AmHst14_Industrial.pdf

(1)

1

Read the following material before attending the workshop. As you read the excerpts and primary sources, take note of the “Questions to Consider” as well as any questions you have. The activities in the workshop will draw on information from the readings and the video shown during the workshop.

U

nit

i

ntrodUCtion

A new era of mass production arose in the United States because of technological innovations, a favorable patent system, new forms of factory organization, an abundant supply of natural resources, and foreign investment. The labor force came from millions of immigrants from around the world seeking a better way of life, and aided a society that needed to mass-produce consumer goods. The changes brought about by industrialization and immigration gave rise to the labor movement and the emergence of women’s organizations advocating industrial reforms.

U

nit

l

earning

o

BJeCtives

After reading the text materials, participating in the workshop activities, and watching the video, teachers will

• understand the forces that brought about unprecedented economic expansion;

• have a better understanding of the immigrants that came from Asia, Europe, and Latin America;

• learn how a favorable patent system furthered industrial expansion;

• explore why the emergence of a labor movement garnered mixed support, with some Americans calling for reform and others seeking repression;

• learn how women’s organizations emerged as an infl uential force for reform.

t

his

U

nit

f

eatUres

• Textbook excerpts (sections of U.S. history surveys, written for introductory college courses by history professors) • Primary sources (documents and other materials created

by the people who lived in the period) including a patent, photographs, graphics, and text excerpts.

• A timeline at the end of the unit, which places important events in the era of imperialism

U

nit

14

i

ndUstrialiZing

(2)

Unit 14 Industrializing America

Theme 1:

After the Civil War, the development of improved industrial methods and the arrival of masses of immigrants eager for factory jobs launched a new era of mass production in the United States.

Theme 2:

Fleeing religious and political persecution and poor economic conditions, millions of people began to move around the globe, with a high concentration coming to the United States.

Theme 3:

Industrial expansion and the influx of new populations brought about major changes, including the rise of a labor movement and the emergence of women’s organizations as important agents of social and political reform. The “second industrial revolution,” which took place roughly between 1870

and 190, brought many changes to the United States, including the mass production of consumer goods; large-scale migration from all parts of the world; and patterns of social change that reshaped workplace, family, and gender roles. Mass-produced goods rose in quantity and variety, and became cheaper to buy. To sell these goods, entrepreneurs developed vast communication and transportation networks that led to the creation of a nationwide market. The government supported these developments by making grants of land to railroad entrepreneurs and by legislating protective tariffs, a tax on foreign, imported goods.

Often recruited by employers, a labor force eager for economic opportunity migrated to cities from rural areas of the United States, and from Asia, Latin America, and Europe. Millions of immigrants from China, Mexico, Canada, southern and Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia entered all regions of the country, with the majority settling in the Northeast. Many of these immigrants hoped to obtain land, but—arriving penniless—often took the first industrial jobs they could find. At first, these workers might earn enough to support families left behind or bring the family members over to join them. When the economy slumped, however, business owners cut wages, increased work hours and responsibilities, or laid off workers. In response, workers formed unions to demand improved working

conditions. Local and national strikes became increasingly frequent—even violent. Acting as concerned consumers, many middle-class women’s organizations pressed for reforms in labor-industrial relations.

(3)

Historical Perspectives

After Reconstruction, mass production, mass immigration, and movements for social change converged to bring about a period of unprecedented economic expansion. Advances in mass production and mass distribution changed how people worked and lived. The nation’s patent system encouraged innovation by protecting the rights of inventors. The mass production of goods became more mechanized and efficient, output increased, and profits rose, allowing businessmen to invest and expand American industry.

Through published advertisements, American businesses recruited overseas immigrants to work in the nation’s factories, mills, farms, and railroads. Millions of immigrations from Asia, Latin America, and Europe provided the labor needed by American industry. These laborers often worked long hours at low wages and under harsh working conditions.

Eventually, workers organized to change these conditions and went on strike to win their demands. Strikes and other forms of labor protests continued throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. National reaction to labor unrest ranged from calls for reform to outright repression. Although many groups favored better treatment of workers, women’s organizations emerged as a powerful new force for labor reform: They fought for an end to child labor, the introduction of minimum wages, and improvements in health and safety conditions in factories.

Faces of America

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a feminist

author; Rose Cohen, a Russian immigrant garment worker; and Ah Bing, a Chinese immigrant farmer, represented the diverse cultures and ideas that emerged during American industrialization.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a self-educated artist and author, proposed some radical ideas about the role of women in society. Gilman believed that women should have economic and professional opportunities beyond the domestic sphere.

Rose Cohen’s memoir described the immigrant experience in Manhattan’s tenement district. Her memoir gives a compelling glimpse into the lives of European immigrants as they attempted to build a bridge from their old world origins into their new world.

Ah Bing immigrated to the United States from China and worked at the Lewelling orchard in western Oregon. During periods of anti-Chinese rioting, Ah Bing and other Chinese laborers found refuge in the Lewelling home. Chinese discrimination culminated with the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 188, which prohibited Chinese immigration into the United States.

Hands on History

How do you write a historical biography?

(4)

t

heMe

o

ne

Theme One:

After the Civil War, the development of improved industrial

methods and the arrival of masses of immigrants eager for factory jobs

launched a new era of mass production in the United States.

Overview

After Reconstruction, the nation turned its efforts toward economic recovery and expansion. America’s abundant supply of natural resources, such as coal and oil, encouraged

investment, as did a favorable patent system that protected the rights of inventors. Much of this investment came from abroad—from already industrialized countries such as Germany, Great Britain, and France—whose entrepreneurs looked for new investment opportunities in the United States. These investors put money into the work of mechanics and engineers with the expertise to develop new, more efficient ways of mass-producing consumer goods. New forms of factory organization, which allowed business owners to achieve economies of scale, proliferated across the nation’s industrial areas. These economies of scale benefited the United States by allowing business owners to specialize in the production of goods and manufacture them in large quantities to distribute throughout the nation or export abroad. As a result, the cost of mass-produced goods went down as their quantity and variety (though not necessarily their quality) went up. Industrial profits rose. An expanding system of transcontinental railroads—alongside of which a communication network of telegraph and eventually telephone lines went up—facilitated the growth of national markets to distribute these goods. The invention of pressure-sealed cans and refrigeration increased the availability of foodstuffs, thereby improving the quality of life for many of the nation’s city-dwellers.

Questions to Consider

1. What impact did the convergence of immigration, the influx of investment money, and technological change have on the United States after the Civil War?

(5)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

1.

