NEW DIRECTIONS IN AMERICAN LIFE

SECTION ONE: NEW INVENTIONS AND NEW IDEAS REVOLUTIONIZE AMERICAN INDUSTRY

Charles E. Duryea: Inventor who invented internal combustion engine

Charles Goodyear: discovered the process for vulcanizing, or hardening, rubber.

Orville and Wilbur Wright: first to fly in airplane.

Gugliemo Marconi: invents wireless telegraph

Lee De Forest: invented three-element vacuum tube. This invention made it possible to amplify communication signals.

Thomas Armat and Woodville Latham successfully operate motion picture projector.

New methods of production greatly increase productivity.

Henry Ford's use of the assembly line improved production.

Henry Ford also gave his workers a huge wage increase. Ford understood that mass production and mass purchasing power are interdependent.

["Ford Idea" increasing employee wages so they could buy the products they made.]

Efficiency engineering: Methods, based on Frederick W. Taylor's studies, used to simplify and speed up each production stage along an assembly line.

SECTION TWO:

LIVES OF FARMERS IMPROVE IN THE EARLY 1900'S

Subsistence farm: farm on which the farmer produces what is needed for survival.

Commercial farm: a farm where the farmer specializes in growing or raising a particular product (example: dairy cattle).

Scientific knowledge as well as power driven machinery helped to revolutionize farming.

a] shift from hand tools to power driven machines

b] chemists discovered new fertilizers

c] biologists improved the life span and productivity of livestock and plants.

(and check diseases)

Federal Aid to farmers came from the Department of Agriculture.

Morrill Act of 1862: agricultural colleges were established for agricultural research.

Hatch Act of 1887: provided money for agricultural experiment stations.

Smith-Lever Act of 1914: provided money for county extension agents.

Smith-Hughes Act of 1917: provided money for the support of vocational education in public

schools. (ag. and home ec.)

Farm families were no longer living in isolation thanks to the telephone, tin lizzie, and movies.

SECTION THREE: CONDITIONS IMPROVE FOR INDUSTRIAL WORKERS

Social legislation: laws passed to improve conditions for wage earners.

Freedom of contract: right of workers and employers to decide on terms of employment.

Minimum wage: employers could not ask a wage earner to work below this rate.

States rather than the Federal Government enacted most of the early social legislation.

Employer's liability Act: protected RR workers from costs of accidents.

IWW (Industrial Workers of the World)

Wobblies, as they were known, demanded the overthrow of the capitalist system by strikes, boycotts, and sabotage.