-

tion hosted 37 nations and innumerable industrial exhibits housed in

250 pavilions stretched over 450 acres of land. In a fitting recognition

of the shifting source of labor in America, the exposition was designed

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by a German immigrant, Herman J. Schwarzmann. The project cost $8

million and organizers calculated that nearly 10 million visitors would

be needed to cover the expenses. On opening day only 76,000 persons

attended, and officials expressed concern. However, by the summer of

1876 daily attendance had grown to between 150,000 to 200,000, and

the worries subsided. Over the 159-day run of the exposition, daily

admissions averaged 61,500 persons (the largest single day was

275,000 attendees) with a final tally of 9.8 million attendees. The ex-

position displayed the nation’s growing industrial and economic might

and introduced some of the latest American technology and know-

how. A large 1,400 horsepower Corliss steam engine standing 70 feet

in height and weighing 650 tons provided power for all the machinery

in the exposition’s Machinery Hall. After the exposition closed the

engine went to Chicago and operated the Pullman train car factory for

three decades before being sold for scrap at $8 a ton. In addition to the

Corliss engine, exposition goers observed such new technical devices

as the Remington typewriter, an early Alexander Graham Bell tele-

phone, locomotives, printing presses, fire trucks, mining equipment,

magic lanterns, a mechanical calculator, and an improved artificial leg,

as well as new consumer products such as Heinz Ketchup and Hires

Root Beer. America’s centennial exposition outdrew the 1851 and 1862

London, 1855 Paris, and 1873 Vienna exhibitions and had virtually

equal attendance with a second Paris exhibition in 1867. The remarka-

ble aspect of this comparison is that the aggregate American popula-

tion within seven days travel of Philadelphia numbered approximately

forty-five million, whereas the European cities had more than 200 mil-

lion people residing within seven days travel of all their exhibition

cities. Furthermore, the nearly ten million attendees at the Philadel-

phia centennial site represented about 20% of the U.S. population in

1876. These statistics are testimony to the rapid maturity of the U.S.

road and railroad network that had substantial infrastructure in place

to bring large numbers of visitors to the exposition quickly, safely and

cheaply.

Technology

Although America’s technological position was far behind that of

Great Britain during the colonial era and the early years of the repub-

lic, the nation made great strides. Prior to the Revolution, the Ameri-

can Philosophical Society had been formed in Philadelphia for the

purpose of encouraging useful knowledge. In 1824 the Franklin Insti-

tute attempted to mesh business and professional interests for the

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purpose of stimulating economic growth. Furthermore, the publication

of the important technical journal Scientific American aided the spread

of technical knowledge. The journal had 14,000 subscribers by the

middle of the 19th century.

Indeed, in 1790 the United States estab-

lished a patent office, modeled somewhat on the British example, to

tors. The initial law was weak and had to be modified several times.

However, its records indicate a steady stream of inventions: 3 patents

in 1790, 158 patents in 1808, 544 patents in 1830, 1,050 patents in

1850, and 4,588 patents in 1860. Even women were able to obtain pat-

ents. The first U.S. patent to a woman was issued in 1809, and there-

after the issuance of patents to women averaged about one per year. By

the late 19th century the situation had changed. In 1887 to 1888 the

number had mushroomed to 250. Most patents by women had a con-

nection to ladies apparel, but several achieved real technical sophisti-

cation such as patents for modified screw propellers, reaping

machines, and furnaces for smelting ores.

Despite this activity, by

1850, for every two British workers toiling on the land three worked in

manufacturing enterprises. At the same time the United States had only

15% of its workforce in industry. But the greater diversity of British

manufacturing efforts, the specialization of labor, and the larger pool

of business talent was on the brink of being outpaced by the United

States. As previously stated, the United States had originally imported

British technology by legal or illegal means. However, by the mid-19th

century Great Britain was somewhat lethargic, as mill owners and

workers tended to maintain equipment and procedures that had proven

themselves rather than risking this security for new and possibly better

techniques and inventions. The United States did have some advantages,

including a growing ingenuity in a variety of technical fields and no fear

of experimentation to seek newer and more efficient methods of produc-

tion. The propensity for such unhampered approaches to technological

development had its origins in colonial times. American farmers and

craftsmen had to rely on trial and error and their own ingenuity to cre-

ate new and improved tools and implements. No guilds or government

regulation placed prohibitions on their efforts to save labor and improve

efficiency. Productivity had increased by at least 50% as the nation

shifted, albeit slowly, from agriculture to industry and began to rely

more on machine power for production. Indeed, machines had become

accepted aspects of the daily life of people.

This same attitude prevailed as more sophisticated machinery

appeared in the nation’s growing manufacturing sector. The variety of

machine manufactured consumer goods seemed endless—cast iron

stoves, window shades, flush toilets, gaslights, and standard furniture

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to mention a few—items that went in one generation from being

unheard of or too costly to commonplace. As a further indication of

the nation’s appetite for new consumer goods, at least 1000 new pat-

ents had been approved by the government between the years 1840

and 1860. For example, in just over a decade after Elias Howe’s 1846

patent for the sewing machine, the United States counted fifteen times

as many of these devices as Great Britain. This single invention trans-

formed the manufacture of clothing from a handicraft to machine pro-

duction industry and thus drove the prices down substantially, so that

even the lower classes could afford extra garments. A further stimulus

to the growth of American technical ingenuity was the perfection of

the concept of interchangeable parts. This development ensured the

sustainability and profitability of mass production and virtually erased

the pre-existing reliance on a large scale handicraft industry in Amer-

ica. The technology of interchangeable parts relied on the concept that

components of a finished good are so uniform that they could be sub-

stituted for one another and still have a complete article produced. To

be sure, the first idea in this vein was not American but rather British

and French. Because neither country pursued the possibility in the late

18th century, the American inventor, Eli Whitney, was able to claim

the process as his own. His financial frustrations over patent infringe-

ments with the cotton gin led him to pursue profit in arms-making and

ultimately led to his successful demonstration of the disassembly and

re-assembly of muskets for President Adams and Vice-President Jeffer-

son in 1801 (see Biographies).

Even Whitney did not comprehend the ultimate impact of his

procedure. Before this time machinists had to cut each nut individu-

ally, and the cylinders in the steam engine might have errors in uni-

formity up to 1/32 of an inch. In time the use of interchangeable parts

not only made the process of creating like components for finished

goods simple and rapid but it also led to the creation of uniform

machine parts to produce the articles themselves, a transformation that

was the real boon to industry. It ultimately revolutionized production

costs, increased efficiency, and reduced the expense of finished goods

to the consumer. The concept soon became referred to as the

‘‘American System’’ and spread to other industries such as clock-

making, sewing machines, farm items, watches, and even pistols. Even

with the obvious benefits of interchangeable parts, fewer than two

dozen industries employed the technique prior to the Civil War. Inter-

estingly, the success of the American System did not immediately

rebound on Great Britain and the continent. As U.S. manufacturers set

up their operations in Great Britain following the Civil War, British

observers expressed awe at the concept.

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