The Texture of Industrial Progress

When Americans went to war in 1861, agriculture was the country’s leading source of economic growth. Forty years later, manufacturing had taken its place. During these years, the production of manufactured goods outpaced population growth. By 1900, three times as many goods per person existed as in 1860. Per capita income increased by over percent a year. But these aggregate figures disguise the fact that many people did not win any gains at all.

As the nature of the American economy changed, big businesses became the characteristic form of economic organization. They could raise the capital to build huge factories, acquire expensive and efficient machinery, hire hundreds of workers, and use the most up-to-date methods. The result was more goods at lower prices.

New regions grew in industrial importance. From New England to the Midwest lay the country’s industrial heartland. New England remained a center of light industry, while the Midwest still processed natural resources. Now, however, the production of iron, steel, and transportation equipment joined older manufacturing operations there. In the Far West, manufacturers concentrated on processing the region’s natural resources, but heavy industry made strides as well. In the South, the textile industry put down roots by the 1890s.

Although many factors contributed to dramatically rising industrial productivity, the changing character of the industrial sector explains many of the gains. Pre–Civil War manufacturers had concentrated either on producing textiles, clothing, and leather products or on processing agricultural and natural resources like grain, logs, or lumber. Although these operations remained important, heavy industry grew rapidly after the war. The manufacturing of steel, iron, and machinery meant producers, rather than consumers, fueled economic growth.

An accelerating pace of technological change contributed to, and was shaped by, the industrial transformation of the late nineteenth century. Technological breakthroughs allowed more efficient production that, in turn, helped to generate new needs and further innovation. Developments in the steel and electric

industries exemplify this interdependent process and highlight the contributions of entrepreneurs and new ways of organizing research and innovation.

(6)

6 Unit 14 Industrializing America

U.s. p

atent for the

r

efrigerated

r

ailroad

Question to Consider

How did the development of a favorable patent system stimulate industrial and economic development?

Item 5639 Andrew Chase, U.S. PAtENt for thE rEfrIGErAtEd rAIlroAd (1867).

Courtesy of the United States Patent and trademark office.

See Appendix for larger image – pg. 46

t

heMe

o

ne

p

riMary

s

oUrCe

Audience:

Purpose:

Historical Significance: Creator:

Context:

Andrew Chase

The establishment of a favorable patent system contributed to American industrial expansion

United States Patent and Trademark Office To show the importance of a patent system in facilitating the patent process, and encouraging innovation and invention

(7)

i

llUstrationof the

B

esseMer

p

roCess

Question to Consider

What impact did the Bessemer process have on industrialization in the United States?

Item 6811 Alfred r. Waud, BESSEmEr StEEl mANUfACtUrE (1876).

Courtesy of the library of Congress.

t

heMe

o

ne

p

riMary

s

oUrCe

Creator:

Context:

Audience:

Purpose:

Historical Significance:

Alfred R. Waud Technological

innovations transformed the production process during industrialization. Readers of Harper’s Weekly

To show how the Bessemer process increased production

(8)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

2.

Technological Innovations

. . . Neither an inventor nor an engineer, Andrew Carnegie recognized the promise not only of new processes but also of new ways of organizing industry. Steel companies like Carnegie’s acquired access to raw materials and markets and brought all stages of steel manufacturing, from smelting to rolling, into one mill. Output soared, and prices fell. When Andrew Carnegie introduced the Bessemer process in his plant in the mid-1870s, the price of steel plummeted from $100 a ton to $1 a ton by 1900.

In turn, the production of a cheaper, stronger, more durable material than iron created new goods, new demands, and new markets, and it stimulated further technological change. Bessemer furnaces, geared toward making steel rails, did not produce steel for building. Experimentation with the open-hearth process that used very high temperatures resulted in steel for bridge and ship builders, engineers, architects, and even designers of subways. Countless Americans bought steel in more humble forms: wire, nails, bolts, needles, and screws.

New power sources facilitated American industry’s shift to mass production and also suggest the importance of new ways of organizing research and innovation. In 1869, about half of the nation’s industrial power came from water. The opening of new anthracite deposits, however, cut the cost of coal, and American industry rapidly converted to steam. By 1900, steam engines generated 80 percent of the nation’s industrial energy supply . . .

(9)

t

heMe

o

ne

s

eCondary

s

oUrCe

s

teel

p

rodUCtion By the

B

esseMer

p

roCess

,

1869–1899

1. What impact did the Bessemer process have on the production of steel? 2. What effect did the Bessemer process have on the price of steel?

(10)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

3.

New Systems and Machines—and Their Price

During this period, more and more businesses perfected the so-called American system of manufacturing, which dated back half a century and relied on the mass production of interchangeable parts. Factory workers made large numbers of a particular part, each part exactly the same size and shape. This system enabled manufacturers to assemble products more cheaply and efficiently, to repair products easily with new parts, and to redesign products quickly. In the early 1880s the Singer Sewing Machine Company was selling 00,000 units a year. McCormick was producing 1,600 reapers annually. The American system also spurred technological innovation. For example, in 188 the twine binder used in wheat harvesting was modified with new parts for use in harvesting rice.

New technical processes also facilitated the manufacture and marketing of foods and other consumer goods. Distributors developed pressure-sealed cans, which enabled them to market agricultural products in far-flung parts of the country. Innovative techniques for sheet metal stamping and electric resistance welding transformed a variety of industries. Eager to satisfy a demand for steel (an alloy that was stronger and harder than iron), U.S. manufacturers stepped up production of the versatile metal. For the first time, they broke free of European suppliers. By 1880, 90 percent of American steel was made by the Bessemer process (named after its English inventor but developed in this country by William Kelly), which injected air into molten iron to yield steel.

The agriculture business benefited from engineering innovations as well. These technological advances included improvements in irrigation and new labor-saving devices, such as the binding harvester (1878) and the first steering, self-propelled traction engine (188).

As farm productivity boomed, the need for hired hands evaporated. Early in the nineteenth century, producing an acre of wheat took 6 hours of labor; in 1880, that number dropped to 0 hours. Machines, such as the self-binding harvester, reduced labor needs by as much as 7 percent. One agricultural worker in Ohio observed, “Of one thing we are convinced, that while improved machinery is gathering our large crops, making our boots and shoes, doing the work of our carpenters, stone sawyers, and builders, thousands of able, willing men are going from place to place seeking employment, and finding none. The question naturally arises, is improved machinery a blessing or a curse?”

Peter h. Wood et al., eds. Created Equal: A Social and Political History of the United States

(11)

i

ron

C

hink at

w

ork in

p.a.f.

Cannery

Questions to Consider

1. How did the Iron Chink change the production of salmon? 2. What impact did the Iron Chink have on the labor force?

Item 6522 Asahel Curtis, IroN ChINk At Work IN P.A.f. CANNErY, 1905.

