• By 1900, the U.S. began using the term systems for machines.
• Example: the telephone system, the electrical and sewer system.
• A new sense of interdependence.
• Pride in the ingenuity and efficiency of these new technologies.

• Outside investors (strangers) could purchase shares of stock.
• More interested in profits than employee well being or customer service.
• Employees worked with great uncertainty. When business was slow, layoffs were imminent.
• Businesses began to subdivide work creating a hierarchical pyramid of power.
• Most of the heavy work was transferred to machines.

• Between 1880 and 1920 the U.S. population doubled and the consumption of energy quadrupled.
• New formations of capital and labor emerged.
• Mechanical energy began to dominate the workplace.
• Workers became alienated from the means of production.
• A reorganization and systemization resulted with the substitution of labor (manpower) with capital (machinery).

• Henry Ford and Frederick Taylor were "both reformist representations of the systematic bureaucratization and rationalization of the capitalist production process."
• They both had their own idiosyncratic ideas for running a factory.
• Scientific Management was incorporated within their assembly line systems.
• Taylor: designed work routines and specialized tools. He also analyzed "the best way" to perform a task and then retrained workers to fit that task.
• Taylor introduced the incentive system; workers were rewarded extra for exceeding the norm.
• Stopwatches introduced. With this, a new version of time for workers evolved.

• As industries subdivided work, specialized laborers were no longer needed.
• Example: The cobbler who could make a pair of shoes from start to finish was replaced by semi-skilled workers each with a small number of tasks.
• Lengthy apprenticeships were no longer needed because of the many semi-skilled jobs now in demand.

• 1913-14 annual turnover in most industries was 100 percent.
• The camaraderie in factories was replaced by dull, monotonous work.
• Faster work and the deskilling of labor were the causes.
• Ford introduced the assembly line and the $5 daily (double what anybody else was paying). Annual wages for assembly line workers went from $600 to $1200.
• With access to vast amounts of electricity, fans were used to coincide with the assembly line resulting in cleaner air for workers and less dust in the machinery and fewer breakdowns.
• Ford hired talented managers with various backgrounds and together they synthesized ideas and practices into 5 areas:

1. Subdivision of labor
2. Interchangeable parts
3. Single-function machines
4. Sequential ordering of machines
5. The moving belt

• Assembly line figures: 1912 the Model T required 1260 man hours.

1914 it took 617 man hours.

1923 it took 228 man hours.

• "Fordism": the term used to describe Ford and his own "Sociological Department that sought to shape the employees’ private lives and prohibiting them drinking."

• GM produced many cars to spread the risk of failure (The opposite of Ford, which centralized control in one man)
• Separate divisions increased the development of new technologies and concentrated on long term planning.
• Corporations began to invest in the field of industrial psychology.
• Persuasion replaced coercion.
• Loyalty was now fostered through by sustained programs- those highlighting health and safety.

• Safety engineering "gives the corporation a soul."
• Smaller companies took advantage of the feeling that mass produced goods were less attractive. Custom production was greatly desired.
• Fordism and Taylorism "was not monolithic." Many companies never adopted any of their ideas.

• Taylor’s ideas were more suited for the home.
• Ellen Richards saw electricity as a tool for social reform.
• The Efficient Kitchen contained "directions for the planning, arranging and equipping of the modern labor-saving kitchen."
• The home economics movement became part of the high school curriculum in the 1890’s.
• However, studies showed that women who acquired new appliances actually increased their housework to over 50 hours per week.
• The result was a rising standard in cleanliness.
• Vacuum cleaner: now expected to clean daily vs. beating the carpet periodically.
• The kitchen shrank in size to increase efficiency.
• "The kitchen emerged as the domestic counterpart of a small machine shop."