Toward the end of the 19th century, post Civil War American society was in the middle of a transitional phase. Society structure was changing, as the majority of people no longer awoke in the morning to tend their farms, instead, they began to head off to their corporate, white collar jobs. America’s population shifted away from the countryside, and into the cities. Many Americans were confused by the rapid changing world, owners of small farms could not keep up with the production strength of large-scale corporations, and many were driven out of business.
Prior to the Civil War, United States was primarily a producer society. Majority of Americans had blue-collar jobs. They worked at factories, farms, and other production centers. The Civil War accelerated the economic development to an even greater extent. United States was an industry-oriented nation; production was on the mind of most Americans.
Although the industrial era did a lot of good for the nation, there were quite a bit of downfalls. Employment conditions, in some instances, would have been considered inhumane by today’s standards. Many new corporations adopted the leadership structure of the military. The chain of command used by the military proved to be very simple and solid, and many Americans were trained to follow it during the wartime, therefore it was the first structure that was looked to when an efficient way to organize large companies was needed.
Howell’s characters have different feelings regarding New York and Boston. Mrs. March, for example, does not want to have anything to do with New York, as she states, “New York terrifies me. I don’t like New York, I never did; it disheartens and distracts me; I can’t find myself in it; I shouldn’t know how to shop.” Fulkerson, on the other hand sees New York as a great place, at least to do business, “There’s only one city that belongs to the whole country, and that’s New York.” In any case, in comparison to Boston, New York City is much bigger, louder, and much more commercialized, very few people find it to be a good place to raise a family. Boston seems quieter and symbolically pure.
Buffalo Bill, also known, as William F. Cody (1846-1917), became an American icon symbolizing the American West, the Wild West. Although supposedly supporting Indian rights, Buffalo Bill did a good share of exploiting them. The Wild West Show, starring Buffalo Bill, began in Omaha in 1883, presenting a theatrical imitation of the “Real West.” Bill helped to reinforce the image of Native Americans as “savages” in his shows, promotional posters, and in the actual plays. Theater back then, as media today, was not just for entertainment anymore. Instead, it was used to form and reinforce public opinion by various imagery. In promotional posters, for example, Indians were portrayed to be smaller, weaker, and overall less capable than the tall, white, and educated Americans were. The shows helped label Native Americans as a “threat” to American progress. His shows did not only serve as amusement, they were also used as advertising campaigns to lure settlers to the West. Buffalo Bill delivered American and European audiences exactly what they craved for: violence, domination, and conquest. Thomas Dixon and D.W. Griffith helped to carry on theater with the use of their movie, “A Birth of a Nation.”
Thomas Dixon, and D.W. Griffith, helped to carry on the significance of theater, with the use of movies with their 1915 release, The Birth of a Nation. The movie was over three hours long, and in full color,. revolutionary at the time. Griffith’s style was also a factor, his use of lighting, dramatic close-ups, and camera movements were all ground-breaking. The movie has been numerously recognized as the most influential film of all time.
The movie became controversial due to its extremist depiction of African Americans as vengeful carpetbaggers trying to kill a family of white Southerners. The whites are rescued by the triumphing Ku Klux Klan riding in on white horses, slaying the evil and savage blacks. This film caused almost immediate riots and protests, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People claimed that the movie was historically incorrect, and entirely racial propaganda. However, when President Woodrow Wilson, a former history professor, viewed the film he proclaimed it not only historically accurate, but like “writing history with lightning.”
The “purity of white womanhood” played an important role in this film. Moral purity, specifically woman’s sexual purity, is threatened by the impurity of African American men. White men were very sensitive to the subject. Most white Americans were already racist, and this movie, as the Wild West show, helped reinforce their hatred.
There are many analogies made about commercial life and theater. One could say that in commercial life everybody is an actor, nobody is truly him or herself. People get dressed up in business suits with ties, talk in a different dialect, and try to appeal to others in order to succeed. Every actor, as every corporate person, has their own role that they must fulfill for the “show” to go on. In any case, theater was becoming a very important part of America. With the invention of home televisions, the media began to dominate our lives. In today’s age, almost all of our decisions are influenced on some level by Hollywood. Making the media a great engine for propaganda.
In “Hazard of New Fortunes, Howell mentions of Dryfoos’ business with Standard Oil, and the company’s manipulation of the market to make Dryfoos’ sell his oil wells. It is safe to assume that Howell personally is not a fan of Rockefeller or any eminent capitalist for that matter. Living in the era, Howell must have been able to see the direction into which things were moving with the rise of corporations.
On the day of the Ludlow Massacre, twenty men, women, and children were killed. Ludlow coal miners went on strike against Colorado Fuel & Iron Company in response to low wages, and overall unfair practices of the corporation. The company retaliated against the strike by activating company guards, hired private detectives and strikebreakers, in a fourteen-hour long shootout, resulting in a massacre. Rockefeller, who had twenty million dollars invested in the company, was blamed for these events, and would struggle for years to redress the situation.
