Toffler’s Wave Theory

Barb Wilkison EDUC 7100

2012

1900 to the Future

In his 1980 book The Third Wave, Alvin Toffler presented his theory that our development as a society has evolved through three waves.

•The Agricultural Wave•The Industrial Wave•The Information Wave

He also proposed a fourth wave, Communication

A summary of Toffler’s theory may be found by clicking on the book.

This presentation will illustrate each of those waves in terms of the following strands:

•Technology•Work•Education•Society and Culture•Journalism

For this project I will be focusing on the four waves from the year 1900 forward.

•Agricultural Wave 8000 BC-1750

•Industrial Age 1750-1950

•Information Age 1950-2000

•Communication Age 2000-?

Toffler’s Waves By Suggested Time Periods:

There is overlapping during each of the four waves. One wave does not stop suddenly one year and the next

wave start up the next. I have chosen to focus on the decades when

each wave was most prominent.

Average worker made $12.98/week for 59 hours 

The Agricultural Wave 1900-1910Technology

Work

Education

Society and Culture

Journalism•Newspapers begin to offer commentary on the news, often with political cartoons.

•Newspapers change to a 4-column, tabloid style layout.

•Most children educated in one-room schools.•Annual teacher pay is $325,•1904-Mary Beth Bethune, an African American educator, founds the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in Daytona Beach, Florida.

•Thomas Edison invents first talking motion picture.•Mass-Production causes prices to fall to all time low.•1903-Wright Brothers’ first flight•1903-Crayons are invented.•Hand-cranked Victrola Introduced.

•Farming is a primary source of family income. •Early factories are dirty and unsafe, with long hours and little pay.•Only 19% of women in the workforce.•Average worker makes $12.95 a week for 59 hours.

•1902-The birth of the Teddy Bear•1906-Upton Sinclair publishes The Jungle 1912-The Titanic sinks.•1914-The Panama Canal opens.•Nickelodeons are the rage, pay a nickel to see a film at an arcade.•Barbershop quartets popular.

The Agricultural Wave 1910-1920

Technology

Work

Education

Society and Culture

Journalism

1912

•Newspapers are a source of activism for political parties and for social equality. •Ethnic newspapers reach peak with over 1323 foreign language publications.•Tabloid journalism charts a new era of sensationalism focusing on sex and crime.

•1911-First Montessori school opens in US.•1913- Thomas Edison says, “In the future books will be obsolete in the classroom.”•During WWI War and Navy Departments use film to train officers and inform public.•Less than 10% high school graduation rate.

•1914-first moving assembly line•1919-Pop-up toaster is invented.•Mass production of cars creates nationwide prosperity.•Small size Kodak camera make picture taking easier.•Gas Tractors come into use.

•1916-Norman Rockwell paints first cover for Saturday Evening Post.•1920-Women gain the right to vote.•Divorce rate is 1/1000.•Jim Thorpe wins gold medal at Olympics.•Girl Scouts of America founded.

•145 women killed in Triangle Shirt Factory fire.•Labor unions grow as middle class becomes discontented with working conditions and pay.•Unemployment rate 5.2%

The Industrial Wave 1920-1930

Technology

Work

Education

Society and Culture

Journalism

Boeing 727

1925

•1929 Stock Market Crashes, Great Depression begins.•1921-First Miss America Contest•Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin.•Harlem Renaissance Movement

•1925-35 Educational Radio emerges.•SAT first administered.•1929-John Piaget publishesThe Child’s Conception of the World.•1925-Scopes trial makes teaching evolution illegal.

•Robert Goddard  invents liquid-fueled rockets.•1930-Birdseye patents frozen food process.•Charles Lindberg, first trans-Atlantic flight.•Synthetic materials such as plexiglass and nylon are developed.

•The first regular commercial radio broadcasts begin when AM station KDKA of Pittsburgh delivers results of the Harding-Cox election to its listeners. •Henry Luce creates newsmagazine with Time.

•One farmer supplies 9.8 people in US and world.•1929-Stock Market Crashes.•Six million American families earn less than $1000 a year.•Labor strikes break out, pitting coal miners and railroad men against their powerful employers.

•1938-Edward R. Murrow broadcasts from Vienna. Marks beginning of the broadcast news correspondent.•Picture magazines such as Life become popular, greater opportunity for photo journalists.

The Industrial Wave 1930-1940

Technology

Work

Education

Society and Culture

Journalism

Philco TV1935

•Movie goers enjoy Bob Hope, Marx Brothers and WC Fields.•1933 First drive-in movie theater opens.•Hitler comes to power in Germany.•Batman and Superman first appear in comic books.

