The Economic Climate Of The Age

In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, labor was anything but easy. Factory workers faced long hours, low pay, high unemployment fears, and poor working conditions during this time. Life today is much easier in comparison to the late 1800s. Americans have shorter days, bigger pay and easier working conditions. Not comparable to how life is today, many riots sparked, and citizens began to fight for equal treatment. Along with other important events, the Haymarket Riot, the Pullman Strike, and the Homestead strike all play a vital role in illustrating labor’s struggle to gain fair and equitable treatment during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Labors did not have very good wages and it was problem during the Gilded Age. Labors’ had to live by paternalism, meaning that George Pullman owned them. It seems as if labors never got a profit for the long hours that they worked in the sweatshops. All the money goes straight back to Pullman, because they had to pay for rent and their goods and groceries provided by him. So basically, Pullman didn’t consider them valuable because there was always someone looking for a job. These reasons led to several unionizations like the Knights of Labor where they had to pay their dues to go on strike and fight for them. Anyone from radical to bosses could join this union except bankers and lawyers, which made no sense. They fought for workplace rights but where they did wrong is when they demanded outside workplace rights such as free public schools for their children. This union caused deaths

In the period immediately following World War I, American workers struggled to earn a living as prices rose and wages stagnated, forcing them to seek union support. Labor unions endeavored to represent the working class against their employers and corporations, who refused to increase wages or improve working conditions. In order to combat the capitalist’s immense political clout, unions made their voice heard through strikes. After the war, capitalists linked unions to the mounting communist threat, stressing that strikes undermined capitalism and threatened a republican form of government. As a result, government sided with capital against labor unions and the struggle of the American workers, who had no voice against corporations. This struggle can be exemplified in a correspondence between union leader, Samuel Gompers and bishop William Quayle, published in “The Twenties in Contemporary Commentary: Labor & Capital”. The letters demonstrate that in the 1920’s, labor unions were necessary as a means to overcome capitalist greed and enhanced the ideals of democracy by empowering the working class.

The market mechanism of the Gilded Age was laissez-faire capitalism, an economic system based solely on the law of supply and demand, driven single-handedly by the motivation of entrepreneurs to generate profit, regulated purely by the ruthless competition between companies and owners. Such an economic environment inevitably resulted in monopoly and encouraged illegal business practices to get ahead due to the lack of government intervention. In this free-market capitalism, large companies were able to lobby the government and hurt, or even prevent other businesses from kickstarting and competing, by controlling the nation’s political outcomes through financing its politicians. These robber barons running these billion-dollar companies extracted the maximum profits from labor by bitterly preventing their employees from organizing unions. Ultimately left with a monopoly, these companies were able to deceive their consumers about their products and were to set skyrocket prices without any competition for customers to turn to for cheaper alternatives.

They spend 12 to 14 hours each day shut up in a low-ceiling rooms they are all sickly and emaciated, their bodies thin and frail, their limbs feeble, their complexions pale, their eyes dead. This is the horror that Flora Tristan witnessed; people were working more than half a day with no food, clothes, and the working conditions were full of toxic air and other harmful substances. Her standpoint in this statement can be said as being non-biased as she is a socialist and thus, she cares (Doc. 7). People reacted violently to these conditions, which forced the government to pass the Ten Hours Act, which limited the number of hours a worker could work to ten hours a day. This resulted in better condition of the workers. William Abram, a journalist and historian, noticed, the condition of the factory laborers has been vastly improved (Doc. 10). This shows the result of the reaction of the people. The point of view of William Abram is factual and accurate as he is a journalist and a historian, and his work is to provide people with the truth. As witnessed by Frances Kemble, actress, poet, and dramatist, people were [s]houting No Corn Laws when she arrived in Manchester during the inaugural of railway. This shows the reaction to the wages that workers got before some reforms in Manchester (Doc. 4). Document 10 also states that the [w]ages thanks

Accurately established by many historians, the capitalists who shaped post-Civil War industrial America were regarded as corrupt “robber barons”. In a society in which there was a severe imbalance in the dynamics of the economy, these selfish individuals viewed this as an opportunity to advance in their financial status. Thus, they acquired fortunes for themselves while purposely overseeing the struggles of the people around them. Presented in Document A, “as liveried carriage appear; so do barefooted children”, proved to be a true description of life during the 19th century. In hopes of rebuilding America, the capitalists’ hunger for wealth only widened the gap between the rich and poor.

