LABOR Unions in the Progressive Era worked against the social ideology and economic power of the corporations,
determinedly (and at times violently) pushing the country toward social reform.
WOMEN
CHILDREN
Lowell System - increase production of cotton,  textile mills in the South 
women = cheap laborers. These women also worked in strikes and tried to
unionize
Advocates –
new jobs + changing societal roles = middle class women delay marriage =
Charles Dickens' - Oliver Twist (1838)
Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis photography reformers such
Julia Lathrop – reformer
SOUTH
National Child Labor Committee was
created to protect the children.
Had to change labor force from slaves  ???, but no real change - most newly
freed slaves stayed on farms under
2 systems:
Legislation –
- sharecropping - blacks and poor whites would work farmer's land for small
amount of crop and place to stay
•
- crop-lien system - small farmers looking to big farmers for food/supplies/loans
cotton gin  boom in the textile industry - worked mostly by women +
children.
•
•
Connecticut's (1813) requirement of
schooling
1899 - 23 states passed laws regulating
child labor
1938 - Congress passed Fair Labor
Standards Act - regulated hours for
children
POWER OF THE CORPORATIONS
More $ = hire better lawyers + buy press + pressure politicians
And ended strikes - hire strike breakers + get courts to order the end of strikes/send troops + lockout/starve into submission
+ ironclad oaths, yellow-dog contracts, create blacklists and share with fellow employers
Controlled lives of workers with - company town (co. control entire town, increase prices in stores + 'easy' credit =
perpetual debt (serfdom?) = owned by co.)
STRIKES
•
Railroad Strike of 1877
1st major post-Civil War Strike
- caused by major labor unrest
after Baltimore + Ohio when
companies lowered wages
violent strikes = Hayes called
for the army to help suppress
Haymarket Square (Chicago)
Riot
of 1886
1st as labor demonstration -protested treatment of workers at McCormick Harvest factory + police methods with protestors
ended with a bomb being thrown, killing some of the policemen ordered to break up the strike - public blamed the unions (K
of L)
The Homestead (Penn.) Strike of 1892
Carnegie Steel Company cut workers wages  strike
Pinkerton Detective Agency called in - provoked strikers to fire  caused state militia to join
Coxey's 'Army' - 1894
'General' Jacob S. Coxey and his unemployed 'army' marched to Washington
wanted government to have public works programs to fix unemployment, 'army' was arrested for walking on the grass
The Pullman Strike of 1894
Pullman Palace Car Company cut workers pay = laid workers off = violent strike
Railway Mangers Association said strike was restraint of trade + U.S. mail in danger = Pres. Cleveland to send troops to end
Leaders were jailed (including Debs) and spent 6 months in jail, as they had defied a federal court order to end the strike.
This action resulted in the end of the boycott.
Anthracite Coal Strikes of 1900 and 1902
1st strike of 1900 - from depression of 1893
T. Roosevelt became an advocate for the coal workers, causing the U.S. to go from strike breaker to peacemaker
1902 strike - miners again called on T. Roosevelt, who went to Congress (against the wishes of the corporations.)