CHAPTER XI

THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE MODERN ERA

I

It is the custom of students of European history to place the beginning of modern times several centuries ago, indeed at about the time that Christopher Columbus set sail for America; and when one reviews the long painful struggle of Europe, reaching back into the dim mists of antiquity, to attain its present stage of civilization, no serious question can be raised with this practice. But the history of the white man in America is painted upon a smaller canvas; the total period of time embraced is comparatively short; and the physical environment has been such as to reproduce many of the primitive social and institutional conditions which the progress of European peoples had long since rendered obsolete in the Old World. Therefore it may be admissible to think of the modern era of America independently of the corresponding period in Europe; and without seeking to strain the analogy, there is an advantage in viewing the earlier history of America as divided into periods which are strongly suggestive of the ancient and medieval periods of European history.

Ancient American history was, from the standpoint of the white man, the age of discovery and European colonization, and was itself preceded by a "pre-historic" period of

However, the suggestion of Harry Elmer Barnes, writing in the spirit of Wells's Outline of History, that modern times might more correctly be dated from neolithic man has large corrective value for the historical student. See "The Past and Future in History" in the Historical Outlook, vol. xii, p. 48 (February, 1921).

native Indian civilizations, the records of which have come to us in the form of monuments, ornaments, and picturewriting. The keynote of ancient American history was the transplantation of an advanced civilization to a primitive and undeveloped world. The transition to the medieval period came when the English colonies, and later the Spanish colonies, severed political connections with the Old World by means of revolutionary wars for independence. In the case of the United States the Middle Period was characterized by the dissensions and jealousies of baronies (or states) with the growing power of the overlord (or federal government), and the entire national life was strongly tinctured by the plantation system of the South with its feudal lords and black vassals.

Medieval American history was brought to a close by two epochal events. The first of these, the victory of the federal government in the Civil War, discredited forever the doctrine of state sovereignty and destroyed the anachronism of slavery. The other event was, in its lasting effects, more significant than the war itself, although, strangely enough, the historians of the period have little to say about it. This was the great economic revolution which swept through the nation at high tide from about 1860 to 1880 and willy nilly projected America into Modern Times.

Life in the United States before the Civil War had a peculiar static quality so far as the essentials of living were concerned. There were no great cities in our modern sense, and fewer than a half-dozen millionaires. People in general lived comfortably and wastefully. There was virtual equality of material possessions and always an opportunity for the man who could not make a livelihood in the crowded portions of the country to make a clean start on the frontier. An old letter recently discovered in the files of the United States Patent Office shows that in 1833 the head of that

department wished to resign because he felt that the limit of human invention had been reached and there would be no further need of his services.

To be sure, mute forces were working beneath the surface of American society that were prophetic of future changes; but these were little heeded or understood at the time. There had occurred an industrial revolution in England in the latter part of the eighteenth century, the significance of which appeared in the introduction of the factory system into that country and the profoundly changed relations in industry and society that resulted. Under the influence of the embargo and the tariffs of 1816 and 1824, manufacturing had begun to develop in certain districts of the seaboard states of the North; but the country as a whole was untouched by the factory system, being predominantly agricultural in its interests and modes of living. Nearly four-fifths of the people continued to live on the farm.

In most respects the daily routine of life with which Webster and Lincoln were familiar was the same as that of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin; and there was in no sense the profound contrast that we have between the times of Lincoln and those we live in today. As Professor Cubberley has pointed out, if Lincoln were to return now and walk about Washington, he would be surprised and bewildered by the things he would see. Buildings more than three or four stories high would be new. The plate-glass show windows of the stores, the electric street-lighting, the moving-picture theatres, the electric elevators in the buildings and especially the big department stores would be things in his day unknown. The smooth-paved streets and cement sidewalks would be new to him. The fast-moving electric street-cars and motor vehicles would fill him with wonder. Even a boy on a bicycle would be a curiosity. Entering the White House, someone would have to explain to him such

commonplaces of modern life as sanitary plumbing, steam heating, friction matches, telephones, electric lights, the Victrola, and even the fountain pen. In Lincoln's day, plumbing was in its beginnings, coal-oil lamps and gas-jets were just coming into use, and the steel pen had only recently superseded the quill pen. The steel rail, the steel bridge, high-powered locomotives, refrigerator cars, artificial ice, the cream separator, the twine binder, the caterpillar tractor, money orders, the parcels post, rural free delivery, the cable, the wireless, gasoline engines, repeating rifles, dynamite, submarines, airplanes-these and hundreds of other inventions now in common use were all alike unknown.

A number of things conspired to introduce a new economic and social order into American life in the sixties and the seventies. The high war tariffs caused men of capital to invest their money in manufacturing; and government contracts for war supplies gave impetus to this development. The state and national governments embarked on a policy of making vast grants of land and credit to railroad enterprises, thus laying the foundations for the modern era of railway development. The passage of the free homestead law of 1862 caused a rush of population toward the West, a movement that was vastly stimulated by the opening up of the less accessible regions by the railroads. These various factors reacted upon each other. Thus, the railroads called upon the factories for the manufacture of steel rails and locomotives, and by means of their iron highways supplied new markets for eastern manufacturers as well as for the western farmers. The unprecedented activity along all lines of economic endeavor imposed fresh demands upon American inventive genius to which it responded with countless new appliances and machines for farm and factory.

So rapid and comprehensive were the changes that occurred in the two decades following Lincoln's inauguration

that no less a term than "economic revolution" is required to describe them. Referring particularly to American industrial development, the United States Industrial Commission declared in 1902 that "the changes and the progress since 1865 have been greater in many directions than during the whole history of the world before.". In contrast to the industrial revolution in England, however, the economic revolution was not merely a revolution in manufacturing processes. In just as significant a sense it was an agricultural revolution and also a revolution in transportation. The United States was transformed in a generation from a nation employing primitive methods of agriculture and importing most of her manufactures from abroad, into an industrialized country with an export trade in farm and factory products that reached the outer fringes of the globe. It is to this new economic basis of American life that the historian must ascribe the characteristic events of recent history-the new issues, the changed character of political parties, the growing conflict between capital and labor, our complex social problems, indeed our very intellectual and cultural ideals and aspirations.

The full force of these new energies was not immediately apparent, because the attention of the public, after the great emotional experience of the Civil War, was for the time being riveted upon certain perplexing questions concerning the emancipated negroes and the political reconstruction of the South. But with the truer perspective made possible by the passage of years the historians are beginning to give less attention to southern reconstruction and more to northern reconstruction, since the financial and industrial reorganization of the North has proved to be of greater enduring importance.

Notwithstanding the transient importance of after-war issues, thoughtful people everywhere were conscious of an