Gilded Age Lecture
My first historical love was the Gilded Age. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was because the names were familiar. As a child, I had heard of Carnegie and Rockefeller. We lived near New York City and Rockefeller Center was where you could ice skate. Carnegie Hall was where really good musicians played. I knew J. P. Morgan too. Money was a god in suburban New Jersey so the robber barons were titans. We were the classic upper-middle-class kids, trading baseball cards to prepare us for the stock exchange and comics books were discouraged (fantasy only makes money on the West Coast).
For this reason, and the fact that I crib from Mark W. Summers’s amazing textbook, The Gilded Age, my Gilded Age lecture needed less revising than my others. Years ago, I focused almost exclusively on conflict during the era. I tried to explain the differences between the Knights of Labor and the AFL. I tried to have my students rise and fall emotionally with the Populists. But I found my classes did not care about Terrence Powderly or Mary Lease.
They did care, however, about technology. So now, to incorporate it all, my overall argument is this: “Businessmen, workers, immigrants, farmers, and politicians transformed the United States from a marginal player in global economics to a powerful global competitor. In the process, the nation expanded in influence, material products, and conflict.”
 |
| <http://bulldogvintage.files.wordpress.com/ 2008/11/nyfoundlingbabies.jpg> |
I always start with the new technologies and how industrialization changed so much. College students can relate to a lot of it. Light transformed the night. If you had electricity, you could stay up later and now see the girl you were hitting on at the bar. “Night life” was a new and expanding invention. Telephones … well, I don’t have to explain to them the importance of their cell phones. Improved and cheaper steel made buildings go up and railroads go out. I then move into the darker side of it all. The decimation of the bison population (great photos on this, and already discussed when we talked about Reconstruction); the loss of worker autonomy and interest; grueling hardships for farmers that stemmed from overproduction and terrible credit structures; the rise in orphans (picture to the side is a great one of New York orphans who were shipped West to find new homes). They couldn’t all turn out like “ragged Dick” – perhaps the most humorously named hero for a college class in all American literature (it always gets a laugh from the immature students who are listening).
Then, I move into the “Spanish-American War,” a war my students are already familiar with from our Reconstruction discussion and lecture. Why, oh why, do textbooks still call it that? Hist does; Foner does too; we don’t all it that in Major Problems, mostly because Lisa Cobbs Hoffman is one of the most brilliant scholars of American foreign relations and policy. Why can’t we come up with something better; sorry, but “Spanish-Cuban-Filipino-Puerto-Rican-American War” isn’t much better. I tried “War of 1898” in my first book, but that seems too vague. Any improvements?
Anyway, the “Spanish-American War” stands as the grand expression of both the Gilded Age Reconstruction. It’s where the white North, South, East, and West work together and new technologies help create new markets. This is an example of how I try to braid lectures together so they hear about similar topics time and again.
What’s missing? Lots! The Populists get two or three sentences. The Midwest gets about the same. William Jennings Bryan gets beat up in a minute or two and I don’t even reference the Wizard of Oz. I would love to hear how others teach the topic, and if someone can help Lisa and I find a killer document from the Mormons in the time period.
The article I will be discussing is Chapter 3, Document 8: “Engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor Manufactures the Ideal Worker, c. 1910.”
The thing that interests me about this article is how the writer manipulates and conditions a potential worker in to the “ideal” worker. I feel like he is not treating the worker as a person instead as a machine. For instance, he starts out by asking “are you a high-priced man?” which confuses the worker. This confusion, allowed the writer to implant an idea that the worker is worth the money by stating “if you are a high-priced man, you will do exactly as this man tells you to-morrow, from morning till night.” As a result, the worker believes this label; “high-priced man” is significant compared to other workers, who are mostly treated poorly in this working environment. This motivates the worker to work efficiently, however I think the worker is programmed to work continuously without speaking up when there is an issue.
Question: Are there any other effective methods in creating the ideal worker?
Jennifer So
Taylor is particularly important for our Gilded Age/Progressive Era thinking. If you have read the novel, _Cheaper By the Dozen_, then you’ve already gotten a glimpse of Taylorism in action (the movies are nothing like the novel … which is a gem).
Perhaps we could consider Powderly’s hopes for workers and those of the 8 hour work day. How does that fit with Taylor’s ideas? Would Taylor want “8 hours to sleep, 8 hours to work, and 8 hours for what we will”???
