Dear Uncle Sam

"The war gave a sizable boost to the cause of scientific management, significantly moving American industry toward the welfare capitalism of the 1920s. In that decade, as in the war, capital's largesse toward labor was made possible by unprecedented prosperity, by the ability of management to operate within wide margins of profit. In such an environment, benefits could easily be offered as a substitute for unions, an affordable means to purchase the preservation of the existing power relationships.

Still, those open-handed policies did not meet with uniform success. The year 1917 saw 4,450 strikes, the highest number in American history."

- David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society

 

Workers at the Steel Works

Workers at the Pennsylvania's Bethlehem Steel Works turning out shells

The War of the Nations Portfolio (New York: The New York Times Co., 1919), 314.

(image 33 of 45)

United States
ca. 1917-1918
Phifer
64 x 47 cm