America

In Alfred D. Chandler’s article, The Beginnings of “Big Business” in American Industry, he discusses the way in which integration as well as the formation of large corporations came in to control so quickly. He breaks down the processes of the increased development of major innovations, explaining the expansion of the production in each.

He focuses on the business economy at the time and the motivations of businessmen to develop new products and increase product production efficiency. This article also explains how these expansions led to businesses choosing to supply their own raw materials as well. The new national railroad was one of the biggest driving factors in the rise of big business in the United States due to the access it gave producers to a larger market scale.

This new era occurred between the mid 1800s and the early 1900s. In the 1870s, when only a few companies were using the railroads, small firms were generally only manufacturing their products for nearby markets. A few firms that had become vertically integrated ran the major industries. Railroads were the major factor that created the national market, providing efficient transportation as well as an easy way to move crops, bring supplies, and open new territories for agriculture. New major cities were developed and urban expansion increased the demand for newly developed products. Urban populations nearly tripled in total population from 1860 to 1880.

Vertical Integration began to occur in two different ways, the first being in the development of products that were new and fitted to serve the urban market and the second being the building of large markets and purchasing of organizations. The major processes that became integrated were production or purchasing of raw materials, manufacturing distribution and finance activities. Many small businesses also merged together to create larger ones.

Companies were able to grow so large due to the creation of nation-wide marketing and distribution organizations. Competitors worked to keep up with one another, taking each new innovation and expanding on it. Advanced technology used for production began to often outrun the supply of resources, resulting in a need to expand markets and supplies. Successful companies concentrated activities in locations that were likely to meet growing urban demands.

American cities became the primary markets and demand for urban lighting, heat, power, communications, water, sewage, and other products increased. Changes in the market led to the shift in America’s largest steel plant from rails to structures. New York and Chicago were the major places companies focused production on. Bankers played a key role in this new integration by providing the funds for mergers and expansion, allowing the investors to acquire some control over the industrial corporations.

A major reason companies such as Standard Oil began to produce their own raw material were in order to assure having a steady supply of the materials in the future. When one company took these steps, competitors quickly followed in order to keep up. In industries such as steel, defensiveness does seem to be a major motivation of the integration in its production.

In the copper industry, integration was due factors including the combination of its operating activities, the railroads opening new western mining areas, and the increase in demand for copper due to new electrical and telephone businesses. In the paper, explosives, and coal industries, the motivation for consolidation and combination was to lower the costs of production.

Concerns over the availability of supplies were a major cause for change because the users of semi-finished materials were insecure about the growing combinations of their suppliers. Almost all steel-fabricating combinations consolidated into single operating organizations. Cancelled contracts with steel producers by companies that were beginning to produce their own led to companies such as Carnegie’s developing plans to produce their own.

General Motors also began producing its own parts in order to provide security by assuring the availability of parts at all times. Fords insistence on an integrated mine to market organization concentrated at one huge plant is known to be one of the most costly mistakes in American business history. The major innovations in America after 1900 came in industries involving science such as in new sources of power, electricity, and combustion engines.

By 1903 the merger movement had nearly ended and the industries processing agricultural products had developed patterns of internal organization as well as external competition, which would remain for a long time. Electricity was also becoming a significant source of industrial power and automobiles were beginning to revolutionize transportation. Major companies had also moved in to being managed by corporate offices while being supervised from a central office.

The new large industrial organizations required a large consumer market to sell their products to in order to support the increased overhead costs. Once certain companies began to move toward vertical integration, its competitors were forced to follow the lead. The majority of technological advancements were developed in order to meet the demand of the large markets and the creation of large corporations was a direct result of the building of a national railroad network.

Theatre in America during the 1930s. During the 1930s, the American Dream had become a nightmare because of the Great Depression. The sudden drop in stock exchange had threatened the land. What was once the land of optimism, had become the land of despair. The promise for success was clearly not fulfilled. Americans started to question and blame the government (rebelling). Society had led to a theatre that was politically and socially conscious The vision of the American Dream is broad, everyone is free, equal and has limitless opportunities. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is what the American strives for.

No one is oppressed or starved and nothing can stop a person from their ambitions. Hard work to improve one’s position in life is promoted. This is the ideal life of an American citizen, but sadly, this wasn’t the case in the 1930s. “…income of the average American family was reduced by 40%, from $2,300 to $1,500. Instead of advancement, survival became the keyword. Institutions, attitudes, lifestyles changed in this decade but democracy prevailed. ”-(www. kclibrary. lonestar. edu/decade30. html) Although this was happening, people did what they could to make their lives happy. Parlor games, board games and movies were popular.

Movie houses opened as theatres closed down. Group theatre was considered “the most distinguished acting company of the 1930s and modelled on the Moscow Acting Theatre. ” – (Dramatic Arts textbook, pg 210) The birth of professional American Theatre begun with the Lewis Hallam troupe during 1752. Theatre was for those who were interested in a theatre which reflected political and social ideals, e. g. Tennessee Williams (T. W). Broadway, Group Theatre and Theatrical Realism was incorporated into T. W’s book, The Glass Menagerie. The Glass Menagerie is partly autobiographical because Tom represents the author as well.

Tom is basically the memory to T. W’s youth. Although T. W writes of his past, he also focuses on the socio-political issues of the American life. Tom’s mother, Amanda Wingfield, is the perfect example of the “negative” in the American Dream. She forces the American Dream upon her children and this suffocates them. In scene 3, Amanda and Tom fight, then Tom ends up calling her a witch. Amanda is still having a hard time coming to the new terms of her status in society because she grew up in a home of social fortune. But she does cause the problem between herself and Tom.