20th Century
Shen
Did the Benefits of Industrialization Outweigh the Costs?
Historical Context: In the United States, the period between the Civil War and WWI saw tremendous
industrial and commercial expansion. Americans have long had faith in the idea of progress, and many people
viewed this economic growth as evidence of the superiority of the American system. But while increased
production did improve the general standard of living, industrialization concentrated wealth and power in the
hands of a few captains of industry. For the thousands of Americans who worked in the new factories and
mines, however, this economic revolution meant long hours, low wages, and dangerous working conditions as
economic growth increasingly touched every aspect of American society. It created both new opportunities
and new social problems.
Essay Assignment: Using information from the documents provided and your knowledge of U.S. history,
write a well-organized essay in which you assess whether the benefits of industrialization outweighed the costs.
Your essay should incorporate information on the advantages and disadvantages of industrialization to
American society between 1865 and 1914, including a discussion of how it affected different groups of people
in American society.
NOTE: You should approach this question in light of what we knew back at the turn of the century (i.e. the
immediate impacts of industrialization, including the impact on cities, immigration patterns and related issues,
new technologies, etc.)
GENERAL REQUIREMENTS:
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The essay needs to follow the guidelines for an analytical, five-paragraph essay. It should have at least five
paragraphs, an argumentative thesis statement, specific historical examples, and quotations.
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The length requirement is 3-4 pages, double-spaced, typed, 1-inch margins, font size 12. Please use
TIMES NEW ROMAN or something comparable. Please number your pages.
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Title: Center the title on the first page of your essay. A title should give the reader the essay topic. If you
decide to use a catchy title, make sure that you include the topic of the essay.
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You should have at least one DIRECT quotation in each developing paragraph. You will be given
sources from which to draw your evidence, and you can also use your textbook. DO NOT USE THE
INTERNET.
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Please use Chicago Manual Style (footnotes) for your citations. See below for information on how to cite
each one of the sources you use.
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A note on plagiarism: Copying and pasting—either parts or whole essay—from the internet is also
cheating. Don’t do it. I am asking you not to use the internet for a reason. The reasoning behind this
policy is multifaceted: (1) Not all information on the internet is reliable; and, more importantly, (2)
Someday, when you are in college, you will have to use actual books—lots of them—to do your research.
Consider this to be good practice. See your student handbook if you need a review for the consequences
of cheating.
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Don’t forget to SPELL CHECK your essay and check your grammar! I recommend reading your essay
aloud to proofread.
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I will remind you, my policy on late work (including papers) is that the final grade drops a full letter
grade each day it is late (i.e. an A paper is automatically a B paper if it is turned in one day late.) You
MAY use a homework pass(es) if you need to – that’s what they’re there for.
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As always, I am available for extra-help by appointment before school or during the day (blocks 2, 4, and
7). You are always welcome to swing by my office to see if I’m in; if I’m not, please leave me a note so I
that know you were there. I am more than willing to discuss your ideas with you, talk through your
outline, discuss a draft, etc., just let me know how I can help. You know where to find me.
HOW YOU WILL BE GRADED:
1. CONTENT: Do you include historical content in your essay? Do you use the sources that were made
available to you? Do you have a solid thesis statement? Do you back up your points with specific
evidence? Do you make a clear and coherent argument?
2. WRITING MECHANICS: Proofread for technical errors, which include proper use of commas and
semicolons, apostrophes and capitalization. Please carefully proofread your essay. You should also focus
on how to make your writing “flow.” Pay attention to sentence-to-sentence transitions, and make sure to
vary your sentence structure.
3. ORGANIZATION: The thesis statement and topic sentences are the skeleton of the essay. Without a
solid skeletal frame, the examples have nothing to hold onto! So be sure that your essay has very clear
topic sentences that support the thesis statement. Topic sentences should be analytical and argumentative—
not descriptive. See me if you need help on this.
MORE INFORMATION ON WRITING A DBQ
The essay question you have been given is a document-based question. This means that you will read and analyze
a series of documents, and use these documents to answer the essay question. This section of the essay handout is
meant to help you learn how to approach and use the documents effectively.
We will read the documents together in class and do brainstorming work that will help you answer the question.
Step 1: Reading and Analyzing the Documents
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Carefully read the question and think about what you already know about this topic. Write down any notes or
ideas that will be useful in your essay.
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Examine each document and underline key phrases or quotes that you will later use as evidence in your essay.
