1928 Hoover, "We in
America are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in thie
history of any land. We shall soon
be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this
nation."
1928 consumer
spending falling,
slowdown in construction.
Black Monday, October
28, 1929.
Oct - Dec. 1929,
unemployment
jumped to over 4 million.
By 1931, 5000 banks
closed.
1933 over 25%
unemployment.
1929-1933, GNP fell 29%,
construction down 78%, manufacturing down 54%.
Steel industry operating
at 12% of capacity.
1932 Ford Hunger
march, Detroit.
United Automobile
Workers - Nov. 1936, sit-down strikes Cleveland & Flint, Mich.
GM forced to recognize
union.
Calls for “science
holiday”; fears of devastating weapons, desire for social readjustment to
rapid technological change;
Fear of technological
unemployment - mechanization making industry too efficient.
Railroad unions - over
28,000 workers displaced 1920s by the automatic loading machines, electric
track circuits.
U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics – 1921-1930 almost 72,000 jobs in Bell System vanished;
"talking
pictures" displaced almost 10,000 musicians 1929-1931; John Steinbeck
Grapes
of Wrath
1939 Mike Mulligan
and the Steam Shovel
1939-1940, Congressional
hearings.
Scientists, engineers
& businessmen - idea that technological change remained key to national
progress – would bring wonderful new consumer goods. Insisted that mechanization necessary
to cut labor costs, which would generate ever-increasing consumer demand.
1930s continuous-sheet
machine production, "It almost makes a fellow go crazy thinking about...
the thousands of jobs it will eliminate.
It's terrific."
"trouble-making
Communists, Socialists, and sociology professors."
Technocracy movement
–
idea that technological change too fast for US institutions to handle.
1932, Columbia
University Dept of Industrial Engineering -"energy survey" - Howard
Scott;
juncture in economic
history
- before 1900, technological change slow; next three decades fast.
19th
century economy
like "a slow-moving ox-cart which suffered little damage in
collision";
20th C like "a high-speed racing car hurtling down a
highway."
data - industrial
employment peaked in 1918 & declined thereafter, although production had
continued to increase until 1929.
new economic system for
the Power Age, "derived from the nature of the machine itself."
measurement in
foot-pounds.
Need for US "to
maintain a thermodynamically balanced load" across all industrial
production.
managed economy,
government run by engineers.
Introduction to
Technocracy, The ABC of Technocracy.
Hoover - economy still
"sound & prosperous".
Treasury secy Andrew
Mellon - crisis was "not altogether a bad thing. Enterprising people will work harder, live a more moral life
& pick up the wrecks from less competent people".
1932 election - Democrat
Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
"the only thing we
have to fear is fear itself".
New Deal, "alphabet
soup" of agencies.
Civilian Conservation
Corps (CCC) - three million young Americans building parks.
Works Progress
Administration (WPA) - 8 million build bridges, dams, & schools, libraries,
airports, playgrounds, hospitals & roads.
Rural Electrification
Administration (REA).
1910, US behind Europe
in extending electric power to rural areas. 66% of farmers in Germany, France,
and Scandinavia by late 1920s.
90% of US farmers unable
to get distribution lines;
State fairs, ag expt
stations promotive “electro agriculture,” Thomas Edison: “For
the farm, electricity should kill every danger of frost. It should draw water at practically no
cost to overcome all dangers of drought, and it should even dry the soil when
too great a rainfall threatens crops.”
GE &
Westinghouse–
electric threshing machines, corn huskers, electric pumps, butter churns.
farmers installed own
generating systems – windmills,
1935 only one out of
nine US farms had electricity –esp rare in Midwest & South.
FDR, “Cold figures
do not measure the human importance of electric power in our present social
order. Electricity is no longer a
luxury, it is a definite necessity.”
REA 46 states -
progressive
engineer Morris Cooke;
1936-37, 73,000 miles of
electric lines
1941, reaching over
900,000 Americans;
1933 FDR Tennessee
Valley Authority (TVA) - dams & hydroelectric plants along Tennessee
River.
[precedent –
Hoover Dam, Colorado River, electricity to seven states, irrigated one million
farm acres).
many purposes - control
floods; cheap hydroelectric power; support economic development, industrial
growth, rural electricity, social improvement.
civil engineer Arthur
Morgan - efficiency.
rivers & valleys as
systems.
Engineering as social
& economic planning.
EC recovery starting
1933,
FDR national radio
“fireside
chats".
chemurgy - farm products
for industrial uses;
technology as social
solution;
1939 New York World's
Fair - "The World of Tomorrow".
Trylon & Perisphere;
45 million visitors;
message of US
greatness even
in Depression.
Corporation
exhibits:
Westinghouse
"Battle of the Centuries" - Mrs. Drudge vs. Mrs Modern.
AT&T dial
system.
DuPont "Wonder
World of Chemistry" – “better things for better living" -
"Miss Chemistry".
GE “House of
Magic”.
RCA television.
Westinghouse - humanoid
robot Elektro.
GM
"Futurama" –
city of 1960 - “I Have Seen the Future”.