Between “Utopia” and “Dystopia”. American 20th century industrial novels and industrial sociology

Abstract

This article focuses on the relationship between industrial novels and industrial sociology. It is contended that industrial novels are valuable, but often neglected (possibly secondary or even primary) sources for sociology. This is particularly the case when industrial novels themselves are also based on empirical sources. This article deals with some exemplary modernist American industrial novels published in the first decades of the 20th century. These are Upton Sinclair’s industrial novels on working and living conditions in Chicago’s meat packing houses (1906), American coal mining (1917 & 1976), and Henry Ford and his motor company (1937) as well as a major industrial novel, “U.S.A.” (1938), written in the onset of the Great Depression by John Dos Passos. It turns out that industrial sociologists not only can benefit from the content of industrial novels. Also, the methods applied by the authors of these novels are relevant. In particular elements of Dos Passos’s radical experimental modernism could enrich existing sociological research tools.