THE RISE

INDUSTRIAL UNITED STATES

DRAFT
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
FALL 2007
SEVER 210, TUESDAY, THURSDAY, 2-3 PM
LOUIS HYMAN, LHYMAN@FAS.HARVARD.EDU
AND

FALL

OF THE

Industrialization and deindustrialization have defined the twentiethcentury experience in the United States. This course traces
industrializations emergence, global ascendance, and purported decline.
Connecting finance and politics with the everyday lives of factory workers
and office managers, this course charts the rise of Henry Fords world and
its undoing. Grounding the lectures will be the stories of three industries
that typified industrial America steel, textiles, and automobiles from
both the perspective of those who owned the manufacturing companies
and those who worked in them. Through the rise and fall of these
industries, we will come to understand why these companies succeeded
and failed, the changing relationship between labor and management, and
how these struggles have affected the country as a whole.
REQUIRED READING:
Alice Kessler-Harris, Out To Work
Neil Foley, White Scourge
Olivier Zunz, Making America Corporate
David Brody, Steelworkers in America
Jefferson Cowie, Capital Moves
Bruce Schulman, From Cottonbelt to Sunbelt
Richard Tedlow, Giants of Enterprise
William Cronon, Nature's Metropolis
Ruth Milkman, Farewell to the Factory
David Brody, Workers in Industrial America
GRADING:
20% Section attendance and participation
20% Midterm
30% Ten Page Paper
30% Final Exam
SECTIONS:
Sections are a crucial part of this class. In section, you will discuss the reading
for the week as well as the important themes of the lecture. Participation and
attendance are mandatory.
PAPERS:
All sources must be footnoted in the proper Chicago Manual of Style format. For
more information on footnoting, please see
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html and Kate Turabian
A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertation. Plagiarism will

not be tolerated.

LECTURES:
Introduction: Industrial America in American History
September 18: The Promise and The Danger of Industrialization
Week 1: Origins of American Industrialization
September 20: Organizing the American Factory
September 25: Workers in Antebellum Industry
Readings:
Alice Kessler-Harris, Out To Work, chapters 1-3
Herbert Gutman, Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America,
1815-1919,
American Historical Review (vol. 78, no. 3), p.
531-588
Week 2: The Road to the West
September 27: Factory Work and Railroad Capital
October 2: From Producer to Industrial Worker: Strikes of the Mid-19th Century
Readings:
William Cronon, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, chapter
2
Richard Tedlow, Giants of Enterprise, Andrew Carnegie, Chapter 1
Paper Assignment Handout in Class, October 2
Week 3: The First Deindustrialization
October 4: Carnegie, Frick, and Homestead
October 9: Moving West, Moving South
Readings:
Neil Foley, White Scourge, Chapters 1 and 3
Olivier Zunz, Making America Corporate
Week 4: Different Visions of Industrial America
October 11: Pure and Simple Unionism: Gompers and the AFL
October 16: Steel and Syndicalism
Readings:
David Brody, Steelworkers in America, Chapters 2-13
Samuel Gompers, Meat vs. Rice: American Manhood vs. Asiatic Coolieism:
Which Shall Survive?
Week 5: Henry Ford and His World

October 18: Finance, Technology and Fordism

October 23: Social Foundations of Fordism
Readings:
Antonio Gramsci, Americanism and Fordism
Frederick Taylor, Scientific Management
Richard Tedlow, Giants of Enterprise, Henry Ford, chapter 3
Week 6: The 1920s
October 30: General Motors and GMAC
November 1: Corporate Unionism and Welfare Capitalism
Readings:
David Brody, Rise and Decline of Welfare Capitalism in WIA
Jefferson Cowie, Capital Moves, chapter 1
Week 7: The Great Depression
November 6: Industrial Unionism: SWOC, UAW, CIO
November 8: The NLRB and the NRA: Labor and Capital in the New Deal
Readings:
David Brody, Thinking About Industrial Unionism in Workers in Industrial
America
David Brody, Emergence of Mass-Production Unionism in WIA
Week 8: Postwar Prosperity
November 13: MID-TERM
November 15: The Promise Realized and Forgotten: Fordist Prosperity and AntiCommunism
Readings:
Jefferson Cowie, Capital Moves, 2
Neil Foley, White Scourge, chapters 5, 7, 8
Richard Tedlow, Giants of Enterprise, Thomas J. Watson, Chapter 4.
Week 9: Bringing the State Back In
November 20: Corporate Agriculture
November 22:
NO CLASS THANKSGIVING
Readings:
Bruce Schulman, From Cottonbelt To Sunbelt
Jefferson Cowie, Capital Moves, 3
Week 10: Collapse
November 27: The Federal State and the New South
November 29: Failing to Organize the South
Readings:
Jefferson Cowie, Capital Moves, 4-7
Michael Honey, Operation Dixie: Labor and Civil Rights in the Postwar
South." Mississippi Quarterly 45(4): 439-452
Week 11: Post-Fordism and the Return of Inequality
December 4: The Decline of American Heavy Industry

December 6: The Decline of Unions and the Changing American Worker

Readings:
Ruth Milkman, Farewell to the Factory
Richard Tedlow, Giants of Enterprise, Sam Walton, Chapter 6.
Film: Roger and Me (1989)
Week 12: The End of Industrial America?
December 11: F.I.R.E. and McDonald's: After Industrialism
December 13: Global Production/American Production
Films:
(Optional) The Wire, 2nd Season (2003)
Paper Due in Class, December 11
Week 13: Industry with the History of Capitalism
December 18: Industrialization and Deindustrialization in Historical Perspective