Courtesy of the museum of history and Industry.

t

heMe

o

ne

p

riMary

s

oUrCe

Creator:

Context:

Audience:

Purpose:

Asahel Curtis

Technological innovations during industrialization sped up the processing of canned goods and contributed to unemployment. Unknown

To show how the Iron Chink sped up the mass production of canned salmon and displaced workers

(12)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

4.

Scientific Management and Mass Production

[During the early 1900s, a scientific approach to maximize worker productivity accompanied the new methods of production.] In 1911 Frederick Winslow Taylor wrote the Principles of Scientific Management, his guide to increased efficiency in the nation’s industries. Taylor began his career as a laborer in the Midvale Steel Works near Philadelphia in 1878 and rose through the ranks to become the plant’s chief engineer. There he developed a system to improve mass production in factories in order to make more goods more quickly. Taylor’s principles

included analysis of each job to determine the precise motions and tools needed to maximize each worker’s productivity, detailed instructions for workers and guidelines for their supervisors, and wage scales with incentives to motivate workers to achieve high production goals. Over the next decades, industrial managers all over the country drew on Taylor’s studies. Business leaders rushed to embrace Taylor’s principles, and Taylor himself became a pioneering management consultant.

Henry Ford was among the most successful industrialists to employ Taylor’s techniques. . . . In 191, Ford introduced assembly line production, a system in which each worker performed one task repeatedly as each automobile in the process of construction moved along a conveyor. Assembly-line manufacturing increased production while cutting costs.

(13)

Conclusion

New technologies, innovative approaches to business operations, and improved communication and transportation networks significantly increased the amount, variety, and affordability of consumer goods available to many Americans. The

workplace, family life, and daily life in urban centers were all profoundly changed by this development.

1. How did new technology and technical processes change the workplace during this period?

2. How did the formation of communication and transportation networks develop national markets?

3. What impact did these changes have on daily life?

(14)

t

heMe

o

ne

1

t

heMe

t

wo

Theme Two:

Fleeing religious and political persecution and poor economic

conditions, millions of people began to move about the globe, with a high

concentration coming to the United States.

Overview

Industrial expansion required an ever-growing workforce. American businesses and some Southern planters actively recruited workers from the nation’s rural areas, as well as from abroad through advertisements published in foreign languages around the world. Between 1870 and 190, approximately 6. million migrants from Asia, Latin America, and Europe entered all regions of the United States, with the majority settling in the Northeast and the Midwest.

Non-native born migrants came to the United States for a variety of reasons. Some were escaping political and religious persecution. Others, facing a declining quantity of arable land in their homeland, were attracted its availability in America. Most immigrants left their homelands looking for economic opportunity. The United States not only offered such opportunity but also held out the promise of upward mobility for those locked in to the social classes into which they had been born.

More shipping lines, faster ships, and lower costs of travel made transoceanic travel easier than ever before. Ships brought immigrants to ports at Baltimore, Boston, New York City, Galveston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Using transcontinental railroads and river boats, immigrants fanned out across the country to look for jobs: the Japanese in California’s fruit orchards, Mexicans in Colorado’s mines and beet fields, Scandinavians in western mines, Italians in iron mining camps in Missouri, and the Irish in New York factories.

Many migrants arrived hoping to buy land, but they were often so penniless that they could not afford to move beyond their arrival city, where they took the first job they could find.

Questions to Consider

(15)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

1 Unit 14 Industrializing America 1

t

heMe

t

wo

s

eCondary

s

oUrCe

M

igration to

t

he

U

nited

s

tates

, 1860–1910

This map and table show the regions of the world from where immigrants to the United States came between 1860–1910. What region of the world had the highest number of immigrants coming to the United States? What do you think accounts for the difference?

(16)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

t

heMe

t

wo

e

xCerpts

16

1.

New Labor Supplies for a New Economy

To operate efficiently, expanding industries needed expanding supplies of workers to grow crops, extract raw materials, and produce manufactured goods. Many of these workers came from abroad. The year 1880 marked the leading edge of a new wave of immigration to the United States. Over the next ten years, . million newcomers entered the country, almost twice the previous decade’s level of .8 million.

In the mid-nineteenth century, most immigrants hailed from western Europe and the British Isles—from Germany, Scandinavia, England, and Ireland. Between 1880 and 1890, Germans, Scandinavians, and the English kept coming, but they were joined by numerous Italians, Russians, and Poles. In fact, these last three groups predominated among newcomers for the next thirty-five years, their arrival rates peaking between 1890 and 1910 . . . [In 1870, the population of the United States was 9.8 million people; by 190, however, the nation’s population had increased to 10.7 million. During these years, one out of four people (6. million) was a new immigrant.]

Many of the new European immigrants sought to escape oppressive economic and political conditions in Europe, even as they hoped to make a new life for themselves and their families in the United States. Russian Jews fled discrimination and violent anti-Semitism in the form of pogroms, organized massacres, conducted by their Christian neighbors and Russian authorities. Southern Italians, most of whom were landless farmers, suffered from a combination of declining agricultural prices and high birth rates. Impoverished Poles chafed under cultural restrictions imposed by Germany and Russia. Hungarians, Greeks, Portuguese, and Armenians, among other groups, also participated in this great migration; members of these groups too were seeking political freedom and economic opportunity. [People also left because there was not enough land. The process of dividing up family plots left younger siblings landless; others lost their lands because landowners consolidated their property and evicted them.]

(17)

t

heMe

t

wo

p

riMary

s

oUrCe

Creator:

Context:

Audience:

Purpose:

g

roUpof

e

Migrants

(w

oMen and

C

hildren

)

froM

e

astern

e

Urope on

d

eCk of the

S.S. AmSterdAm

Question to Consider

What do these photographs tell us about an immigrant’s experience traveling to the United States?

Item 4345 frances Benjamin Johnston, GroUP of EmIGrANtS (WomEN ANd ChIldrEN)

from EAStErN EUroPE oN dECk of thE S.S. AmSTErdAm (1899). Courtesy of the library of Congress.

Frances Benjamin Johnston

Photographers

chronicled the migration to the United States on board ships.

Unknown

To show the journey to the United States

(18)

Creator: Context:

Audience:

Purpose:

“t

he

n

ew

C

olossUs

”

insCription froM the

s

tatUeof

l

iBerty

Questions to Consider

1. Why did Emma Lazarus refer to the Statue of Liberty as “The New Colossus”?

2. Why might some newcomers reject Lazarus’s portrayal of immigrants? What does this representation of immigrants say about how native-born Americans viewed them?

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame

with conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

with silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

the wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma lazarus “the New Colossus” (inscription from the Statue of liberty, New York harbor, 1886).

t

heMe

t

wo

p

riMary

s

oUrCe

Emma Lazarus On arriving in New York harbor, the Statue of Liberty welcomed immigrants.

