The Industrial Revolution began in Britain,
spread to other countries, and had a strong
impact on economics, politics, and society
THE BEGINNINGS OF INDUSTRIALIZATION

Industrial Revolution


Greatly increased output of machine-made goods that
began in England (Britain)
Industrialization: the process of developing
machine production of goods
THE AGRICULTURAL
REVOLUTION

Enclosures: large fields that were
fenced off
More productive seeding and harvesting methods to
increase crop yield
 2 important results:

1.
2.
Landowners tried new agricultural methods
Large landowners forced small farmers to become tenant
farmers or to give up farming & move to cities
Seed Drill: well-spaced rows at specific
depths increasing crop yield

CROP ROTATION


System of growing
different crops in same
field on succeeding
years to preserve the
fertility of the soil
One of best
developments of
Agricultural
Revolution

One crop may exhaust
soil nutrients, then
rotate to restore
nutrients
LIVESTOCK BREEDERS

Only allow best to
breed
As food supplies increased & living conditions improved,
Britain’s population drastically increased
• increase in demand for food & goods like cloth
• farmers who lost land, moved to cities to become
factory workers
FACTORS OF PRODUCTION




Resources needed to produce goods and services
that were required by the Industrial Revolution
LAND
(natural
resources)
LABOR
CAPITAL
(Money)
FACTORY SYSTEM
An organized method of production that brought
workers and machines together under control of
management
 Fast working, precise machines allowed for:



Mass production: produce huge quantities of identical
goods
Interchangeable parts: machine made parts that
were exactly alike and easily assembled or exchanged
Encouraged manufacturers to divide tasks from detailed
and specific segments into step-by-step procedures
 Division of Labor: Each worker performed a specialized task
on a product as it moved by on a conveyor belt aka
Assembly Line
 Assembly line: allowed the cost of production to decrease
causing the price of sale to decrease

TEXTILE INDUSTRY
Britain’s textile industry clothed
the world
 Boosted profits by speeding up
process with inventions

Flying shuttle
 Spinning jenny


First done by hand, then used
water frame
Spinning mule
 Power loom


Flying Shuttle
Spinning jenny
Because these machines were
large, lead to building of factories

Needed power, so built by rivers &
streams
COTTON

Britain’s cotton
came from America’s
South and slave
labor

Eli Whitney
invented cotton gin
to speed up cotton
picking

Invented to reduce
need for slaves, but
actually increased
demand for slaves
IMPROVEMENTS IN TRANSPORTATION

Watt’s Steam Engine
Figured out a way to make the steam engine work
faster & more efficiently while burning less fuel
 Boulton was Watt’s entrepreneur

Entrepreneur: person who organizes, manages, and takes
on risks of business
 Paid Watt a salary and encouraged him to build better
engines; when successful both made more money

Watt
STEAMBOAT
American Robert Fulton built first steamboat:
Clermont
 Used steamboats on canal (human-made
waterways)
 Steamboats used to transport raw materials,
finished goods, and people


Cut cost of shipping
ROADS

“Macadam” Roads: road beds laid with large
stones for drainage then on top, a smooth layer of
crushed rock


Allowed heavy wagons to travel during rain without
sinking in the mud
Turnpikes: private
investors build roads &
then operated them for
profit
-travelers had to stop
to pay tolls before
traveling further
THE RAILWAY AGE BEGINS
Trevithick built first steam-driven locomotive
 Stephenson built first railroad line

THE RAILROAD
Entrepreneurs wanted to connect ports, farms
and cities
 Stephenson’s Rocket was the locomotive for it’s
strength to hull cargo
and fastest speed of
24 mph!

RAILROADS REVOLUTIONIZE LIFE
1.
2.
Increased industrial growth by giving
manufacturers a cheap way to transport
materials and finished products
Created massive amounts of new jobs for both
railroad workers and miners

3.
4.
Miners provided iron for tracks and coal for steam
engines
Increased agricultural and fishing industries
Travel easier
SECTION 2: INDUSTRIALIZATION
The factory system changed the way people lived
and worked (growth in jobs), introducing a
variety of problems:
Unhealthy, unsafe working conditions
Air & water pollution
Issues with child labor
Class tensions between working and middle class
CHANGES DUE TO INDUSTRIALIZATION
Earn higher wages in factories vs. farms
 Afford to heat homes with coal
 Eat better food, both meats and agriculture
 Wear better clothing from textile factories


