A few images from the The Book of Progess, which is no longer in print.
Up to my neck in primary texts of mythologies made to usher in the era of mechanical progress and its industrial capitalist sponsors. Some texts include the diaries and journals of the growing class of immigrant laborers manning machines in the factories. Yiddish poet and publisher Morris Rosenfeld described a day in a New York City garment district sweatshop as follows:
".... often I forget in the roar that I am; I am lost in the terrible tumult, my ego disappears, I am a machine, I work and work and work without end. I am busy and busy at all times. For what and for when? I know not and ask not! How should a machine ever come to think?"
For Rosenfeld, the center of gravity known as the "self" (or ego) is no match for the magnetic force fields of mechanized labor and mechanized life. Like many social critics, he found his voice through poetry and the printing press. Rosenfeld's Songs of Labor and Other Poems offers a less transcendentalist approach to American history.
The diaries of the factory workers are rare and hard to find. The primary texts that tell the most shocking story are the ones that were prepared and distributed for mass consumption.
The Scientific American War Book published in 1915 celebrated the fine art of industrial warfare. In 1919, Scientific American published the three-volume Book of Progress. It was a celebration of man and his machines, a paen to the rising industralization and the dawn of the consumer sapiens. Granted, Scientific American served as a rah-rah squad for industrial capitalism since its creation in 1840, so these books did not come as a surprise to their readers or sponsors. Neither did its consecration of cinema as "the carrier of utopian possibility". Who could blame them for believing that the camera could solve what the human eye had thus far failied to manage- the simultaneous transmission of a series of events from a single, unified perspective.
But it wasn't just scientific journals that shilled for the myth of unstoppable progress. The youth of tomorrow needed to be socialized into the age of machines. Unfortunately, their parents had no background in state-aggrandizing propaganda, so the newspapers and book publishers took it upon themselves to train American youth for their roles in the new economy.
The Ladybird Book of Progress aimed at middle-school audiences. (Hat flip to The Age of Uncertainty for providing this text and illustrations in their entirety.)
Vocabulary words were bolded so that young readers could make sure not to miss out on terms like "pebbledash", "accident", "compensation", "investment banker", "nervous breakdown", and other such novelities of the modern age. Perhaps a few excerpts are in order:
The fields are dug up and an old church from long ago is demolished.
The ground is then flattened so that there will be space for a car park and a row of coffee shops.
To make sure that the ground is hard and the grass cannot grow back, the builders use concrete.
When the concrete is dry, they can begin to make the new homes.
This is Charles. He used to be an investment banker, but had a nervous breakdown. This happens when people are very worried and unhappy.
Charles' wife would like him to be a banker again.
As the town grows, it will need extra electricity.
This new power station will give people the energy they need and also make new jobs.
The town is big, but it can get even bigger, as there is a lot of countryside.
To-day, many homes are old and draughty. One day, perhaps we will all be lucky enough to live in a bright, clean new town like this one.
I leave calling oneself a "progressive" to those who are comfortable with the cost of such mythologies. Certainly, the historic cost included eugenics funding, unethical scientific practices, the worship of man as labor machine, and disregard for human rights at the expense of deified Progress.
Why are so many thinking individuals prostrate before political philosophies that cater to divinities or abstractions? And why do so many Christians make all kinds of romantic promises to a piece of cloth with red stripes and stars and a Made in China sticker in the bottom left corner? Perhaps it's a personal shortcoming of mine that prefers the dignity of actual human beings to an idealized outcome promised at a future date.
Back to the myths- and to the lesson that history offers us on Progressives and Conservatives alike. Life wasn't ideal in the past, and it won't be ideal in some once and future utopia. To say it will be "real" is lovely enough.
MORE:
The papers of Morris Rosenfeld (Center for Jewish History)
"Toil and testament: Sweatshop poets" (Yiddish Book Center)
"Powerful retro propaganda posters remixed for progressive purposes" (Optimal Human Modulation)
