A People's Read-a-long: Week 11
My thoughts: Chapter 11, entitled "Robber Barons and Rebels," focuses on industrialization, the corresponding shifts in populations, and the rise of workers rights. On a personal note, there is something guilt-inducing about reading about the rise of the workers rights movement while on a blissful nine-day paid staycation.
Here are my favorite tidbits and trivia from this (long) chapter:
- I'm oddly fascinated by population shifts: "Between 1860 and 1914, New York grew from 850,000 to 4 million, Chicago from 110,000 to 2 million, Philadelphia from 650,000 to 11⁄2 million."
- A nice summation of this chapter (and book as a whole): "And so it went, in industry after industry—shrewd, efficient businessmen building empires, choking out competition, maintaining high prices, keeping wages low, using government subsidies."
- The Supreme Court was frightening: In 1886 alone, "the Court did away with 230 state laws that had been passed to regulate corporations."
- There were people paying attention and making sense, like Henry George: "His book Progress and Poverty argued that the basis of wealth was land, that this was becoming monopolized, and that a single tax on land, abolishing all others, would bring enough revenue to solve the problem of poverty and equalize wealth in the nation."
- "It was a time when revolutionary organizations existed in major American cities, and revolutionary talk was in the air." I have trouble imagining what that would look like today.
- A dirty truth about immigration: "There were 51⁄2 million immigrants in the 1880s, 4 million in the 1890s, creating a labor surplus that kept wages down. The immigrants were more controllable, more helpless than native workers; they were culturally displaced, at odds with one another, therefore useful as strike-breakers."
- "The year 1893 saw the biggest economic crisis in the country’s history. After several decades of wild industrial growth, financial manipulation, uncontrolled speculation and profiteering, it all collapsed: 642 banks failed and 16,000 businesses closed down. Out of the labor force of 15 million, 3 million were unemployed."
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The 13 1/2 hour work days were a shocker. I knew we didn't always have 8 hour days, or 5 day work weeks...but 13 1/2 hours?? Yowza.
ReplyDeleteI know! And to think some people still voluntarily subject themselves to those hours. I, for one, am very grateful for a 40 hour week and paid vacation time.
DeleteI love the way you summarize the interesting bits with bullet points. It gives me a good picture of what's been going on with this one, because frankly, I became very bored with it and stopped reading. A lot of it, I think, has to do with Zinn's style. For those who are used to reading novels and a lot of fiction, he can be a bit terse and likes to pounce on points over and over again. I wish I had done better with this one!
ReplyDeleteZibilee--I concur about it being completely non-narrative. I'm enjoying it, but I don't think I could make it if I were just reading it. Reading one chapter once a week in one sitting is the perfect balance for me.
DeleteI'm hereby nominating you as our official post writer! You do such a good job of summarizing the chapters and hitting the high notes. I get so bogged down by the sheer number of facts that I start to lose focus a bit. That was fascinating about the Reba history -- it would illuminate so much of what we are learning about. Though I would have thought that it was unusual for someone who started as an indentured servant to end up as a landowner. (As Zinn says in one of these chapters, the typical Horatio Alger rags to riches story is largely a myth.)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jenners! The Reba episode was fascinating. It was quite rare for it to work out that way, but I think he was lucky enough (and young enough) and so early to this country he was fortunate. I loved being able to exclaim with the historians and archivists "I knew that!" as they explained what it all meant to Reba. So fun, in the nerdiest of ways!
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