26. Week 4 Virtual Classroom
Towards a Consumer Culture
Mini-Lecture 4: Marketing to the Masses,
Leisure Time and Public Recreation,
Entertainment for the Masses and Uplifting
the Masses
In the week 4 virtual classroom we focus on ...
For this mini-lecture our topics will be ...
Modernity and It’s Discontents
The Issue of Perspective Efficiency and Productivity vs. Surveillance and Control
Ex. Women's Work in the New Department Stores
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he Workplace Transformed
Science in the Kitchen with Crisco “For the Modern Household”
What Was Crisco and What Did Crisco Replace?
Mass production has historical roots that stretch back into the first half of the 19th Century, when manufacturers of weapons developed a process for making weapons with interchangeable parts. The system was known as the "American System of Manufacture."
Mass Production built on ideas developed in the Disassembly Lines used for butchering Hogs and the conveyor belts used in Canning. The impact of these technologies on workers was not always as positive as it was on the companies' bottom lines, as the monotony and stress these rational processes created took it's toll.
One critical invention on the way to organizing industrial work was the Time Clock Patented in 1889. This allowed business owners and managers to track workers' time on the job.
In addition to inventions like the time clock, theories of management control evolved in this period. Named after Frederick Taylor, “Taylorism” was an approach to maximizing efficiency that sought a “One Best Way” to any given job,.
Men like Taylor and efficiency expert Frank Gilbreth provided management with the rationalization and approaches to work that allowed them to get the last bit of effort out of each worker. Gilbreth became famous for his Time and Motion Studies, which mapped the most effective way to do any given task and eliminated all unnecessary motions. The work of a shoemaker, for instance, could be divided Into 40 steps.
The domestic sphere also became a site for rationalizing work process, as the reading on “Home Economics” in your text make clear.: Take a moment to compare the two recipes for Apple Pie (p. 185). More technology did not mean an easier life for women, indeed labor saving machines often meant “More Work for Mother.” The nature of that work is highlighted in Christine Frederick discussion of Scientific Management in the Home (p. 187).
Pointers to more information on Frederick Taylor, Frank Gilbreth and Christine Frederick can be found at the wikipedia site.
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Making Motion More Efficient: “The Science of Repetition” Image by Frank Gilbreth
Embedded in this week's folder in Blackboard are silent films made by Frank Gilbreth as part of his time and motion studies.
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In the week 4 virtual classroom we focus on ...
For this mini-lecture our topics will be ...
Modernity and It’s Discontents
The Issue of Perspective Efficiency and Productivity vs. Surveillance and Control
Ex. Women's Work in the New Department Stores
Welfare capitalism was an attempt by businesses to “Humanize the Business System,” Companies built recreational and social facilities for the use of workers to offset the monotony and routine of the workplace. Least we believe that this was pure altruism on the behalf of business owners, there is considerable evidence that welfare capitalism was also an attempt to take away some of the motivation for worker organizing. The account of the Amoskeag Mills “Did All This in Harmony” (p. 189) – shows Welfare Measures taken in response to the Strike of 1922. Other readings in your text point to assimilation techniques known as Americanization, for instance the reading entitled “I Hear the Whistle. I Must Hurry” is taken from an English language text. Picture of Men’s Bathroom at NCR in 1900
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Another major concept in the relationship between capital and labor in this period is Fordism. Named after it's proponent Henry Ford, Fordism comes from the marriage of Mass Production + Mass Consumption that Ford achieved by paying workers enough to allow them to buy the cars they made.
Starting in 1908 with the Model T, Ford's Assembly Line could Putting Together a Car in 2 Hours. Negative Effects on Workers included Monotony, Boredom and Strain. There was extremely high personnel turn over on the assembly line. So in 1914: Ford Introduced 5 Dollar Day to Meet Problem of Retaining Workers. In the bargain workers had to agree to Americanization through English language classes as the image Out of the Melting Pot and accompanying text in your book make clear.
Highland Park, Michigan Plant (Outside Detroit) is now the site of Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. Today's Detroit has seen better days, as a recent NYT Times photo essay entitled
Detroit's Beautiful Horrible Decline graphically illustrates.
Pointers to more information about Henry Ford and "Fordism" can be found at the wikipedia site.
Here is an illustration of a Ford assembly line.
The stresses and strains of industrial life are illustrated in this image from your text.
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1914 Cartoon Entitled “The Hurry Habit”
With the progress of industrialization, we also saw the Rise of White-Collar Work and the growth of the Sales Profession. Once self-employed small business owners and farmers, Americans increasingly took on Salaried Work. From Mail Boy to CEO all worked for a wage, albeit some worked for larger wages than others.
