Time Machine #4- The Tumultuous New Way of Life The opening of factories brought such a great change to the very landscape of American social life. Waves of people from rural areas started moving to the new urban centers being built around the factories. In 1860, 80 percent of the American population lived rurally [1]. In only four decades later, that percentage would drop to 50 [2]. The reason for this great migration could only be the promise of new work and new types of careers; as well as a perceived improvement in work conditions. It was quickly clear though to the masses, who had gave up the old ways, that the factories did not deliver a better way of life as was anticipated. We can imagine these early days of industrial life in America to be quite similar to what we think of now as manufacturing in third world countries. The workday back then would easily last as high as 15 hours and tasks performed were mostly repetitive sets of “mechanical gestures”[3]. Workers rights were very weak and did not exist as they do today. All in all this made for a tumultuous period in history, for a great many of the population. Stuart Ewen says, ‘”The period between the end of the Civil War and the first decade of the twentieth century was, for many people in the United States, a period of profound confusion and turmoil. From being a highly regionalized, pre-industrial nation in which a relatively disparate middle class (comprised, for the most part, of Anglo-American merchants, professionals, artisans, and small landowners) set the social, economic, and cultural patterns of life in provincial towns and rural areas, America was now becoming a society driven in unison by an expanding industrial behemoth. Large-scale national economic consolidation was under way in a wide range of industries, and more and more a small number of powerful, disdainfully arrogant men were dictating the social circumstances and life rhythms of countless people throughout the United States”[5]. As we will see later in this post series, the situation would not sit well with a large many of the population. The public would look towards government, and specifically the area of regulation, with the aim to keep in check this new rise of private power held by a minority. At the same time industry would also devise strategies to counter the effect that the public could have on business operations. [1][2] Advertising as Social Communication, Jhally, 2007 [3] All Consuming Images, Ewen, 1990 [4][5] PR: A Social History of Spin, Ewen, 1996
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 19:20:42 +0000
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