I could be wrong, but my understanding is that people were generally pretty optimistic in the early 1900s (before WW1 obviously). Everyday applications for electricity were rapidly changing daily life for people.
A principle response was the fundamentalist movement, back to fundamentals, especially of religion, and against science and technology, most especially evolution. See the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist–Modernist_contr...
Suddenly human capital was more valuable.