Basically you want to find quotes that will support the argument you are making. Be prepared to explain what
the significance of your underlined passages is.
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Prepare a detailed outline for your essay. (optional)
Step 2: Writing the Essay
1. Introduction: Give some background information about your topic (set the historical stage). Make sure you
give your reader enough information so that he or she knows what you are talking about. End your introduction
with your thesis statement. I repeat: The last sentence in your introduction should be your thesis. Make sure your thesis
addresses the fundamental question of the essay (see page 1); if you choose, you can elaborate and/or put it in
your own words, but your thesis should definitely address the above question.
2. Body Paragraphs: Each body paragraph (AT LEAST THREE) needs to start with an analytical topic sentence.
Your topic sentence needs to make an argument that supports your thesis. Use quotations and references to
support the argument. ALWAYS remember to analyze, or explain, how the quotations and evidence you use
support your thesis. At the end of each paragraph, you should explain how the evidence you presented in that
paragraph AS A WHOLE connects back to your argument.
NOTE: When using evidence from the documents, do not refer to them as “documents.” Rather, refer to them
by their title (if available) or the author.
Always make sure to properly “introduce” the document before you quote from it. For example:
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Andrew Carnegie argued that “Blah blah blah.”
Despite evidence to the contrary, Jacob Riis maintained his argument that “blah blah blah.”
According to Charles Sumner, “Blah blah blah.”
Remember to use AT LEAST ONE quotation in each paragraph. All told, you should make use of AT LEAST
FIVE separate documents (at least 3 direct quotes and at least 2 specific references).
3. Conclusion: Here is where you spend one paragraph summarizing your findings without being blatantly
repetitive. You will need to re-emphasize your thesis as well as your main pieces of evidence without writing them
exactly the same way over again. After you do this, you need to give your reader some additional insight into the
topic. For example, explain why these issues are important in the long run, or elaborate on the historical
significance of these particular issues.
Pre-Writing
Directions: To get you started on your essay, please begin brainstorming the benefits and costs of industrialization
below. Be sure to include more than the general points for either side. Consider the various documents we’ve studied in
class thusfar and begin using these documents to support your case on either side.
Benefits of Industrialization
Costs of Industrialization
Industrialization/Immigration Sources:
• Capitalist Philosophies
• John Spargo’s, The Bitter Cry of Children excerpt
• Notes from the text, p. 604-620, 593-596
• Knights of Labor Constitution
• “Melting Pot”, “In America it is no better,” Assimilation: Two Views,” and “Ethnic Pride and Preservation”
readings
• Immigration restrictions
• Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives excerpt
• Nativism sources
THE DOCUMENTS
NOTE: Documents 1-4 are new, while documents 5-12 are excerpts of documents already examined in class or in the
homework.
DOCUMENT ONE:
Citation: Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890).
Section 1. Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade
or commerce among the several states, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal.
DOCUMENT TWO:
Citation: Henry Demarest Lloyd, “The Lords of Industry,” North American Review 331 (June 1884).
Background: Lloyd (1847-1903) was an influential critic of the “Robber Barons.”
One of the sights which this coal side of our civilization has to show is the presence of herds of little children
of all ages, from six years upward, at work in the coal breakers, toiling in dirt, and air thick with carbon dust,
from dawn to dark, of every day in the week except Sunday. These coal breakers are the only schools they
know. A letter from the coal regions in the Philadelphia " Press " declares that " there are no schools in the
world where more evil is learned or more innocence destroyed than in the breakers. It is shocking to watch
the vile practices indulged in by these children, to hear the frightful oaths they use, to see their total disregard
for religion and humanity." In the upper part of Luzerne county, out of 22,000 inhabitants 3000 are children,
between six and fifteen years of age, at work in this way. " There is always a restlessness among the miners,"
an officer of one of the New York companies said, "when we are working them on half time." The latest
news from the region of the coal combination is that the miners are so dissatisfied with the condition in
which they are kept, by the suspension of work and the importation of competing Hungarian laborers in
droves, that they are forming a combination of their own, a revival of the old Miners and Laborers'
Association, which was broken up by the labor troubles of 1874 and 1875.
DOCUMENT THREE:
Citation: Andrew Carnegie, Wealth, 1889
Under the law of competition, the employer of thousands is forced into the strictest economies, among which
the rates paid to labor figure prominently, and often there is friction between the employer and the employed,
between capital and labor, between rich and poor. Human society loses homogeneity.
