Problems Of Industrialization In America

*The Industrial Revolution brought America many new technological advances that were economically and socially benefical. During industrialization Henry Ford brought the automobile to America, whoch allowed people to live farther from their jobs and allowed farmers to become less isolated. Henry Ford also invented the moving assembly line which was a huge step in the future of industrialization. This assembly line made it possible to produce items faster, and this mass production process helped companies collect more profit. But industrialization also caused many problems that outweighed the gains of the machine age. It created mass poverty, overcrowding, horrible working conditions, unsanitary food, and increased city filth. Andrew Carnegie
was a philanthropist who tried to lighten the mass poverty by donating his wealth to various community buildings such as schools and libraries. However, Upton Sinclair, the author of "The Jungle", used the art of literature to alert the public of the unsasnitary meat they were consuming on a daily basis. They did this because while industrialization helped the rich "fat cats" get fatter, it also put financial and social stress on the working class as well as the poor. *Social stress was mainly endured by immigrants who came to America for a better life, Most of them could not speak english well and were taken advantage of and schemed against quite often. Immigrants often had a naive fantasy of the American dream, and fell for the cons they thought would lead them to their fantasy. Another social stress people went through was the reality that you could not move up in the ranks in life unless you were high up in connections and scheme groups. And the only way you could have city connections is if you were one of the rich that were apart of the monopolies and schemes. Monoplies made people billions because they would control industries. This made it so that people could only buy from them at their chosen price. Some billionaires even controlled multiple industries like the steel and train industries so they could make ll the profits from both because the steel is used to make the trains. But among the rich were also well known con artists who proved that a life of crime was the only way some people could survive. One of the biggest schemes involving immigrants was vote buying. American citizens would make immigrants, citizens as well in order to take them to voting polls, which is where immigrants would fill out ballots the way they were told to. Then, once they voted for the candidate they were told to vote for, they were payed. This helped Americans make sure the candidate they favored was elected. Immigrants also experienced discrimination from Americans as well as other immigrants that were not apart of their groups, some were even forced into ghettos in order to be separated from Americans and other immigrants. *The financial stress that came with industrialization was one of the biggest problems people faced.
The Industrial Revolution provided many jobs in factories for immigrants and working class Americans in need of jobs. However, employers paid their workers scarce wages, especially women as their wages were half of what men earned for the same job. Employers were able to do this because people would accept scarce wages to survive and care for their families. They also could do this because machines could do the jobs of many people and replace them, while some machines did not replace workers but allowed employers to hire unskilled workers who would accept minimum wages. People made so little money some had to live in boarding houses that were overcroweded with poor families. Some women had to become prostitues in order to survive, and would be prostitues for the rest of their lives. The filthy conditions of the streets in cities would often spread diseases, but most people did not have money for medical assistance. Therefore, many people would die from various diseases and injuries all the time. Also, working conditions were horrible and if you were injured on the job you could not take time off to heal. Employers never compensated for the injury or death of an employee, and families suffered if the workers of the family could not work. Most of the population during the Industrial Revolution was poor and suffering from severe
poverty. * A man named Andrew Carnegie tried to lighten this poverty and protect society's wealth. Andrew Carnegie was a steel baron who's duty was to serve society in humane ways in what he called "the Gospel of Wealth". Although he believed in "the Gospel of Wealth", Andrew Carnegie also believed in Social Darwinism. This means that he believes that people are subject to natural selection or "survival of the fittest", and since Carnegie believed he was wealthy because he was the fittest, he believed that he had a duty to help others who could not help themselves because they were not the fittest. Therefore, Carnegie became a philanthropist and donated more than three hundred and fifty million dollars to libraries, schools, peace initiatives, and to the arts. However, his philanthropy was more like charity considering it was a short term solution and had no long term benefits since people had no free time to used these buildings and children worked for family survival. But Carnegie and other philanthropists failed to realize this and believed that their contributions gave them the right to decide what was good and necessary for society. But even though Carnegie and other benefactors donated mass amounts of money and tried to do what they thought was best for society, they did not consider raising workers' wages, which was the main cause of the poverty they tried to rid America of. * Unlike Andrew Carnegie, Upton Sinclair didn't donate millions of dollars, but she was a huge part of the socialist campaign. He created a huge break through to American citizens to show them the horrors of industrialization and the lack of regulations for both workplaces and food factories. He did this by writing and publishing his book. "The Jungle", which narrates the lives of a family that moves to America from Lithuania for a better life. He uses this book to reveal the harsh realities of industrial life to America. He reveals the brutal work factories put their employees through, and what little rights they have to protect themselves in their workplace. The characters in his book experienced unfair wage cuts, long work days, and employer hostility. All of these are actual things people would experience, Upton Sinclair also includes a character in his book that is harassed, raped, and threatened by her employer. To our shock and horror Sinclair includes a character in his book that is attacked and killed by rats while sleeping in a factory he works at. He shows readers how hard it was to keep a stable job, and that in most cases families had to lie about their children's ages so that they could work and bring in more income to survive. Sinclair shows us as readers in depth the injustices and troubles of working during the Industrial Revolution. *Sinclair also touches on the subject of the meat industry and it's dirty secrets.
He discusses through his characters how meat factories lie about what meat goes into their products, how they mixed diseased meat in with the regular meat, and how the meat they throw into cans and packages for human consumption often goes unchecked for diseases. People would become ill from eating this disgusting meat, and some people actually died. Sinclair also mentions how filthy the streets were at this time, filled with mud and various filth. Also how the stench of excrement and decaying flesh of animals filled the air. We see just how dangerous this unsanitary was when Sinclair's character Jurgis's little boy Antanas drowns in the mud on the street, and this is also was a gateway for Sinclair to show us how people often turned to alcohol to deal with the pain of poverty and loss. This lead to the temperance movement to try to abolish, then limit, alcohol comsumption. In Sinclair's book, most of the main characters in Jurgis's family die throughout the book. They all die from things many people mainly died from during industrialization, which is disease, injury that goes unhealed or untreated, and the most common of all was the lack of medical attention and advancement. When Sinclair published this book he wanted to show people how naive they were, and after the bookwas released there were many movements that changed how life was during industrialization. After these movements
people now had rights in their workplace, better working conditions, new sanitary standards for streets and food, women's rights, shorter work days, and now children could stay in school instead of working. The book "The Jungle" is an immensely helpful tool to help people today understand just how hard life was in the past and during industrial times. *Upton sinclair was a huge influence during the Industrial Revolution and was also an incredible asset to the socialist movement for a better America. And even though Carnegie attempted to better America with his donations they were short lived solutions. The problems of industrialization called for huge changes in industrialized cities. The solutions created to solve these problems have been finely tuned to greatly influence the America we live in today. Our way of live now is a product of the fight for a better America that took place many years ago.