Rockefeller’s version of the events: (June 10, 1914)
There was no Ludlow massacre. The engagement started as a desperate fight for life by two small squads of militia against the entire tent colony. There were no women or children shot by the authorities of the State or representatives of the operators. While this loss of life is profoundly to be regretted, it is unjust in the extreme to lay it at the door of the defenders of law and property, who were in no slightest way responsible for it. (PBS.org)
Ivy Lee, sometimes credited as a founder of public relations, worked for Rockefeller Jr. following the years of the massacre. Lee planted pro-Rockefeller propaganda into capitalist-owned newspapers to maintain public support and interest, and eventually repair Rockefellers’ reputation. “Crowds are led by symbols and phrases,” said Ivy Lee.
As the rate strikes were occurring, it was evident to Lee that future unrests would occur unless some kind of innovation was emplaced. Thus, came the birth of company unions – a way to give workers an illusion of democratic control. In Rockefeller’s case, to keep unions under the thumb of the corporation, phony unions were setup before the workers would be able to start legit ones.
CF&I was one of the first companies to organize a union, and would serve as an example to the rest of the industry. Company unions were outlawed in 1935, although many continued under the name of “independent unions.”
Clearly not everyone was happy with the growth of Corporate America. Tom Watson, a successful southern lawyer, who later became a democratic Senator, published numerous magazines, including the nationally published Tom Watson’s Jeffersonian Magazine, soon emerged as the leader of the Populist Party, a party, against corporate domination. Watson is a good example of an American who did not want to let go off the past Jeffersonian beliefs of farming and rural lifestyle.
Watson’s popularity can be accredited to the growing mass of poor farmers in the South and the Midwest whose economical status was nearly destroyed due to industry growth. Watson was also successful in appealing to whites and blacks because he chose a common enemy, corporate domination. Towards the end of the century, as racial tensions grew, Watson’s magazines become much more racist, and ultimately the magazines were attacking blacks, Jews, Socialists, and Roman Catholics.
To summarize, at the turn of the century, the South was turned upside-down because of its defeat in the Civil War, while the North was changing dramatically with the growth of corporations due to the profits made from the war. Both the South, and the North, were changing, many people were left without jobs, and the ones who had jobs, were underpaid and mistreated. There wasn’t really an easy way for a country to go through such a dramatic change, many of the principles invented during this transitional period are still with us today.
Birth of Corporate America
Toward the end of the 19th century, post Civil War American society was in the middle of a transitional phase. Society structure was changing, as the majority of people no longer awoke in the morning to tend their farms, instead, they began to head off to their corporate, white collar jobs. America’s population shifted away from the countryside, and into the cities. Many Americans were confused by the rapid changing world, owners of small farms could not keep up with the production strength of large-scale corporations, and many were driven out of business.
Prior to the Civil War, United States was primarily a producer society. Majority of Americans had blue-collar jobs. They worked at factories, farms, and other production centers. The Civil War accelerated the economic development to an even greater extent. United States was an industry-oriented nation; production was on the mind of most Americans.
Although the industrial era did a lot of good for the nation, there were quite a bit of downfalls. Employment conditions, in some instances, would have been considered inhumane by today’s standards. Many new corporations adopted the leadership structure of the military. The chain of command used by the military proved to be very simple and solid, and many Americans were trained to follow it during the wartime, therefore it was the first structure that was looked to when an efficient way to organize large companies was needed.
Howell’s characters have different feelings regarding New York and Boston. Mrs. March, for example, does not want to have anything to do with New York, as she states, “New York terrifies me. I don’t like New York, I never did; it disheartens and distracts me; I can’t find myself in it; I shouldn’t know how to shop.” Fulkerson, on the other hand sees New York as a great place, at least to do business, “There’s only one city that belongs to the whole country, and that’s New York.” In any case, in comparison to Boston, New York City is much bigger, louder, and much more commercialized, very few people find it to be a good place to raise a family. Boston seems quieter and symbolically pure.
Buffalo Bill, also known, as William F. Cody (1846-1917), became an American icon symbolizing the American West, the Wild West. Although supposedly supporting Indian rights, Buffalo Bill did a good share of exploiting them. The Wild West Show, starring Buffalo Bill, began in Omaha in 1883, presenting a theatrical imitation of the “Real West.” Bill helped to reinforce the image of Native Americans as “savages” in his shows, promotional posters, and in the actual plays. Theater back then, as media today, was not just for entertainment anymore. Instead, it was used to form and reinforce public opinion by various imagery. In promotional posters, for example, Indians were portrayed to be smaller, weaker, and overall less capable than the tall, white, and educated Americans were. The shows helped label Native Americans as a “threat” to American progress. His shows did not only serve as amusement, they were also used as advertising campaigns to lure settlers to the West. Buffalo Bill delivered American and European audiences exactly what they craved for: violence, domination, and conquest. Thomas Dixon and D.W. Griffith helped to carry on theater with the use of their movie, “A Birth of a Nation.”
