1. Age of Industry
Summer school

2. The Industrial Revolution
Working Conditions
By 1860 most states established a 10-hour workday. It was rarely enforced.
Most worked 12 hours 6 days a week
Most were paid not by the hour, but by what they produced called Piecework. 5 cents per/Shirt etc…
Whoever worked fastest made the most money
This is where the term sweatshop came from. Long hours, low wages, poor conditions.

3. Working Conditions Cont…
Principles of Scientific Management
Frederick Winslow Taylor
Book that studied breaking down factory work into individual steps and studying each step and how long each step should take to increase productivity.
Division of Labor
Doing one small job in the production creation process instead of making the entire item from the start
Took much of the joy out of the work
Workers rarely saw the final product.

4. Working Conditions Cont…
Work Environment
Workers ruled by the clock
No flexibility when they started or stopped.
Told when they could have breaks and meals.
Discipline was strict
Workplace Safety
Few factories were safe
Machines were dangerous and workers pushed to work as fast as they could. This led to many accidents including: fires, poor ventilation, loss of body limbs, death.

5. Working Conditions Cont…
Families and Children
1880s children made up 5% of the workforce.
Many families depended on children to survive
Children often left school at the age of to work.
Many girls would go off to work so their brothers could stay in school.
No government assistance for poor families. If a parent died, Kids needs to work even more for family to survive even as young as 6 or 7.

6. Big Business Social Darwinism
Society should interfere with competition as little as possible.
They opposed Government intervention to protect workers.
If Government stayed out of Business, Those who were most ” fit ” would succeed and become rich.
Believed Society would benefit from the success of the fit and weeding out of the unfit.
Most Americans were divided on the issue of government involvement.

7. Gospel of Wealth Andrew Carnegie
People should be free to make as much money as they want or can. After they make it however, they should give it away.
After becoming rich, 80% of his wealth went towards some form of education.
By 1919 when he dies he had given away more than 350 million dollars.

8. Monopoly Monopoly – Complete control of a product or business.
Horizontal Consolidation
Buy up all of the same smaller business to make one large business and have total control.
Rockefeller and Standard Oil
Buy all smaller refineries around the country
Vertical Consolidation
Buy up all the companies used in each stage of production to have total control.
Carnegie and Carnegie Steel
Buy the mines, the steel mills, the railroads, etc…

9. Role of Government Laissez-faire Capitalism
Government Philosophy with regards to business.
Government would stay out of all business affairs
The Market would decide costs and competition. Not the Government
Business would thrive or fail on its own merits.
Results in huge profits, huge business failures, and poor conditions for the workers.

10. Government Response
Government was hesitant to interfere with business.
Wealth was rising at huge rates
1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act
Designed to limit the amount of control a business can have over one industry.
Outlawed a combination of companies that restrain interstate trade or commerce.
Law was too vague though and was largely unenforced.

11. Labor Unions
Industrialization lowered the prices of consumer goods. Most workers though did not earn enough to buy them. Workers began to take their complaints to the employers.
Labor Unions are groups of workers who band together to argue for better conditions from their employers. They can use the threat of strike.
Strikes could be violent

12. The Knights of Labor One of the first national Labor Unions
Wide membership through different industries
Farmers and factory workers, shopkeepers and office workers, Blacks and women recruited.
Wanted equal pay for equal work, 8-hour work day and an end to child labor. Did not emphasize higher wages as primary goal.
Sponsored the first Labor Day in 1882.
Disappeared in the 1890s as a national force

13. American Federation of Labor (AFL)
AFL formed in 1886 as a Craft Union
Organized only skilled workers in specific crafts
Really a network of smaller Unions
Focused mostly on wages and working conditions
Discouraged African-Americans and no women
Used mostly strikes and boycotts
Pressed for “Closed Shop” or Union only labor workplaces

14. Reaction of Business Most business feared Unions
Worried costs would go up and not be able to be competitive.
Measures to stop Unions:
Forbidding meetings
Firing organizers
Force employees to sign contracts where they had to promise to not join Union or participate in strike.
Refused to collectively bargain when strikes occurred
Refused to recognize unions as their legitimate representatives

15. Major Strikes Great Railroad Strike of 1877
B&O RR announced wage cuts of 10%. Other RR in the area also cut.
Workers in West Virginia first to Strike.
When they tried to prevent others from running the trains, violence erupted with local militia.
Spread rapidly to major cities.
Governors request assistance from the Federal Government. Federal troops used to stop strike.
Precedent set

16. Major Strikes From 1891-1900 U.S. faced crisis after crisis.
24,000 strikes in factories, mills, mines, and rail in 20 years
3 of the most violent strikes in American History
Haymarket Strike 1886
Homestead 1892
Pullman 1894
Clear that U.S. Government would do what it could to prevent Labor unions and support business