• Life was hard for the industrial age worker.
• Industrialization caused many skilled workers to lose their jobs.
• These workers not had to work at jobs in factories for unskilled labor which caused
the to work for poor wages.
• Child labor also led to a decrease in wages for workers.
• Many workers took jobs in dangerous factories called sweatshops.
• These workers had to endure low wages, long hours, and dangerous working
conditions.
Sweatshops were factories in which a middleman, the sweater, guided workers in
clothing production. The sweatshops left many experienced tailors without a job,
because the cheap clothes were preferred by many people.
•During the Industrial Revolution families migrated from the rural farm areas to
the newly industrialized cities to find work.
•Once they got there, things did not look as bright as they did. To survive in
even the lowest level of poverty, families had to have every able member of
the family go to work.
•This led to the high rise in child labor in factories.
•Children worked up to 19 hours a day with only one, one hour break.
•Many children were killed or injured in accidents involving industrial
machinery
During the Industrial Revolution, the economy depended on women to
work in the factories. Women mostly found jobs in domestic service, textile
factories, and coalmines. The women that worked in these factories faced
unsanitary working conditions and dangerous work. Also, as a result of the
need for wages in the growing cash economy, families became dependent on
the wages of women. The average wage in New York state in 1926 for women
employees was $17.41, and for men $31.47. Statistics show that women's wages
are from one-third to one-half less than men's wages. The majority of women
working in the industrial revolution faced a life of hardship.
Labor unions were formed when dissatisfied workers formed in to
groups
demand
better
pay and
working
conditions.
In to
1869
garment
cutters
formed
the Noble
and Holy Order of the
Knights
Labor.
The members
ofof
the
laborwas
union
met secretly
and
In 1886,of
the
American
Federation
Labor
officially
formed.
It had
handshakes
thatskilled
their employers
outThe
about
them. of the
representedso
many
workers inwouldn’t
various find
crafts.
President
Something
that was unique
about
labor Gompers.
union wasThe
thatorganization
its members
American Federation
of Labor
wasthis
Samuel
included
African
Americans,
women,
and better
unskilled
laborers.
The Knights
worked for
higher
wages, shorter
hours,
working
conditions,
and
of
Labor
had
more
than
700,000
members
at
its
peak.
the right to bargain collectively with employers.
Samuel Gompers was the first and longest
serving president of the American Federation of
Labor. Under his leadership, the American
Federation of Labor became the largest and most
influential labor federation in the world. It grew
from a small association of 50,000 in 1886 to an
established organization of nearly 3 million in 1924
that had won a permanent place in American
society.
Collective Bargaining is a negotiation between
organized workers and their employer or employers to
determine wages, hours, rules, and working conditions.
The American Federation of Labor pressed for this
right.
Mary Harris “Mother” Jones was very involved in the
struggles of coal miners, and helped at many protests and
was a very
persuasive
speaker,
and she hadcrusade,"
a fiery a
Anotherstrikes.
one ofShe
her famous
strikes
was leading
the "children's
One of her
best-known
was leading a
caravanpersonality.
of striking children
from
the textile activities
mills of Kensington,
march of
wives
"who routed
strikebreakers
with brooms
Pennsylvania,
tominers'
President
Theodore
Roosevelt's
home in Long
Island, New
mops
in the Pennsylvania
in child
1902."labor. Mother Jones
York, inand
1903,
to dramatize
the case forcoalfields
abolishing
went on to participate in 1915 and 1916 in the strikes of garment workers and
streetcar workers in New York, and in the strike of steel workers in Pittsburgh
in 1919.
The International Ladies Garment Workers Union was
one of the most important and progressive unions in the
1930’s. It was also once one of the largest Labor Unions of the
United States, and it also contained mostly female members.
In 1909, 20,000 New York shirtwaist makers, mostly women,
launched a fourteen-week strike, called “The Uprising,”
followed several months later by a strike of 60,000 cloak
makers. In the negotiations that followed, the ILGWU was
recognized by the industry and won higher wages as well as
important new benefits for its members, such as health
examinations.
The Triangle Shirtwaist
Factory fire in New York City on
March 25, 1911, was the largest
industrial disaster in the history of
the city of New York, causing the
death of 146 of the 500 garment
workers who either died in the fire or
jumped to their deaths. The fire led
to legislation requiring improved
factory safety standards and helped
spur the growth of the International
Ladies' Garment Workers' Union,
which fought for better working
conditions for sweatshop workers in
that industry.
