Concordia Library: Roaring Twenties: Urbanization & Electrification

Assembly lines Changed America's Landscape

Ford Motor Company assembly line, Detroit, c.1920.

Ford Motor Company Assembly Line, Detroit, C.1920 . Fine Art. Encyclopædia Britannica Image Quest. Web. 25 Dec 2011.

Henry Ford: The Assembly Line

Did You Know . . .

Henry Ford's automobile changed people's lives and America's landscape. It led to

assembly lines
mass production
industry growth in consumer products
lower prices
workers' wage increase
better life
urban growth
highway system
railroad decline

In short, technological change improved Americans' economic welfare.

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Web Resources - Urbanization & Electrification

Central Park to the twin towers of the San Remo apartment house on Central Park West as it is illuminated by electric lighting at night, New York, mid-20th Century.

San Remo Apartment Building In New York. Photographer. Encyclopædia Britannica Image Quest. Web. 25 Dec 2011.

Words to Know

Urban:

"(Social Science / Human Geography) of, relating to, or constituting a city or town."

www.thefreedictionary.com

Urbanization: "process by which a large number of people becomes permanently concentrated in relatively small areas, forming cities."

www.oecd.org/

Industrialization: "The process by which traditionally nonindustrial sectors (such as agriculture, education, health) of an economy become increasingly similar to the manufacturing sector of the economy.

www.businessdictionary.com

Electrification: "the process of making something work by electricity or of bringing a supply of electricity to a building of town."

www.macmillandictionary.com

Books

Daily life in the United States, 1920-1939 : decades of promise and pain by David E. Kyvig
Call Number: 973.91 KYV
ISBN: 0313295557
Publication Date: 2002
Examines what daily life was like for ordinary people in the U. S. in the 1920s and the 1930s, discussing the impact of automobiles, electricity, radio, cinema, conflict and crime, the standardization of culture, the Great Depression, and the New Deal on the lives of American citizens.
Reconstructing America by Joy Hakim
Call Number: 973 HAK
ISBN: 0195153316
Publication Date: 2003
Explores the development of the United States from 1865 to 1890, focusing on the period of Reconstruction following the Civil War, and the movements of reform, immigration, industrialization, and urbanization.
Shutting out the sky : life in the tenements of New York, 1880-1924 by Deborah Hopkinson
Call Number: 307.76 HOP
ISBN: 9780439375900
Publication Date: 2003
Photographs and text document the experiences of five individuals who came to live in the Lower East Side of New York City as children or young adults from Belarus, Italy, Lithuania, and Romania at the turn of the twentieth century.
The warmth of other suns : the epic story of America's great migration by Isabel Wilkerson
Call Number: 304.8 WIL
ISBN: 0679444327
Publication Date: 2010
Chronicles the decades-long migration of African-Americans who fled the South for northern and western cities between 1915 and 1970, discussing how they altered the cities of America and the African-American community.
Brilliant : the evolution of artificial light by Jane Brox
Call Number: 621.32 BRO
ISBN: 0547055277
Publication Date: 2010
Examines the societal implications of light across the centuries, from crude lamps and candles through the use of whale oil and gas street lights, the establishment of electrical grids, the banning of incandescent bulbs, and the use of LEDs in various applications.
1920-1940 : the twentieth century by Sharon M. Himsl
Call Number: 909.82 192
ISBN: 0737717548
Publication Date: 2004
Presents twenty-one primary and secondary documents on significant events in world history between 1920 and 1940, including the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Mussolini's March on Rome, the stock market crash, and others.