TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS IN THE EARLY 1900S

Growing Cities and Crowded Conditions

Cities began to expand their boundaries into neighboring towns as the new middle class built Victorian-style homes at the edge of the streetcar line. (These may have been the first suburbs, but suburbs as we know them today didn’t really take shape until after World War II.) Most cities sprang up around a hub that served as the main shopping area. But small cities within cities were formed when immigrants settled in areas where they could live among members of their own culture. These little cities had their own shopping centers where traditional foods could be purchased, and churches or temples where religious traditions could be followed.

Although some wealthy families lived in rural areas, most chose to live in the heart of their city to be close to shopping and cultural entertainment. The very rich owned a country or weekend home to complement their city lifestyle.

Factories were built along rivers and railroads because they relied on these resources for power and transportation. As industries grew, new housing sprang up around them. Sometimes these simple wood bungalows were built by factory owners who rented them at high cost to their employees. Factory neighborhoods were the least desirable places to live in the cities because industrial waste produced soot, grime, and pollution that dusted the homes and choked the residents. When the middle and wealthy classes moved to the end of the streetcar line, they left behind housing that deteriorated as less well-to-do owners converted their homes into boarding houses. These were the first tenements, which were rented by new immigrants and displaced farm workers lured by new factories. As overcrowding worsened, open spaces between buildings were occupied by narrow apartments built by frugal businessmen, who exploited the housing shortage by squeezing as many small apartments as possible into these confined spaces.

These crowded conditions promoted diseases such as tuberculosis. Dozens of families shared facilities where germs bred easily. Many tenements lacked indoor bathrooms so tenants used public bath houses called natatoriums for bathing. Poorly paid workers could not provide nourishing food for their families. Doctors among the poor were few and far between. All these factors contributed to ill-health among the poor in urban centers.

The burgeoning cities were not equipped to respond to growing problems. Without enough police officers and firefighters, crime and fires raged out of control. The murder rate increased from 1.2 per 100,000 in 1900 to 6.8 per 100,000 in 1920. Without enough garbage collectors, refuse piled up in the streets of the cities and polluted the drinking water.

Americans Fund Research

At the turn of the century, many scientists believed that science held the answers to the diagnosis of virtually all illness. Perhaps it could help with the illnesses created by poverty and overcrowding. Weapons to fight cancer and other diseases were already on the brink of discovery.

Researchers were helped along through the generosity of wealthy philanthropists, such as John D. Rockefeller, who gave $7 million to be used in research for a tuberculosis serum. With the help of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, Dr. Wardell Stiles discovered the American species of hookworm in 1903 and began a campaign to eradicate the parasite. Andrew Carnegie founded the Carnegie Institute in Washington with $10 million to "encourage the broadest and most liberal manner of investigation, research and discovery, and the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind."

But it is ironic that, in the final analysis, the money to provide the Rockefeller- and Carnegie-funded research largely came from the labor of the very people who were suffering from diseases and poor living conditions. These magnates had become millionaires by manipulating ownership of the companies for which these immigrants toiled — companies where children worked very long hours for low pay, and where miners had no health or insurance benefits, and no right to strike for better conditions.

John D. Rockefeller. (1839-1937)

At the age of twenty, John D. Rockefeller was a bookkeeper earning $40 a month. By the time he was twenty-six, he was a wealthy man and would ultimately die the richest man in America. Although Rockefeller was believed to be the world’s first dollar billionaire, he could never verify this because he wasn’t sure how much money he actually had.

John D. Rockefeller was born in Richford, New York, but grew up in a home of modest means in Cleveland, Ohio, where he attended high school and business college. During the Civil War, Rockefeller went into the produce business with M. B. Clark. The young men sold produce to the U.S. Army where they earned a reputation for honesty in business.

Rockefeller married Laura Spelman, the daughter of a Cleveland businessman. At twenty-six, he was the image of respectability, dressed in a frock coat and top hat, and was the local school superintendent where his wife taught Bible classes.

While running the produce business, some executives asked Rockefeller to see if there were any lucrative possibilities involved in the sinking of the first oil well. He reported that there were no possibilities, immediately bought his own oil refinery, and began making enough money to buy other refineries. By 1880, he controlled most of the world’s oil markets. But he continued to be a frugal man who hated waste.

In fact, it was others’ wasteful business practices, poor business sense, and misfortunes that probably helped to make Rockefeller so wealthy as he bought more and more refineries and turned them into large trusts. Critics said that to build up his business during the late 1800s, Rockefeller induced stockholders of over forty small companies to turn over their stock to nine trustees who would manage the trusts. The stockholders received trust certificates and a share in the trusts’ profits, but no voice in the management. Before long, Rockefeller and his trustees owned enough refineries to control the oil business.

Rockefeller was also guilty of using unscrupulous business practices to obtain preferential shipping rates that his competitors couldn’t match. After demanding that railways charge higher shipping prices to his competitors, he then forced them to pay him a bonus out of the extra charges.

The trusts became the Standard Oil Company, which soon expanded its activities in many directions. The company built pipelines, oil storage tanks, and laboratories to develop additional uses of oil’s byproducts.

During the first decade of the twentieth century, Rockefeller’s investments came under scrutiny. A deluge of court cases flowed against various Rockefeller companies. On January 14, 1907, Standard Oil of New Jersey was indicted on 539 counts for accepting rebates from the shipping companies. Two weeks later, the Interstate Commerce Commission published a report describing Standard Oil’s methods of doing business as "a most scathing arrangement." On August 3 of that year, Standard Oil of Indiana was fined almost thirty million dollars for accepting rebates in violation of the Elkins Act. On May 19, 1907, the Commissioner of Corporations charged the Standard Oil Company with controlling transportation and maintaining a monopoly on the petroleum industry for thirty-five years. On January 1, 1908, a jury in Austin, Texas fined an affiliate, Waters Pierce Oil Company, over one and a half million dollars and advocated ousting Standard Oil from the state. In September 1908, Standard Oil was charged with violating the Sherman Antitrust Act, ultimately ending in the dissolution of the parent company. Roosevelt accused Standard Oil of "setting the pace in the for wealth under illegal and improper conditions."

With all his wealth, ill-gotten or not, Rockefeller was also involved in charitable activities all his life. In 1908, he gave one million dollars to combat hookworm disease, and in 1913, he donated money to develop the Rockefeller Foundation "to promote the well-being of mankind throughout the world." The work of the foundation continues today.