The free labor ideology of the nineteenth century was grounded in the beliefs that Northern free labor was superior to Southern slave labor. The key factor that made this system unique was “the opportunity it offers wage earners to rise to property-owning independence.” [1] It was this free labor ideology and not the republicanism of the Revolutionary War era that caused slavery to be problematic by the time of the Civil War. This ideology was comprehensive—it had economic, social, moral, and political aspects. All facets of the theory need to be explored in order to fully understand how and why slavery became such an important issue.

During the rise of industrialization, the United States had just ended the Civil War and was starting to move on. People had an aspiration at this time to make a more than decent living for themselves, and the economy was at the right spot for this to be possible. This time period in American History is referred to as the Gilded Age, termed by the famous author Mark Twain, which simply means covered in gold; however, Twain did not necessarily mean this in a good way. He believed right under the surface of this gold plating was still problems with the American society that didn’t look so appealing. This essay will discuss how practices during the rise of industrialization during the Gilded Age shaped the American work and labor force.

In 1892, an article by the new Populist Party called “People’s Party Platform” in the Omaha Morning World-Herald was published (Doc E). The Populist Party’s purpose in this article was to convince the public that they were the ones who could end some the unfair practices of industrialization. Although they might seem to be a political party just trying to get support for their presidential candidate, James Weaver, they truly wanted to reform those unfair practices as seen during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency. Their true belief was to increase government power in order to stop the oppression of laborers. In Samuel Gompers’ speech What Does Labor Want?, Gompers argues for increased protection, increased wages, and decreased hours of labor for laborers (Doc F).

The Industrial Revolution had many marvelous and opposing effects. The opposing effects were mainly for the factory workers. The marvelous effects were mainly for the factory governors. The reason as to why most opposing outcomes were mainly for the factory workers was because the outcomes had to do a lot with the governor's treating the workers poorly. The marvelous outcomes were mainly for the factory governors because everything the governors did was just to make themselves look good.

Many laborers worked over sixty hours a week, without any breaks. Unions were formed and demanded terms that workers today often take for granted, “8 hours work, 8 hours rest, 8 hours recreation” (Document #5). Regulation was slowly introduced by the government after backlash over lack of intervention. In order for a child to work, the child had to complete “his or her ninth year” of school, work no more than “twelve hours in...one day,” and “attend some school” (Document 4). Although these rules were a step forward, the government still needed to reform the wage gap and ensure that workers would be able to work in conditions that would not risk the lives of any workers.

In 1833, the Factory Act of 1833 was passed to improve the working conditions for children who labored in factories. A source reveals, “Young children were working very long hours in workplaces where conditions were often terrible,” (Document 10). As this came to the government’s attention, the act was produced by them in an attempt to lessen the abuse of working children, and to treat them more like children. First, the Factory Act limited the hours children could work in factories. The act states, “Children of 9-13 years to work no more than nine hours a day; children of 13-18 years to work no more than 12 hours a day,” (Document 10). Children were also not allowed to work at night. By having working hours reduced, children were able to fit in time to play, sleep, and get an education. It also reduced fatigue, as the children weren’t on their feet as long, and they got in more time to sleep. Secondly, within the act, there was a rule limiting the age children must be to work in factories. No children under the age of nine were allowed to work in the factories,” (Document 10). Although this decreased the amount of money coming in for each family, it allowed the children to get educations, have more free time, and help their

During the nineteenth century, many economic changes took place in Europe due to the Industrial Revolution. They dramatically increased the number of European industrial workers. The changes completely altered the conditions under which they lived and worked. How to improve these lives was where the conflict was. The opinions varied from some people believing the government should intervene, some believing it would better if the government didn’t interfere and also some believing the workers should improve their own lives.

By 1900, the United States had become the number one industrial power in the world. One factor that allowed the country to climb to its prime position was its abundant labor supply, largely composed of immigrants who had arrived between 1865 and 1900. However, the spot came at a cost; laborers were working long hours for low wages under poor conditions for the dominating monopolies of the time. Hoping to better these undesirable situations, multiple labor unions would form in the last half of the nineteenth century. Despite the continual efforts of these organizations little change was experienced from 1875 to 1900 due to disharmony among those competing to represent the laborer, the long-standing negative

Factory workers in eighteenth and nineteenth century England typically worked extremely long hours with a meager amount of time for breaks (Spielvogel 571). This is a direct violation of article 24 in the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights which states that “everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours” (UN, Art. 24). Discussing these violations are important due to how the quality of life of these workers decreased during these years. Factory workers “spent all the light of day at work and came home with little energy, space, or light” to do anything (Effects of the Industrial Revolution). Undoubtedly, this environment led to