Labor in the Gilded Age
I.
II.
Republicanism—Key concepts
A.
Political vision
B.
Economic vision
C.
Republicanism in Action
Developing Capitalism in the North
A.
The Civil War
B.
The Gilded Age
C.
Second Industrial Revolution
D.
Employer power
III. Postwar Labor Activism
A.
The Great Upheaval
B.
The Rise of the Knights of Labor
C.
Radicalism
D.
The Decline of Labor Republicanism
Labor Republicanism
• Political vision
– Citizens must participate in public life.
– The public interest should rule over private, rather
than the opposite.
• Economic vision
– Dignity of labor.
– Free men possess right to fair treatment.
– Government should provide opportunities for
independent white producers.
Republicanism in Action
• Anti-slavery
• Land policy
– Homestead Act
– Land Grant College Act
• Pro-growth
– Railroads
The Civil War
• Class animosity
– NYC draft riots, 1863
• Industrial
development
A National Market
U.S. Railroad mileage
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920
60K
93K
167K
194K
242K
254K
Second Industrial Revolution
Corporate
Power
 U.S. Steel Managers Banquet, 1901
•
•
•
•
•
 Steel Mill ca. 1920
Large
Integrated
Automated
Stockholders
Robber Barons
– Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan
The Gilded Age
• Distributional
Politics
– patronage
Boss Conkling
Pres. Arthur
• Laissez-faire
• Promote Growth
• Corruption
Boss Quay
Pres. Harrison
The Great Upheaval, 1877
• Panic of 1873
• 500,000 unemployed
Knights of Labor
• Respectability
– Temperance
– Social club
• Producerism
– Mutuality
between capital
and labor
– Oppose strikes
• Political action
Labor day parade, 1884
– “Cooperative
commonwealth”
Radicalism
•
•
•
•
Federation of Organized Trades Unions
Eight Hour Movement
Haymarket bombing
Speakers arrested, executed
The Fall of the Worker’s
Republic
• Percent of nonagricultural workforce
in unions:
–
–
–
–
1870: 4.89%
1880: 0.59%
1886: 8.86%
1890: 2.43%