The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries,
is also great; but the advantages of this law are also greater still, for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful
material development, which brings improved condition in its train. But whether the law be benign or not, we
must say of it, as we say of the change in the conditions of men to which we have referred: It is here; we
cannot evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the
individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department. We accept
and welcome, therefore, as conditions to which we must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of
environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of
competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential for the future progress of the race.
DOCUMENT FOUR:
Citation: Anzia Yezierska, How I Found America.
I looked about the narrow streets of squeezed-in stores and houses, ragged clothes, dirty bedding oozing out
of the windows, ash-cans and garbage-cans cluttering the sidewalks. A vague sadness pressed down my heart,
the first doubt of America.
"Where are the green fields and open spaces in America?" cried my heart. "Where is the golden country of my
dreams?" . . . All about me was the hardness of brick and stone, the smells of crowded poverty.
DOCUMENT FIVE:
Citation: Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth, 1889
Background: Andrew Carnegie was a massively successful businessman - his wealth was based on the provision of
iron and steel to the railways, but also a man who recalled his radical roots in Scotland before his immigration to the
United States. To resolve what might seem to be contradictions between the creation of wealth, which he saw as
proceeding from immutable social laws, and social provision he came up with the notion of the "gospel of wealth".
He lived up to his word, and gave away his fortune to socially beneficial projects, most famously by funding libraries.
This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of Wealth; First, to set an example of modest, unostentatious living,
shunning display or extravagance; to provide moderately for the legitimate wants of those dependent upon him; and
after doing so to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds, which he is called upon to
administer, and strictly bound as a matter of duty to administer in the manner which, in his judgment, is best
calculated to produce the most beneficial results for the community—the man of wealth thus becoming the mere
agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom; experience, and ability to
administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.
DOCUMENT SIX:
Citation: John Spargo, The Bitter Cry of Children, (New York: Macmillan, 1906), 163–165.
Work in the coal breakers is exceedingly hard and dangerous. Crouched over the chutes, the boys sit hour
after hour, picking out the pieces of slate and other refuse from the coal as it rushes past to the washers.
From the cramped position they have to assume, most of them become more or less deformed and bentbacked like old men…The coal is hard, and accidents to the hands, such as cut, broken, or crushed fingers,
are common among the boys. Sometimes there is a worse accident: a terrified shriek is heard, and a boy is
mangled and torn in the machinery, or disappears in the chute to be picked out later smothered and dead…
From the breakers the boys graduate to the mine depths, where they become door tenders, switch boys, or
mule drivers. Here, far below the surface, work is still more dangerous. At fourteen or fifteen the boys assume
the same risks as the men, and are surrounded by the same perils…In the bituminous mines of West Virginia,
boys of nine or ten are frequently employed…Boys twelve years of age may be legally employed in the mines
of West Virginia, by day or by night, and for as many hours as the employers care to make them toil or their
bodies will stand the strain. Where the disregard of child life is such that this may be done openly and with
legal sanction, it is easy to believe what miners have again and again told me—that there are hundreds of little
boys of nine and ten years of age employed in the coal mines of this state.
DOCUMENT SEVEN:
Citation: Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759
By working for his own private gain, businessmen must produce as much as they can, and for the lowest
price. In order to sell his goods, he charges very little. This will help society as a whole, even though that was
not his purpose. The invisible hand thus directs selfish acts for the good of the community … Trust the
invisible hand, and not the government … [because] every person is a much better judge of what is good for
him than any President, governor or Congressman. When the government starts telling people what they
should do with their money, they are telling people how to mind their own business. This will make a bigger
mess than that which they tried to correct.
DOCUMENT EIGHT:
Citation: William Graham Sumner, “The Survival of the Fittest” (1885).
Background: Sumner was an influential Yale professor and Social Darwinist. He defended radical laissez-faire
as being justified by laws of evolution.
Competition is a law of nature. Nature is entirely neutral. She gives her rewards to the fittest. Men get from
nature just what they deserve; what they have and enjoy is always a result of what they can and do. This is the
system of nature. If we do not like it and try to change it, there is only one way we can do it. We can take
from the better and give to the worse. We can take the penalties from those who have done badly, and give
them to those who have done well. We can give the rewards to those who have failed in life. This might
lessen the inequalities. But, it shall favor the survival of the less fit, and shall be accomplished by destroying
liberty, and this would be foolish.
