Frederick Taylor's Impact On American Workers

The U.S. economy changed dramatically during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The country transformed from a rural agricultural nation to the leading manufacturing country in the world. A number of important trends and developments characterized this period. Many changes and advancements in forms of communication, energy, transportation, and business organization took place. These advancements helped pave the way for modern society and the way our current economic system works. The Industrial Revolution has had lasting effects on the entire population in almost every facet of our lives, as both consumers and workers, and will always be remembered as one of the driving forces behind the way in which the modern economies of
the world have been achieved by developed nations. There were 3 forms of early industry that was converted into mass forms of industrialization. The first form was manufacturing taking place in small independently owned shops. Owners, or “journey men”, did their work individually and engaged in friendly “face-to-face” business. They would also hire an apprentice to assist them in their work. Another form is manufacturing that took place in homes. This form was performed mostly by women, usually mother, and required no “real” skill. They would make arrangements with local merchants to assemble goods, hats, medal, etc. Women could also purchase various textiles for their work. The third and final form was manufacturing in a factory setting. In 1970 Samuel Slater opened the first textile mill in Pawtucket, which became known as “The Slater Mill”. Women were involved in at least half of the operations preformed in factory settings. The role of women had started to change, and as a result women's employment nearly doubled during this period. In 1790 the U.S. Postal service was established. The mail would take days, and sometimes even weeks to arrive. It took so long to deliver that during the Battle of Lexington and Concord, it took 3 weeks to receive word of the battle because mail. Samuel Morse invented the telegraph in 1835 which made communication a lot easier. By 1860 there was about 50,000 miles of telegraphs and by 1861 telegraph lines reached the West Coast. The telegraph also led to the formation of the associated press, and in 1869 underwater telegraph cable connected the United States to Europe for the first time. In 1876 Alexander Grahan Bell invented the telephone, but it took a while to overtake the telegraph as the number one means of communication. By the early 20th century however, most Americans had telephones in their homes. There were many advancements in the form of energy during this period of industrial revolution. The first form of energy was hydropower, which was good but had its limitations. The use of coal would resolve the energy issues that came with hydropower and by 1860, 14 million tons of coal had been mined. Coal provided energy to steam engines, steam powered ships, and railroads. It also provided energy to enable the steel industry. Electricity which is now a modern form that we use today was starting to get used as a form of energy. Early on in the late 19th - 20th century electricity was found in urban areas initially and in 1912, only 1 out of 6 American homes were electrified. Transportation also had many advancements and changes during this time period. It started out with what was called the “turnpike era”. In this time period, there were many gravel highways constructed. This soon turned into the “canal era” because of the construction of many canals. One of the most important canals constructed was the Erie canal, which connected the Hudson river to New York. Later on the entire Great Lakes region was connected to not only New York, but to the Pacific Ocean. Water transportation did have its limitations however. The growth of the rail road industry seemed to resolve those issues. What would previously take a steamer to sail from Chicago to New York three weeks, would only take two days by railroad. By the Civil war over 30,000 miles of tracks had been laid throughout the United States. The railroad industry became the first billion dollar industry in the United States. By 1900 over 2,000 miles of railroad track had been laid throughout the country. These tracks were made of steel, which replaced the iron tracks that were originally used. “Business men created large consolidated organizations primarily through two methods. “Horizontal integration” combined a number of firms engaged in the same enterprise into one company. Through “vertical integration,” a company took over all the different businesses on which it relied for its primary function, for example, Carnegie Steel, which came to control not only steel mills but also mines, railroads, and other enterprises” (Brinkley, 402). With the growth of business organization became the concern of Monopoly. In the absence of competition, monopolistic industries could charge whatever price they wished. “Railroads, in particular, charged very high rates along some routes because they knew their customers had no choice but to pay them. Beginning in 1873, the economy fluctuated erratically, producing severe recessions ever five or six years, each worse than the las” (Brinkley, 409-410). The new industrial order brought many changes to American workers.
Changes were brought through the ideas of men like Frederick Taylor and also through the development in production from the assembly line. Frederick Winslow Taylor embraced the new principals of “scientific management,” which is also known as “Taylorism”. Taylorism is a theory of management that analyzes and combine workflows. Its main objective is improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. “Taylor urged employers to reorganize the production process by subdividing tasks. This sped up production and made workers interchangeable, thus diminishing a mangers dependance on any particular employee” (Brinkley, 400). Frederick Taylor's ideas made it possible for workers using modern machines to perform tasks at a much faster pace, which greatly increased the efficiency and productivity rate. In 1914 Henry Ford introduced the assembly line in his automobile plants. The assembly line was a process in which parts are added to a product in a sequential manner to create a finished product much faster than with handcrafting-type methods. “The assembly line was a particular place-a factory through which automobiles moved as they were assembled by workers who specialized on particular tasks. The concept stressed the complete interchangeability of parts” (Brinkley, 401). The assembly line became a standard for many other industries, and made production much more
efficient. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were periods of tremendous urban growth that radically changed the country. Everything was changed in the transformation from a rural, agricultural country to an urban, industrial nation. The Industrial Revolution transformed urban life and gave people higher expectations for improving their standard of living. The increasing number of jobs, along with technological innovations in transportation and housing, encouraged migration to cities. Development of railroads, streetcars, trolleys, etc. enabled the city boundaries to expand and people no longer had to live within walking distance of their jobs. The railroads provided a tremendous push to economic and city growth because they themselves provided such a massive market for goods. The railroad and steel industries helped standardize America economically, socially, and culturally. There is no doubt that the Industrial Revolution was one of the most influential time periods of human history. It was almost solely responsible for propelling society into the modern economies that we still have in place today. The technological advances of this time are what allowed for the mass production of goods and services for society, which allowed for trade to be conducted on a much larger scale. The average family saw in increase in the amount of income that they received because an unskilled worker could find work in one of the many new factories that were opened to produce the goods needed for the business world. Unfortunately the workers of the time were usually taken advantage of because of their apparent lack of skill and the abundance of workers available for the same jobs. This created a work environment especially negative for women who would be treated unfairly in the workplace and would receive less pay for the work that they did. Prompted by the oppression that many in the working class felt, literary works were put out to inspire the workers to take back their freedoms. Over the course of the Industrial Revolution the workers saw vast changes, which ultimately lead to the economic times we have now, that are improved from the days of the past.