Blog Post #2: David Montgomery Equality

David Montgomery’s chapter on Entrepreneur and Wage Earner portrays the image of the civil war era and its different social and economic changes. Montgomery goes in dept through the specific misconceptions of the 1860s and 1870s. The boom began from the late 1830s growing 1.62 cents per year (Montgomery, pg 3). He makes an argument that most of the growth was initially from industries but later from mining, that after the 1860s industries caused an increase in production but a stall in growth. Later in the chapter, he goes into depth about the different technological advancements that lead to the growth of mining such as the railroad and the telegraph. He describes the different entrepreneurs and companies and the differences between free labor and slavery. Lastly, the different social dynamics that made the civil war era so unique with women working jobs in cotton mills and the rise of different political parties. 

Montgomery goes into the specifics before the Panic of 1873 and the causes of the different sociological changes. The author provides us evidence of how after the 1830s, 40s, there is only so much progress and wealth you can have and after a peak limit, their success has to slow down and eventually fall. He states that unemployment was high during the year 1861 which leads to the conversation of industries being the cause of the panic (Montgomery, page 5). Major companies such as Lewis, Oliver, and Philips company were held at a halt in profits.  Montgomery makes the argument that mining leads to the demand of immigrants due to the call for labor giving them up to a 12-month contract. The debate of comparing the lives of black slaves and poor whites working in enslaved wages rose but the difference is the option to be free from working rather than being beaten or killed to work. Circumstances such as Andrew Carnegie prove that ordinary people could go from working for two dollars to living a rich and wealthy life (Montgomery, pg 30). Montgomery describes the effect women had on the social construct of the patriarchy. Women work in the cotton mills while the shops are run by men. Despite the harsh conditions and bad wages paid to support only themselves, women still preferred to work rather than depend on a man to provide for them. Ethnic classes and religion lead to different political parties due to the rise of immigrants.