One great Mormon document from the Gilded Age is church president Wilford Woodruff’s 1890 “Manifesto,” which “officially” ended the church’s practice of polygamy in response to federal court decisions upholding the antipolygamy statutes passed in the 1880s. The Manifesto of course did not actually end polygamy, which would continue to be approved by the church’s leadership in secret for another two decades and would ultimately lead to produce Mormon fundamentalist groups outside of the mainstream church in the 1920s when the mainstream church got serious about stamping it out (Warren Jeffs’ organization, for example, traces its origins to that time). But the Manifesto eased tensions sufficiently between Mormons and the federal government and set the gears in motion for Utah achieving statehood in 1896. The Manifesto is now part of the mainstream LDS church’s canon, although the vast majority of mainstream Mormons assume that it really did stop the official practice of polygamy (it’s in an appendix to the church’s Doctrine and Covenants). It is therefore an incredibly important document and would fit well into Major Problems, if that’s what you’re looking for. Here’s a link to the wikipedia page on the Manifesto:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1890_Manifesto
If you’re interested in more scholarly treatments of the document, your co-blogger at RiAH, Chris Jones, can easily point you to some.
The document I am discussing is the 5th document in Chapter two (Western settlement and the frontier) of Major Problems entitled “Chief Joseph (Nez Perce) Surrenders, 1877.
Even though this document was short, it was short and to the point. What Chief Joseph is saying seems completely from the heart. He’s tired of fighting and seeing all of his chiefs killed. The living conditions are terrible and as a result, young kids are freezing to death. Seeing young children freeze to death and starve must really hit home with him because he mentions how he wants time to look for his children. Unfortunately, he believes some of them could be dead. It’s really interesting to me how he is letting his feelings out and letting his chiefs know he’s sad, sick and his heart is suffering. Society has a perception of men being tough and not showing any emotion but I love that this man is. He’s not afraid to possibly go against people in his tribe to end the violence.
But the last line in this document puzzles me. He says “From where the sun now stands I will fight no more, forever.” Is he talking about just fighting or is he giving up on life?
Dana P
Hmm … good question. How could we determine what he means by “fight”?
The document that I will be discussing is from Major Problems chapter 2 document 6, Wyoming Gunfight: An Attack on Chinatown 1885.
This document made me realize how far the white settlers were willing to go to expel the Chinese from their town. I knew that the whites were angry about the excessive Chinese population but I never knew that they were willing to take matters into their own hands. The part of this document that angered me the most would be this line, “There was a gang of women that stood at the “Chinatown” end of the plank bridge and cheered; among the women, two of them each fired successive shots..” While the mob was beating, killing, and burning the Chinese alive, there was a crown of women that were cheering the mob on! I do not understand how you can be watching this and not be horrified.
Kelsey R
The document that I will be discussing is from Major Problems Chapter 3 document 3, “Immigrant Thomas O’Donnell Laments the Worker’s Plight, 1883.”
This document gave me a great look into the life of an immigrant from England that came to the United States but was never naturalized, even though he had lived in the country for eleven years. I thought that the discussion that Thomas gave about how child labor was necessary to the employment of parents. In a quote from the passage, Thomas states that “There are so many men in the city to work, and whoever has a boy can have work, and whoever has no boy stands no chance.” Because the mule- spinning was replaced by ring-spinning, small help was especially needed. One more aspect of the document that I found very interesting was the discussion between the chairman and Thomas about how much Thomas had brought in for his family in the past year. Looking at this section of the document, once the chairman calculated that Thomas would have had somewhere around $133 made in that year, the chairman repeated the same question at least twice due to the sense of shock that he had. The chairman could not believe that Thomas was able to support himself, his wife, and their two children on only $133 brought in during the year.
The one question that I do have about this document was brought up in the discussion about how Thomas and his family were too poor to move out West. I know that there was great expansion to the West during this time, but were many of the families, especially immigrant families, not able to travel out West?
