B
y the 1890s, the Second Industrial Revolution, a second period in
US history where industry and transportation transformed US soci-
ety and economy, had been in effect for nearly twenty-five years and
had produced a mature consumer culture and a certain degree of lei-
sure and luxury for the American middle classes. Although laboring
Americans continued to do often backbreaking and underpaid work, they also
began to desire the consumable goods and leisure activities that were available
to middle-class workers. Immigrants and their descendants, especially, began to
imagine themselves as taking part in what came to be known as the “American
Dream.”
The first half of the twentieth century saw astounding flux in the American
economy and culture at large. Middle-class Americans reacted with some ambiv-
alence to the rise of big business and urban political machines. While many
Americans celebrated success, others saw the rising inequality and corruption as
threats to traditional American republicanism and free-market ideology. From
these concerns arose an organized and activist reform movement that sought
government regulation of elements of the economy and greater democracy in the
political arena.
In the midst of this flux, the Great Depression shook the nation to its foun-
dations and inaugurated the creation of a limited welfare state through Franklin
Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.Seeking the Main Point
As you read the documents that follow, keep these broad questions in mind.
These questions will help you understand the relationship between the doc-
uments in this chapter and the historical changes that they represent. As you
reflect on these questions, determine which themes and which documents best
address them.•
Trace the ways in which technological and transportation changes in the late
nineteenth century shaped the lives of Americans, both for better and for
worse, and the ways in which Americans took advantage of these changes
and also rebelled against them.•
Consider the ways in which reformers and government programs sought to
solve some of the economic and social problems of this era.•
How did reformers and government programs seek to control the social and
environmental effects of the Second Industrial Revolution? To what extent
were they successful?•
Trace continuities and changes in Americans’ sense of themselves as a nation
throughout this period.362 Chapter 16 | prosperity and reform | period seven 1890 –1945 tOpIC I | the Consumer’s City^36317_STA_2012_ch16_361-380.indd 362 01/04/15 2:29 PM