Above caused people to move to cities to find
work
Caused by growth of factory system, where
manufactured goods were concentrated in a central
location
 Factories were built in clusters b/c they were built
near sources of energy (coal and water)

LIVING CONDITIONS

B/c cities grew so rapidly, NO
development plans, sanitary
codes, or building codes
Lacked adequate housing,
education, & police protection
 Unpaved streets

No drains
 No garbage collection

Families lived in one bedroom
shelters
 Widespread sickness with
outbreaks of epidemics

Lifespan in city=17 years vs
Lifespan in country=38 years
 Factory owners & merchants
built mansions is suburbs

WORKING CONDITIONS

To increase production &
profit, factory owners
wanted to run machines as
many hours as possible

14 hours/day, 6 days/week
Poorly lit or clean
 Machines injured workers



Coal mines=most
dangerous job (still true
today)

•Women & children paid less
than men for doing same job
No worker’s comp in case of
injury
Accidents, damp conditions,
breathing coal dust

=life span 10 years shorter
than average worker
CHILD LABOR
Children as young as 6, worked 6 days a week for
13 or 14 hours a day with a ½ hour break for
lunch and 1 hour break for dinner
 Supervisors beat them so children would stay
awake
 Many were injured by machines or were
suffocated by coal dust or cotton fluff
 Factory Act (1819): restricted working age &
hours, but children continued to work

ABC REVIEW
1. Which of the following was NOT an example of poor living and
working conditions during the Industrial Revolution?
A. Over-crowded apartments B. Children working 14 hours a day
C. Higher wages
D. Sanitation issues
2. What was the main reason for urbanization?
A. Job opportunities on farms
B. Industrialization
C. Wealthy owners & merchants wanted to live there
D. Better schools for their children to attend
3. Which of the following was included in child labor reforms passed
by parliament?
A. Increased the hours that children could work
B. Restricted how many men could work
C. Increased the hours that men could work
D. Restricted the hours that children could work
“From this filthy sewer pure gold flows”
-Alexis de Tocqueville
POLLUTION
Putting so much
industry in one place
polluted the natural
environment
 Coal blackened the air
 Textile dyes & waste
poisoned the rivers

THE MIDDLE CLASS

Social class made up of skilled workers, professionals,
businesspeople and wealthy farmers


Challenged status and power of landowners & aristocrats
Comfortable standard of living
THE WORKING CLASS & LUDDITES
Saw little improvement in living and working
conditions
 lost jobs b/c machines took place of human
workers
 Luddites: attacked whole factories, mobs rioted,
destroyed machines b/c of poor living and
working conditions

POSITIVE EFFECTS OF THE INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Created jobs
Contributed to the wealth of the nation
Fostered technological progress & invention
Increased the production of goods
Raised the standard of living
Provided hope of improvement in people’s lives
Healthier diets
Better housing
Cheaper, mass produced clothing
Expanded educational opportunities
Workers eventually got higher wages, shorter
hours and better working conditions from labor
unions
LONG-TERM EFFECTS
Most people today in industrialized countries can
afford consumer goods
 Continuous improvements in living and working
conditions
 Profits from industrialization produce tax
revenue for governments, which allow the
government to invest in urban improvements

SECTION 3: INDUSTRIALIZATION
SPREADS
The industrialization that began in Great Britain
spread to other parts of the world
-United States & continental Europe
INDUSTRIALIZATION IN THE UNITED
STATES
Land: rivers, coal and iron
 Labor: farm workers and immigrants
 Capital: Britain forced USA to develop own
industry that it could no longer import due to its
blockade during the War of 1812

USA’S FIRST INDUSTRY
Textile (just like Britain)
 Samuel Slater, a British
immigrant, built a
spinning machine from memory



Moses Brown opened the first factory in the US to
house Slater’s machines
Francis Cabot Lowell, with other investors
revolutionized American textile industry

Young single women went to work as mill girls in
factory towns
Make higher wages & gain independence
 Worked 12 hour/day, 6 days/week


Manufacturing in clothing and shoemaking
expanded in the Northeast

Technology boom:
Wealth of natural resources-oil, coal, iron
 Inventions: electric light bulb & telephone
 Increase in population to make & buy manufactured goods


