Interpreting Information

Chapter 18

Interpreting Information

Since the value of collecting information and composing a mock essay based on it lies in the doing, what follows is not a complete “answer” to the hypothetical essay test question.

What you see first is the notes entered in the blanks for the third Evidence Set.

Following the notes is a portion of a working draft of an essay in which the expanded notes have been incorporated. Notice that the student-writer’s conclusion is expressed in the opening sentence. (Your conclusion for Evidence Set Three does not have to be exactly the same conclusion as the one presented here. As long as your conclusion is a logical derivative of the evidence you have offered in your essay and if you have not ignored significant contradictory evidence, then your conclusion is acceptable.)

If your notes and entire working draft resemble what you see here, that’s enough.

The “answer” for the Interpreting Information exercise in Chapter 18 has been provided mainly to help you understand what is called for in most of the remaining Interpreting Information exercises in this study guide. Many of those exercises will not include a series of questions directing you to specific bits of information as the exercise for Chapter 18 does. What you will be given instead are aids (usually tables) like the one in the Organizing Information exercise for Chapter 17. You will have to ask yourself the questions that will direct you to the relevant, concrete, and specific information you will need in your essays. The “answer” to Chapter 18’s exercise illustrates the use of notes in the abbreviated form you will need to use when you enter them in the tables. For more complex tables, your notes will have to be even more abbreviated, just topics really.

Evidence Set 3 (Sample Notes)

Did the cost of living increase or decrease during the Machine Age? How much? Did incomes change in the same direction? As fast and as much as the cost of living?

NotesCost of living rose faster than wages. Avg. yearly wage up from $486 to $630 between 1890 and 1910. Cost of living up 47% from 1889 to 1913 for typical working-class family of four.

How did economic conditions affect the number and ages of persons in a working class family who worked outside the home for pay?

NotesWomen and children in families took jobs to boost family income by somewhere between 33% and 50%.

How did the nature of working class families’ expenditures change during the Machine Age? What items formerly considered luxuries, if any, were becoming necessities and what items formerly considered necessities, if any, were becoming luxuries?

NotesWorking-class families still had to spend disproportionate amount of family income on necessities, such as food (p. 524). About half of primary wage earner’s pay bought food. Expenditures increased for life insurance, amusements, alcoholic beverages, and union dues, though. Bought more on credit when companies like International Harvester and Singer Sewing Machine introduced innovative financing schemes for customers. Bought more clothing ready-made rather than producing clothing themselves or doing without extra outfits. Bought more perishable fruits and vegetables because of advances in canning and refrigeration.

What important technological innovations and scientific discoveries affected the healthfulness of and variety in the diet of American factory workers from 1877–1920? Did the diet of American workers and their families improve or decline? Were perishable foods and foods produced in other parts of the country more or less readily available to working class families? Why?

NotesWorking class families were not subjected to extreme malnutrition. Institution of big food chains like A&P meant food could be bought more cheaply than previously. Refrigeration, including home ice boxes, and canning technology, including an improved tin can, made perishable foods—including meat—available to just about everybody in greater variety (because what couldn’t be produced locally could be brought in from great distances) than ever before. New, nutritious foods, such as Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and Post Grape-Nuts, peanut butter, and condensed milk (Borden) developed as knowledge about vitamins and nutritional principles spread.

How did death rates and life expectancy change during the Machine Age? How did disease-caused deaths change? How did suicide, homicide, and vehicular death rates change?

NotesFrom 1900 to 1920, life expectancy rose by six years and death rate fell 24%. Some dread diseases, such as typhoid, TB, intestinal ailments caused fewer deaths. Illnesses that would affect older people more than younger people—such as heart disease and cancer—resulted in more deaths.

What changes in technology affected sanitation in the American home and the privacy of individuals in the home during the Machine Age? Did sanitation and privacy increase or decrease?

NotesIndoor toilets and private bath tubs both increased both privacy and sanitation. Greater understanding of germ theory made people more concerned about sanitation. Advances in refrigeration and canning reduced food spoilage.

What innovations affected the amount and kinds of clothing working class families had and who produced it? What was the effect of these innovations?

NotesIn 1850s Elias Howe and Isaac Singer perfected sewing machine enough to make it widely used in manufacturing. Increasingly clothing was mass produced for retail sale in years following Civil War. Clothing for middle and lower classes became more stylish and more comfortable partly because of department stores, which multiplied from end of Civil war and the turn of the century. Men’s clothing—other than laborers’ work clothes—became more lightweight and more seasonal. Work clothes for industrial workers did not change much.…

What, if any, opportunities opened up during the Machine Age that would make it reasonable for factory workers to think they or their children could move upward into the middle or upper economic classes? Were there any signs that people who might be seen as trapped on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder were taking advantage of whatever opportunities for their own or their children’s advancement were available?

NotesTwo paths to upward mobility gave hope: public education through high school and compulsory attendance laws gave many working-class youngsters a head start their parents did not have and the opening up of new service-industry clerical jobs offered better working conditions and sometimes opportunities for advancement. The Women’s Trade Union league pushed for apprenticeship programs and other educational programs to help women break into skilled trades.

Conclusion for Evidence Set 3

How did the overall quality of life change for the factory worker during the Machine Age (1877–1920)? Would it be reasonable for large numbers of such workers to look to the future with hope and optimism?

