Industrialization and the Transformation of American Life: A Brief Introduction by Jonathan Rees (review)

This textbook covers the era between the Civil War and 1920. It is in no way a history of industrialization. Rather it considers “the transformation of American life” in light of industrialization. The simplistic argument is that “industrialization and its effects are the one underlying development from this period that affected everything else that happened” (p. vii). Jonathan Rees’s approach is thematic. Nine brief, idiosyncratic chapters with notes cover: “Varieties of Industrialization,” “The Labor Question,” “Immigration,” “Urbanization,” “The West,” “Environment,” “Transportation,” “The Politics of Industrialization,” and “Reform.” Not being a historian of the United States, I will limit this review to issues related to industrialization.

The discussion of industrialization and the Industrial Revolution (pp. xii–xvii) is troubling. Rees focuses almost exclusively on mechanization and the division of labor. His sense of the purpose of industrialization is indistinguishable from mass production. This work lacks an appreciation for the evolution of technological change, or the new forms of and uses for inorganic sources of energy. Also disquieting is Rees’s description of a factory (pp. 3–5): again, the role of power sources is absent. Developments also spring seemingly ex nihilo solely from within the United States. The emergence of a global marketplace not only for goods, but also for ideas, technologies, and labor is absent. In many places, this myopia leads Rees to make problematic assertions that seem a kind of unwitting American exceptionalism (pp. xiv, xvi–xvii, 6, 18, 45–46, 51, 62, 68, 85, 93, 102, and 108).

Rees has written previously about labor policy. As a result, his chapter on “The Labor Question” is clear, although the lack of reference to developments elsewhere leaves the discussion stilted and unconvincing. To this reviewer, the book’s implicit argument is that exploitation in the name of profit drove U.S. society in this era. Examples of exploitation—of workers, Native Americans, farmers, immigrants, etc.—are found in almost every chapter (pp. 8–13, 15, 17–24, 32–33, 37–39, 57, 63–66, 68, 72–74, 93–98, 110–11, and 115–16). They are so common as to suggest that Rees was trying to rouse the consciousness of students, but the absence of statistics considering the standard of living, wages, or life expectancy seems to suggest that this was not his goal. Missing from the book is a sense that one of the chief purposes of the concentration of labor, paternalism, and “welfare capitalism” was to control or even dominate the working classes, especially skilled laborers. Surprisingly, there is also no consideration of, much less answer to, that basic question of U.S. industrial history, namely whether the relative lack of skilled labor pushed technological development and the division of labor.

The epilogue asks: “Were the benefits of industrialization worth the costs?” (p. 121). Rees concludes correctly that “How you saw industrialization depends to a great extent upon the economic position from which you experienced it” (p. 123). No breakdown of the changing occupational contours of American society or examination of the regional winners and losers follows. Native Americans and Asian immigrants get some sustained attention, but African Americans and women are mentioned only in passing. In sum, Rees has the right questions, but does not really answer them in a manner that will be evident to undergraduates.

A thematic approach to this complex era makes sense. Rees’s portrayal, however, lacks a sense of change over time or process with reference to industrialization and technological capacity. He claims that “The first apartment building was built in New York City in 1869” (p. 54) and then moves on to discuss the cooperative and the tenement. The point is not that such buildings had existed in western Europe for a generation, but rather that although Rees mentions the creation of elevators, he does not explain or even allude to the ongoing technical evolution that underlay the widespread emergence of different types of dwellings...