Urbanization and Industrialization in the 19th Century in America: An Essay

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The urbanization and industrialization in the 19th century have made a change in America. Urbanization, the diverse that impacted the environment. As well as how things were created and a development in the work environment, it was a big growth for many things.

In the 19th century there was a rapid growth towards unity, social and politically. Cities attracted very rich people but it was forced that everyone from different places, different races to work together. Soon to be such a diverse population. Cities were mostly thought as the American life of freedom and the social life, but in reality, it was more a working environment. In the desperate community, industrial giants paid immigrants very low knowing they are forced to work, having no choice but to accept the low wage. However, this changed as new immigrants became a larger part of the workforce. Industrial leaders thought that the best way of increasing profit was to fire their existing workers and hire new immigrants who would accept even a lower wage (Ferros 2019).

Industrialization has also made a change and a lot of developments in the labor industry. Industrialization before has depended on the division of labor, a step-by-step process which everyone is assigned a particular task. Most products in the 1800s were made by hand by skilled artisans. A lot of machinery and mills replaced all the workers that were making clothes, shoes, this changed quickly. There was also sewing machinery that helped the process and reduce the time for making clothes. Technology has made improvement in the living conditions (Misa 2019).

With the changes of machinery there was a lot of new things going on. There was a lot of debates over morality and women’s roles. Drugs became a problem like cocaine, a lot of military came home addicted to painkillers and mostly got addicted while medical treatment. At the end of the 19th century there was corruption in business and government, wealth, growth, and the gulf between rich and poor.

Social activist had spread, the civil right movements were inspired by people to demand for equal rights as well as women’s rights, United Farm Workers, the Red Power. There was diversity at the start of people migrating to the cities, when culture was being shared and learned from others. Native Americans were upset that immigrants taking their jobs. These groups fought every way against immigrants to have a control. The Chinese Exclusion Act banned them from entering the country due to the problem of overpopulation. With these reasons, immigrants united to right for their rights although their diverse backgrounds. Many Germans and Irish groups became democrats of work problems they would face (Ferros 2019).

There issues of the Gilded Age caused by a struggle of clean government, both the Republicans and the Democrats. Hayes was known for his controversy over the election results and scandals old the Grant presidency, also known of him doing the Civil Service Reform, hiring government employees and of Hayess trying to stay above the political bickering. Hayes’s commitment to cleaning up politics made republicans leaders very upset. At the end Hayes vetoed the Bland Allison Act, which would become one of the leading political issues in the late 19th century due to the growing demands for expansion. Politics at that time were dominated by huge corporations and was reflected on regional, ethnic, and religious differences (Shi 2019).

In 1876 there was a greenback to promote the benefits of paper money over gold and silver coins and this won 15 seats in congress. Although by that there was effort to clean political corruption during the Gilded Age as well that the nation’s money supply has not grown and actually had decreased by ten percent all while the population has expanded. This came down to a sound money policy which limited the currency supply and drew farmers to lower their profits and left them deeper into debt. The Granger movement that helped sell crops, buy and store without the high fees by brokers and middlemen. There was a lot the farmers Alliance that swept across the South.

The Panic of 1893 there was a major collapse in the national after many railroad companies declared bankruptcy, leading to depression and violent clashes between workers and management. A lot of farmers foreclosed and a third of all American farmers rented their land than owning it. There was a lot of the population that were left camping out. This depression lasted another four years. To help this they tried to convince congress to return all the money supply by repealing the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, this decision made it the depression worse. The party tried seeing if the they should ride the silver issue into power, that’s when the money question, a debate of the us currency between those for gold and others for silver, which they wanted to keep the money by increasing the supply and this determined the election. Later this led to Bryan’s Cross of Gold speech and when Bryan won the presidential nomination there was a pro gold Democrats and pro silver Populists that had split due to him being a fanatic and a socialist and the democrats voted for their own candidate (Shi 2019).

By 1897, McKinley was president. At this time the economy was recovering and there were new supplies of gold, and prosperity that was returning. There was a lot of inflation of currency that was going on especially when gold was discovered. There was also a great growth and change of machinery, and technology innovations and social changes but there was a lot of increase in production and maximizing profits. The extent was to expand outwardly and enjoy their property, their land and have better lives as well as being able to have things for their needs in the cities. The country was focusing on the growth of production, population has grown as well for the working environment and now could be focusing on the effects of change to workers.

References

  1. Aboukhadijeh, Feross. ‘Urbanization in the 19th Century U.S.A.’ StudyNotes.org. Study Notes, LLC., 05 Jan. 2014. Accessed 0ctober 1 2019.
  2. Thomas J. Misa, A Nation of Steel: The Making of Modern America, 18651925 https://oxfordre.com. Accessed 19 2019.
  3. David Emory Shi 2018 America the Essential Learning Edition. 2nd. NewYork: Norton.

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