Railroads played major role in
America’s industrialization
Profitable business
 Mergers: small companies
bought out by larger ones
 Large companies controlled 2/3s
of nation’s railroads


To raise money,
entrepreneurs sold
stock (certain rights of
ownership)

People who bought
stock owned part of
business

Corporation: Business
owned by stockholders
who share in profits but
are not responsible for
debt

CORPORATIONS
Large corporations
looked to control every
aspect of their own
industry in order to
make big profits
(monopoly)
 Big Business: giant
corporations that
controlled entire
industries & made big
profits by reducing the
cost of producing
goods
Standard Oil: John D.
Rockefeller


Carnegie Steel
Company: Andrew
Carnegie
BUSINESS CYCLES

Alternating periods of
business expansion or
decline

Business concentrated
on specializing on one
particular kind of
product making
industrialization
dependent upon one
another

Business Cycles:
Boom: increase
buying, selling,
production and
employment
 Bust: period of decline
in business activity
 Depression: lowest
point of cycle

Bank failures
 Widespread
unemployment

WORKERS EARNED LOW WAGES
FOR LABORING LONG HOURS
Stockholders earned high profits and corporate
leaders made fortunes
IMPACT OF INDUSTRIALIZATION

Increased competition in
industrialized nations
and poverty in nonindustrialized nations
Industrialized nations
needed raw materials
and market to sell
manufactured
goods=non-industrialized
nations
 IMPERIALISM: stronger
country taking control of
a weaker country for
economic purposes

Agriculture
 Production
 Transportation
 Communication



Creation of middle class:

Opportunities for
education & democratic
participation, which led
to social reform
Revolutions:

Shifted world balance of
power
Europe & USA=major
economic powers
 Africa &
Asia=agricultural &
behind economically


Population, health &
wealth rose
dramatically in all
industrialized countries
CHAPTER 9, SECTION 4
REFORMING THE INDUSTRIAL
WORLD
The Industrial Revolution led to economic, social
and political reforms
Business leaders believed that governments
should stay out of business and economic affairs
 Reformers felt that governments needed to play
an active role to improve conditions for the poor
 Workers demanded rights and protection,
forming labor unions

THE PHILOSOPHERS OF INDUSTRIALIZATION

Laissez faire: the economic policy of letting
owners of industry and business set working
conditions without interference
 Favors free market not regulated by the
government because government regulations
interfere with the production of wealth
 Free trade: the flow of commerce in the world
market without government regulation;
economy will prosper
ADAM SMITH

Wealth of Nations
Economic liberty guarantees economic progress
 Government should NOT interfere


3 natural laws of economics

The law of…
 self-interest: people work for their own good
 competition: competition forces people to make a better
product
 supply and demand: enough goods would be produced at
the lowest possible price to meet demand in a market
economy
CAPITALISM





Definition: an economic system in which the factors
of production are privately owned and money is
invested in business ventures to make a profit
Thomas Malthus: population increases more
rapidly than the food supply, so without wars and
epidemics to kill off the extra people, most were
destined to be poor and miserable
David Ricardo: a permanent underclass would
always be poor; wages should be forced down as
population increases
Smith, Malthus, and Ricardo opposed government
efforts to help poor
Creating minimum wage and better working conditions
would upset the free market system, lower profits, and
undermine the production of wealth in society
THE RISE OF SOCIALISM

Utilitarianism: people should judge ideas,
institutions, and actions on the basis of their utility or
usefulness
 Government should try to promote the greatest
good for the greatest number of people (Bentham)
 The individual should be free to pursue his/her
own advantage without interference from the state
(Bentham)
 J. Stuart Mill




Believed it was wrong that workers should lead deprived lives
that sometimes bordered on starvation
More equal division of profits
Cooperative system of agriculture
Women’s rights, including right to vote
THE RISE OF SOCIALISM CONTINUED:
Utopian: perfect living
 Owen: built houses to rent at low rates, no
child under 10 years to work in mills and free
education (New Harmony, Indiana)
 Socialism: factors of production are owned by the
public and operate for the welfare of all
 Government should plan the economy which
would end poverty and promote equality
 Public ownership would help workers

