Industrialization and Urbanization in the United States, 1880–1929

Author(s):  
Jonathan Rees

Between 1880 and 1929, industrialization and urbanization expanded in the United States faster than ever before. Industrialization, meaning manufacturing in factory settings using machines plus a labor force with unique, divided tasks to increase production, stimulated urbanization, meaning the growth of cities in both population and physical size. During this period, urbanization spread out into the countryside and up into the sky, thanks to new methods of building taller buildings. Having people concentrated into small areas accelerated economic activity, thereby producing more industrial growth. Industrialization and urbanization thus reinforced one another, augmenting the speed with which such growth would have otherwise occurred. Industrialization and urbanization affected Americans everywhere, but especially in the Northeast and Midwest. Technological developments in construction, transportation, and illumination, all connected to industrialization, changed cities forever, most immediately those north of Washington, DC and east of Kansas City. Cities themselves fostered new kinds of industrial activity on large and small scales. Cities were also the places where businessmen raised the capital needed to industrialize the rest of the United States. Later changes in production and transportation made urbanization less acute by making it possible for people to buy cars and live further away from downtown areas in new suburban areas after World War II ended.

Author(s):  
Joseph T. Glatthaar

American Military History: A Very Short Introduction outlines the forces shaping the American military for the past 400 years. Since the colonial period, the United States has struggled to balance standing armed forces with citizen soldiers and sailors. Technological developments and two world wars forced the military to embrace professionalism and its increased obligations. The United States emerged from World War II in a strong position but failed to recognize the limits of its power, a legacy that some might say continues. Recent wars highlight some of the problems of a volunteer-dominated force. To succeed, the American military needs improved communication, understanding, and support.


1991 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew C. Janos

In the past thirty years the comparative study of communism as conducted in the United States has rested on two conceptual pillars: Weber's theory of routinization and Spencer's notion of progress through industrialism. This article points out some of the limitations of these theories and then develops a more comprehensive framework for comparisons. One of the keys to the understanding of communist politics is the model of a “military society,” also formulated by Spencer but generally ignored by contemporary social science. In terms of this model, communism is presented as a militant geopolitical response to international inequalities, the initial logic of which has been undermined by technological developments in the period following World War II.


Image & Text ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriette Kevill-Davies

In this article I examine trading cards produced by Topps Chewing Gum, Inc. in the United States in the decade following World War II. I focus on how these cards functioned as mechanisms of discipline, through the practices associated with collecting, as well as through their content and use. Cards reflected contemporary trends in education and behavioural science. In addition, they utilised what I term optical technology to entice children to buy. This came in the form of rudimentary optical tricks that emulated scientific and technological developments associated with wartime. I argue that in doing so, these cards brought children into the nascent military-technological complex, and provided a way to view the world in hierarchical terms through optical science.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. es12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Thompson ◽  
Joseph Sanchez ◽  
Michael Smith ◽  
Judy Costello ◽  
Amrita Madabushi ◽  
...  

The BioHealth Capital Region (Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC; BHCR) is flush with colleges and universities training students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines and has one of the most highly educated workforces in the United States. However, current educational approaches and business recruitment tactics are not drawing sufficient talent to sustain the bioscience workforce pipeline. Surveys conducted by the Mid-Atlantic Biology Research and Career Network identified a disconnect between stakeholders who are key to educating, training, and hiring college and university graduates, resulting in several impediments to workforce development in the BHCR: 1) students are underinformed or unaware of bioscience opportunities before entering college and remain so at graduation; 2) students are not job ready at the time of graduation; 3) students are mentored to pursue education beyond what is needed and are therefore overqualified (by degree) for most of the available jobs in the region; 4) undergraduate programs generally lack any focus on workforce development; and 5) few industry–academic partnerships with undergraduate institutions exist in the region. The reality is that these issues are neither surprising nor restricted to the BHCR. Recommendations are presented to facilitate improvement in the preparation of graduates for today’s bioscience industries throughout the United States.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linh D. Vu

Abstract Exploring the construction and maintenance of Nationalist Chinese soldiers’ graves overseas, this article sheds light on post-World War II commemorative politics. After having fought for the Allies against Japanese aggression in the China-Burma-India Theater, the Chinese expeditionary troops sporadically received posthumous care from Chinese veterans and diaspora groups. In the Southeast Asia Theater, the Chinese soldiers imprisoned in the Japanese-run camps in Rabaul were denied burial in the Allied war cemetery and recognition as military heroes. Analyzing archival documents from China, Taiwan, Britain, Australia, and the United States, I demonstrate how the afterlife of Chinese servicemen under foreign sovereignties mattered in the making of the modern Chinese state and its international status.


2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Rynkiewich

Abstract There was a time when mission studies benefitted from a symbiotic relationship with the social sciences. However, it appears that relationship has stagnated and now is waning. The argument is made here, in the case of cultural anthropology both in Europe and the United States, that a once mutually beneficial though sometimes strained relationship has suffered a parting of the ways in recent decades. First, the article reviews the relationships between missionaries and anthropologists before World War II when it was possible to be a ‘missionary anthropologist’ with a foot in both disciplines. In that period, the conversation went two ways with missionary anthropologists making important contributions to anthropology. Then, the article reviews some aspects of the development of the two disciplines after World War II when increasing professionalism in both disciplines and a postmodern turn in anthropology took the disciplines in different directions. Finally, the article asks whether or not the conversation, and thus the cross-fertilization, can be restarted, especially since the youngest generation of anthropologists has recognized the reality of local Christianities in their fields of study.


1968 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Epstein

Schwarz's study Vom Reich zur Bundesrepublik is, in the opinion of this reviewer, the single most important book on the occupation studyperiod in Germany after World War II that has yet appeared. It is not an ordinary narrative history—indeed, it presupposes a good deal of prior knowledge—but is rather a topical analysis of the following problems: the various possible solutions to the German question in the years after 1945; the policies toward Germany of the four victorious powers—Russia, France, Britain, and the United States; the development of German attitudes on the future political orientation of one or two Germanies; and finally, the factors that led to the voluntary acceptance of Western integration by most West Germans even though this integration meant the partition of Germany.


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