1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pennsylvania
PENNSYLVANIA (see 21.105). During 1910-20 there was a great increase in the industrial developments of Pennsylvania, largely as a result of the World War. From 1914 until American participation in 1917, the Allied Governments expended many millions of dollars among the steel, ammunition and other establishments, bringing to the state a period of prosperity the extent of which was apparent when the Liberty Loans and war taxes disclosed the accumulated wealth. The state maintained its rank as the second state in population and in industry.
The pop. of the state in 1920 was 8,720,017, an increase of 1,054,906 over 1910. The rate of increase, 13.8%, was considerably lower than that of the preceding decade, 21.6%. In 1920 the pop. of the 15 largest cities of the state was: Philadelphia, 1,823,158; Pittsburgh, 588,193; Scranton, 137,783; Reading, 107,784; Erie, 93,372; Harrisburg, 75,917; Wilkes-Barre, 73,833; Allentown, 73,502; Johnstown, 67,327; Altoona, 60,331; Chester, 58,030; Lancaster, 53,150; Bethlehem, 50,358; York, 47,512; and McKeesport, 46,781.
Agriculture.—A decrease of nearly $100,000,000 in the value of crops from 1919 to 1920 was reported by the state department of agriculture, but the state's farms showed an improvement in
production during the preceding decade. The contrast is shown in the following table:—
| 1909 | 1920 | |
| Wheat | 26,265,000 bus. | 26,774,760 bus. |
| Indian Corn | 48,800,000 bus. | 65,755,660 bus. |
| Oats | 25,948,000 bus. | 44,858,325 bus. |
| Buckwheat | 5,665,000 bus. | 4,952,860 bus. |
The depreciation in the value of crops from 1919 to 1920 was due in part to reduced acreage, but chiefly to the heavy decline in prices. The average farmer in 1920 lost $434.20 as a result of depreciation. The price of the average dairy cow during the year dropped from $96.75 to $75.50, the dairy industry alone depreciating $20,890,774. Sheep depreciated $3.75 a head, falling from $10.25 to $6.50, and the total loss to sheep-raisers was $4,000,000. Hogs declined from $30.90 to $16.15 and farm horses from fin to $102. The potato production for the entire state for 1920 was 29,158,435 bushels. The state department of agriculture valued the total fruit production of 1920 (20,825,000 bus.) at $18,742,500.
Mineral Production.—The following table shows the figures of the coal and coke industry during 1910-8, in tons:—
| Bituminous | Anthracite | Coke | |
| 1910 | 148,770,858 | 83,683,994 | 23,722,944 |
| 1911 | 142,189,329 | 90,917,176 | 19,984,320 |
| 1912 | 160,830,492 | 84,426,869 | 24,682,474 |
| 1913 | 172,965,659 | 91,626,964 | 24,718,238 |
| 1914 | 145,884,530 | 91,189,641 | 17,164,124 |
| 1915 | 157,420,068 | 89,377,706 | 22,012,945 |
| 1916 | 169,123,814 | 87,680,198 | 26,428,926 |
| 1917 | 171,074,411 | 100,445,299 | 23,240,777 |
| 1918 | 177,217,294 | 99,445,794 | 27,157,373 |
During these years an average of 190,000 persons were engaged in mining bituminous coal and 170,000 in mining anthracite.
