Wiki for Dr. McClurkens Courses

Railroads are represented as beacons of technological advancement that pierce through the untamed wilderness bringing civilization into the natural world, not in an overbearing and dominating way but, in a way that brings man and machine into harmony with nature. The railroads always seem to merge with the landscape rather than disrupt them allowing the natural beauty to remain the central feature of the works while the railroads and locomotives play a supporting role in the overall scene. -Cameron Wills

This entire article was so interesting to me! All of the pictures of the railroads were incredible to look at. I have never thought of railroads as technology that shaped the world like it did. On page 17, there is line that states that “ railroad in the western landscape can be seen as direct expressions of the ideology of Manifest Destiny”. At this time, the west was still being explored and in each and every picture we can see the landscapes beyond and I think that line depicts exactly that. That land is being explored along with the ideas of Manifest Destiny and railroads help to shape that. - Haley Denehy

Cameron worded his statement beautifully. Railroads indeed are depicted as beacons or signals of hope and progress. Andrew Melrose’s “Westward the Star of Empire Takes Its Way” further defines railroads as just that, stars of our growing empire. Additionally, they are often painted from a distance with wildlife before them, as to indicate the railroad is capable of coexisting with the natural world, without disruption, but, still conquering it. - Dillyn Scott

Railroads were generally represented in an unfair fashion American art. The so called “Iron Horse” was depicted as a beast that tore across the land, upsetting the delicate balance that man and nature had built over the years. Danly argues that this was likely a result of many artists preference for the outdoors, so in their eyes to see it being destroyed for the sake of the called progress was unfathomable. Danly points out that there were some artists who welcomed the Native American's occasional raids on steam trains, as they too saw the encroachment of the railway as a threat to the natural way of things. - Michael Dietrich

Professor Bower’s study examines the phenomena of work-site accidents within the industrial sector during the early twentieth century, by delving into historic compensation laws & insurance.

Although I do not know the monetary value of a human life during the time that this study was conducted, the U.S. Office of Management currently values a human life at around $8 million, which is presumably far greater than that of a worker’s life in the nineteenth & early twentieth century. I would argue that since the value of an individual’s life has grown in monetary value since the poor employee settlement laws of the past, we can attribute this to the satisfactory work compensation & protection laws we have today.

As jobs become safer in the United States due to the recent rise of automation in the workforce, can we expect a decline in the quality of worker protection and compensation laws? (–Nate Stringer)

Any time companies try to speed things up and keep costs down, working conditions are not the first thing that come to mind, and you can see that throughout history. Factory workers would lose body parts constantly because the companies wanted things done quick. More goods, more money. It makes sense why companies today are making factories more mechanized and less human reliant. Things are getting done a lot faster, there are less people to get hurt, and they don’t have to jump through as many legal hoops. Worker’s compensation can put a company out thousands of dollars, and we live in a very sue happy world. Machines and robots are a smart investment for companies. -Claire Starke

Bowers goes into detail about the average fatality cut with 20 years of productive labor. With that in mind, however, the types of injuries that can be used together would cause an annual loss of more than 280,000,000 working days. Earning capacity would be just about 50 per cent with that playing a factor in the equation. This relates to McEvoy because the companies would not have good working conditions because the companies were only out to make a lot of money over a period of time, hence why there were a good amount of accidents that occurred because the employers thought that the expense with making the company safer would reduce the profits that the companies were trying to make. With 0 regards for work safety, this is so much more different than what we have going on today with companies and how much safety, training, etc. that goes into some companies. I believe that this total negligence by the workers lead to companies wanting laws to be able to protect their business and the profits that were wanting to make. – Hunter Dykhuis

When reading this article, I was very interested to see how many fatalities there are in industrial accidents. I never knew how dangerous and how negligent the work environment is and how many are due to human mistakes. This is similar to McEvoy's article as the companies focus more on the cost than the accident itself. McEvoy says “ That we call workplace injuries “accidents” rather, than, say “production costs”. (p.89) Which then leads to saying “labor is more than just an economic activity controlled by impersonal market forces: it is the manifestation of the worker's life force.” Which means it is not just about the money and the costs due to an accident, but should be more on the what causes these accidents and the lack of protection. It is a human life, yes we must adapt, but safety precautions should be in place with sufficient state inspections. — Erika M.

In this reading McEvoy discusses the relationship between technology and increased industrialization and the environment as well as living conditions of those around industries and technology. First McEvoy talks about the changes in living conditions that come along with technological development, “it has roots in and impacts on its environment”; the most obvious example of this is the decrease of air quality due to pollution. McEvoy continues on to discuss the physical dangers of the workplace, and introduces the perspective of occupational hazards. As technology has developed, you can see the number of injuries or problems rooted in the workplace increase which has caused a perceived relationship between the two. -Emma Monaghan