Reconstruction, Expansion, and the Triumph of Industrial Capitalism 33ical, raise himself from the days-pay condition to a little business of his own.
.. Today the opportunity to start in his business for himself has been thrust
from him by the greedy hand of the great manufacturers.... The man who
can rise from the wage condition in these days must catch a windfall from his
uncle or [find] a bank unlocked.”
Proletarianization came with urbanization as well. Cities grew quickly with
industrial development because factories were centrally located. Earlier, fac-
tories used water as their energy source and had to be located near rivers or
canals, but as steam power emerged manufacturers could build plants in urban
areas with better access to railroads, raw materials, consumer markets, and, of
course, workers. By 1900, 90 percent of manufacturing took place in cities,
and their population soared. In fact, urban population grew at twice the rate
of the general population. In 1860, only New York, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn
had over 250,000 people. By 1890, 11 cities were over that with Philadelphia
over 1 million and New York over 1.5 million; Chicago, which had been at
100,000 in 1860, was also over 1 million by 1890. Cities also demonstrated
the social transformation that came with industrial capitalism, as the elite fac-
tory owners built huge mansions not far from the slums in which the workers
lived. Crime, disease, and poverty rose in the cities, but so did a new middle
class of skilled employees, professionals, white-collared workers, and mid-
level managers, among others. This, not surprisingly, led to a more consumer-
oriented society since this middle group had money to spend, and advertising
and mass-marketing emerged. In barely a generation, rural America was
upended and the modern city was born.
These cities also grew in large part due to immigration. Just as it is today,
immigration was a vital component to economic activity. Where many point
to immigration as a cultural or ethnic issue, it was [and is] essentially a labor
issue. Immigrants have always come to the United States to work, and that
was the case in the late 19th Century. Indeed, the largest wave of immigration
in history at that point occurred in the post-Civil War era. About 10 million
people, mostly from Europe [and a lesser number of Asians] arrived in America
between 1860-1890. In the1880s, 5.25 million arrived, more than the previ-
ous 19th century combined. Railroad and Steamship companies, among oth-
ers, advertised in Europe, China, and elsewhere about the glories of U.S.
democracy, but in fact were looking for cheap labor, which they secured in
great numbers. By 1900, these factors–the move from agriculture to industry,