Reconstruction, Expansion, and the Triumph of Industrial Capitalism 37Workers’ Culture, and the Challenge to Capitalism
Major economic changes–like the triumph of Industrial Capitalism–change
culture, the way people live and work, as well. Workers, in the period after
the Civil War especially, saw huge shifts in the way they lived and worked. In
pre-industrial times, laborers had a great deal of independence. They tended
to their fields or worked at their crafts according to the seasons or simply their
own schedules. As the well-known historian Herbert Gutman discovered,
there was no well-established “protestant work ethic” in colonial America or
the early Republic years. In fact, many of the founders worried that manu-
facturing would never succeed because American workers were not diligent
or industrious enough. As John Adams explained, "manufacturers cannot live,
much less thrive, without honor, fidelity, punctuality, and private faith, a sacred
respect for property, and the moral obligations of promises and contracts."
An industrial labor force, Adams was saying, would have to be hard-working
and obedient. Many, such as Benjamin Franklin, lamented workers’ habits,
like going to saloons and “celebrating” Saint Monday. Since craftsmen often
FIGuRE 1-8 New York City tenement