19th Century Industrialization 5 example essay topic

19th Century Industrialization Nineteenth Century Industrialization During the second half of the nineteenth century, the United States experienced an urban revolution unparalleled in world history up to that point in time. As factories, mines, and mills sprouted out across the map, cities grew up around them. The late nineteenth century, declared an economist in 1889, was "not only the age of cities, but the age of great cities". Between 1860 and 1910, the urban population grew from 6 million to 44 million. The United States was rapidly losing its rural roots.

By 1920, more than half of the population lived in urban areas. The rise of big cities during the nineteenth century created a distinctive urban culture. People from different ethnic and religious backgrounds came into the cities and settled down in large apartment building and tenement houses. They came in search of jobs, wealth, and new opportunities. Urbanization brought a widening of the gap between the poor and the rich. Nineteenth century American industrialization relied upon poverty and immigration for its success.

Industrialization grew due to an increase of workers and cheap labor. The ideal of success in business and prosperity fueled the rise in immigration. Immigrants came in search of riches but they were soon to find out that wealth was 19th Century Industrialization 2. not what they received. The industrial revolution brought huge numbers of new immigrants from every part of the world. By the end of the century, nearly 30 percent of the residents of major cities were foreign-born. Their arrival to America brought the laborers that the industries and factories needed.

Their arrival also created unsightly racial and ethnic tensions. Most immigrants were lured to America by the promise of affluence even though they were doing just fine in their own countries. American industries, seeking cheap labor, kept recruiting agents on watch abroad and at American ports. "From 1820 to 1900, about 20 million immigrants entered American ports, more than half of them coming after the Civil War. The tide of immigration rose from just under 3 million in the 1870's to more than 5 million in the 1880's, then fell to a little over 3.5 million in the depression decade of the 1890's, and rose to its high-water mark of nearly 9 million in the first decade of the new century. The numbers declined to 6 million in the 1910's and 4 million in the 1920's, after which official restrictions cut the flow of immigration down to a negligible level".

(Tindall, 938) Immigrants thought of America as a land of opportunity and felt that they only needed to make to trip across the ocean to become successful. The "roads paved with gold" theory led to the downfall of the vast majority of immigrants. They came with huge aspirations but ended up working for extremely low wages and living in awful living conditions. Immigrants working for low wages and their constant availability was necessary for industrialization's success. Without the huge numbers of immigrants 19th Century Industrialization 3. working their would have been no one to work in the factories. The immigrants were so large in number that they would take almost any job for any wage.

Large owners of factories and business tycoons were able to make large amounts of money because labor was so cheap. In turn, the economy grew immensely during the period of industrialization. In What Social Classes Owe to Each Other by William Sumner, he gives evidence to the fact that the poor man is vital to a society. He writes, "There is no possible definition of "a poor man". A pauper is a person who cannot earn his living; whose producing powers have fallen positively below his necessary consumption; who cannot, therefore, pay his way. A human society needs the active co-operation and productive energy of every person in it.

A man who is present as a consumer, yet who does not contribute either by land, labor, or capital to the work of society, is a burden. So much for the pauper. About him no more need to be said. But he is not the "poor man". The "poor man" is an elastic term, under which any number of social fallacies may be hidden. (web) This shows that it was necessary for the lower class to remain in the work field in order to spur economic growth. Cities and industry grew in direct result with immigrant workers taking over the grunt jobs.

Their low wages for the amount of work they put in was fundamental in the growth of industry and big business. Capitalism was necessary to spark socialism. Capitalism was the catalyst for the incline in industry and business. Socialism grew because of capitalism.

Upton 19th Century Industrialization 4. Sinclair's The Jungle shows the evil of capitalism. The main point of the novel is to show a particular failure of capitalism, which is, in Sinclair's view, inhuman, destructive, unjust, brutal, and violent. The slow destruction of Jurgis's (the main character) immigrant family at the hands of a cruel and prejudiced economic and social system demonstrates the effect of capitalism on the working class as a whole. It shows that the immigrant faith in the American Dream of hard work leading to success is a myth.

The book shows capitalism as an evil on the hard working lower class. Jurgis becomes aware of socialism after visiting a speaker when his life is at rock bottom. Jurgis gets strength from this speaker and therefore it shows that Sinclair is trying to push the idea of socialism. When socialism is introduced, it is shown to be as good as capitalism is evil. The socialist view urges workers to ban together and be a force.

Socialism is better for society because it allows everyone to share in the countries wealth. Capitalism gives power and wealth to a very minute number of Americans while Socialism permit's the society to share in the wealth. Capitalism gave too much power to the nations top big businessmen. "One set of estimates reveals that in both 1860 and 1900 the richest 2 percent of American families owned more than a third of the nation's physical wealth, while the top 10 percent owned almost three-fourths". (Tindall, 908) This shows that with a capitalist system there was no middle class and thus too much power lied in the hands of the big wigs. Socialism brought a change to this by giving power back to the people.

19th Century Industrialization 5. American workers became aware of these interrelationships finally after many years of unfit conditions. Workers began to come together as one voice and oppose the unfair treatment of capitalism. Workers began to strike out at the oppositions being placed on them. The Pullman Strike of 1894 was one of the most significant strikes in American history. It severely hurt the economies of the states in the western part of the country.

"During the Depression of 1893, the leader of the Pullman Palace railroad Car Company, George Pullman, laid off 3,000 - 5,800 employees, and cut wages 25 to 40 percent, but not his rents and other charges. When Pullman fired three members of a grievance committee, a strike began on May 11, 1894. During this tense period, Pullman workers had been joining the American Railway Union, founded the previous year by Eugene V. Debs. After Pullman refused Deb's plea for arbitration, the union workers stopped handling Pullman cars. Then President Grover Cleveland sent federal troops into the Chicago area where the strike was centered.

The strike finally ended with the workers getting what they wanted on July 13, 1895". (Tindall, 922) This was a prominent strike in American history and therefore brought about a change in workers rights. The formation of labor unions like the AFL, and the Knights of Labor lead to a more socialist system. The American worker changed because of unions and much was for the better.

The worker would no longer stand for unjust treatment and thus the American worker did counteract the relationships between themselves and their employers. 19th Century Industrialization 6. American industrialization relied upon poverty and immigration for its success. If immigrants had not worked for low wages at factories and industries the economic boom would not have taken place.

The money made during the early nineteenth century was necessary to stimulate the growth in business. American workers finally became fed up with the unfair treatment they had been receiving, therefore they joined unions. Unions changed the capitalist system into the socialist system that remains today. 19th Century Industrialization 7.

Bibliography

Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle, Bantam Books, New York, 1906.
Sumner, William. What the Social Classes Owe Each Other, web George. America: A Narrative History, W.W. Norton and Company New York, 1999.