Prior to the 1870s, America’s economy was based on agriculture. The
Industrial Revolution of the late nineteenth century introduced new
opportunities for labor and changed the way Americans earned a living.
Between 1860 and 1900, the number of workers in manufacturing
quadrupled to six million. Where once people had made their living
farming, millions now left home each day to work in industry and earn
a wage. Change on such a magnificent level tends to bring problems that
need to be solved, and in the case of the Industrial Revolution the treatment of workers was one such problem.
Hardships in every industry
In every industry, pay was very low and working conditions were horrible. Many industries, such as coal mining, relied on immigrants who
needed work. Company owners knew they could force them to work
long hours in dangerous conditions for next to no pay, and the immigrants would accept that without complaint. Most knew no English and
had no idea how American society operated. They were grateful just to
find jobs.
Women and children were treated particularly poorly. Child labor
was common as families required every able body to work to pay for
housing and food. According to the laws of the day, women and children
were considered second-class citizens, so most industries saw no need to treat them humanely.
Labor unions to the rescue?
Big business was right: workers needed their jobs, and they were willing to accept poor treatment up to a point, especially if there was hope
for a better life. But as workers continued to labor long hours without
earning enough money even to survive, they knew something had to
change. The determination to change wages and working conditions
led to the formation of labor unions, formally organized associations of workers that advanced members’ views on wages, work hours, and
labor conditions.
Company and factory owners were vehemently opposed to the formation of labor unions. The more money they had to invest in wages or
making the workplace safe, the less profit they would make. Also, there
were no benefits such as health insurance in those days, so if a worker got
sick, there were always many more willing to take his or her place.
The idea of labor unions was not new to the Industrial Revolution.
As far back as the 1790s, shoemakers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
organized their efforts. One of the most powerful labor unions was
organized in 1869. The Knights of Labor (KOL) allowed both skilled
and unskilled laborers to join. At first, the group met in secrecy, but by
the 1880s it had become a national force.
When workers were dissatisfied with their wages or labor conditions,
they met with their union. Union leaders would then attempt to meet
with the owner or manager of the employees’ company to negotiate how
best to compromise so that both sides could be satisfied. More often than
not, business owners refused to negotiate. When that happened, workers
did not have many options in how to respond, so usually they went on
strike. A strike is when workers refuse to do their jobs until their grievances are discussed and resolved.
Violence everywhere
Some of the most violent labor strikes in American history occurred during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1877, 20 percent of America’s labor force was unemployed. Another 60 percent
worked irregular hours and took odd jobs as they could find them.
Railroad workers were laboring fifteen to eighteen hours a day only to
earn 35 percent less in wages than they had earned five years before. It
was a hard time for everyone.
America depended upon the railroad for business and industry to
run. When one railroad company informed its workers they would be
forced to endure another 10 percent pay cut, the workers went on strike.
As more railroads announced pay cuts, more workers went on strike. In
West Virginia a strike got so violent that President Rutherford B.
Hayes (1822–1893; served 1877–81) called in federal troops to take
control. It was the first time a U.S. president took federal action against
strikers. Another strike in 1877, this one in Pennsylvania, turned into a riot in which twenty-five people were killed and more wounded. More
than $10 million in property damages had been incurred. (See Great
Railroad Strike.)
The Haymarket Square riot on May 4, 1886, began as a peaceful
protest in downtown Chicago, Illinois. Participants were publicly
denouncing the police brutality of strikers just the day before. Police
had attacked unarmed strikers and killed several of them. As the
Haymarket meeting was coming to an end, police arrived to break it up.
Someone from the crowd threw a bomb into the group of police officers, killing one on the spot. A riot broke out, and both sides began
shooting. No one knows who threw the bomb, and the number of dead
protestors has never been confirmed. Seven more police officers died as
a result of the bomb.
There seemed no end to the strikes. The Homestead Strike at the
Carnegie Steel Company in 1892 involved armed battles between strikers and detectives hired to act as guards. It took eight thousand state
troops to take control of the strike, and the workers never had their
demands met. Ten men died in the violence and scores of others were
injured. Two years later, workers at a railroad car manufacturing plant in
Pullman, Illinois, went on strike. President Grover Cleveland
(1837–1908; served 1885–89 and 1893–97) sent in twenty-five hundred troops to halt the Pullman Strike. Strikers rioted against the troops
for two days. Around thirty strikers were killed and many more
wounded. Soon, fourteen thousand troops were on site. After several
weeks of negotiating, the company reopened for business.
Strikes continue
The coal mining industry saw its share of strikes, one in 1900 and
another in 1902. But the worst strike of the industry by far did not happen until 1914. In September 1913, more than ten thousand coal miners went on strike in Ludlow, Colorado. Led by the United Mine
Workers of America, the workers demanded, among other things, union
recognition, a wage increase, enforcement of the eight-hour-day law as
well as state mining laws, and the right to choose where they shopped
and lived.
The leader among mine operators was the Colorado Fuel & Iron
Company, owned by John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937). Rockefeller had the miners and their families evicted from company housing and
used the National Guard to keep the mines operating.
Without shelter, the mining families set up tents in the hills and
continued striking throughout the winter. Conditions were harsh, and
food was scarce. But Rockefeller showed no sign of changing his mind;
arbitration would not take place.
April 20, 1914, was Easter on the calendar of the Greek Orthodox
Church, and the Greek immigrants among the miners were celebrating.