Devin W
I will be discussing document 1 in chapter 3 titled “chinese immigrant lee chew denounce prejudice in america, 1882.” this document was particularly interesting to me because i am curious to see an asians point of view during this time in america. From reading this document, i learned is that lee perceives non-chinese people relatively the same way as americans do for non-americans. in page 73 he claims “men of other nationalities who are jealous of the chinese, because he is a more faithful worker than one of their people…” i found this statement idiotic. lee also assumes that the reason chinese people are mistreated because china is “not a fighting nation,” which is why americans do not pick on germans, english, italians, or even japanese. lee seems somewhat delusional to as why the chinese are being mistreated. the reason isnt because americans are jealous, or that the chinese are easier to pick on. its because they felt superior. not just americans, but typically most humans have that mind set and are biased when it comes to ones race. the last part of the document is a good example. lee says “irish fill the almshouses and prisons and orphan asylums, italian are among the most dangerous of men. jews are unclean and ignorant. yet they are all let in, while chinese, who are sober, or duly law abiding, clean, educated and industrious, are shut out.” lee makes it seem like the chinese are the model citizen but when he himself looks down on non-chinese nations as well as making stereotypical comments. i have concluded that lee is a hypocrite. it seems that people are generally racist, regardless of ethnic background.
-Dominic Verzosa
Professor Blum, I can relate with you when you are saying you enjoyed learning about Carnegie and Rockefeller. This section in the textbook was most interesting to me. Before I read this chapter, I was trying to decide what I wanted my thesis to be for the paper to be as far as if I would be proud to live in America during this time period. After reading this section in the texbook, I was so disgusted by the blatant corruption and selfishness of these business tycoons that that my decision was easy.
I chose to discuss the article “Journalist Lincoln Steffens Exposes the Shame of Corruption”, 1904.
If I am interpreting the article correctly, I think its urging the people to say honest and hopefully that will take care of the issues of the corrupt business bosses: “All we have to do is to establish a steady demand for good government. The bosses have us split up into parties. To him parties are nothing but means to his corrupt ends. He ‘bolts’ his party, but…the honest voter must not” (Major Problems 142). It seems to me that if a lot of business men are becoming corrupt, it would be easy for people fall into the same thing to try and be successful too. If everyone else is doing it and getting away with it, why shouldn’t they try?
I like this article because the author is urging the public to keep their integrity and honesty and to demand a good government and “the commercial politician would supply it..” (Major problems 142).
The document that I will be discussing is from Chapter 2 of Major Problems, document 9 entitled “An Ex-Slave Recalls His Migration Across the Prairie, 1936.”
This document was interesting to me because it showed the life of an ex-slave, from being a slave to having the opportunity to move out West. The relationship that the ex-slave describes that he had with his master is somewhat contradicting to me. In the document, Bill Simms states “I had a good master, most of the masters were good to their slaves.” From my point of view, this sounds like a statement that a slave would never say. Slavery always has a negative connotation to it, so how in this case does Simms describe his master as treating him well? Is Simms being somewhat dishonest in this case? Or is Simms just generally optimistic because he had the opportunity to move out West and provide a better life for his two daughters?
Thanks,
Devin W
Span-can-pino-puerto-ri-american war of 1898…? just kidding.
The article I will be discussing is Document 8 from Chapter 3 of Major Problems entitled “Engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor Manufactures the Ideal Worker, c. 1910.”
In this article, what interest me most was how workers transformed into competitors. The writer illustrates how a Pennsylvania Dutchman was chosen out of 75 men to get trained in working at a faster pace and in return, he would get paid 60 percent more than the other workers. Whats so interesting about this piece was how companies went through a process of analyzing every single worker to find the best of the best. This was significant to The Gilded Age because it transformed United States more industrial and prosperous. As a result, workers were so competitive to become an ideal worker that they lost their autonomy.
The one quesiton that i have about this document is what eventually happens to the other workers? In the document it states that “one man after another was picked out and trained.” Do companies pick one out of 75 men and keep the rest at normal pay or can an individual eventually rise up later to become suitable to take on the role of a high-priced man?
Thanks,
Brian Lieu
The document that reminds me the most about the Gilded Age was Jurgis Rudkus discovers Drink in The Jungle, 1905. It reminds me about this time the most because even though many had new luxuries to enjoy, most laborers, which were mainly immigrants, were put most at risk with their lives to be able to try and achieve the “American Dream.” Workers like Jugis were the backbone to the economy by being laborers producing the products that Americans can enjoy. This being said, the loss of the worker’s autonomy may have very well resulted in them being unable to enjoy any kind of entertainment in their lives. They had worked themselves to sleep, only to wake up and work more the next day. The document had described the working conditions to be grueling, “He was working in the steaming pit of hell; day after day, week after week – until now there was not an organ of his body that did its work without pain…” It was truly only the people that owned, and not the laborers that got the opportunity to enjoy the luxuries that the times had brought them.