The new white collage industrial work place was segregated by Job Type. In the new department stores, Women would work as clerks in women's goods and men in sporting goods and other "male" preserves. There was even a separate Women’s Entrance to Met Life Building in New York City.
Patterns of Work Governed by Race and National Origin as Well. African Americans’ Participation in the world of white collar work was limited. Most African American women, for instance, were still employed in some sort of domestic service. Beulah Nelson’s Protest “She Didn’t Fire Me – I Fired Myself!” (p. 196)
Department Stores were both the locales of White Women’s Work and the place where they shopped as consumers.
In the 1890s Charles Dana Gibson’s Ladies’ Home Journal spread the image of the Gibson Girls, fashionable women dressed in department store attire.
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In the week 4 virtual classroom we focus on ...
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Modernity and It’s Discontents
The Issue of Perspective Efficiency and Productivity vs. Surveillance and Control
Ex. Women's Work in the New Department Stores
New standards of living were built on the output of industrializing America. Instead of buying from open bins, consumers could now buy Pre-Packaged Goods like Oats and Flour. Yet there was Unequal Distribution of New Goods and Services. Increasingly division arose between Rich and Poor, Skilled and Unskilled.
All did not share equally in the New Services such as Electrical Service, Indoor Plumbing, and the new manufactured Furnishings,
Industrialization also meant, ironically, More Work For Mother. Higher Standards of Cleanliness quickly eliminated any leisure created by the new household appliances.
In a picture in WBA entitled “Cottages for the Working Man” you see the kind of House Workers in The Jungle Would Have Inhabited.
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Picture of “Privy” in Working Class Neighborhood
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The Bottom Line: Chart of Family Budgets in Homestead, PA
The 1879 invention of the Electric Lamp by Thomas Edison allowed businesses and then homes to extend the hours of light to create the 24X7 society we have today. Pointers to more information about Thomas Edison can be found at the wikipedia site.
The Delivery System for Power and Electricity would need to be extended to deliver the power that made electrification possible.
But when it came to cities electrification had a major Impact on Hygiene. Replacing Horses by Electric Street Cars eliminated a huge horse manure problem in the cities of America,
As people moved out of the busy downtown areas where the "night life" took advantage of the new electric lights, we also saw the growth of a trend towards Suburbanization …
Ironically, the New Technology in Workplace also enabled business to take on 24X7 Operations. Workers first encountered electrification in the workplace before their residences. This often meant odd shifts and could mean longer work hours.
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Chart of Uses of Electric Energy (1902-1930): Who Gets the Technology First? Businesses or Residences?
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In order to bring their products to a national audience, large corporations developed standardized messages they would deliver to all markets across the nation. Local Markets would be overshadowed by National Markets, To illustrate the way that national marketers imposed products on the local market, your book gives the Example of Ivory Soap in 1880s. Tracking the Rise of new Advertising Revenue Models and Market Segmentation, your text includes an Illustration of “Picturesque” America featuring a crowded square full of billboards - Is the America Really Picturesque?
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Modernity and It’s Discontents
The Issue of Perspective Efficiency and Productivity vs. Surveillance and Control
Ex. Women's Work in the New Department Stores
The Struggle Over Amusement: Gender, Race, Class and Ethnicity in Leisure Activities
The era of Mass Production was also the era of Mass Entertainment. As workers began to work 8 hours a day, they had 8 hours to sleep and 8 hours of free time. Time which they passed in Dance Halls and
Amusement Parks. In the following two graphs, we see the Workday patterns from 1840-1896 and Workweek patterns from 1900-1972.
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Rather than charging a premium for each customer, the owners of new entertainment venues adopted the Business Model of “Making it Up on Volume.” It was better to get 5 quarters than one dollar. Vaudeville performers and Magic Lanterns joined silent film
in the Nickelodeons and Early Theaters.
Americanization took place at the "movies," as silent films became known, but also through Sports. But sports divided along class lines as well. As Middle Class Values Encountered Working Class Leisure, the protectors of Middle Class Morality felt compelled to uplift the masses as they were entertained. Instead of the boxing rink, middle class and wealthy reformers built libraries and museum. Yet, so too did unions. Union members faced the choice: Union Reading Room or Public Library?
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The Library of Congress has an expensive collection of early silent films made by the Edison Company and other.
Since many films of this era in the public domain, some have been uploaded to the Internet Archive. I have embedded some of these in the weekly folder in Blackboard.
The Library of Congress has begun to put some of these early silent films on their YouTube Channel. This short clip from the Leonard-Cushing Fight is available through the Library of Congress YouTube channel, and I have added it to your virtual classroom playlist for this week.