Work, Culture, and Society In Industrializing America 1815- 1919

Work habits of men and women in the new factory and labor life attributed to the diverse pre-modern cultures.  During the early 19th century, many Americans were newly introduced to a more efficient process of production called the factory.  At this period of time, most work was done by man, not machines.  Conversely, as time developed, more and more factories, beginning with textiles and cotton industry used unskilled labor to work in mass producing products.  Drinking was common in this time even while working, it caused unproductive labor and often be inclined to have more accidents and deaths.  Reform movements began and to solve this there was a temperance movement although it was short lived it served its process.  Also, managers began to fine and deduct from wages if there was unproductiveness, for instance, drinking liquor.  And at places where unskilled factory workers could easily be replaced, they took this as an advantage and often fired those who did become drunk.  The effect was better working habits to society.  These work habits were not just common to pre modern America but also later generations of factory workers.  And by 1920, two thirds of workers in the twenty-one major mining and manufacturing industries came from either Southern or Eastern Europe or were American blacks.   Many of these cultures and factory workers had numerous of the pre-industrial work habits.

Assorted patterns of working class behavior accompanied the industrialization of the United States.  Forms of protest occurred throughout the periods and development of industrialization in America.  This followed the ever changing behavior and diversity of the cultures that were in the working class.  Another form of culture was included in street gangs that were believed to hold artisan and lower class workers and were organized by ethnicity.  Others, people often had food riots against the monopolies and the rising food prices.  Similar behaviors in riots even decades apart for instance, the 1837 food riot wasn’t much different from one from 1902. For instance, women became organized and were led by a woman butcher and these people protested the rising price of kosher meat and a disloyalty among the members in not boycotting it.  Like the previous disorders and riots, these women battered shops and carried the meat like flags although they did not steal at all.

The development of the industrial age was a process where many progressed and left their previous values behind, although there was some resistance to this new modernization.