Thanks for your patience during our recent outage at scalar.usc.edu. While Scalar content is loading normally now, saving is still slow, and Scalar's 'additional metadata' features have been disabled, which may interfere with features like timelines and maps that depend on metadata. This also means that saving a page or media item will remove its additional metadata. If this occurs, you can use the 'All versions' link at the bottom of the page to restore the earlier version. We are continuing to troubleshoot, and will provide further updates as needed. Note that this only affects Scalar projects at scalar.usc.edu, and not those hosted elsewhere.
Looking Backward: An Exhibit of Edward Bellamy's Looking BackwardMain MenuLooking Backward by Edward BellamyOverview of this ProjectOutlining the Project's ScopeBoston 1887The Stagecoach AnalogyBoston 1887The Solution to the Labor IssueThe Knights of LaborUnited in BostonBellamy's BostonThe Utopic Boston of the Year 2000Utopic BostonUtopic CharacteristicsThe Capitalist America of TodayFinal Thoughts on Looking BackwardSourcesLooking Back: The ProcessEvan Ratermanne97ecf582f14fa0f3b0bf648c3d332c456e68ce4
1media/stgcoach.jpeg2017-04-30T09:34:07-07:00Boston 188711The Stagecoach Analogyplain2017-04-30T22:49:38-07:00In describing the relations of the rich and poor of Boston 1887, how the two coincided in the society, he employs a most striking allegory: The Stagecoach Allegory.
"By way of attempting to give the reader some general impression of the way people lived together in those days, and especially of the relations of the rich and poor to one another, perhaps i cannot do better than to compare society as it then was to a prodigious coach which the masses of humanity were harnessed to and dragged tollsomely along a very hilly and sandy road. The driver was hunger, and permitted no lagging, though the pace was necessarily very slow. Despite the difficulty of drawing the coach at all along so hard a road, the top was covered with passengers who never got down, even at the steepest ascents. These seats on top were very breezy and comfortable. Well up out of the dust, their occupants could enjoy the scenery at their leisure, or critically discuss the merits of the straining team. Naturally such places were in great demand and the competition for them was keen, every one seeking as the first end in life to secure a seat on the coach for himself and to leave it to his child after him. By the rule of the coach a man could leave his seat to whom he wished, but on the other hand there were many accidents by which it might at any time be wholly lost. For all that they were so easy, the seats were very insecure, and at every sudden jolt of the coach persons were slipping out of them and falling to the ground, where they were instantly compelled to take hold of the rope and help to drag the coach on which they had before ridden so pleasantly. it was naturally regarded as a terrible misfortune to lose one's seat, and the apprehension that this might happen to them or their friends was a constant cloud upon the happiness of those who rode." - Bellamy (pg 6)
The relations of the rich and the poor are tenuous, and a real rift has formed regarding capital. While the rich continue to get richer, the poor working man finds it increasingly difficult to survive, much less climb the social ladder in any way. To make matters worse, the individual worker had very little power, and faced long hours with meager pay with unsafe working conditions. There was not much the individual could do for themselves against the wealthy corporations, and tensions continued to rise until they reached a point of instability and something had to be done. The became known as "The Labor Problem."