Immigrants and visitors to the Statue of Liberty To raise money for the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal

(19)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

t

heMe

t

wo

e

xCerpts

19

2.

New Labor Supplies for a New Economy

. . . Most of the newcomers found work in the factories, mills, and sweatshops of New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. At the same time, large numbers of these fresh arrivals dispersed to other areas of the country to work in a wide variety of enterprises. Scandinavians populated the prairies of Iowa and Minnesota and the High Plains of the Dakotas.

[Not all immigrants settled in Northern or Midwestern cities.] In the South, some planters began to recruit immigrants—especially western Europeans of “hardy peasant stock”—to take the place of blacks who resisted working for whites. Nevertheless, planters’ experiments with recruiting immigrants amounted to little. Given the opportunity, many immigrants sought to flee from the back-breaking labor and meager wages of the cotton staple crop economy. A group of Germans brought over to toil in the Louisiana swamps soon after the Civil War quickly slipped away from their employers; they had agreed to the arrangement only to gain free passage to America. Thirty Swedes who arrived in Alabama also deserted at an opportune moment, declaring that they were not slaves. South Carolina planters who sponsored colonies of Germans and Italians gave up in exasperation. The few Chinese who began work in the Louisiana sugar fields soon abandoned the plodding work of the plantations in favor of employment in the trades and shops of New Orleans. Still, in 1890, immigrant worker enclaves were scattered throughout the South. Irish, Polish, and Italian men were swinging pickaxes in Florida railroad camps. Italian men, women, and children were picking cotton on Louisiana plantations. Hungarian men were digging coal out of mines in West Virginia.

Wood et al., 548.

3.

The Heartland: Land of Newcomers

(20)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

t

heMe

t

wo

e

xCerpts

0 Immigrants from central and southern Europe settled in the region, which came

to be known as the “iron range.” In the 1890s, the area was sparsely settled. As a result of the Dawes Act of 1887, which divided tribal lands into individual parcels, much of the land originally held by Indians had been divided and sold. Most of the Indians who were native to that region were removed to reservations. The iron-rich areas, previously the hunting, fishing, and gathering areas of the Native Americans, were now inhabited by lumberjacks who cut the forests. The harsh climate, ranging from 0°F in the snowy winters to more than 110°F in the sweltering summers, plus aggressive swarms of biting insects made it a difficult place to settle. Nevertheless, mining companies discovered the iron deposits and began recruiting workers, first from northern Europe and then, after 1900, from southern and eastern Europe. By 1910, the iron range was home to European immigrant groups. Gradually, these cohesive working-class communities, like others elsewhere, developed their own brand of ethnic Americanism, complete with elaborate Fourth of July celebrations and other festivities that expressed both their distinctive ethnic identities and their allegiance to their adopted country.

Wood et al., 645.

4.

New Labor Supplies for a New Economy

The influx of so many foreign-born workers transformed the American labor market. Native-born Protestant men moved up the employment ladder to become members of the white-collar (that is, professional) middle class, while recent immigrants filled the ranks in construction and manufacturing. By 1890 Italian immigrants accounted for 90 percent of New York’s public works employees and 99 percent of Chicago’s street construction and maintenance crews. Women and children, both native and foreign-born, predominated in the textile, garment-making, and food processing industries.

(21)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

t

heMe

t

wo

e

xCerpts

1 These ethnic niches proved crucial for the well-being of many immigrant

communities. They provided newcomers with an entrée into the economy; indeed, many men and women got their first jobs with the help of kin and other compatriots. Niches also helped immigrants advance within an industry or economic sector. Finally, they enriched immigrant communities by keeping profits and wages within those communities.

The experience of Kinji Ushijima (later known as George Shima) graphically illustrates the power of immigrant niches. Shima arrived in California in 1887 and, like many other [Asian] immigrants, he found work as a potato picker in the San Joaquin Valley. Soon, Shima moved up to become a labor contractor, securing Japanese laborers for the valley’s white farmers. With the money he made, he bought 1 acres of land and began his own potato farm. Eventually he built a large potato business by expanding his holdings, reclaiming swampland, and investing in a fleet of boats to ship his crops up the coast to San Francisco. Taking advantage of a Japanese niche, Shima had prospered through a

combination of good luck and hard work.

[American businesses recruited Asians to work in sugar fields in Hawaii and on the railroads in Utah. On the Central Pacific Railroad, the Chinese accounted for about 90 percent of the workforce. The Chinese also worked in the shoe, cigar, and garment industries in California. By 1870, San Francisco was the ninth-largest manufacturing city in the United States, and about 0 percent of the workforce was Chinese. Employers had an advantage in hiring Chinese labor: There was a dual wage system and they paid the Chinese about one-third less than they paid white laborers.

Typically, the sons left and sent money back to their families. Even though many were already married, employers prevented the Chinese from bringing their families into the country; employers only wanted male laborers. Chinese men circumvented the law by claiming they had parents who were American citizens. Some American-born Chinese men provided documentation for numerous “paper sons” unrelated to them, who then entered the country legally. Because record keeping was

irregular, and many birth records were lost in fires following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, immigration authorities often failed to discover the truth.

As more Chinese laborers replaced white laborers, there was a growing

resentment against them. Native-born or European-born workers accused Asians of lowering wages and causing unemployment. The popular press stereotyped and ridiculed the way they looked, dressed, and wore their hair.]

(22)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

t

heMe

t

wo

e

xCerpts

5.

The Homestead and Pullman Strikes of 1892 and 1894

[This tension] appeared most dramatically in the anti-Chinese campaign of the 1870s and 1880s as white workers in the West began to blame the Chinese for economic hardships. The Chinese were particularly vulnerable because, unlike European immigrants, they could not be naturalized. A meeting of San Francisco workers in 1877 in favor of the eight-hour day exploded into a rampage against the Chinese. In the following years, angry mobs killed Chinese workers in Tacoma, Seattle, Denver, and Rock Springs, Wyoming. “The Chinese must go! They are stealing our jobs!” became a rallying cry for American workers. When one Chinese immigrant arrived in San Francisco in 1900, he reported that “some white boys came up and starting throwing rocks” at the carriage in which he was sitting.

Hostility was also expressed at the national level with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 188. The law, which enjoyed support from the Knights of Labor in the West, prohibited the immigration of both skilled and unskilled Chinese workers for a 10-year period. It was extended in 189 and made permanent in 190. It paved the way for further restriction of immigration in the 190s. Although both middle- and working-class Americans supported sporadic efforts to cut off immigration, working-class antipathy exacerbated the deep divisions that undermined worker unity.

Nash et al., 642.