•1930-Scientists discover Pluto•1928-First Xerography prototype•1939-Electron Microscope invented.•1939-Television set displayed at World’s Fair.

•1930-On February 3, some 1.5 million schoolchildren listen to the first educational radio broadcast, transmitted on CBS by the American School of the Air.•1931-First Dick and Jane reading primers.•1939-Weschlers IQ test developed.

•Conventional roles of men as breadwinners and women as homemakers.•Unemployment rate is 25%.•Dust Bowl farmers head west to find better opportunities.

The Industrial Wave 1940-1950

Technology

Work

Education

Society and Culture

Journalism

Female steel workers don

oxygen masks.WWII

•The exodus of women in the workplace begins-they are needed to replace men who have gone to war.•1950-31% of women work outside the home.•As men return from the war, having seen the world, the farm is no longer the ideal.

•1946 -First microwave oven invented.•1941-Aerosol cans invented.•Radio and Television become major providers of news and entertainment.•1945-A digital computer named ENIAC is introduced. It was two stories high and weighed 30 tons.

•1941-Japanese attack Pearl Harbor•1945 First Flu Vaccine administered.•1943-Slinky is invented. •1949-First cake mixes available in stores. •1945- United States drops two atomic bombs on Japan -- one at Hiroshima, one at Nagasaki, that claim more than 100,000 lives. 

•1945-GI Bills gives returning servicemen college scholarships.•1947-First text films- to supplement textbooks.•1948-Educational Testing Service created.

•Movie theaters show newsreels before feature films.•Office of Censorship enforces strict regulations on news releases.•The Federal Communication Commission forbade the creation of new radio and television stations during the war years.

•People begin to turn to television for their news, as an alternative to newspapers.•Walter Cronkite named as CBS news commentator.•Magazines begin creating audiences for specialized publications.

The Information Wave 1950-1960Technology

Work

Education

Society and Culture

Journalism

•1950-First Xerox machine invented.•1951-Charles Ginsburg invents first video tape. •1952-Univac mainframe computer used by CBS to predict presidential election. •1958-First transistors in computers, smaller, more reliable

•1950-filmstrips,16mm films come to the classroom.•1953-B.F.Skinner’s behaviorist theories begin to influence American education.•1954-Brown vs. Board of Education•1956-Bloom’s Taxonomy published.•1957-Sputnik launched, US feels pressure to stress math and science in schools.

•1955-Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat.•1957-Federal troops integrate Little Rock schools.•1958-BankAmericard issues first bank credit card.•1959-First Barbie Doll sold.•Bomb shelter plans available from government.

•Average salary in 1950 is $2992• Americans begin buying goods not available during the war, which creates corporate expansion and jobs.

The Information Wave 1960-1970

Technology

Work

Education

Society and Culture

Journalism•Investigative reporters begin uncovering information about activities of government and other high –profile groups.•By the 1960s,it has become important to get fresh images of events into the news every evening. The broadcast of disturbing footage from Vietnam on television gives the public a taste of the horrors of war, and swayed public opinion.

•1961-Alan Shepard becomes first man in space.•1964- Smaller computer microchip components.•1965- CD invented•1967-First hand-held calculator•1969-Artificial heart invented

•CAI begins to be used in the classroom.•1965-Head Start program starts.•1966-Jerome Brunner publishes Toward a Theory of Instruction, more support for cognitivism.•1968-Supreme Court rules teaching of Evolution is legal.

•1961-Oral Contraceptives available for first time.•1963-President John F. Kennedy assassinated.•1969-Valium developed•1968-Martin Luther King assassinated.

•1960-Average pay has risen to $4943.•1963-Equal Pay Act mandates equal pay for equal work.•Cesar Chavez organizes Hispanic workers in the United Farm Workers Union.

The Information Wave 1970-1980

Technology

Work

Education

Society and Culture

Journalism

TeletypeMachine

1975

•1971-Dot Matrix printer is introduced, as well as the VCR.•1974-The microcomputer in use.•Personal computers affordable-TRS 80, Commodore, Apple II•1975-Laser printer available•MRI technology developed to aid in diagnosis.

•Mandatory busing mandated to achieve integration of schools.•1975- PL94-192 Education of Handicapped Children becomes federal law.•1983-Howard Gardner introduces his Multiple Intelligence theory.•1983- A Nation at Risk is published.