Many strikes took place when Unions responded to
low wages and fired employees. Many of these strikes
ended in violence. Many of the companies hired
strikebreakers to replace the striking workers. During a
strike, if violence occurred, the federal troops would
restore order.
During the nation-wide strike for the 8-hour workday, which
began May 1, 1886, a mass meeting was held in the Chicago Haymarket
to protest a police action of the previous day in which workers were
killed. When police ordered the protest meeting to disperse (peaceful
though it was), a bomb was thrown by an unknown person, killing
several officers. This became known as the "Haymarket Riot." The 8Hour Day Movement was destroyed in the nation-wide hysteria, which
followed.
In 1892Incensed,
there burst
outthen
the fury
of the so-called
Homestead
Frick
called
governor
of war
the to the
Frick immediately
indicated
by his upon
actionthe
that
he meant
strike, state
whichofwas
really a lockout,
involving
onwithin
the one
hand
the the
iron
Pennsylvania
for thethree
militia
and
a few
days
bitter end.
He erected
a wire fence
miles
long and
15 feet
high around
and steel
who,
with a was
membership
ofcamp.
nearlyThe
25,000,
were one
littleworkers,
millcalled
town
of 12,000
an armed
soldiers
the works
and
upon
the Pinkerton
Detective
Agency
to send him 300
of the strongest
country, when
and on
the
otherofficially
the Carnegie
stayed
till unions
the endin
ofthe
November,
the
strike
gunmen.
The locked-out
workers
heard that the
Pinkertons
were coming,
Steel Company.
Three
years
previously
the
union
had
been
recognized
ended
in the
of They
the workers.
The
union’s
treasury
and they
watched
forutter
theirdefeat
arrival.
knew that
the
gunmen
would be
Before
that
occurred,
however,
Andrew
Carnegie,
already
famous as a
by the
company;
indeed,
had
entered
with
it
into
a
three-year
contract,
was prepared
empty; winter
was coming
on,them
and families
wereterms.
going
armed and
themselves
to meet
on their own
On the
major
prophet
of
American
‘democracy’,
anticipating
violence,
had
hurriedly
at the
expiration
of
which
Carnegie
wanted
the
men
to
take
a
reduction
In desperation,
workers
returned
to work
as
night ofcold
Julyand
5th ,hungry.
a boatload
of Pinkertons
attempted
to land
in Homestead.
st
turned
the command
over
to the company’s
Frick, a
of wages.
The union
declined
these termssuperintendent,
and on July 1 ,Henry
beforeCthey
A battlenon-unionists.
followed, in which 10 men were killed and three times that number
frank
and declare
brutal union-hater,
departed
Europe.locked out.
could
a strike, theand
workers
werefor
suddenly
wounded. At the end the workers got the better of the gunmen, captured the
entire 300, minus the few who were killed, held them prisoners of war for 24
hours, and finally ran them, disarmed, out of town.
The Pullman Strike of 1894 was the first national
strike in United States history. It, before coming to an end,
involved
150,000
people
and
states
and
Theover
problem
that
caused
thetwenty-seven
Pullman Strike
arose
after
territories.
would
temporarily
stopofthe
nations
railway
the
panic of It
1893,
when
the workers
Pullman
received
system.
The cuts
entire
railon
labor
of the
nation
would
walk
several
wage
that
the force
average
added
up to
twenty-five
away from
their
jobs.
In supporting
the capital
of added
this
percent.
These
cuts
were
bad in themselves,
butside
when
strike
President
Cleveland
the firstthe
time
in the
with
Pullman's
actions
of notfor
lowering
rents
forNation's
company
historyhomes
wouldinsend
in federal
troops,
whoto
would
owned
Pullman,
the labor
began
unite.fire on and
kill United States Citizens, against the wishes of the states.
Eugene Victor Debs was an American labor and a political
leader. He was one of the founders of the International Labor
Union and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). He was also
five-time Socialist Party of America candidate for President of the
United States.
In 1893 Debs was elected the first president of the American
Railway Union (ARU). During the Pullman Strike in 1894, Debs
was arrested and charged with contempt of court. He was
sentenced six months in prison.