I.

Labor

A. Industrial Growth
1. New Steel Techniques
a. Bessemer Process
1. Edwin Drake – Petroleum
2. Airplane – Wright Brothers
3. Automobile – Henry Ford
a. Revolutionizes America
b. 1895, 4 cars on the road – 1917
5 million
c. “Taylorism”
d. Assembly line $950 in 1914 $290
in 1929
1. Thomas Edison – Menlo Park
2. Railroads – Cornelius Vanderbilt
A. Types of Business
1. Corporation
a. raise money by selling stock
b. limited liability
2. Trusts
a. A group of Corporations run
by a Board of Trustees
3. Horizontal Integration – taking
over a single aspect of business
(Standard Oil)
3. Vertical Integration – taking over
all aspects of business (Carnegie
 C. Social Darwinism
1. “god gave me money” – JD Rockefeller
2. Self made man? Corruption/graft
3. Adam Smith
4. Horatio Alger
a. Ragged Dick, Sink or Swim
b. Stories of poor boy making it big
 D. Problems of monopolies
1. Fluctuations in business cycle
a. Panic of 1873, 1893

1. Class warfare
a. 1 % controlled 88% of wealth
 E. Working Conditions
1. Immigrant Labor
a. 2nd Wave of Immigration from
Southern and Eastern Europe (Italy,
Russia) 16 million from 1880-1920
1. $400-$500/year
2. 10-12 hour days/6 days a week
4. Work “towns”
5. Discrimination against women
a. textile work
b. $6-8/week
c. locked into buildings
1. Child Labor
a. 60% in agriculture which was
exempt from labor laws
b. long work days
c. maiming or death
 F. Attempt to unionize
1. National Labor Union 1866
a. William Sylvis founded
b. excluded women
c. disappeared after Panic of 1873
 2. Knights of Labor 1869
a. Uriah S Stephens
b. Skilled and Unskilled workers
c. 8 hr day, child labor but really wanted
long range goals
3. American Federation of Labor
a. 1886 Samuel Gompers
b. Skilled workers only
c. Bread and Butter issues (work day,
wages, conditions)
d. Collective bargaining
 4. Industrial Workers of the World
a. Founded in 1905
b. International union called the “wobblies”
c. Created by socialists, anarchists and
radicals who believed the AFL had failed
to organize labor
d. Accepted blacks and women
 4. Strikes
a. Haymarket Square 1886
b. Homestead Strike
1. Amalgamated Steel
2. 1892 25% wage cut
3. strike led to 300 Pinkerton Guards
called in
4. Violence, Gov called in national
Guard
5. Union defeated
a. Pullman Strike
1. 1894 United Railway Union led by Eugene
Debs
2. 25% wage cut but rents maintained
3. Workers in 27 states strike
4. President Cleveland ordered 2,000 troops to
Chicago
5. Sherman Anti-trust Act 1890 used against
the Union
a. Intent was to regulate trusts, break up
monopolies
 II. Conclusion
A. Workers failed to make gains
1. Too small a percentage organized
2. Largest union AFL, did not admit unskilled
workers
3. Ethnic and racial differences made unity
difficult
4. Immigrants did not organize
5. Corporate organizations infiltrated,
sabotaged and had local, state and federal
support