Manufactures.—In the absence of final industrial figures for the U.S. census of 1920, not yet available in Dec. 1921, comparisons between the industries of 1909, 1914 and 1919 must be drawn from U.S. census figures for the first two periods and the survey made by the state department of internal affairs for the latter. In 1914 Pennsylvania became the foremost state in the value of silk production, displacing New Jersey. Her 1914 production was valued at more than one-third of the total for the United States, and the state had more than two-fifths of all the employees in the industry. In 1909 226 silk-producing establishments, with 36,469 employees, had a production valued at $62,061,000. In 1914 284 establishments, with an average of 44,755 wage-earners, produced material valued at $86,938,554. In 1919 347 establishments, with 57,079 employees, produced material valued at $238,422,600. Pennsylvania was the leading state in 1914 in hosiery manufacture, reporting 39.7% of the national quantity and 41.2% of the national value. In 1909 464 establishments manufacturing hosiery, employing 38,206 hands, produced a value of $49,658,000; in 1914 498 establishments, with 41,130 employees, produced a value of $64,163,449; in 1919 328 establishments, with 35,400 employees, $130,167,800. In the iron and steel industry in 1909 66 blast furnaces, with 14,521 employees, yielded $168,578,000, and in 1914, 52 with 11,518 employees a product valued at $135,806,067. Notwithstanding the decrease the state in 1914 employed 39.2% of all the wage-earners and produced 42.8% of the total product of the country. Steel works and rolling mills in 1914 also showed a decrease from 1909. In 1909 189 establishments, with 126,911 employees, produced $500,344,000, and in 1914 178 establishments, with 131,955 employees, produced $488,106,324. In the manufacture of tin-plate, Pennsylvania in 1914 led the nation. Comparative figures show:—
| Establishments | Employees | Product | |
| 1909 | 17 | 2,346 | $ 25,234,0662,346 |
| 1914 | 13 | 2,368 | 36,795,990 |
| 1919 | 8 | 12,311 | 115,642,300 |
The state census of 1919, for all industries, shows a total of 20,888 establishments in the state divided as follows:—buildings and contracting, 2,895; chemicals and allied products, 768; clay, glass and stone, 583; clothing, 1,398; food and kindred products, 2,404; leather and rubber goods, 395; liquors and beverages, 453; lumber and its remanufacture, 1,114; paper and printing, 1,740; textiles, 1,024; laundries, 273; metals and metal products, 3,432; mines and quarries, 1,564; public service, 1,005; tobacco and its products, 709; and miscellaneous 1,131. The total average number of employees was 1,691,171 (167,562 salaried employees, 1,523,609 wage-earners); the total wages, $2,176,449,100, and the total value of products, $8,853,047,600. The highest valuation was placed on metals and metal products, $3,675,971,500, more than 40% of the whole value of production. Employees in this industry numbered 508,311. Next was a product of $722,515,300 from the mining industries, which employed on an average 329,179 men in 1919. The textile industry maintained third place with 125,291 employees and a production valuation of $646,683,000. The figures from 1915-9 are as shown in the following table.
| Establishments | Average No. Wage-Earners |
Value of Production | |
| 1915 | 22,359 | 1,503,188 | $4,180,790,500 |
| 1916 | 20,961 | 1,735,543 | 6,419,410,000 |
| 1917 | 22,101 | 1,802,813 | 8,336,984,800 |
| 1918 | 21,158 | 1,827,101 | 9,403,306,600 |
| 1919 | 20,888 | 1,523,609 | 8,853,047,600 |
Education.—Two progressive steps a decade apart mark the development of the public schools. The first was the adoption of the School Code of May 18 1911; the second the enactment of what is known as the Finegan programme (named after the State Superintendent of Public Instruction) by the Legislature of 1921. The School Code of 1911 was virtually a codification of all the laws governing the public-school system and a general unification, with many new features, of administrative measures. Its most important sections provided for independent control of taxation and borrowing by school boards with minimum and maximum tax rates varying according to the size of the school district; reduction of the number of members in school boards so as to simplify official business; establishment of a State Board of Education; establishment of a state school fund, and general provisions for the better selection of text-books and for the development of higher education. The measures of 1921 (the Finegan programme) are as follows: (1) Providing that after Sept. 1 1927 those persons who enter the teaching service must show evidence of graduation from a state normal school or an equivalent education and training; (2) requiring fourth-class districts to maintain schools for 150 days in 1921-2 and 160 days in 1922-3; (3) increasing the qualifications of county superintendents by providing that no one except college-trained persons or normal-school graduates with certain school experience shall be qualified for the position; (4) increasing the salaries of all assistant county superintendents from $1,800 to $2,500 per year and giving most of the county superintendents an increase in salary of $500 or $1,000; (5) establishing a state-wide salary schedule for teachers, fixing the minimum at $1,200. In cities annual increments are required, and proportionately higher salaries are provided for high-school teachers; (6) increasing the state aid to schools for each biennial period from $24,000,000 to $36,000,000 and establishing a new basis of apportionment; (7) encouraging consolidation by providing that for each school closed the district shall be entitled to receive an annual allotment of $200; (8) making sufficient appropriations for normal schools so that they may be supported without tuition fees and providing a salary schedule for the faculties; (9) creating a State Council of Education to consist of nine business and professional men and women, replacing the State Board of Education and the college and university council; (10) standardizing the elementary courses in public and private schools and requiring that they be taught in the English language and from texts written in English; (ll) strengthening the compulsory attendance laws.