6.

Chinese Lawsuits in California

. . . In rural California, job-hungry whites formed anti-Chinese groups such as the American and European Labor Association, founded in Colusa County in 188. The association also included employers who resented Chinese demands for equal pay. (Most of these immigrants received two-thirds the wages of their white counterparts for the same work.) Yet despite all the personal and legal discrimination, the Chinese resisted.

(23)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

t

heMe

t

wo

e

xCerpts

their inhabitants. In 188 in Rock Springs, Wyoming, white workers massacred

8 Chinese and drove hundreds out of town in the wake of an announcement by Union Pacific officials that the railroad would begin hiring the lower-paid immigrants. While white women cheered from the sidelines, their husbands and brothers burned the Chinese section of the town to the ground. Such attacks erupted more and more frequently throughout the West in the late 1880s and into the 1890s. White men contended that they must present a united front against all Chinese, who, they claimed, threatened the economic well-being of white working-class communities . . .

In other instances, local white prejudice overwhelmed even Chinese who sought legal redress from violence and discrimination. In 1886 the Chinese living in the Wood River mining district in southern Idaho faced down a group of whites who had met and announced that all Chinese had three months to leave town. Members of the Chinese community promptly hired their own lawyers and took out an advertisement in the local paper stating their intention to hold their ground. As a community they managed to survive. Still, their numbers dropped precipitously throughout Idaho as whites managed to hound many of them out of the state.

(24)

t

heMe

t

wo

p

riMary

s

oUrCe

Creator:

Context:

Audience:

Purpose:

s

oMe

r

easons for

C

hinese

e

xClUsion

Questions to Consider

1. What was the pamphlet’s argument for Chinese Exclusion? 2. How did the pamphlet present its argument?

Item 4010 American federation of labor, SomE rEASoNS for ChINESE ExClUSIoN.

mEAt vS. rICE. AmErICAN mANhood AGAINSt ASIAtIC CoolIEISm. WhICh ShAll SUrvIvE? (1901). Courtesy of the Bancroft library, the University of California—Berkeley.

“In view of the near expiration of the present law excluding Chinese laborers from coming to the United States and the recognized necessity of either reenacting the present or adopting a similar law, the American Federation of Labor has determined to present its reasons and solicit the cooperation of not only all of its affiliated organizations, but also of all citizens who may consider the preservation of American institutions and the welfare of a majority of our people of sufficient importance to assist in this work.

Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor and Hermann Gutstadt

Anti-Asian agitation during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries United States Senate

To promote a second extension of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 188

(25)

. . . We furthermore desire to assure our readers that in maintaining our position we are not inspired by a scintilla of prejudice of any kind, but with the best interests of our country uppermost in our mind simply request fair consideration.

. . . Beginning with the most menial avocations they gradually invaded our industry they gradually invaded one industry after another until they not merely took the places of our girls as domestics and cooks, the laundry of our poorer white women, but the places of the men and boys, as boot and shoemakers, cigarmakers, bagmakers, miners, farm laborers, brickmakers, tailors, slippermakers, etc. In the ladies’ furnishing line they have absolute control, displacing hundreds of our girls, who would otherwise find profitable employment. Whatever business or trade they enter is doomed for the white laborer, as competition is surely impossible. Not that the Chinese would not rather work for high wages than low, but in order to gain control he will work so cheaply as to bar all efforts of his competitor. But not only has the workingman gained this bitter experience, but the manufacturers and merchants have equally been the sufferers. The Chinese laborer will work cheaper for a Chinese employer than he will for a white man, as has been invariably proven, and, as a rule, he boards with his Chinese employer. The Chinese merchant or manufacturer will undersell his white confrere, and if uninterrupted will finally gain possession of the entire field. Such is the history of the race wherever they have come in contact with other peoples. None can understand their silent and irresistible flow, and their millions already populate and command labor and the trade of the islands and nations of the Pacific . . .

Whereas the experience of the last thirty years in California and on the Pacific coast having proved conclusively that the presence of Chinese and their competition with free white labor is one of the greatest evils with which any country can be afflicted: Therefore be it Resolved, That we use our best efforts to get rid of this monstrous evil (which threatens, unless checked, to extend to other parts of the Union) by the dissemination of information respecting its true character, and by urging upon our Representatives in the United States Congress the absolute necessity of passing laws entirely prohibiting the immigration of Chinese into the United States.

American federation of labor, SomE rEASoNS for ChINESE ExClUSIoN. mEAt vS. rICE. AmErICAN mANhood AGAINSt ASIAtIC CoolIEISm. WhICh ShAll SUrvIvE? (1901; reprinted as U.S. Senate document 102 in 1902;

reissued in 1908 by the Asiatic Exclusion league, which identified Samuel Gompers and hermann Gudstadt as its authors).

(26)

t

heMe

t

wo

p

riMary

s

oUrCe

w

ells

f

argo

& C

oMpany

e

xpress

d

ireCtory of

C

hinese

B

Usiness

h

oUses

How did entrepreneurs conduct business with Chinese communities in a climate of anti-Chinese sentiment?

Item 6524 Wells fargo & Company, dIrECtorY of ChINESE BUSINESS hoUSES (1878).

Courtesy of Wells fargo Bank.

Creator:

Context:

Audience:

Purpose:

Wells Fargo & Company Express

Anti-Chinese hostility occurred during the 1870s and 1880s, but some companies profited from doing business with Chinese immigrants.

Chinese merchants in California, Nevada, and Oregon

To further promote the economic viability of Chinese communities by facilitating commerce with Chinese businesses on the West Coast

(27)

t

heMe

t

wo

Conclusion

Throughout the late 1800s, industrialization fueled the need for more labor. Some businesses recruited workers from abroad, arousing resentment among native-born Americans, as well as among migrants who had come in earlier waves. As industry boomed, it resulted in the recruitment of workers from abroad. A global movement of people took place with millions of people migrating to the United States, Canada, Argentina, and Australia. Although some migrants returned home, most of the new arrivals settled in niche communities where previous immigrants from their homeland spoke their language and shared their values.

(28)

t

heMe

o

ne

8

t

heMe

t

hree

Theme Three:

Industrial expansion and the influx of new populations

brought about major changes, including the rise of a labor movement and

the emergence of women’s organizations as important agents of social and

political reform.

Overview

The conditions under which industrial labor worked could be difficult. Unrestrained by

regulatory laws, employers obliged their laborers to work ten- to fifteen-hour shifts, usually six days a week. They could fire workers who complained or refused to stay on the job, especially in periods when demand for output was high. In bad economic times, employers cut wages and increased the number and speed of machines workers were expected to operate. Some machines were highly dangerous. The rate of industrial accidents rose, and workers rarely got adequate compensation. At this time, no government assistance programs existed to protect workers from accidents on the job or from cyclical unemployment.