Thomas Dixon, and D.W. Griffith, helped to carry on the significance of theater, with the use of movies with their 1915 release, The Birth of a Nation. The movie was over three hours long, and in full color,. revolutionary at the time. Griffith’s style was also a factor, his use of lighting, dramatic close-ups, and camera movements were all ground-breaking. The movie has been numerously recognized as the most influential film of all time.
The movie became controversial due to its extremist depiction of African Americans as vengeful carpetbaggers trying to kill a family of white Southerners. The whites are rescued by the triumphing Ku Klux Klan riding in on white horses, slaying the evil and savage blacks. This film caused almost immediate riots and protests, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People claimed that the movie was historically incorrect, and entirely racial propaganda. However, when President Woodrow Wilson, a former history professor, viewed the film he proclaimed it not only historically accurate, but like “writing history with lightning.”
The “purity of white womanhood” played an important role in this film. Moral purity, specifically woman’s sexual purity, is threatened by the impurity of African American men. White men were very sensitive to the subject. Most white Americans were already racist, and this movie, as the Wild West show, helped reinforce their hatred.
There are many analogies made about commercial life and theater. One could say that in commercial life everybody is an actor, nobody is truly him or herself. People get dressed up in business suits with ties, talk in a different dialect, and try to appeal to others in order to succeed. Every actor, as every corporate person, has their own role that they must fulfill for the “show” to go on. In any case, theater was becoming a very important part of America. With the invention of home televisions, the media began to dominate our lives. In today’s age, almost all of our decisions are influenced on some level by Hollywood. Making the media a great engine for propaganda.
In “Hazard of New Fortunes, Howell mentions of Dryfoos’ business with Standard Oil, and the company’s manipulation of the market to make Dryfoos’ sell his oil wells. It is safe to assume that Howell personally is not a fan of Rockefeller or any eminent capitalist for that matter. Living in the era, Howell must have been able to see the direction into which things were moving with the rise of corporations.
On the day of the Ludlow Massacre, twenty men, women, and children were killed. Ludlow coal miners went on strike against Colorado Fuel & Iron Company in response to low wages, and overall unfair practices of the corporation. The company retaliated against the strike by activating company guards, hired private detectives and strikebreakers, in a fourteen-hour long shootout, resulting in a massacre. Rockefeller, who had twenty million dollars invested in the company, was blamed for these events, and would struggle for years to redress the situation.
Rockefeller’s version of the events: (June 10, 1914)
There was no Ludlow massacre. The engagement started as a desperate fight for life by two small squads of militia against the entire tent colony. There were no women or children shot by the authorities of the State or representatives of the operators. While this loss of life is profoundly to be regretted, it is unjust in the extreme to lay it at the door of the defenders of law and property, who were in no slightest way responsible for it. (PBS.org)
Ivy Lee, sometimes credited as a founder of public relations, worked for Rockefeller Jr. following the years of the massacre. Lee planted pro-Rockefeller propaganda into capitalist-owned newspapers to maintain public support and interest, and eventually repair Rockefellers’ reputation. “Crowds are led by symbols and phrases,” said Ivy Lee.
As the rate strikes were occurring, it was evident to Lee that future unrests would occur unless some kind of innovation was emplaced. Thus, came the birth of company unions – a way to give workers an illusion of democratic control. In Rockefeller’s case, to keep unions under the thumb of the corporation, phony unions were setup before the workers would be able to start legit ones.
CF&I was one of the first companies to organize a union, and would serve as an example to the rest of the industry. Company unions were outlawed in 1935, although many continued under the name of “independent unions.”
Clearly not everyone was happy with the growth of Corporate America. Tom Watson, a successful southern lawyer, who later became a democratic Senator, published numerous magazines, including the nationally published Tom Watson’s Jeffersonian Magazine, soon emerged as the leader of the Populist Party, a party, against corporate domination. Watson is a good example of an American who did not want to let go off the past Jeffersonian beliefs of farming and rural lifestyle.
Watson’s popularity can be accredited to the growing mass of poor farmers in the South and the Midwest whose economical status was nearly destroyed due to industry growth. Watson was also successful in appealing to whites and blacks because he chose a common enemy, corporate domination. Towards the end of the century, as racial tensions grew, Watson’s magazines become much more racist, and ultimately the magazines were attacking blacks, Jews, Socialists, and Roman Catholics.
To summarize, at the turn of the century, the South was turned upside-down because of its defeat in the Civil War, while the North was changing dramatically with the growth of corporations due to the profits made from the war. Both the South, and the North, were changing, many people were left without jobs, and the ones who had jobs, were underpaid and mistreated. There wasn’t really an easy way for a country to go through such a dramatic change, many of the principles invented during this transitional period are still with us today.