DOCUMENT NINE:
Citation: Knights of Labor, Preamble to the Constitution of the Knights of Labor, adopted January 3, 1878
The recent alarming development and aggression of aggregated wealth, which, unless checked, will inevitably
lead to the pauperization and hopeless degradation of the toiling masses, render it imperative, if we desire to
enjoy the blessings of life, that a check should be placed upon its power and upon unjust accumulation, and a
system adopted which will secure to the laborer the fruits of his toil; and as this much-desired object can only
be accomplished by the thorough unification of labor, and the united efforts of those who obey the divine
injunction that "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread," we have formed the * * * * * with a view of
securing the organization and direction, by co-operative effort, of the power of the industrial classes; and we
submit to the world the objects sought to be accomplished by our organization, calling upon all who believe
in securing "the greatest good to the greatest number" to aid and assist us…
DOCUMENT TEN:
Citation: “The Melting Pot”, The Immigrants in America Review, June 1915, p. 70-71
That what I learned during me short life in America: American means for an immigrant a fairy promised land
that came out true, a land that gives all they need for their work, a land which gives them human rights, a land
that gives morality through her churches and education through her free schools and libraries.
DOCUMENT ELEVEN:
Citation: H.J. Dabrowskis, “In America It Is No Better”, January 1909, 1910 or 1911
Dear Sister:
…My dear, in America it is not better than in out country: whoever does well, he does, and whoever does
poorly, suffers misery everywhere. I do not suffer misery, thanks to God, but I do not have much pleasure
either. Many people in our country think that in America everyone has much pleasure. No, it is just as in our
country…
DOCUMENT TWELVE:
Citation: Joseph Keppler, Puck, June 7, 1882
The raw Irishman in America is a nuisance, his son a curse. They never assimilate; the second generation
simply shows an intensification of all the bad qualities of the first… They are a burden and a misery to this
country. The time has come to clear the Irishman from ‘Uncle Sam’s Lodging House,’ where all races and
nationalities, except the Irish, get along with each other.
How to Use Endnotes/Footnotes
1.
Foot/endnotes should be written in the form of traditional number symbols (1, 2, 3, 4).
2. Each citation should have a different number, regardless of whether you are using the same source
multiple times.
3. Foot/endnotes should NOT be written in by hand – they should be integrated and typed into the text
using the instructions provided below.
4. Foot/endnotes should be incorporated in the paper after the following scenarios:
a. After using a direct quote from a text, person, or other resource.
b. After including important specific information, ideas, or arguments obtained from another resource or
text (i.e. statistics, factual information, author’s interpretation of an event, etc.)
c. As a general rule, it is better to over-cite than to under-cite and risk plagiarizing.
5. Format for endnotes and footnotes:
a. For books, textbooks, other secondary sources:
i. First and last name of author, Title of book, (city of publication, state: publisher, year), page
number where the information was found.
b.
For primary documents:
i. (If possible) First and last name of author, Title of document, (year written), page number (if
possible).
c.
For handouts used in class:
i. 20th Century, “Name of handout”, (date of class if known).
d.
For notes taken in class:
i. 20th Century, “Lecture notes from (insert date here)”, Ms. Shen, Lincoln-Sudbury Regional
High School.
6. How do you insert a footnote or endnote into the text of your paper?
a. Microsoft Word:
i. Place the cursor at the end of the sentence (after the period) and go to “Insert” on the toolbar
at the top of the screen.
ii. In the drop down menu, select either “reference” or “footnote” (depending on your version
of Word).
iii. This will bring up a box - make sure “AutoNumber” is selected and that the numbers are in
the traditional number form (i.e. 1, 2, 3, etc.)
iv. Hit “OK” and a number should be magically inserted into the text where the cursor was. You
will now be dropped down to the bottom of the page (or the end of the paper if you are using
endnotes) where you will fill in the details for the source (author, etc.)
b.
Pages or Apple Works:
i. Place the cursor at the end of the sentence (after the period) and go to “Format” on the
toolbar at the top of the screen.
ii. In the drop down menu, select “Insert Footnote”
iii. This should magically insert a number in the text where the cursor was. You will now be
dropped down to the bottom of the page (or the end of the paper if you are using endnotes)
where you will fill in the details for the source (author, title, etc.)