Finance.—The revenues of the state more than doubled from 1909 to the end of 1920. The receipts in 1909 were $28,945,210; in 1920, $62,071,293.97. This does not include $11,800,000 derived from the sale of state road bonds, a fund kept separate from the regular state moneys. Governor Sproul recommended to the 1921 session of the state Legislature an increase of about 10% in the tax on manufactures and a small tax on mined coal, a combination which would add more than $30,000,000 to the treasury annually. The treasury disbursements in the fiscal year 1920 were $74,960,112.20, the highest ever known. The total was $18,000,000 higher than in 1919, the increase being due to road construction. During the 1920 season approximately 410 m. of concrete state road were built, and 350 m. were under construction in 1921. In two years, 660 m. of 18-ft. concrete roadway, some of which had a brick wearing surface and some asphalt, were constructed by the state. In 1920 a total of 337 m. of macadam highway were resurfaced and 1,400 m. of highway had surface treatment. The maintenance force of the State Highway Department in March 1921 was keeping up 9,503 m. of roadway, of which 463 m. were in boroughs and on state-aid roads. The total resources in 1919 of all the banking institutions within the state, whether organized under national or state laws, were $4,529,919,000. Of these the state banks had resources in 1920 of $3,615,244,850, divided as follows: savings banks, $314,256,637; banks of deposit, $331,759,257; trust companies: banking resources, $1,380,919,028; trust funds, $1,578,424,021; trust funds in banks, $9,885,906.
Constitutional Changes.—The first two constitutional amendments of the decade ending 1920, adopted in 1911 and 1913 respectively, had to do with the courts, the one of 1911 increasing the number in Philadelphia county and merging those in Allegheny county, the one of 1913 altering the judicial and municipal terms to conform with an amendment of 1909 which changed the date of the elections from Feb. to November. Another amendment of 1913 enabled municipalities, except Philadelphia, to embark upon the construction or acquisition of waterworks, subways, etc., even though their cost brought the indebtedness above the limit allowed, and permitted arrangement whereby the interest and sinking-fund charges were paid from the principal until the properties should have been completed and in operation for one year. A limit of 10% of the assessed valuation of taxable property in a municipality was fixed for such
indebtedness, three-fifths of the electors of the municipality having first to give their assent to the increase. On Nov. 2 1915 the people voted on four proposed amendments and adopted three of them. The first and the most important prepared the way for workmen's compensation. The second enabled Philadelphia to increase its borrowing capacity under conditions similar to those set forth in the amendment of 1913. The third enabled the general assembly to enact laws providing a system of registering, transferring, insuring and guaranteeing land titles by the state or the counties. Amendments passed by the Legislature in 1915 and 1917 were approved by the voters in 1918, one enabling the state to issue bonds to the amount of $50,000,000 for the improvement of highways, and the other enlarging Philadelphia's borrowing capacity by removing the previous restrictions which confined its increased indebtedness to the construction or acquisition of waterworks, subways, etc. An amendment approved at (he general election in 1920 enabled the assembly to levy “graded or progressive taxes.” The result of these numerous amendments was manifest in the session of 1919, when a bill was passed authorizing the governor to appoint a commission to study the constitution with an eye either to general revision or to amendment by sections. This commission hela public hearings during 1920 and prepared a report to be placed before the session of 1921.
