WHAT FACTORS LED AMERICANS TOWARDS FAST FOOD?

After World War II, the diet of Americans began to change. Fast food started becoming very popular. There are many factors that effected the growth of the fast food industry and there are many factors that fast food has changed America. Steve Mintz wrote the following in the article “Food in America”: “Since WWII, and especially since 1970s, shifts in eating patterns have greatly accelerated. WWII played a key role in making the American diet more cosmopolitan.”

According to The American Forum for Global Education, there are four main factors that contributed to the growth of the fast food industry. These four are the automobile, development of the highway and suburbs and the “baby boom”. In the late 1940s and early 1950s many middle class families were able to purchase cars because of the American economy  After World War II there was a huge birth rate increase known as the “ baby boom”. This caused middle class families to buy homes. Also after World War II,the expansion of suburban areas started to increase. This expansion was made possible by the development of the highway in the 1950s. The highway was so important because it’s what made it possible for people to live in the suburbs but work somewhere else.

You are probably wondering how all of that has to do with fast food, just like I was. But i learned from The American Forum for Global Education, there needed to be food for the people who lived in the suburbs, so fast food restaurants became popular. In the beginning fast food restaurants were designed for car owners who lived in the suburbs.The American Forum for Global Education also says that fast food is a sign of our culture because we take pride in “speed and efficiency”.  This speediness brings us back to the car industry.

Henry Ford's Assembly Line

Autumn Libal, the author of Fats,Sugars, and Empty Calories, says that fast food all started with the assembly line. Henry Ford created the assembly to make his cars cheaper and affordable.By doing this the assembly line broke down each task to a different person. This meant that each person would only have one job that they would do. Because each person would only be assigned a simply task, they no longer needed skilled and professional workers. The whole reason behind the assembly line was to make the process efficient.  

First McDonalds

Libal then goes on to say that how McDonald’s used the assembly line. The two McDonald brothers, Richard and Maurice, used Ford’s assembly line to make food in 1948. First, they only served food that did not need silverware. They served burgers, fries and milkshakes. To make the process faster they made every burger the same way. Because each person had a  different task, this is where the assembly line came into play. They called this their “Speedee Service System”.  Just like the car, they did not need professional chefs. This meant that they could hire regular people and pay them less. The assembly line made the process of making food cheaper and more efficient.  

Ray Croc with McDonalds

On the McDonald’s website I learned that a young man named Ray Croc had the idea of opening McDonald’s all over the US. McDonalds is what started chain restaurants. Eric Schlosser says that, the reasoning behind fast food is how our retail economy works today, shutting down small businesses and opening up the exact same stores but in different places.  Now a day’s most everything is chained. 

Fast Food Nation

    The fast food industry has changed all aspects of life.Eric Scholsser, the author of Fast Food Nation, said that the fast food industry helped many things other than just the diet of Americans. For example he says that the growth of our economy, landscape, workforce and popular culture was affected by the fast food industry. In this book I learned that one effect of the fast food industry is woman working. During this time period many woman started working. This meant that they did not have time to cook dinner, so they would just go swing by a fast food restaurant and pick up dinner. Another effect would be wages. Wages increased in 1973 but then after that they slowly declined.

starting in 1950s women working increased

Low wages are still a problem today

SOURCES:
Digital History- "Food in America"
The American Forum for Global Education
McDonald's
Marketplace Big Book- Pandora's Lunchbox
Fast Food Nation by Eric Scholsser
Fats, Sugars, and Empty Calories: The Fast Food Habit by Autumn Libal

Anna Coleman Ladd- American Sculptress

Ladd infront of her masks 

Anna Coleman Ladd was an American sculptress. She was born in Pennsylvania and started sculpting when she was a young girl. Her first sculpture was out of window putty. Later her family moved to Europe where her art skills grew tremendously. In 1905, when she was 27, she became a professional artist. In that same year she married Maynard Ladd, an American pediatrician. Together they lived in Boston where they did not have a very good relationship. Francis Derwent, an artist in London, encouraged Ladd to go to Europe in 1917. "I am confident that, should you go to Europe, your talents as a sculptor and modeler would be of immense help in this service to humanity. Men with faces half blown away  have been remade by the sculptor's art", wrote Derwent.

Some of Ladd's Masks 

Derwent was a dish washer in  a London hospital. There he saw how bad the British soldiers' wounds were and wanted to help. The physicians were only worried about the patient and keeping them alive- not about their faces. He started out making masks by packing the facial wounds with cotton wool and plaster mask. He then would make a clay model out of the healed face and put it in a thin layer of silver. Then he would paint the mask. The mask would be attached by ribbon or glasses earpiece.

Ladd decided that it would be a good idea to go to Europe and heal not only soldiers' faces but their confidence! In 1918 she founded the Red Cross Studio for Portrait Masks in Paris,France. Here she helped over one hundred French soldiers plus soldiers of other nationalities. Ladd indeed had a servant heart because she didn't get paid, she was just a volunteer.

