According to Ron Chernow's history of the Morgan dynasty, "House of
Morgan," the 1907 panic and subsequent depression was precipitated by the
excessive speculation of the banks then known as trusts. They were chartered to
handle estates, wills, etc., but like the S &Ls of the eighties succumbed to
the money madness.
This crash was the last managed by the Morgans. The subsequent clamor for
banking reform led to the establishment of the Federal Reserve System. Ernest's
brother Ralph served as head of the Boston Federal Reserve bank in the late
forties. So the cause of the loss of the farm led to an opportunity forty years
later.
The family home work set up by Albert Flanders was derived from a common pattern in 19th century New England. In fact, this model of work distribution originated in Pawtucket. The Encylopedia of American History notes that......
" In 1790 Samuel Slater, a British mechanic, introduced the first
successful American cotton-spinning mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.......
....Slater soon realized that British practices would have to be modified to
meet the requirements of New Englanders. The family was an important institution
in New England, and any system of production that disregarded its interests
would be short-lived. Slater altered the British system to fit the local
situation.
The new system featured the partnership or single proprietorship form of
ownership, personal management, small-scale production, the use of water power,
and the employment of family labor. A division of labor based on gender and age
emerged. Men were employed in supervisory capacities as farm hands and laborers
or as skilled artisans. Adult women remained at home, and children and
adolescents worked in the mills. The children, some as young as seven or eight,
earned as little as twenty-five cents a week, and all wages went directly to the
head of the household. Hundreds of manufacturers throughout New England and the
Mid-Atlantic states emulated Slater, and his mode of operation became known
variously as the Slater, Rhode Island, or British system. " End quote.
Is an acute, contagious respiratory infection caused by streptococci bacteria. Symptoms include a sore throat, fever, headache, white-coated tongue with red spots (strawberry tongue), and a skin rash. The disease usually occurs before age ten and is spread by direct contact. ANTIBIOTICS such as PENICILLIN are used to treat severe cases and reduce the possibility of complications. No such cures existed in the 1920's.
Jon Flanders