Labor responded to such conditions in a variety of ways. Some tried to control the production process by denouncing—or even injuring—workers whose output exceeded the norm. Others formed local and national unions, which organized collective actions such as walk-outs and strikes. Over the last three decades of the nineteenth century, unions waged thousands of strikes. Some of these actions turned violent. The authorities often blamed “outside agitators” espousing radical ideologies such as socialism, communism, and anarchism, for these developments. Anarchists were especially feared, as they opposed all forms of government authority, and sometimes incited followers to acts of terror.

The coming of the second industrial revolution changed the role of middle-class women in American society. For the most part removed from the production process, they focused their lives increasingly on being good consumers. But, because the goods they bought were generally mass-produced far from their homes and under conditions that might not be healthy or safe, many middle-class women began to work through their voluntary organizations— church groups, clubs, and reform societies—to call for not only safer industrial products but also improved working conditions for industrial labor. The tradition that women should be concerned only with the private, domestic sphere became weaker as a result of their activism.

Questions to Consider

1. How and why did the relationship between managers and workers change during the last quarter of the nineteenth century?

(29)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

t

heMe

t

hree

e

xCerpts

9

1.

Militancy in the Factories and Mines

[During this period, workers were subject to the effects of business cycles and the hazards of the workplace. Worker’s compensation, unemployment insurance, social security, and health insurance did not exist.] Because no laws regulated private industry, employers could impose 10- to 1-hour workdays, six days a week. (By the 1890s, bakers were working as long as 6 hours a week.) Industrial accidents were all too common, and some industries lacked safety precautions. Steelworkers labored in excessive heat, and miners and textile mill employees alike contracted respiratory diseases. With windows closed and machines

speeded up, new forms of technology created new risks for workers. The Chicago meatpackers, who wielded gigantic cleavers in subfreezing lockers, and the California wheat harvesters, who operated complex mechanical binders and threshers, were among those confronting danger on the job.

Women wage-earners also faced dangerous working conditions. In 188 the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor issued a report outlining the

occupational hazards for working women in the city of Boston. In button-making establishments, female workers often got their fingers caught under punch and die machines. Employers provided a surgeon to dress an employee’s wounds the first three times she was injured; thereafter, she had to pay for her own medical care. Women operated heavy power machinery in the garment industry and exposed themselves to dangerous chemicals and food-processing materials in paper-box making, fish packing, and confectionery manufacturing.

Some women workers, especially those who monopolized certain kinds of jobs, organized and struck for higher wages. Three thousand Atlanta washerwomen launched such an effort in 1881 but failed to get their demands met. Most women found it difficult to win the respect not only of employers but also of male unionists. Leonora Barry, an organizer for the Knights of Labor, sought to change all that. Barry visited mills and factories around the country. At each stop, she highlighted women’s unique difficulties and condemned the “selfishness of their brothers in toil” who resented women’s intrusion into the workplace. Barry was reacting to men such as Edward O’Donnell, a prominent labor official who claimed that wage-earning women threatened the role of men as family breadwinners.

For both men and women workers, the influx of . million new immigrants in the 1880s stiffened job competition at worksites throughout the country. To make matters worse, vast outlays of capital needed to mechanize and organize manufacturing plants placed pressure on employers to economize. Many of them did so by cutting wages. Like the family farmer who could no longer claim the status of the independent yeoman, industrial workers depended on employers and consumers for their physical well-being and very survival.

(30)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

t

heMe

t

hree

e

xCerpts

0

2.

The Family Economy

. . . Like colonial families, late-nineteenth-century working-class families operated as cooperative economic units. The unpaid domestic labor of working-class wives was critical to family survival. With husbands away for 10 to 11 hours a day, women bore the burden of child care and the domestic chores. Because working-class families could not afford labor-saving conveniences, housework was time-consuming and arduous. Without an ice box, a working-class woman spent part of each day shopping for food (more expensive in small quantities). Doing laundry entailed carrying water from outside pumps, heating it on the stove, washing the clothes, rinsing them with fresh water, and hanging them up to dry. Ironing was a hot and unpleasant job in small and stuffy quarters. Keeping an apartment or house clean when the atmosphere was grimy and unpaved roads were littered with refuse and horse dung was a challenge.

As managers of family resources, married women bore important responsibilities. What American families had once produced for themselves now had to be bought. It was up to the working-class wife to scour secondhand shops to find cheap clothes for her family. Domestic economies were vital to survival. “In summer and winter alike,” one woman explained, “I must try to buy the food that will sustain us the greatest number of meals at the lowest price.”

Women also supplemented family income by taking in work. Jewish and Italian women frequently did piecework and sewing at home. In the Northeast and the Midwest, between 10 and 0 percent of all working-class families kept boarders. Immigrant families in particular often made ends meet by taking single, young countrymen into their homes. Having boarders meant providing meals and clean laundry, juggling different work schedules, and sacrificing privacy. But the advantages of extra income far outweighed the disadvantages for many working-class families.

Black women’s working lives reflected the obstacles African Americans faced in late-nineteenth-century cities. Although only about 7 percent of married white women worked outside the home, African-American women did so both before and after marriage. In southern cities in 1880, about three-quarters of single black women and one-third of married women worked outside the home. Because industrial employers would not hire African-American women, most of them had to work as domestics or laundresses. The high percentage of married black women in the labor force reflected the marginal wages their husbands earned. But it may also be explained in part by the lesson learned during slavery that children could thrive without the constant attention of their mothers.

(31)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

t

heMe

t

hree

s

eCondary

s

oUrCe

n

UMBer of

w

oMen

e

Mployed in

s

eleCt

i

ndUstries

,

1870–1910

The chart below shows the rise of women workers in industry. What industries witnessed the largest increase? Why?

(32)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

t

heMe

t

hree

e

xCerpts

3.

The Family Economy

By 1900, nearly 0 percent of American women were in the labor force. Employed women earned far less than men. An experienced female factory worker might be paid between $ and $6 a week, whereas an unskilled male laborer could make about $8. Discrimination, present from women’s earliest days in the workforce, persisted. Still, factory jobs were desirable because they often paid better than other kinds of work open to women.

By the 1890s, new forms of employment in office work, nursing, and clerking in department stores offered some young women . . . opportunities. In San Francisco, the number of clerical jobs doubled between 18 and 1880. But most women faced limited employment options, and ethnic taboos and cultural traditions helped shape choices. About a quarter of working women secured factory jobs. Italian and Jewish women (whose cultural backgrounds virtually forbade their going into domestic service) clustered in the garment industry, and Poles and Slavs went into textiles, food processing, and meatpacking. In some industries, like textiles and tobacco, women composed an important segment of the workforce. But about 0 percent of them, especially those from Irish, Scandinavian, and black families, took jobs as maids, cooks, laundresses, and nurses.