MARXISM: RADICAL SOCIALISM

Karl Marx/Marxism & Engels
 The Communist Manifesto


Human societies have always been divided into warring
classes:
The middle class/employers or bourgeoisie “haves”
VS.



workers or the proletariat “have-nots”
Wealthy control means of production and the poor
perform the labor in terrible working conditions
Eventually the workers would overthrow the owners “
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their
chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the
World unite”
THE FUTURE ACCORDING TO MARX

Capitalism would eventually destroy itself
Factories would drive small businesses out of business,
creating monopolies
 Workers would seize control and produce what society
needed, bringing economic equality to everyone
 Control the government which would provide common
living and education, eventually leading to no
government and a classless society


Pure communism: no government and classless society
COMMUNISM

Communism: form of complete socialism in
which the means of production would be owned
by the people
No private property
 All goods and services equally shared


Future communist leaders (who adopted some,
not all, ideas of Marx to fit their situations and
needs in a dictatorship:
 Lenin of Russia
 Mao of China
 Castro of Cuba
LABOR UNIONS AND REFORM LAWS



Long hours, unsafe working conditions, low pay
Unions: voluntary labor associations
 Spoke for all the workers in a particular trade
 Collective bargaining: negotiations between workers and their employers
 Bargained for better condition, shorter hours, better pay
 Strike: refuse to work; if factory owners refused to meet demands
 Began with skilled workers b/c special skills gave them extra bargaining power
& management would have trouble replacing them
Reform Laws
 Factory Act 1833:
 made it illegal to hire children under 9 years old
 9-12 years could work no more than 8 hours/day
 13-17 years could work no more than 12 hours/day
 Mines Act 1842: illegal for women and children to work underground
 Ten Hours Act 1847: women and children only work 10 hours/day in factories
 National Child Labor Committee: banned child labor and set maximum working
hours in USA
THE REFORM MOVEMENT SPREADS
The abolition of slavery
 Wilberforce helped to bring an end to slavery
and slave trade in the British Empire
 Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil
War in the United States freed the slaves
 The Fight for Women’s Rights
 Factory work did offer higher wages than work
done at home, but only earned 1/3rd as much
money as men
 Formed unions
 Ran settlement houses: community centers
that served the poor residents of slum
neighborhoods (Jane Addams of Hull House)

REFORMS SPREAD TO MANY AREAS OF
LIFE

Reforms Spread to Many Areas of Life
 Public Education
Horace Mann (Massachusetts) favored free public education
for all children
 “If we do not prepare children to become good citizens…if
we do not enrich their minds with knowledge, then our
republic must go down to destruction”


Prison Reform

Goal of providing prisoners with the means to lead a useful
life upon release


Democracy will grow in industrialized countries
as foreign expansion increases!
AMERICA’S NEW INDUSTRIAL
AGE
Technological innovations and the growth of the
railroad industry help fuel an industrial boom.
Some business leaders follow corrupt practices,
and workers, suffering harsh working conditions,
try to organize.
THE EXPANSION O F INDUSTRY
Industry booms as natural resources, creative
ideas, and growing markets fuel technological
development.
NATURAL RESOURCES FUEL
INDUSTRIALIZATION


After the Civil War, the US was still mainly
agricultural, but 60 years later, it had become the
leading industrial power in the world
 Wealth of natural resources
 Government support for business
 Growing urban population: cheap labor and
markets for new products
Black Gold
 Edwin L. Drake: successfully used a steam engine
to drill for oil


Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Texas
Entrepreneurs invested to make oil into kerosene

Gasoline, a byproduct of making kerosene from oil, was thrown
away
BESSEMER STEEL PROCESS

US had large deposits of coal and iron

Bessemer process-cheap and efficient
manufacturing process to turn iron into steel
 Open-hearth process-produce quality steel from
scrap metal as well as raw materials
New Uses for Steel
 Railroad track=largest use
 Barbed wire
 John Deere farming equipment=made plains
largest agricultural region in nation
 Brooklyn Bridge
 William Le Baron Jenney=first skyscraper w/ steel
frame


Iron is soft and tends to break and rust
 Removing the carbon from iron=steel
INVENTIONS PROMOTE CHANGE

