Society in Flux
Electrification of Paris
Technology On The March
The 1920s would see a massive technological boom as mass production techniques, business rationalisation methods and technological upgrading led to major steps forward. Perhaps most significant of the technological developments which came to a head during the 1920s was the mass electrification of factories in America and Europe. Though electricity was a well-established technology in 1920, its impact on productivity had been limited by old-fashioned industrial design. Prior to the 1920s, most factories were powered by big steam engines which sat in the basement and powered machines on the upper floors through vertical shafts that ran up the side of the building, and horizontal shafts on each floor of the building. At first factory owners were reluctant to waste all their sunk costs: they simply replaced the steam engines with electrical motors and expected the workers to put up with the inconvenience of tall buildings and lots of horizontal shafts. But during the 1920s, factory owners realised that it might prove beneficial to start from scratch: they started powering their machines with individual motors and laying out their factories horizontally rather than vertically.
The electrification of households in Europe and North America began in early in the century in many major cities and in areas served by electric railways before increasing rapidly, reaching nearly 70% in the United States by 1930. Mass production improved productivity, which was a contributing factor to economic growth and the decline in work week hours, alongside other factors such as transportation infrastructures, canals, railroads and highways, and agricultural mechanisation. These factors caused the typical work week to decline from 70 hours in the early 19th century to 60 hours late in the century, then to 50 hours in the early 20th century and would finally reduce it to 40 hours by the middle of the 1930s. Mass production permitted great increases in total production with the result that by the late 1920s many previously scarce goods were in good supply, allowing for the evolution of consumerism by lowering the unit cost of many goods used.
At the same time, a revolution within agriculture initiated by the invention of the combine harvester began to present a major issue as overproduction of grain placed increasingly immense pressure on the rural population of particularly the United States. The Great War had created an atmosphere of high prices for agricultural products as European nations demand for exports surged. Farmers had enjoyed a period of prosperity as U.S. farm production expanded rapidly to fill the gap left as European belligerents found themselves unable to produce enough food. When the war ended, supply increased rapidly as Europe's agricultural market rebounded. Overproduction led to plummeting prices which led to stagnant market conditions and living standards for farmers in the 1920s. Worse, hundreds of thousands of farmers had taken out mortgages and loans to buy out their neighbours' property, and now are unable to meet the financial burden. The cause was the collapse of land prices after the wartime bubble when farmers used high prices to buy up neighbouring farms at high prices, saddling them with heavy debts. By the second half of President McAdoo's Presidency this crisis was growing to a such a proportion that governmental intervention was becoming increasingly necessary (15).
The post-war era was a golden age of physics, particularly theoretical physics, and although it was very much an international effort, the centres of gravity in those years were three institutes, in Copenhagen, Göttingen, and Munich. Niels Bohr’s Institute of Theoretical Physics had opened in Copenhagen in January 1921, quickly followed, in 1922, by the award of a Nobel Prize. Just before the Great War, Bohr had explained how electrons orbit the nucleus only in certain formations, which married atomic structure to Max Planck’s notion of quanta. But, in the same year that he was awarded the Nobel Prize, Bohr also explained the fundamental links between physics and chemistry, showing that successive orbital shells could contain only a precise number of electrons, and introduced the idea that elements that behave in a similar way chemically do so because they have a similar arrangement of electrons in their outer shells, which are the ones most used in chemical reactions. In 1925 the center of activity moved for a time to Göttingen.
Before World War I, British and American students regularly went to Germany to complete their studies, and Göttingen was a frequent stopping-off place. Bohr gave a lecture there in 1922 and was taken to task by a young student who corrected a point in his argument. Bohr, being Bohr, hadn’t minded. The young Bavarian Werner Heisenberg was invited to Copenhagen by Bohr where they set about tackling further challenges of quantum theory. Heisenberg returned to Göttingen enthused by his time in Copenhagen but also confused. Over the coming years, Heisenberg and a growing menagerie of physicists including the Frenchman Louis de Broglie, the Austrian Erwin Schrödinger, Einstein and Max Born all provided crucial contributions to the development of quantum weirdness.
At the same time, a coalition of anti-relativists, opposed to Einstein's theories grew increasingly vocal in their opposition to relativism and the increasingly complex theoretical nature of the field of physics, led by the notable scientists Philipp Lenard and Johannes Stark. While both were competent physicists and Stark was a Nobel prize winner, their hatred and opposition to Einstein and what they viewed as the general "degradation and Jewishness" of the current forefront of theoretical physics led them to abandon relativity and quantum physics in favor of what they described as "German Physics". While Stark and Lenard would succeed in finding far-right backers, they were laughed out of the respectable scientific community and soon found themselves pushed to the margins, subsisting largely on the good will of sympathetic Junker sponsors.