(33)

t

heMe

t

hree

p

riMary

s

oUrCe

s

trikes

, l

adies

t

ailors

,

n

.

y

., f

eB

.

1910

,

p

iCket

g

irls on

d

Uty

What do these photographs tell us about how the strike was organized?

Item 5975 Unknown, StrIkES, lAdIES tAIlorS, N.Y., fEB. 1910, PICkEt GIrlS oN dUtY (1910).

Courtesy of the library of Congress.

Creator:

Context:

Audience:

Purpose:

Unknown

Two women garment workers on picket line during the “Uprising of the 0,000”

People standing along St. Paul Street, New York City

To show the striking garment workers

(34)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

t

heMe

t

hree

e

xCerpts

4.

New Freedoms for Middle-Class Women

Job opportunities for . . . educated, middle-class women were generally limited to the social services and teaching. Still regarded as a suitable female occupation, teaching was a highly demanding job as urban schools expanded under the pressure of a burgeoning population. Women teachers, frequently hired because they accepted lower pay than men, often faced classes of 0 to 0 children in poorly equipped rooms. In Poughkeepsie, New York, teachers earned the same salaries as school janitors. Moving up to high-status jobs proved difficult.

After the Civil War, educational opportunities for women expanded. New women’s colleges such as Smith, Vassar, Bryn Mawr, and Goucher offered programs similar to those at competitive men’s colleges, while state schools in the Midwest and the West dropped prohibitions against women. The number of women attending college rose. In 1890, some 1 percent of all college graduates were women; by 1900, this number had increased to nearly 0 percent.

Higher education prepared middle-class women for conventional female roles as well as for work and public service. A few courageous graduates succeeded in joining the professions, but they had to overcome barriers. Many medical schools refused to accept women students. As a Harvard doctor explained in 187, a woman’s monthly period “unfits her from taking those responsibilities which are to control questions often of life and death.” Despite the obstacles, ,00 women managed to become physicians and surgeons by 1880

(constituting .8 percent of the total). Women were less successful at breaking into the legal world. In 1880, fewer than 0 female lawyers practiced in the entire country, and as late as 190, only 1. percent of the nation’s lawyers and judges were women. George Washington University did not admit women to law school because mixed classes would be an “injurious diversion of attention of the students.”

Despite such resistance, by the early twentieth century, the number of women professionals (including teachers) was increasing at three times the rate for men . . .

(35)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

t

heMe

t

hree

e

xCerpts

5.

Challenges to Traditional Gender Roles

[During the latter part of the nineteenth century, American women moved steadily into the public sphere. Working-class women were already in the public sphere through their wage-earning activities. Middle- and upper-class women took on increasingly important public roles through reform movements. These movements, such as those for temperance, suffrage, and labor-industrial reform, attracted thousands of black and white, middle- and upper-class women into a growing involvement with the public sphere.] Identifying themselves primarily as wives and mothers, some women entered the political realm through local women’s clubs. They believed that personal intellectual development and group political activity would benefit both their own families and society in general. In the 1880s, the typical club focused on self-improvement through reading history and literature. By the 1890s, many clubs had embraced political activism. They lobbied local politicians for improvements in education and social welfare and raised money for hospitals and playgrounds. The General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC), founded in 189, united 100,000 women in 00 affiliate clubs throughout the nation . . .

[State and local consumers’ leagues developed in the 1890s to work for decent working conditions for laborers, and safe and reliable products for consumers. They formed a National Consumers’ League in 1899. Under the leadership of Florence Kelley, the League exposed the appalling working conditions in sweatshops; and campaigned for minimum wages for women, the abolition of child labor, and laws to guarantee the purity of food and drugs.]

(36)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

t

heMe

t

hree

e

xCerpts

6

6.

On-the-Job Protests

[As women’s reformers fought for legislation to protect children and families], workers sought to control the pace of production. Too many goods meant an inhuman pace of work and might result in overproduction, massive layoffs, and a reduction in the prices paid for piecework. So an experienced worker might whisper to a new hand, “See here, young fellow, you’re working too fast. You’ll spoil our job for us if you don’t go slower.”

In attempting to protect themselves and the dignity of their labor, workers devised ways of combating employer attempts to speed up the production process. Denouncing fellow workers who refused to honor production codes as “hogs,” “runners,” “chasers,” and “job wreckers,” they ostracized and even injured them. As the banner of the Detroit Coopers’ Union proudly proclaimed at a parade in 1880: “Each for himself is the bosses’ plea / [but] Union for all will make you free.”

Absenteeism, drunkenness at work, and general inefficiency were other widespread worker practices that contained elements of protest. In three industrial firms in the late nineteenth century, one-quarter of the workers stayed home at least one day a week. Some of these lost days were due to layoffs, but not all. The efforts of employers to impose stiff fines on absent workers suggested their frustration with uncooperative workers.

To a surprising extent, workers made the final protest by quitting their jobs altogether. Most employers responded by penalizing workers who left without giving sufficient notice—but to little avail. A Massachusetts labor study in 1878 found that although two-thirds of the workers surveyed had been in the same occupation for more than 10 years, only 1 percent of them were in the same job. A similar rate of turnover occurred in the industrial workforce in the early twentieth century. Workers unmistakably and clearly voted with their feet.

(37)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

t

heMe

t

hree

s

eCondary

s

oUrCe

Labor Union Movement

American industrial workers began to form unions in the early 1800s. They believed they could win better wages and working conditions from business and factory owners if they made their demands as a group rather than confronting employers individually. They had a hard time establishing a labor union movement, however. Most Americans at the time valued individual enterprise. They also accepted an economic theory called “laissez-faire,” which held that government should not interfere with the workings of business. Thus, when employers and workers clashed, government was usually unwilling to help workers fight for better conditions.

By the Gilded Age, two types of unions had emerged, “craft” (or “trade”) unions and “industrial” unions. Trade unions organized workers within specific lines of skilled labor, such as carpentry, iron moulding, or shoemaking. Trade unions existed for specific industries, and were linked through multiple “locals” around the country. In the nineteenth century, only white males could belong to trade unions. “Industrial” unions offered membership to all workers, skilled or unskilled, within a particular industry. The American Railway Union, for example, was an industrial union open to every worker connected with the railroads, from track checkers to office staff to engine drivers.

