Chapter 2: Working, to sub-head Office Work and Service Jobs
pp. 33-66
Most of the mobility we discussed so far was not related to recreational touring. Whether people commmuted or migrated, they did so in relation to work. We begin a study of working in the Gilded Age by taking a closer look at the factory at the turn of the century, especially the newer heavy industries organized on mammoth scales. Factories like these gave reason for the development of trolley systems to move laborers from home to work site. A bit later we'll look at recreational mobility, perhaps.
Visit it, and investigate the years prior to World War I. Devote some time to studying the photographs. Note how raw the new town looks. Consider, too, what local photographers considered worthy subject matter, and why. (Farrell becomes home to one of the large steel mills which were part of the Andrew Carnegie empire.) We’ll return to this part of the country when we look at labor unrest in greater detail.
Homestead, Pennsylvania. Click the picture to learn more about steelmaking and steel makers, 1892 - 1910. Read the section by Hamlin Garland, the response, (1894) and A Mill Dominated Town. Browse through parts of the rest. Note that the photographs appeared in literature of the time, so persons who never visited Pennsylvania could visit it in their imaginations.
The new industrialism also meant the creation of new towns. Workers need shelter and institutions through which to raise, nurture, and educate their children. Local History of the type fostered by organizations such as the American Association for State and Local History recounts the stories of places like Farrell, Pennsylvania in minute detail. The coming of the modern industrial plant to South Sharon (later, Farrell) is recounted at
For Thursday, September 29
Read,in Schlereth:
Chapter 2: Working, from "Office Work and Service Jobs" to end. 67 - 85
in Chambers,
Chapter 3, The Corporate Revolution pp. 54 - 79
Machines revolutionized work outside of factories, as well. In the case of office work, the typewriter and telephone made the modern office possible, and offered new opportunities for women in the job market. In the home, a revolution was around the corner, but not quite there as yet. New mechanical devices (like the carpet sweeper) were making housework easier, but the electrification of housework was yet to come. This had a far different effect on opportunities for women, as appliances made it easier for persons to do their own work.
We've seen some of this from the point of view of those working as we've read Schlereth. Here, we'll look at the big picture, and how the modern corporation, born during this period, concentrated economic power in the hands of the new industrialist class. We'll look at the way companies on a new scale "rationalized" entire industries: Steel and Oil, to name just two. We'll also think a little about the emerging field of "scientific" management, and how the new science of business changed the relationship of employee to employer.
Switchboard Operators at a telephone exchange. Women were preferred for this position because they were smaller and had more agile fingers. Men supervised. Click for a brief history of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (ATT).
As businesses set their sights beyond their localities, communications becomes vital and more complex. Click on the image above to read about the invention of the modern office.
The typewriter, as well as the telephone revolutionized office work. Like telephones, nimbleness rather than strength was the qualification for a successful operative. Click to learn the typewriter's history.
Alexander Graham Bell inaugurates long distance service between New York and Chicago, 1892. The telephone originally was considered a business machine. Later, it changed domestic life, as well. Click on the picture for access to the Alexander Graham Bell papers at the Library of Congress.
Today we discover the joys and woes of working in two texts simultaneously. Sometimes I have fantasies of sitting the authors down in a room and getting them to mash up their ideas, but alas, we have to do the mashing up ourselves. The two books use different references in time and different thematic approaches.The reorganization has to come from us. This is why I'm beginning with chapter three of Chambers.
Consequently, I'd like to have you start working out a timeline--a chart which will let you put the main events from both books onto a common calendar. The simplest way to do this will be to put dates down the vertical axis and events, ideas, movements, whatever, on the horizontal axis. The glory of the word processor is that one can insert materials when he/she comes upon them and thus doesn't have to "guess" how many spaces to leave as those poor women above would have had to have done.
Not only are we spared that chore, but through a miracle of the Internet we can get the day of the week for any date in our period. We'll take as an arbitrary starting date January 1, 1876. Go to the Historical Calendarand determine on which day your birthday fell that year. Mine fell on April 20, except in Bulgaria, when it fell on April 8.
Read, 
