The life of a 19th-century American industrial
worker was hard. Even in good times wages
were low, hours long, and working conditions
hazardous. Little of the wealth that the
growth of the nation had generated went to
its workers. Moreover, women and children
made up a high percentage of the work force
in some industries and often received but a
fraction of the wages a man could earn.
Periodic economic crises swept the nation,
further eroding industrial wages and
producing high levels of unemployment.
National Labor Union
The NLU was created in 1866 and
dissolved in 1873.With the U.S. economy
becoming increasingly industrialized,
the struggle between labor and factory
owners began. Labor Unions were
formed to seek better working
conditions, better wages and shorter
working hours. The NLU was formed
by an ironworker named William H.
Sylvis. It consisted of about 300 local
unions in thirteen states.
The laissez-faire capitalism that
dominated the second half of the
19th century and fostered huge
concentrations of wealth and power
was backed by a judicial branch
that time and again ruled against
those who challenged the system. In
this, they were merely following the
philosophy of the times: the US
government forcefully put down
labor unrest.
Labor Unrest: 1870-1900
Management vs. Labor
“Tools” of
Management
“Tools” of
Labor
 “scabs”
 boycotts
 P. R. campaign
 sympathy
demonstrations
 Pinkertons
 lockout
 blacklisting
 yellow-dog contracts
 informational
picketing
 closed shops
 court injunctions
 organized
strikes
 open shop
 “wildcat” strikes
Knights of Labor
Terence V. Powderly
An injury to one is the concern of all!
The first major effort to organize
workers’ groups on a nationwide basis
appeared with the Noble Order of the
Knights of Labor in 1869. It was a
union open to all workers, including
African Americans, women, and
farmers. The Knights grew slowly until
its railway workers’ unit won a strike
against the great railroad baron, Jay
Gould, in 1885. Within a year they
added 500,000 workers to their rolls.
Goals of the Knights of
Labor
ù Eight-hour workday.
ù Abolition of child and prison labor.
ù Increased circulation of greenbacks.
ù Equal pay for men and women.
ù Safety codes in the workplace.
ù Prohibition of contract foreign labor.
The Haymarket Square Riot
This was an outbreak of violence in
Chicago on May 4, 1886. A demonstration,
largely staged by a small group of
anarchists, caused a crowd of some 1,500
people to gather at Haymarket Square.
When policemen attempted to disperse the
meeting, a bomb exploded and rioting
ensued. Seven policemen and four other
persons were killed, and more than 100
persons were wounded. The incident was
frequently used by the adversaries of
organized labor to discredit the waning
Knights of Labor movement.
The American Federation
of Labor: 1886
Samuel Gompers
Opposed to the idea of a labor party,
the AFL (1886) was a relatively
conservative political force within the
labor movement of the late 19th and
early 20th cent. But the union did help
secure for its members higher wages,
shorter hours, workmen’s
compensation, laws against child labor,
an 8-hr day for government employees,
and the exemption of labor from
antitrust legislation.
How the AF of L
Would Help the Workers
ù Catered to the skilled worker.
ù Represented workers in matters of national
legislation.
ù Prevented disputes among the many craft
unions.
ù Mediated disputes between management
and labor.
ù Pushed for closed shops.
Strikes
The Great Railroad Strike
of 1877
In 1877, the nation was struck by
another recession, which was called
a panic at that time. A strike by
railroad workers sparked a coastto-coast conflagration, as workers
driven by despair and desperation
battled troops in the streets of
major U.S. cities.
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was
the first major strike in an industry
that propelled America’s industrial
revolution. It was the first national
strike, stretching from Atlantic to
Pacific. In some cities, especially St.
Louis, the struggle became one of the
nation’s first general strikes. This was
the first major strike broken by the
U.S. military. Probably in no other
strike had so many working people
met a violent death at the hands of
the authorities: 100 were killed; 1,000
arrested.
In 1892, at Carnegie’s steel works in
Homestead, Pennsylvania, a group of
300 Pinkerton detectives the company
had hired to break a bitter strike by the
Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel,
and Tin Workers fought a fierce and
losing gun battle with strikers. The
National Guard was called in to protect
non-union workers and the strike was
broken. Unions were not let back into
the plant until 1937.
In 1894, wage cuts at the Pullman Company
just outside Chicago led to a strike, which,
with the support of the American Railway
Union, soon tied up much of the country’s rail
system. As the situation deteriorated, U.S.
Attorney General Richard Olney, himself a
former railroad lawyer, deputized over 3,000
men in an attempt to keep the rails open.
This was followed by a federal court
injunction against union interference with the
trains. When rioting ensued, President
Cleveland sent in federal troops, and the
strike was eventually broken. Eugene Debs,
the leader of the American Railway Union
was arrested and placed in jail for six months.
President Grover Cleveland
If it takes the entire army and navy to
deliver a postal card in Chicago, that card
will be delivered!
The Gilded Age was a period of horrific labor
violence, as industrialists and workers
literally fought over control of the
workplace
Workers organized the first large American
labor unions during the Gilded Age
Employers were generally just as
determined to stop unionization as workers
were to organize unions, leading to frequent
conflict
Strikes were often stopped by the state and
federal government by court injunction or
by violence.
The AFL would survive and flourish from the
1800s to the 1900s, and still exists today.