Electricity
 Thomas Alva Edison




George Westinghouse


Established world’s first research lab
Patented the incandescent light bulb
Grid system for producing and distributing electrical power
Made electricity safer and less expensive
Became inexpensive and convenient source of
energy available in homes

Inventions of time-saving home appliances
Helped to locate factories anywhere-not near
sources of raw material energy
 Electric streetcars=cheap, efficient city travel


Led to suburbs
INVENTIONS CHANGE LIFESTYLES




Christopher Sholes: invented typewriterchanged work environment
Alexander Graham Bell & Thomas Watson:
invented telephone-allowed for worldwide
communication
Typewriter and telephone created new jobs for
women
Samuel Morse: telegraph, which carried
information at high speeds. Able to link cities
“Morse Code”
ENERGY & ENGINES
Daimler: engine run on gasoline
 Diesel: diesel fuel engines to run large machines
and industrial plants
 Zeppelin
 Wilbur & Orville Wright: (Ohioans)

1903: first flight of motorized airplane
 Led to increase in rubber & gasoline (petroleum)

AMERICA’S AGE OF RAILROADS
The growth and consolidation of railroads
benefited the nation but also led to corruption
and required government regulation.
RAILROADS SPAN TIME & SPACE
Railroads made local transit reliable and
westward expansion possible for businesses and
people
 Government made huge land grants and loans to
railroad companies to help expand westward and
develop the country
 A National Network
 Transcontinental railroad: railroad crossed the
nation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific
Ocean


Central Pacific and Union Pacific met with a golden spike
at Promontory, Utah
ROMANCE & REALITY


Dreams of available land, adventure and fresh
start (Romance)
Reality:
Central Pacific=Chinese Immigrants
 Union Pacific=Irish immigrants & Civil War Vets
 Lay track in treacherous terrain
 Faced Native American attacks
 Accidents & disease

RAILROAD TIME


Noon was always when the sun was directly
overhead, which is different in every place,
making traveling very difficult
C.F. Dowd


Earth surface divided into 24 time zones, one for each hour
of the day
 US would have 4 time zones at this time-Eastern,
Central, Mountain, Pacific
Would be adopted by the railroad industry to
help with travel & then eventually by the world
as standardized time
OPPORTUNITIES & OPPORTUNISTS
Iron, coal, steel, lumber, and glass industries
grew rapidly to keep up with the demands of the
railroad industry
 New Towns & Markets
 Towns were created & also grew with spread of
railroad lines, creating new markets
 Railroads promoted trade and interdependence
 Towns began specializing in particular
products & prospered by selling large
quantities of their products to the entire
country

PULLMAN

George M. Pullman
Built a factory for manufacturing sleepers and other
railroad cars
 Built a town for his employees
 Well-lit, clean homes
 Services: doctor, shops, athletic fields
 Strictly controlled by Pullman to ensure stable workforce




Couldn’t gather
Not allowed to drink alcohol
Raise in rent after cut in pay caused major riot/strike
CREDIT MOBILIER


Railroad Magnate: powerful & influential
industrialists
Infamous Scheme-Credit Mobilier
Construction company was created by stockholders in the
Union Pacific Railroad
 Stockholders gave the company a contract to lay tract at
double or triple the actual cost & pocketed the profits
 Stockholders included 20 representatives in the US
Congress



Including future President James A. Garfield
Federal investigation found that stockholders had schemed
$23 million in stocks
 Nothing happened to the stockholders despite being
found guilty
THE GRANGE & THE RAILROADS
The Grangers-member of the Grange, a farmers’
organization, began demanding governmental
control over the railroad industry
 Railroad Abuses
 Farmers were upset by the misuse of
government land grants




Railroads sold the grants to other businesses, not to settlers
like the government originally intended
Railroads fixed prices to keep farmers in their
debt
Railroads charged different customers
different rates

Charging more to carry loads shorter distances (long
distances on agriculture would destroy farmers’ crops)
GRANGER LAWS



Grangers sponsored state and local political
candidates to pass laws to protect the interest
of farmers
Granger Laws: “to establish maximum freight
and passenger rates and prohibit
discrimination”
Munn v. Illinois: Supreme Court upheld the
Granger Laws
States won the right to regulate the railroads for the benefit
of farmers and consumers
 Federal government has the right to regulate private
industry to serve the public interest (BIG DEAL!!!! First
time government gets involved to regulate private business)