The fresh data that the new physics was producing had very practical ramifications that arguably have changed our lives far more directly than was at first envisaged by scientists mainly interested in fundamental aspects of nature. Radio moved into the home in the 1920s; television was first demonstrated in August 1928. Another invention using physics revolutionized life in a completely different way: this was the jet engine, developed almost simultaneously by the Englishman Frank Whittle and the German Hans von Ohain which would begin to see theoretical and experimental use in the 1930s (16).
An area which would see considerable change and adaptation to new learnings from the 1910s were the medical sciences. After the Great War and the subsequent wars, the massive world-wide catastrophe of the Spanish Flu and the famine which had torn across Russia, there had been plenty of opportunity for doctors across the world to work towards improving their methodologies. Large-scale wars were attended by medics and mobile hospital units which developed advanced techniques for healing massive injuries and controlling infections rampant in battlefield conditions while thousands of scarred troops provided the need for improved prosthetic limbs and expanded techniques in plastic surgery or reconstructive surgery. These practices would be combined to broaden cosmetic surgery and other forms of elective surgery in the post-war period. Furthermore, during the Great War, Alexis Carrel and Henry Dakin developed the Carrel-Dakin method of treating wounds with an irrigation, Dakin's solution, a germicide which helped prevent gangrene while spurring the usage of Roentgen's X-ray, and the electrocardiograph, for the monitoring of internal bodily functions. This would then be followed in the post-war period by the development of the first anti-bacterial agents such as sulpha antibiotics.
However, arguably the most significant medical development of the 1920s was the wide spread of the eugenics movement, particularly to Europe from America. While the roots of modern eugenics arose with the writings of the British Francis Galton, it had been the United States which was quickest to adopt and implement the concept. Over the course of the pre-war years, organisations had been formed to win public support and sway opinion towards responsible eugenic values in parenthood, including the British Eugenics Education Society of 1907 and the American Eugenics Society of 1921, both of which sought support from leading clergymen and modified their message to meet religious ideals. In 1907 Indiana had become the first of more than thirty states to adopt legislation aimed at compulsory sterilisation of certain individuals, mostly institutionalised individuals. Starting in 1896 with Connecticut, many states had begun implementing marriage laws with eugenics criteria while scientific efforts to map eugenics criteria were established, truly taking off with the establishment of the Eugenics Record Office in 1910.
By 1910, there was a large and dynamic network of scientists, reformers and professionals engaged in national eugenics projects and actively promoting eugenic legislation. The American Breeder's Association was the first eugenic body in the U.S., established in 1906 under the direction of biologist Charles B. Davenport. The ABA was formed specifically to "investigate and report on heredity in the human race, and emphasise the value of superior blood and the menace to society of inferior blood". In the years to come, the ERO collected a mass of family pedigrees and concluded that those who were unfit came from economically and socially poor backgrounds. However, the ERO's suggested solutions, ranging from deportation, segregation and sterilisation to outright extermination, and research methodologies met with considerable scorn from Mendelian biologists and geneticists, with the criticism focusing on the crude methodology of eugenicists, and the characterisation of almost every human characteristic as being hereditary, rather than the idea of eugenics itself (17).
On the basis of the American model, eugenic sterilisation policies were soon being developed in Europe. The first eugenic or "racially hygienic" forced sterilisation and forced castrations in Europe took place in Switzerland in 1890, with more to follow in the years to come. However, it would be Scandinavia which quickly emerged at the very forefront of the worldwide eugenics movement. One of the most comprehensive eugenics programs in the world would come to be conducted in Sweden where as early as 1909, a Swedish Society for Racial Hygiene was founded for the purpose of eugenic research. A network of people from different parties worked to establish a state institute for racial biology and advocated a law for eugenic sterilisation while two legislative proposals for the foundation of such an institute were introduced in 1921 in both chambers of the Swedish parliament. On the basis of the legislative proposals, the Swedish Parliament decided in 1921 to found the State Institute of Racial Biology at the University of Uppsala. In 1922, the Social Democrats drafted a bill to sterilise the mentally disabled.
The spread of eugenic ideas in Swedish Social Democracy was furthered by close contact with German Social Democrats, which was also cultivated through the mutual exchange of visiting scholars at the Berlin Society for Racial Hygiene and the University of Uppsala. Thus, while American eugenics were the initial instigation point for German eugenics, it would be to Scandinavia they turned for inspiration in the years to come. That is not to say that German eugenics were anything other than pioneering, from seeking to take a Medelian approach to social Darwinism - seeking to explore the hereditary development of a population based on its socio-political state, and working towards the exploration of the mythologized Aryan race and its connection to the Nordic peoples. In 1920, the German National Assembly decided to introduce a eugenic leaflet with warnings about possible hereditary offspring by registrars in the run-up to each marriage , but strictly rejected possible marriage bans against allegedly "inferiors".
