1. Section 3, Chapter 14 The Second Industrial Revolution Riddlebarger
Workers Organize
Section 3, Chapter 14
The Second Industrial Revolution
Riddlebarger

2. The Gilded Age

3. Government and Business
Laissez-faire
Government maintains hands-off attitude toward business
Business leaders & politicians claim regulation would hurt economy
Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)
Illegal to form trusts that interfere with trade
Prohibits monopolies & activities that hinder marketplace.
Little enforcement for years
Even less attention paid to workers
Industrialization seen as raising standard for all Americans
Little attention to income inequality
% of population controls 75% of wealth

5. Industrial Workers Large numbers of workers required much labor
The workforce
Many are immigrants
Many are from rural America
Came to cities seeking jobs
WHY?
Native-born and European immigrants get priority
African-Americans get labor or household work
Paid less

6. Child Labor Many industrial workers are children
By 1900, 1 in 6 children between 10 and 15 years of age hold job outside home
Even as young as 5 must sometimes work

7. Child Labor

8. Working Conditions Unskilled Labor Average: 10 hours/day, 6 days/week
No benefits
Injuries/accidents on the job- replacement
Cramped work conditions
Some garment workers work out of their home
They pay rent and for heat & light

9. Sweatshops
“In [the tenements] the child works unchallenged from the day he is old enough to pull a thread. There is no such thing as a dinner hour; men and women eat while they work, and the ‘day’ is lengthened at both ends far into the night. Factory hands take their work with them at the close of the lawful day to eke out their scanty earnings by working overtime at home.”
Jacob Riis

10. Workers Seek Change
By late 1800’s, conditions are so bad, increasing numbers of workers begin organizing
What do they seek?
How does this action help their cause?

11. Early Organizing Early Labor Movement National Unions
Mostly Small and local
National Unions
National Labor Union (1866) small federation of local unions pushed for 8 hour day. Folded in 1872
Knights of Labor (1869)
Accepted unskilled, women, African-Americans, even employers
“An injury to one is a concern of all”; 700,000 strong by 1886
Pushed 8 hour day, end to child labor and equal pay for equal work
Early on, discouraged strikes; prefer negotiation and boycott

12. “To secure to the toilers [workers] a proper share of the wealth that they create; more of the leisure that rightfully belongs to them; more society advantages...in a word, all those rights and privileges necessary to make them capable of enjoying, appreciating, defending and perpetuating the blessings of good government.”
Preamble to the Constitution of Knights of Labor

13. The Great Railroad Strike
1st major strike (1877)
Several railroads cut wages during hard times
Workers for several train companies block train lines in protest
similar actions spread around country for a week stopping most traffic
Many governors call out militia to put down strikes
Baltimore: 10 killed after shots fired into crowd
Pittsburgh: 20 killed, including 3 children
Violent response does $4million damage
US Army puts an end to Great Railroad Strike
Over 100 died

14. The Haymarket Riot Chicago, 1886 Wage cuts cause worker strike
Gathering caused by police violence at protest
A bomb goes off
Gunfire ensues in the panic
11 dead; 100+ injured
Foreign-born blame
Xenophobia- fear of foreigners
8 arrested and charged with murder
Foreign names
No evidence existed but sentence to die
4 hanged; one commits suicide; 3 later pardoned.

15. The American Federation of Labor
Haymarket Response by employers
Increasing force workers to not join unions
Blacklists created of those seen as trouble
“Scabs” replace those who strike
Samuel Gompers & AFL
Formed by skilled workers in 1886 (Columbus, OH)
Used strikes and other tactics to win wage increases and shorter work weeks.

16. Homestead Strike Carnegie Steel Co. strike in Homestead, PA (1892)
Manager wants to break union & locks workers out
Workers seize plant
Private guards try to re-take plant & violence ensues
14 hour battle leaves 16 dead
Governor brings in state militia
Steelworker’s union will fizzle

18. Pullman Strike 1893- Pullman Co. lays of ⅓ of workers
Remaining workers have wages cut 25% but rent remains the same
Most live in company-owned dwellings
Workers strike
Eugene V. Debs, head of American Railway Union, support
Government steps in saying strike interferes with US Mail delivery
Workers still striking are jailed
President Grover Cleveland calls in military and strike ends
Workers not quitting ARU were fired or blacklisted