INTERSTATE COMMERCE ACT


However, the Supreme Court would also rule
that a state could NOT set rates on interstate
commerce-railroad traffic that either came
from or was going to another state
Interstate Commerce Act: the right of the
federal government to supervise railroad
activities and established a 5 member
Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)
Difficulty regulating b/c of legal process and railroad
resistance
 Supreme Court also ruled that the ICC could NOT set
maximum railroad rates

PANIC & CONSOLIDATION

Corporate abuses, mismanagement,
overbuilding, and competition pushed many
railroads to almost bankruptcy
Leading to a nationwide economic collapse-worst depression
up to that time
 Railroads were taken over by financial companies
 Investment firms, like J.P. Morgan Company,
reorganized the railroads
 7 powerful companies held control of 2/3 of the nation’s
railroad tracks

BIG BUSINESS & LABOR
The expansion of industry resulted in the growth
of big business and prompted laborers to form
unions to better their lives.
CARNEGIE’S INNOVATIONS

Andrew Carnegie was one of the first industrial
moguls to make his own fortune
 Started in the railroad business, the expanded
to the steel industry

Would manufacture more steel that all of Britain’s steel
factories combined
NEW BUSINESS STRATEGIES

Continually search for ways to make better
products more cheaply


Attracting talented people by offering them
stock in the company


New machines & techniques
Encouraged competition among his employees
Control as much of the industry (steel) as
possible
Vertical integration: process in which you buy out your
suppliers in order to control the raw materials and
transportation systems
 Horizontal integration: companies that produce similar
products merge into one company

SOCIAL DARWINISM & BUSINESS

Some individuals/companies flourish and pass their
traits along to the next generation, while others do
not
 Process of natural selection got rid of less-suited
individuals/companies and enabled the bestadapted to survive
 Used social Darwinism to justify laissez faire



Marketplace should not be regulated
Success and failure in business were governed by natural law
and that no one had the right to intervene
A New Definition of Success
 Protestants believed that riches were a sign of
God’s favor, and therefore the poor must be lazy or
interior people who deserved their misfortunes in
life
FEWER CONTROL MORE

Growth & Consolidation
 Most industrialists used horizontal integration



Merger: one corporation bough out the stock of another
A firm that bought out all its competitors could achieve a
monopoly: complete control over its industry’s production,
wages and prices
 Holding company: a corporation that did nothing but buy out
the stock of other companies
Corporations like Standard Oil Company in Ohio
(John D. Rockefeller) used mergers by joining with
competing companies in trust agreements


Participants in a trust turn their stock over to a group of
trustees -people who run the separate companies as one large
corporation
In return, the companies are entitled to the dividends on
profits earned by the trust
ROCKEFELLER AND THE ROBBER BARONS



Controlled 90% of the oil refining business
Paid employees extremely low wages
Drove competitors out of business by selling
his oil at a lower price than it cost to produce it
Then, once all his competitors were gone, he raised his
prices way above the standard level
 Giving him and others who used the same tactic the name
of robber baron


Industrialists were also philanthropists: give
money to charities, foundations, the arts,
clinics, etc.
Rockefeller gave away over $500 million
 Carnegie donated 90% of his wealth; his fortune still
continues to support arts and learning today

SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT


Government became very concerned that
expanding corporations would limit or end free
competition
Sherman Antitrust Act: illegal to form a trust
that interfered with free trade between states
or with other countries
Act didn’t clearly define “trust”
 Large corporations avoided by becoming a number of
smaller companies still controlled by one person
 Ultimately failed

BUSINESS BOOM BYPASSES THE SOUTH


Industrial growth was focused in the North b/c
of natural and urban resources
South:
Recovering from Civil War where most of the battles were
fought
 Lacked capital
 People unwilling to invest
 North owned 90% of stock in most profitable Southern
business-railroads
 Remained agricultural and farmers at mercy of railroad
corporations
 High tariffs on raw materials and imports
 Lacked skilled workers
 Industry: railroads, forestry, mining, tobacco, and
cotton/textile

LABOR UNIONS EMERGE

Long hours and danger
 Some companies demanded 7 day work week or 12
hour days
 No vacation, sick leave, unemployment
compensation, workmen’s compensation for injury
or death on job
 Factories were dirty, poorly ventilated, faulty or
dangerous equipment
 Wages so low, couldn’t survive unless whole family
worked