NotesImprovements in the standard of living resulting primarily from technological and marketing advances made living conditions—not counting those associated with the job—better during the Machine Age than they had been earlier.

Sample Section of the Working Draft of an Essay

(Based on Notes for Evidence Set Three)

Conditions off the job improved on the whole.Although wages did not keep pace with the cost of living, family income often did. The 47% rise in the cost of living experienced by a typical working-class family of four between 1890 and 1913 may not look good next to the improvement between 1890 and 1910 of only a little over 29% in the average yearly wage (from $486 to $630), but in many working-class families the pay of working women and children in the family boosted family income somewhere between 33 percent and 50 percent, and rent from boarders often helped, too. Working-class families still had to spend a disproportionate amount of the family income on necessities, about half the primary wage earner’s pay going to food, for example, but they were also spending more for things that most people would not call necessities, such as amusements and alcoholic beverages. Instead of making their own clothing or making do with the same old clothes for both weekday and Sunday wear, they were buying ready-made clothes—widely available because of the quickly multiplying department stores and more likely to be within their means because of mass production fostered by the spreading use in manufacturing of the Howe and Singer-improved sewing machine. And the food they bought was more varied and nutritious. Improvements in canning and refrigeration and the advent of innovations in marketing, such as chain grocery stores like the A&P, made more perishable fruits, vegetables, and meats both more available and more affordable. Advances in nutrition and sanitation meant that working-class families were likely to be healthier, too. Between 1900 and 1920 life expectancy rose by six years, and deaths caused by dread diseases such as TB and typhoid declined. More and more people understood the relationship between germs and disease, and the same sort of advances in technology that provided refrigeration and canning to reduce food spoilage also provided indoor toilets and bath tubs to advance both privacy and sanitation. Finally, working-class families began to enjoy the luxury of hope. The availability of public education through high school for their children and compulsory attendance laws and the opening up of opportunities to move into white-collar clerical positions gave parents and young people a vision of a better future.

Multiple-Choice Questions

1a. No. The use of precision machinery to make interchangeable parts was first seen as part of the “American system of manufacturing” during the first half of the nineteenth century. Therefore, the manufacture and use of interchangeable parts was well established long before the Ford Motor Company began operation in 1903. See pages 310-312.

1b. No. The machine-tool industry—the mass manufacture of specialized machines for various industries—was born in the 1820s, long before the Ford Motor Company opened for operation in 1903. See pages 310-312.

1c. Correct. When the Ford Motor Company began operation in 1903, it utilized mass production and, through use of the electric conveyor belt, introduced the moving assembly line at its Highland Park plant in 1913. This drastically reduced the time and cost of producing cars. See pages 310-312.

1d. No. Team production suggests that a team of workers is responsible for making and assembling the entire automobile. The Ford Motor Company was not organized in this way when it began operation in 1903. See pages 310-312.

2a. No. To increase efficiency in the work place, work was divided into specific tasks. A worker could then specialize in the repetitious performance of a given task in as little time as possible. Such a process does not increase the value of skilled labor. See page 313.

2b. No. Efficiency in the production of a product can lead to decreased production costs, higher profits, and higher wages. See page 313.

2c. No. In many cases efficiency in production leads to a reduction in the work force. For example, after studying the shoveling of ore, Frederick Taylor designed fifteen different shovels and outlined the proper motions for using each. As a result, a work force of 600 was reduced to 140. See page 313.

2d. Correct. Systems of efficiency, such as those espoused by Frederick Taylor, equated time with money. As a result, the time taken to perform specific tasks became as important as the quality of the end product. See page 313.

3a. No. This was not a distinction made by the Court in cases involving limitations on working hours. See pages 315-316.

3b. No. In striking down a maximum-hours law for bakers, the Court in Lochner v. New York held that the law violated the Fourteenth-Amendment guarantee that no state may deprive any person of property (wages) without due process of law. In this way, the Court applied the Fourteenth Amendment to state action. See pages 315-316.

3c. Correct. The Court’s decisions in the Holden, Lochner, and Muller cases demonstrated a narrow interpretation of what constituted a dangerous job and, therefore, of which workers needed protection. See pages 315-316.

3d. No. The Lochner v. New York case is evidence that the Court did not always uphold the regulatory powers of the states. See pages 315-316.

4a. No. Neither the Knights of Labor nor the American Federation of Labor advocated the use of violence against corporate power. See pages 316-317.

4b. No. Many of the goals of the Knights of Labor were long range, abstract, and vague. The objectives of the American Federation of Labor, in contrast, were much more specific and pragmatic. See pages 316-317.

4c. No. The Knights of Labor generally opposed strikes. See pages 316-317.

4d. Correct. The Knights of Labor welcomed all workers into its ranks, including women, blacks, and immigrants, and including both skilled and unskilled workers. In contrast, the AFL allowed only skilled workers, was openly hostile to women, and often excluded immigrants and blacks. See pages 316-317.

5a. No. This answer suggests that Congress was receptive to organized labor and to its demands at the time of the Haymarket riot in 1886. Reread the section on the union movement on page 317.

5b. No. Although the Haymarket riot was falsely identified in the newspapers and in the minds of many people as an “anarchist riot,” the government did not respond by putting military forces on alert. See page 317.

5c. Correct. As a result of strikes and labor unrest, a sense of crisis existed at the time of the Haymarket riot (May 1886) and increased as a result of the riot. This led to the consequences stated in the choice. See page 317.