Legislation.—The number of boards, commissions, etc., functioning under the state government was greatly increased between 1919 and 1920. The Legislature in 1911 created a Bureau of Professional Education under the State Department of Public Instruction, its purpose being to regulate the education of physicians, dentists and pharmacists. The same year a State Board of Education was created, composed of six members, to report and recommend legislation needed to increase the efficiency and usefulness of the public-school system, to equalize educational advantages in all sections of the state, to inspect schools supported in part or in whole by the state, to encourage vocational training, to improve sanitary conditions and to promote physical and moral welfare. A Bureau of Medical Education and Liccnsure, under the Department of Public Instruction, was also created by Act of 1911, to examine into conditions in the medical schools and conduct the examination of students applying for state licences. In 1911 the office of state fire marshal was created, with general powers of investigation over all fires in the state and means of fire prevention. Another important change of 1911 was the reorganization by legislative enactment of the State Highway Department and the undertaking of an extensive system of highways to be built and maintained entirely from state funds.
In 1913 the Department of Labor and Industry was created, with the power to enforce the “laws relating to the safety, health and prosperity of employees and the industries.” Under it were formed the bureaus of Inspection, Hygiene and Engineering, Statistics and Information, Mediation and Arbitration, Employment, and also an Industrial Board. A Workmen's Compensation Board was created, the state was divided into districts and the administration of compensation carried on through referees and members of the board. A State Workmen's Insurance Board was created the same year for the purpose of administering the insurance fund provided in the Workmen's Compensation Act. In the meanwhile the Legislature in 1913 did away with the old State Railway Commission and substituted a Public Service Commission, with powers far greater than those of its predecessor, and having jurisdiction over “all railroad, canal, street railway, stage line, express, pipe line, ferry, common carriers,” etc., companies “doing business within the state.”
The year 1915 saw the reorganization of the Department of Agriculture with the creation of a Commission on Agriculture to appoint all officers and employees of the department and prepare the budgets of the department and of the State Live Stock Sanitary Board. Other new boards of that year were the one on vocational training under the Department of Public Instruction; the Board of Censors, upon all motion pictures; the Prison Labor Commission, to supervise the manufacturing industries of inmates of penal institutions; and the Veterinary Medical Examining Board. The Bureau of Municipalities under the .Department of Labor and Industry was a development of 1917 intended to classify and make available statistics and other information tending to improve the government of municipalities. Five boards were created the same year: the State Military Board which has the power to grant pensions not exceeding $12 per month to widows or minor children of national guardsmen killed on active duty while under the direction of the governor; the Board of Pharmacy; the Board of Optometrical Education, Examination and Licensure; the Board of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and the Public School Employees' Retirement Board. The Legislature of 1917 also created a Commission on Public Safety and Defense, to which was appropriated $2,000,000 and which functioned during the two years of American participation in the World War, partly independently and partly through the State Committee of Public Safety and Council of National Defense. The Commission on Public Safety and Defense was succeeded in 1919 by the Commission on Public Welfare, which received an appropriation of $500,000 to carry on the work of reconstruction, Americanization, and collection of the records of the state's part in the World War. The session of 1919 also created a Bureau of Statistics and Information under the State Department of Internal Affairs, transferred the Bureau of Municipalities from the Department of
Labor and Industry to the Department of Internal Affairs, and created a Bureau of Rehabilitation under the Department of Labor and Industry. The year 1919 witnessed the adoption of two Federal amendments, Pennsylvania ratifying the prohibition amendment, as the forty-fifth state, on Feb. 25, and the woman suffrage amendment, as the seventh state, on June 24.
More recent governors were John K. Tener, Republican, 1911-5; Martin G. Brumbaugh, Republican, 1915-9; William C. Sproul, Republican, 1919-.