Child: 27cents for 14 hour/day
Women: $267/year (same job as men)
Men: $498/year
Andrew Carnegie: $23 million/year with no income tax
EARLY LABOR ORGANIZING

National Labor Union (NLU)
Refused to let in African Americans, so they formed the
CNLU- Colored National Labor Union
 Got Congress to legalize an 8 hour day for government
workers


Noble Order of the Knights of Labor
Membership open to all workers no matter race, gender or
degree of skill
 Advocated for equal pay for equal work by men and women
 Striking was a last resort


UNION MOVEMENTS DIVERGE

Craft Unionism
 Included skilled workers from one or more trades
 Samuel Gompers formed the American Federation
of Labor (AFL)



Focused on collective bargaining to reach written agreements
Striking was a major tactic that help win higher wages and
shorter workweeks
 In 25 years, they managed to raise their weekly wage by
$6.50 and shortened their workweek by 5.5 hours to 49
hours/week
Industrial Unionism
 Eugene V. Debs formed the American Railway
Union


Included both skilled and unskilled laborers
Strike for higher wages
SOCIALISM AND THE IWW
Labor activists, like Debs, turned to socialism
(economic and political system based on
government control of business and property with
equal distribution of wealth)
 Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) aka. The
Wobblies







Led by William “Big Bill” Haywood
Welcomed African Americans
Unskilled workers
Radical unionists and socialists
Other Labor Activism in the West
 Sugar Beet & Farm Laborers’ Union: Japanese &
Mexican workers
State Federation of Labor: Chinese & Japanese
miners
STRIKES TURN VIOLENT
Industry and government saw unions as a threat
to capitalism
 The Great Strike of 1877
 Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O Railroad):
struck to protest 2nd wage cut in 2 months

Strike spread to other lines and most freight and passenger
traffic covering 50,000 miles stopped for more than a week
 Federal troops ended the strike b/c it was disrupting
interstate commerce

THE HAYMARKET AFFAIR OR THE
HAYMARKET SQUARE RIOT



Gathered in Chicago’s Haymarket Square to
protest police brutality
When someone tossed a bomb into the police
line, the police opened fire on the unarmed
crowd
Number of police and workers died and
speakers/radicals were charged with inciting a
riot


4 hanged and 1 committed suicide in prison
Public began to turn against the labor
movement
HOMESTEAD STRIKE



Workers struck due to wage cuts
Armed guards brought in to protect scabs
(strikebreaker)
Number died before Pennsylvania National
Guard was brought in and workers were
defeated
THE PULLMAN COMPANY STRIKE

During the economic panic and depression,
company laid off over ½ of its workers and cut
wages of rest by up to 50% & didn’t cut the
cost of employee housing payments
Debs asked for arbitration & Pullman refused
 ARU boycotted Pullman trains
 Pullman hired scabs, strike turned violent, President
Cleveland sent in troops
 Debs was jailed
 Pullman fired most of strikers
 Railroads blacklisted others (wouldn’t give anyone on the
list a job)

WOMEN ORGANIZE


Barred from most unions
Mary Harris Jones




Most dominant organizer in women’s labor movement
Led 80 mill children, with horrible injuries, on march to President T.
Roosevelt’s home, to influence the passage of child labor laws
Pauline Newman (16 years old): organizer of the
International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory






Fire spread quickly through factory’s 8th, 9th, and 10th floors due to oil
on machines & piles of cloth
When women tried to escape, found that company had locked all but one
of the exit doors
 Unlocked door was blocked by fire
No sprinkler system
One fire escape collapsed
146 women died-some jumping out of windows
Jury found factory owners NOT GUILTY of manslaughter
 Public outraged!
 Forced changes in working conditions, building and factory laws
MANAGEMENT AND GOVERNMENT PRESSURE
UNIONS


Management refused to recognize unions
Employers forbade union meetings
Fired union members
 Forced new employees to sign “yellow-dog contracts” that
they would NOT join unions


Used the Sherman Antitrust Act against labor
by saying their strike or boycott was hurting
interstate trade and the federal government
would issue a statement forcing the workers
back to work