THE CHANGING NATURE OF AMERICAN INDUSTRY

The massive industrial growth of this period was largely based on the expansion of heavy industry. Prior to the Civil War, most American production was based on turning out materials that the American consumer would purchase, such as food products and textiles. These products continued to be produced, but during 1870-1910, rapid industrial growth was fueled by the production of steel, machinery, and petroleum products, Most of these products were designed not for the consumer, but for those who produced the goods. Heavy industry produced new machinery that a textile mill might install, or a stronger, more durable steel that a railroad line might use for a new stretch of tracks. Industrial expansion during this era spiraled; new machinery introduced in textile mills, for example, fueled a further expansion of textile manufacturing.

Another key component of the Second Industrial Revolution was the development of new and more efficient sources of power. In 1865 the majority of American industries were still dependent on water power. The discovery of anthracite coal (in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and elsewhere) caused the price of coal to drastically drop and fueled the transformation in many American industries to steam power. By 1890 nearly 70 percent of American industries used steam. After the turn of the century, the inventiveness of Thomas Edison allowed electricity to replace steam as the cheapest and most efficient source of power in American factories.

Industry expanded in this era into geographic regions where it had scarcely existed before. In the New South many former sharecroppers went to work in textile factories, which oftentimes utilized state-of-the- art machinery that had been produced in the North. The American Tobacco Company started to manufacture cigarettes by machine, and the steel mills found in Southern cities such as Birmingham, Alabama, made these cities start to resemble factory cities in the North.

Changes in the Workplace

Production methods changed in virtually every factory in America during this period, as the desire for more efficiently produced goods became paramount. Efficiency experts were utilized by many companies, and most championed the ideas of Frederick W. Taylor, a mechanical engineer who wrote popular treatises on efficiency and scientific management. Taylorism emphasized speed and efficiency in the workplace; factories found that paying workers “by the piece” made them produce more. Workers were timed and factories sometimes redesigned to promote efficiency and greater production. One by-product of Taylorism was the elimination of some workers in the factory as other workers did their jobs “more efficiently.”

Part of this move toward efficiency was the beginning of assembly line production methods. The application of Taylorism and the introduction of the assembly line best demonstrate the combination of technology and business organization that fueled much of the economic growth of the era. The Ford Motor Company was first established in 1903, and by 1910, it was producing nearly 12,000 cars per year. Henry Ford’s factories first used assembly line production methods in 1913; during that year Ford produced nearly 250,000 automobiles. Similar growth occurred in the chemical and electrical industries as new production methods were introduced.

How did the role of workers in the production process change in this era? Critics charged that the individual worker had merely become “one more cog in the machine”; in an automobile assembly line the worker might, for example, put the left door on a whole series of identical automobiles all day long. The need for skilled craftsmen, so important in pre- industrial America, drastically lessened as a result of the assembly line.

Many factory jobs could now be learned in several hours or less. The result of this on the nature of the workforce was immense. Immigrants with no previous training could perform the simple tasks associated with many industrial jobs. In addition, many women left their previous jobs as domestics to go to work in the textiles mills (many women took clerical jobs in this era as well). Children could also do some of the more menial tasks associated with factory work and be paid a pittance of what adults were making. By 1900 nearly 20 percent of all children between 10 and 15 were employed, many in textile mills and shoe factories. During this period some states began to pass laws regulating child labor, although these were oftentimes difficult to enforce.

Clear differences were present in this period between the pay offered to men and women in most factories. Skilled women factory workers made $5 a week, while unskilled male workers often made $8 per week. Women still preferred factory work to the very time-consuming and low-paying job of being a domestic worker. Some female workers turned to prostitution; there is some evidence that the number of prostitutes increased in industrial cities at the end of the nineteenth century.

Marriage usually ended a woman’s work in the factory; doing all of the chores while the husband was away at work was a back-breaking exercise in this era. Some urban married women also added income to the household by doing knitting or sewing for others at home.