•The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v.•Wade invalidates state laws that make abortion illegal.•1974-President Richard Nixon resigns after Watergate.•1977-Elvis Presley dies.

•1972-Woodward & Bernstein uncover Watergate scandal.•Pentagon Papers leaked to the New York Times.•Because of a rising mistrust of the media, many major journalistic organizations and individual news organizations establish codes and standards.

•Affirmative Action becomes a controversial policy as minorities and women assert their rights to jobs.•1979-Average salary $7554.

The Communication Wave 1980-1990

Technology

Work

Education

Society and Culture

Journalism•Schools are investing heavily in microcomputers.•Middle school concept developed to address needs of adolescents.•1980-Department of Education Created.•Teacher exams become a requirement for graduation with education degrees.

•1980-Doppler Radar Invented.•1981-IBM Pc is introduced.•1981-NASA successfully launches and lands its reusable spacecraft, the Space Shuttle.•1984-Apple introduces the Mac computer.•1985-Microsoft gives us Windows.

•1980-Average salary $15,757. Minimum wage is $3.10.•1990-57% of all women are in the work force.•Two-earner families more prominent than in any previous decade.

•There is a rise in women such as Barbara Walters and Connie Chung in the media.•New technologies such as cable television, led to expansion and the creation of new networks such as CNN and Fox. 

•When Rock Hudson dies from an AIDS-related illness in 1985,the disease became a matter of great national concern. •1981-MTV air first music video.•Video gaming becomes popular with Nintendo, PacMan, and Gameboy.

The Communication Wave 1990-2000

Technology

Work

Education

Society and Culture

Journalism

The First Palm1995

•1990-The World Wide Web and HTML are born.•1996-Dolly the sheep is cloned.•1999-The Hubble Telescope is launched.•1998-Google introduces search engine.

1995-Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City is bombed.•1998-Viagra hits the pharmacies.•2000-12 billion emails a day are sent in US.•Tickle-Me-Elmo and Beanie Babies hit the market.

•1991-Smart Technologies introduces its interactive white board.•1993-Jones International University becomes first to exist completely online.•ERIC database goes online.•1999-83.5% of students complete high school.•Ritilin became drug of choice as more students are labeled ADD or ADHD.

•1990-Minium wage is $5.15/hr.•1993-Congress passes Family Leave Act.•Booming economy leads to record low unemployment rates.

•2000-More families subscribe to internet services than newspapers.•U.S. newspaper advertising peaks At $49 billion.•More Than 4,000 newspapers publishing online.

The Communication Wave 2000-2010

Technology

Work

Education

Society and Culture

Journalism

2010

9-11-01 Terrorists Attack World Trade Center.2003-US invades Iraq.2005-YouTube is introduced.2005-Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans.2009-Barak Obama sworn in as first black president of the US.

•2000-The Human Genome is decoded.•2001-Apple introduces the iPhone.•2003-Toyota invents the hybrid car.•2004-Web2.0 emerges.•2007-Amazon releases the Kindle

•2001-No Child Left Behind Act approved by Congress.•2009-Common Core initiative begins.•Students interact with peers around the world via Skype, video conferencing, and distance learning.

•Nov. 5, 2008-Newspapers Sell Out Of Obama Election Front Pages•2008-The Pulitzer Prize journalism competition is broadened to include online-only publications primarily devoted to original news reporting.•2009-70% of journalists use social networking for reporting.

•Work is often done by teams rather that individuals.•Stability of work may be at an all-time low. Mergers, acquisitions, downsizing, outsourcing, and radically changing technologies have all made the idea of “life-long employment” at one company, or even in one occupation, much less likely than in earlier times.

The Communication Wave 2010-Future

Technology

Work

Education

Society and Culture

Journalism

X-Box Kinect

•People are able to telecommute, thanks to internet, Skype, and improved communications.•The U.S. workforce will continue to increase in size, but at a considerably slower rate, while the composition will shift toward a more balanced distribution by age, sex, and race/ethnicity.

•Textbooks available in e-reader online, and CD formats.•Higher learning degrees available online.•Video conferencing allows students to interact with classes around the world.•More online collaboration with classmates.

•Micro-submarines being developed to clean up oil spills.•A way to reverse global warming? Study finds room to store CO2 underground.•World’s first synthetic organ transplant

•New treatments for obesity•Researchers predict artificial kidney by 2021•Researchers predict white people will be in the minority by 2042.

•Television stations now broadcast in digital format only.•Print newspaper circulation continues to fall.•Some predict that television and radio will experience what newspapers are experiencing now.