Sterilisation laws were repeatedly discussed by various parties, most consistently by the SPD, and would be implemented in Prussia, Bavaria, Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Hesse by the end of the decade, with attempts at federal implementation of sterilisation laws having failed. In 1923 Fritz Lenz's appointment to the University of Münich would be the first of a chair for race hygiene at a major German university. More and more racial hygienists were also involved in policy advice and found their way into the SPD, FVP, NLP while a rather large fringe with a more outwardly racist and anti-Semitic outlook found themselves welcomed into the DNVP, both Centre and the DKP preaching actively against the movement on the basis of its advocacy of what they viewed as interference with God's work.
In contrast to these positions was that of the Communist movement, building out of the nascent Russian eugenics movement in the years prior to the Russian Revolution. Russian eugenics largely unanimously criticised and rejected the racial and class elements of German racial hygiene and British-American eugenics, and especially after the revolution emphasized the importance of the social environment, education and upbringing. They condemned measures of negative eugenics such as segregation and sterilisation of the "unfit", which were so popular in Germany, Scandinavia and the United States and as an alternative, they proposed an improvement in social conditions, reforms and preventive medicine. This would be taken up by the global communist movement as well, with the result that in Germany a number of positive eugenics measures, such as rewards for large and healthy families as well as for the families of children who exhibited wished-for traits, while research into genetics, invitro fertilisation and even cloning would receive considerable financing, were implemented alongside communist-promoted and backed social reforms and wider preventative medical research alongside the pre-existing negative eugenics measures (18).
Footnotes:
(15) I have decided to largely keep technological development at least relatively on track for the time being and as such much of this mirrors a lot of what was going on IOTL. The major point which should draw attention here is that the American agricultural sector is faltering under massive debts, low demand and rapidly rising global productivity increases. This happened IOTL and led to a push for agricultural subsidies which IOTL failed in favour of smaller and more disparate measures. While subsidies might not be implemented ITTL, although the likelihood of a Democratic government doing so is much higher than with a Republican one, the issue will play into events the next time we turn to the United States.
(16) This is again largely OTL but keep in mind that there was a lot of disruption within the field of theoretical physics in the 1930s. Perhaps most significant in this case is that Stark and Lenard's push towards "German Physics" proves even less popular ITTL and is largely ignored outside of far-right nationalist circles. IOTL they were able to ride the Nazis rise to power to the top of German science and essentially trashed the immense scientific framework and community which had previously put Germany at the forefront of science internationally.
(17) The 1920s saw major progress within the medical sciences, from x-ray technology to antibiotics, as learnings from the Great War were processed. The Flu was also influential in developing quarantine measures, public health campaigns and other large-scale interventions against epidemics. This is all OTL. As for the intro to Eugenics, I thought that it would be best to introduce it in this segment and cover some of the developments in America before getting into what is happening in Europe - particularly Scandinavia and Germany. American Eugenics were viewed as pioneering for their time with Europeans travelling to America to learn more about how they were accomplishing it - much as they did with visiting Ford to learn of assembly lines. The 1920s largely just see a continuation of prevailing trends from previous decades, with more sterilisation laws passed and various positive eugenics measures implemented. There is, however, significant hesitancy when it comes to implementing the complementary reforms championed by communists and addressed in the next section.
(18) While most of the information on Sweden is based on OTL, there are some divergences in Germany - most significantly the passage of sterilisation legislation in the 1920s which IOTL was prevented by religious conservatives. Of the states where it is passed, it bears mentioning that of the four, the Bavarian ban is unique because it comes out of the DNVP rather than the SPD and is far more focused on preventing miscegenation than sterilisation on criminal or medical grounds as it is in the three other cases. As for the Communist opposition to eugenics, that is all OTL. The fact that the German Communists are unable to prevent eugenics from being implemented is a major blow but the welfare system they are able to push for does help make up for it. The Communists pressure the SPD to make welfare reforms by challenging their claims to represent the working class, forcing the SPD to push for more welfare reforms, which in turn pushes the governmental coalition slowly but steadily further to the left.
End Note:
First of all, Happy New Year Everyone!
I have now been working on TL on Alt-History for one-and-a-half years in all and feel that I have gotten a lot out of the experience. It has been extremely educational and helped me work through a lot of stuff. I would like to thank all of you for following along and (hopefully) enjoying the ride.
I had meant to get more into the specifics of the eugenics movement and its interaction with the political scene, but it has proven rather difficult to find out all that much about what specifically was going on outside of the very broadest of outlines. I will be getting into its impact on politics more as we move forward, but for now I hope people can accept this rather basic description of the rise of eugenics. This section was a pain to research, particularly because it is a topic I know relatively little on, but now I can look forward to the final section on the ideological developments of the 1920s and a return to the more normal updates. I know that I didn't really have all that many divergences in this section, but that is again partly due to my lack of knowledge on the area. Let me know what you think.