Soldier before

The soldiers were very embarrassed about their faces. Many had their jaws or noses shot off and empty and scarred eye sockets. Many of the soldiers would avoid people and public places. Some refused to leave the hospital and even some committed suicide.

Soldier After

Ladd said, "We always tried to keep the place cheerful and frequently had the boys sitting around and playing games...We laughed with them and helped them to forget. That is what they longed for and deeply appreciated". She felt that is was very important to make the soldiers feel comfortable while they were in her office. She welcomed them with checkers, dominoes  newspapers, chocolate and wine. As the men would visit she would go around and examine their battle scars.The masks that Ladd sculpted were incredible, the soldiers looked like a whole new person, the old them that is.Her skills were incredible and you could not even notice that there was a mask on the soldier. I highly recommend you watch the video below, you will be amazed by her skills! Ladd believed that the new faces they were given would give them confidence and they could go back to their everyday life looking normal without scaring anyone.  "I was able  in every case to give mutilated, disheartened man back his personality, and his hopes and ambitions." Ladd proudly concluded this about her work.

Video of Anna making a mask

Sources:
History Channel- Anna Ladd's Masks: Mending WWI's Scars- i got an over view of her background life, the soldiers, and her studio
AVL:Try Your Hand at Making a Face- This article told me all about how Anna made her masks
AVL:Maker of Masks, Restorer of Dreams- life info about Anna-quotes from her
Faces of War- this was helpful for biography information
Anna Coleman Ladd Papers, ca. 1881-1950- her early life
Artists' Masks Hid Wounds of World War I Soldiers - how the physicians struggled

Sources

• Great White Fleet
• ebsco host
• history.navy.mil
• Newspaper & Current Periodical Reading Room
• Another Great White Fleet?

The Great White Fleet Research

Today I found a lot of postcards I am going to use! I found them on the greatwhitefleet.info website! I also learned from that website all the places that the cruise stopped. Also history.navy.mil gave me some information on what happened on a few of the stops.

Department Stores in the Guilded Age

Vintage Marshall Fields Postcard 1902

 

South Grill Room at Marshall Fields

     Department stores were very popular during the Guilded age. They first started opening in 1840. G Fox, Gimbels, and Joseph Horne in Pittsburgh were some of the very first ones. Real true department stores did not start opening until 1878. Some of them included Wanamakers in Philidelphia, Macy's in New York, and Jordan Marsh in Boston. Another popular departmant store was Marshall Field's, or Marshal Field and Company. Marshall Fields,which became Macy's in 2005, first started out as a dry goods store. It eventually developed into a department store. 

     Why were department stores so popular? Well department stores changed shopping to be a glamorous and luxurious activity. How they did this is by making the stores attractive by the people. They were so elegantly designed and decorated. There was always beautiful architect such as atriums and domes. In Marshall Field's there is a gorgeous Tiffany Dome ceiling. There is also always many floors. 

                                                                                                              Tiffany dome at Marshall Fields

 Department stores also attracted people because they were getting various items and bringing them into one store. The people loved this because this meant that they would only have to go to one place to get just about everything they need. 

    For women they made it to where it was like a social event. There would be tea rooms, restaurants and lounges all in the department store. Everyone wanted to go to department stores because the atmosphere was just awesome. 

    Even though department stores were very popular, it also had some negatives. This was especially true during the economic depression of 1890. Some of the criticism came from small businesses they  felt threatened by big department store. Department stores made a lot of money because they were able to sell products at lower prices than those in small private shops. They were also criticized for deceptive advertisement and selling shoddy goods. Shoddy goods are fabric that is poorly made. Department stores were also a big temptation for shoplifting. Another negative is that women clerks did not get paid very well, this led them to going into prostitution for more money. 

   Although there were quite a few negatives about Department Stores, the positives definitely out weighed them. Department stores introduced a whole new definition to shopping. 

Sources: wikipedia, American-History-Survey, pdxhistory, Wonderful World of Department Stores, The World of Department Stores

Immigration

    From watching Faces of America video, I learned that the decisions our ancestors made effects us greatly.  If they decided not to come to the US our lives would be totally different. Some of us would not be where we are today. In the video, if their ancestors made a different decision they probably would not of had the opportunities to be successful as they are today.
   We are a "nation of immigrants". That means that pretty much everyone who lives here is from a different country. It means that the cultures are very diverse. I do feel aware of my connection to my ancestors because I know that my grandparents came from Lebanon after they got married.

John D Rockefeller

     John D Rockefeller was the founder of the Standard Oil Company. He has been hardworking all of his life. As a teenager, Rockefeller took on a lot of small businesses. In 1863 he opened his first oil refinery. At this time he had control of almost all the refineries int he region. By the 1880's Rockefeller had dominated oil business throughout the whole country. Rockefeller retired from the oil business when he was 56. Then he focused on charity work. Rockefeller have $30 million to many different causes and charities.
    Rockefeller was definitely a successful man, and a wealthy on also. He started out at the bottom and worked his way to the very top. He showed the world that hard work most def pays off in the end. I believe that Rockefeller is a perfect example of a successful man.

Sources: pbs, biography.com