Both trade unions and industrial unions belonged to national federations. In 1886, craft unions representing hundreds of different trades created the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Industrial unions were vast, and could themselves be affiliated with even larger umbrella-style confederations such as the Knights of Labor, founded in the 1870s, or the Industrial Workers of the World, founded in 190. Both the Knights and the IWW welcomed women and African Americans as members. The AFL eventually encouraged women and minorities to form separate affiliated “locals” of their own. One such organization was the Women’s Trade Union League, founded at an AFL meeting in 190.

In this era, workers needed permission from their employers to “organize” a union. Most businesses and industries resisted unions, since unions forced them to share control with their workers. To prevent workers from forming unions, some managers fired union organizers. Other managers forced prospective employees to sign so-called “yellow dog” contracts in which they promised not to join a union. Yet other managers accepted unions, recognizing that doing so might prevent costly strikes. Once a business accepted a union, it agreed to let the union’s elected leaders negotiate contracts on behalf of their members. This style of negotiation was known as “collective bargaining.”

(38)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

8 Unit 14 Industrializing America 8 shops, arguing that such shops violated workers’ rights to contract freely

with employers. In this period, unions could be taken to court for “restraint of trade,” and, just like giant corporations, could be indicted for operating “trusts” or “unlawful combinations” that restrained trade.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, American labor unions used a number of tactics to win concessions. Among these were strikes, boycotts,

demonstrations, and lawsuits. They also formed alliances with political parties and social reformers. Through these strategies, they won the right to organize in many industries and to affiliate with other unions and federations. They founded a number of powerful unions, such as the United Mine Workers (UMW) and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU).

Using the courts, unions fought injunctions, or court orders, that prevented them from striking. Through legislation they won maximum hours and minimum wage laws, workman’s compensation and workplace safety laws, and restrictions on child labor. Through strikes won and lost, including some in which striking workers died, labor unions pushed the government to mediate or arbitrate stalled disputes. Eventually, unions and their allies compelled the major political parties and prominent politicians, especially members of the Democratic Party, to address labor concerns that minority parties from the Greenback Labor Party to the Socialist Party had been advocating since the 1870s.

Although many Americans sympathized with industrial workers, the union movement did not always enjoy widespread popular support. The public was especially suspicious of unions during national strikes and times of national crisis, such as wars and depressions, when some people feared that union agitation might lead to violent revolution. Nor did union appeals for government backing always succeed.

The government did respond positively to unions in several ways. First it established a Bureau of Labor within the Department of the Interior and, in 191, a full Department of Labor with a Secretary of Labor in the President’s Cabinet. In 191, Congress passed the Clayton Antitrust Act, which included a section declaring that unions could not be considered “unlawful combinations” operating in “restraint of trade,” and that strikes, boycotting, and picketing did not violate federal law. By World War I the U.S. government had abandoned “laissez-faire” policies and become more responsive to the issues that the union movement had brought to its attention.

Elisabeth I. Perry and karen manners Smith, The Gilded Age and Progressive Era: A Student Companion (oxford: oxford University Press, 2003), 190–92.

(39)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

t

heMe

t

hree

e

xCerpts

9

7.

Militancy in the Factories and Mines

Not until 19 would American workers have the right to organize and bargain collectively with their employers. Until then, laborers who saw strength in numbers and expressed an interest in a union could be summarily fired,

blacklisted (their names circulated to other employers), and harassed by private security forces.

. . . [T]he growing diversity of the labor force made unity difficult. For example, among the white workers of the Richmond Knights were leaders with names such as Kaufman, Kaufeldt, Kelly, and Molloy, suggesting the ethnic variety of late-nineteenth-century union leadership. This diversity paralleled the composition of the general population. In 1880, between 78 and 87 percent of all workers in San Francisco, St. Louis, Cleveland, New York, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Chicago were either immigrants or the children of immigrants. Most hailed from England, Germany, or Ireland, although the Chinese made up a significant part of the laboring classes on the West Coast. By 1890 Poles and Slavs were organizing in steel mills, and New York Jews were providing leadership in the garment industry. Italians were prominent in construction and the building trades. In many places, the laboring classes remained vulnerable to divisive social and cultural animosities. The diversity of ethnic groups, coupled with the fact that many newcomers

adopted racist ideas to become “Americans,” drove wedges between workers.

Wood et al., 589.

8.

Strike Activity After 1876

Between 1881 and 190, a total of 6,77 strikes erupted, involving over 6 million workers—three times the strike activity in France. These numbers indicate that far more than the “poorest part” of the workers were involved. Many investigations of this era found evidence of widespread working-class discontent. When Samuel M. Hotchkiss, commissioner of the Connecticut Bureau of Labor Statistics, informally surveyed the state’s workers in 1887, he was shocked by the “feeling of bitterness,” the “distrust of employers,” and the “discontent and unrest.” These sentiments exploded into strikes, sabotage, and violence, most often linked to demands for higher wages and shorter hours.

As industrialization transformed work and an increasing percentage of the

(40)

t

heMe

o

ne

e

xCerpts

t

heMe

t

hree

e

xCerpts

0 more clearly the importance of collective action and perceived that transportation

had knit the nation together, they worked to coordinate local and national efforts. By 1891, more than one-tenth of the strikes called by unionized workers were sympathy strikes. Coordination among strikers employed by different companies improved as workers made similar wage demands. Finally, pay among the most highly unionized workers became less of an issue. Workers sought more humane conditions. Some attempted to end subcontracting and the degradation of skills. Others, like the glassblowers, struggled to enforce work rules. Indeed, by the early 1890s, over one-fifth of strikes involved the rules governing the workplace.

Nash et al., 636.

9.

The Homestead and Pullman Strikes of 1892 and 1894

The failures of the American labor movement are apparent when compared to union actions in European industrialized nations. There, the working class, more homogeneous than its American counterpart, gained the vote as their countries experienced the second ind

AmHst14_Industrial.pdf

Table of Contents

Unit Themes 2

ndUstrialiZing

Theme 3:

Historical Perspectives

Hands on History

Overview

xCerpts

Question to Consider

riMary

Audience:

Question to Consider

Creator:

xCerpts

eCondary

Questions to Consider

riMary

Creator:

xCerpts

Conclusion

Theme Two:

Questions to Consider

xCerpts

riMary

Creator:

S.S. AmSterdAm

Creator: Context:

Questions to Consider

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

riMary

The Heartland: Land of Newcomers

New Labor Supplies for a New Economy

xCerpts

xCerpts

Chinese Lawsuits in California

xCerpts

riMary

Creator:

Questions to Consider

riMary

Creator:

Conclusion

Theme Three:

Questions to Consider

xCerpts

xCerpts

riMary

Creator:

xCerpts

xCerpts

xCerpts

xCerpts

xCerpts

xCerpts

Strike Activity After 1876

xCerpts

The Homestead and Pullman Strikes of 1892 and 1894