Social Structure and Social Mobility

Neil L. Shumsky

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781135604455
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Discrimination & Race Relations
• Index: Social Sciences

First Published in 1996.  Volume 7 SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND SOCIAL MOBILITY of the 'American Cities; series. This collection brings together more than 200 scholarly articles pertaining to the history and development of urban life in the United States during the past two centuries. Volume 7 looks at social class structure and social mobility. Its articles address questions that have intrigued historians for decades. What has been the class structure of American cities during the past two centuries? How much mobility has been possible? For whom has it been possible? What has been the relationship between social and geographic mobility? Finally, how have all kinds of Americans tried to improve their social status?

ECONOMIC GROWTH AND OCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY IN 19TH CENTURY URBAN AMERICA: A REAPPRAISAL

During the last decade a number of historians have examined the occupational mobility rates of blue-collar workers in several 19th-century American cities. Beginning with Stephan Thernstrom’s study of the unskilled in Newburyport, Massachusetts, through the most recent analyses of workers in Waltham, Massachusetts; South Bend, Indiana; and Warren, Pennsylvania, these studies seem to confirm what we already expected. Few Americans enjoyed the rags-to-riches experience perpetuated in American folklore. However, a significant percentage of blue-collar workers did experience what Thernstrom calls the rise from “rags to respectability.”

Within this general context, recent studies also illustrate that mobility rates differed among certain social, economic, and ethnic groups. Summarizing the mobility rates in nearly a dozen 19th-century cities, Thernstrom argues that:

There were definite rigidities in the occupational structure, a series of barriers that impeded mobility and perpetuated inequality. The level at which a young man entered the labor market strongly influenced the course of his subsequent career. His point of entry into the occupational competition was in turn significantly related to the social-class position of the family in which he was reared… There were marked disabilities connected with ethnic status as well. To have been foreign-born, or even the native-born child of an immigrant parent, was a serious handicap; to have been Irish or Italian was still a greater handicap.¹

While these findings may be true, there are serious problems in drawing such conclusions from previous studies. The major problem with all studies is that the authors failed to control for important variables. Most authors analyzed one variable at a time showing, for example, that the Irish and Catholics were less mobile than other groups. Such analyses, however, do not allow us to determine whether Irish origin was a handicap, whether Catholicism was a handicap, or whether both were handicaps. A related problem derives from omitting variables which may bias the results.² While previous studies focus on the ethnic background of workers, they do not consider, for example, the effects of the specific urban economy on worker mobility or the specific industrial occupation of the worker. One may expect that workers in expanding industries experience greater mobility than workers in contracting industries. Both the economy and the industrial occupation may be important explanatory variables and should be included in any mobility study.

Most of the previous mobility studies, confined by former census restrictions to the 1850–1880 time period, omitted much of the era of great industrial expansion in America. This restriction often resulted in the use of poorly chosen, atypical cities. Too frequently, the samples came from stable or slowly growing economies, not the dynamic growth centers. Recent evidence from three small communities: Waltham, Massachusetts; South Bend, Indiana; and Warren, Pennsylvania, suggest that the level of economic activity strongly influenced the rates of mobility in late 19th-century America.³ Each of these cities experienced rapid economic growth during the latter half of the century. Industrial expansion and technological innovation created a demand for labor which, in turn, provided abundant opportunities for upward social mobility. Workers in each of these three cities, whether native-born or immigrant, experienced significantly greater mobility than did their counterparts in other American cities studied to date. It seems reasonable, therefore, to hypothesize that mobility was greater in developing industrial communities than in stabilizing communities. Moreover, since both economic expansion and urban growth were the typical late 19th-century experiences, any analysis claiming representativeness should focus on the growing industrial communities.

Finally, in earlier studies the definition of social mobility is restricted almost exclusively to skill level. Wealth and property, as Stuart Blumin has suggested, may be more important determinants of status and class than occupation in the social structure of 19th-century urban America.⁴ Generalizations about mobility based only on occupational achievement are, at best, limited.

This paper attemps to overcome the objections enumerated above by utilizing data from a small, but representative, American community (Warren, Pennsylvania) during the period from 1870 to 1910. The growth experiences of this community closely paralleled the 19th-century American pattern. Moreover, the similarity of workers’ experiences in Warren, South Bend, and Waltham illustrate the importance of the Warren case as a representative sample of worker mobility in 19th-century urban America.

In 1875, a wealthy speculator discovered oil in the immediate vicinity of Warren, Pennsylvania. His discovery and those that followed led to the development of an oil related economy and to a sustained period of economic expansion and urbanization. During the subsequent 35 years, the town, like hundreds of other late 19th-century communities, grew into a city. The 1880 population of 2,800 grew to more than 11,000 by 1910, paralleling the economic growth of the period. Between 1880 and 1900, seven oil refineries valued in excess of several million dollars, five foundry shops employing 1,100 men, an oil t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Series Introduction
• Volume Introduction
• Social Structure
• Socioeconomic Mobility
• Geographic Mobility
• Acknowledgments