Despite the strike, the mood around the tent camp that morning was festive. At 10 AM, however, Colorado troops surrounded the camp in
Ludlow and opened fire on the miners’ tent colony, which had been set
up on public property. Company guards, strikebreakers, private detectives, and soldiers had planned the attack. They brought with them an
armored car mounted with a machine gun called the Death Special. As
bullets sprayed through the colony, tents caught on fire. Later, investigations revealed that kerosene had been poured on the tents.
By the end of the day, twenty people, including two women and
eleven children, were dead. Three strikers were taken prisoner and executed. None of the attackers was ever punished, although hundreds of
the miners were arrested and blacklisted (forbidden to find work) in the
coal industry. John D. Rockefeller Jr. (1874–1960), who by this time was
in charge of the mine, denied the massacre ever occurred and publicly
stated that no women or children died in what he called a fight that was
started by the miners. He spent the next decade trying to repair the damage done by the Ludlow Massacre to the Rockefeller name. He gradually came to acknowledge the atrocity of the massacre, and through his
efforts to right the wrongs that had been done, Rockefeller increased the
social awareness of his entire family. The Rockefellers would eventually
become one of the most philanthropic (generous, through charitable
donations) families in America.
The American Federation of Labor
Samuel Gompers (1850–1924) worked at one of the bigger cigar shops
in New York. Gompers was born in London, England, to Jewish parents
who had emigrated from Holland. He learned how to make cigars at a
young age. When he moved with his family to America in 1863, he
relied on his skills to earn a living. By 1885, having earned a reputation
as a dependable worker with a serious mind, Gompers was elected president of Cigar Makers International Union Local 144.
In 1886, the New York Cigar Manufacturers’ Association cut wages.
Local 144 of the Cigar Makers International Union and the other cigar
union, Progressive No. 1 of KOL, protested. When cigar manufacturers
ordered a lockout of ten thousand workers, Progressive No. 1 negotiated
and settled with the employers. Local 144 did not give in. As president,
Gompers felt betrayed by the KOL and its leader, Terence V. Powderly
(1849–1924), and accused the group of not having the best interests of
the workers in mind. Gompers persuaded the Cigar Makers union to
boycott all other cigars.
The conflict between the two unions gave the crafters (skilled laborers) unions the opportunity they had been waiting for to confront the
KOL. The Knights, still focused on improving the rights of the unskilled laborer, ordered all members of the Cigar Makers International Union to resign or give up their KOL membership. On December 8, 1886, fortytwo members of twenty-five different labor unions met and formed the
American Federation of Labor (AFL). The labor movement had a new
leader.
Unlike the KOL, the AFL acknowledged that each trade within its
membership had autonomy (the ability to make its own specific rules
and regulations). The executive committee would not interfere in each
trade union’s internal affairs, but it would have the right to resolve disputes. The AFL required dues (regular payments) to create a strike fund.
That money would be paid to workers on strike, although the amount
would not equal their usual pay. Soon, city and state federations of the
AFL were formed to promote labor legislation.
Gompers was elected the AFL’s first president in 1886. With the
exception of one year, he kept that position until his death thirty-eight
years later. He drafted charters, collected monies, organized conventions,
and edited the AFL’s newspaper. He was a popular president who never lost communication with the laborers.
Despite Gompers’s popularity, the AFL’s growth was slow.
Membership in 1886 was 150,000. By 1892, it had increased by just
another hundred thousand. Despite the slow rise in membership, however, the AFL offered the first real stability to labor unions. That stability attracted four railway brotherhoods, which had learned their lesson
in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Other labor unions joined because
the AFL offered health insurance and other benefits that many laborers
considered as important as wages, if not more so. Laborers who disagreed
with the philosophy and mission of the KOL left the Knights in favor of
the AFL. The KOL had its lowest membership ever in 1900 and eventually disappeared.
A look to the future
Laissez-faire (lack of government interference) capitalism was America’s
reality in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Without a
way to fight effectively for justice, the working class could not hope to
improve the future. The Haymarket Square riot and the Homestead and
Pullman strikes were reminders that power was in the hands of the
wealthy. The majority of laborers still worked between fifty-four and
sixty-three hours each week, sometimes even longer.
The American Federation of Labor (AFL) offered hope. By 1901, 75
percent of all trade union members were also members of the AFL. Its
leader, Gompers, remained opposed to allowing unskilled workers into
the AFL, partly because the socialists favored it.
Socialists in America continued to fight capitalism. When the
Socialist Labor Party (SLP) tried to take over the KOL and the AFL in
the 1890s, it failed. Many Jewish laborers, tired of the authoritarian
(controlling) attitude of the SLP, severed ties with the organization in
1897 and 1898. Their leaders joined fellow labor leader Eugene V. Debs
(1855–1926) in founding the Socialist Party of America in 1901.
Socialism is a system in which the government owns and operates business and production as well as the distribution of wealth.
Although progress was slow for the labor movement, most of the
important gains were made in state and federal legislation. Congress
passed the Erdman Act in 1898, which stated that railroads could not
discriminate against union members. Between 1886 and the end of the
century, reform took place in areas that included child labor, women’s
labor, negotiation guidelines, the eight-hour workday, safety conditions, and responsibility for accidents. Major federal reform legislation was not passed until the 1930s.