War Period.—Pennsylvania sent 297,891 men into the U.S. army, of whom 53,419 were regulars, 21,350 national guardsmen, and 223,122 drafted. There were 31,063 Pennsylvanians in the navy, 16,872 of whom enlisted in the naval reserve, 13,772 in the regular navy, and 419 in the national naval volunteers. The state was represented by 5,422 men in the marine corps, making a total of 334,376 men and women in the national armed forces. In addition it had 1,600 Y. M.C.A. workers, 147 Knights of Columbus secretaries, and 129 welfare workers under the Society of Friends. In the army Pennsylvania suffered 35,042 casualties, of which 7,898 were deaths. Financially, 559,936 Pennsylvanians subscribed $315,834,950 to the First Liberty Loan; 881,207 subscribed $549,963,700 to the Second Loan; 2,026,973 subscribed $467,758,550 to the Third Loan; 2,349,252 subscribed $812,217,400 to the Fourth Loan; and 1,289,764 subscribed $564,173,200 to the Victory Loan, making a total of $2,709,947,800 for the five loans, a per capita of $312.92 as compared with the per capita throughout the United States of $232.31. The war taxes of the state were: 1917, $589,056,143.20; 1918, $446,811,191. The American Red Cross in its two campaigns in Pennsylvania raised $27,283,990.90 or 10% of the total for the whole country. The Red Cross membership in the state at the close of 1918 was 1,669,758 adults and 1,451,057 juniors, the latter being 86.12% of the school population. Pennsylvania gave approximately $3,000,000 to the war welfare work of the Knights of Columbus. The two Y.M.C.A. drives in the state netted $6,562,516.23.
More than 85,000 men and women were employed in the six Pennsylvania shipyards on the Delaware river in 1918. The Hog I. plant near Philadelphia built no cargo vessels of 7,500 dead-weight tons apiece and 12 transports of 8,000 tons. The Harriman yard at Bristol, of the Merchants' Shipbuilding Corp., built 32 cargo vessels of 9,000 tons apiece; William Cramp & Sons at Philadelphia built four tankers of 10,000 tons apiece and nine steel ships, all but one of which were of more than 9,000 tons. Likewise it launched 35 destroyers during the war period and 13 subsequently. The Chester yard of the Merchants' Shipbuilding Corp. built 28 cargo ships and tankers averaging 8,000 tons apiece and several small naval vessels. The Sun Shipbuilding Co. at Chester built 14 ships averaging 11,000 tons apiece and four cargo ships of 10,000 tons apiece. It also constructed nine mine-sweepers for the navy. The yard for wooden ships of the Traylor plant at Cornwells Heights built eight vessels of 3,500 tons each. The Federal Government spent $46,396,266.80 in housing war workers in the state, $23,021,000 being spent by the Emergency Fleet Corp. for shipbuilders, and $23,375,266.80 by the U.S. Housing Commission.
The Remington Arms Co. at Eddystone manufactured 1,181,908 rifles up to two days before the Armistice, or 47% of the American rifles supplied to troops at home and abroad. The Baldwin Locomotive Works at Philadelphia and Eddystone contracted for 470 steam locomotives for the U.S. Railroad Administration and nearly 4,000 steam locomotives for the A.E.F. and the Allies. The Aluminum Co. of America, at Pittsburgh, manufactured 3,385,955 meat cans for mess kits, or two-fifths of the total made in America. The Edward G. Budd Co., Philadelphia, pressed and stamped 1,150,775 steel helmets, while a total of 2,707,237 helmets were painted and assembled in the Ford Motor Co. plant in Philadelphia. The entire cannon-forging output of the country during the war was 8,440 before Armistice Day, and Pennsylvania's contribution was 2,960, or almost two-fifths. One of the three American powderbag loading plants was located at Tullytown, Pa.; it employed 7,000 persons and had reached a capacity of 40,000 bags a day at the date of the Armistice. The Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. at Pittsburgh had a total output of 81,845 optical lenses when the end of the war caused a general cancellation of contracts.