Industrialization & the Working Class

1/16/18

Labor Strikes were contentious and violent.

- Affected railroad, steel, mining industries

- 1880s – 500 strikes per year

- 1890s – 1000 strikes per year

- 1900s – 4000 strikes per year

- Often put down by federal troops

In 1905, Werner Sombart, a German Social Democrat asked a question:

- Why did American workers not forge a political party? – a “Labor party”

- The answer was pretty simple: America was more conservative than many parts of

Europe.

o Also, American workers had more opportunity than those in Europe/Higher

standard of living in the U.S.

Worker Unrest as a result of economic transformations

- Pre-Civil War: economy made up of independent producers, property holders.

o 80% of men owned their own property.

o Jeffersonian Vision of freedom, independence, and virtuous farming

- Post-Civil War: larger factories, divide, immigration, competition.

o Loss of status for workers.

o Growing industry and mechanization led to diminishment of employer-employee

relationships.
Typed of Unions:

- Industrial unions: organize whole industries

- Craft unions: organized by a particular skilled craft

o High skill jobs

o Greater bargaining power

- Question of the time: What, if any, is the role of government in labor disputes?

- The government is clearly going to side with the employer: government money is in oil,

railroads—the backbone of the national economy.

o Until Teddy Roosevelt, who sided with the American Worker

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries: American working class split up into two parts

- “Old immigrants”

o English-speaking, Ireland, Britain, northern Europe

- “New immigrants”

o Southern and eastern Europe: Hungarians, Italians, Slavs, Jews

- Employers would hire a mix of people of different groups, hoping they wouldn’t work

together to form labor unions. This just exacerbated tensions between multiple groups.