Workers of the Progressive Era

Because of the rising change of social and industry they kind of caused friction towards political views. Miners and steelworkers were the first workers to use the strike ad a bargaining tool against their business owners.

The working conditions of the new arrivals were hardly any better, as employees of factories were often overworked, underpaid, and penned up in dangerous conditions. Perhaps the horrors of these conditions can be highlighted by the devastating 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. Tragically, over one hundred young women lost their lives in the fire, as there was no way to get out, and the doors were locked, trapping the women inside. Safety was not the only problem, as workers initially were not given the right to organize into unions, essentially doomed to the repetitive motions of factory operation. This meant that they had no way to protest against child labor, wage slavery, and unhealthily long working hours. Eventually, with their growing clout and ever-present industrial dependence on their labor, workers organized and demanded reform along all aspects of hazardous working conditions.

During the later years of the 1800s, the United States (US) established itself as a dominant industrial country. As the US became a dominant source of business, industry, and capitalism, many laborers demanded for improved working conditions. Despite the later part of the century, however, the labor strikes and efforts are ineffective, but they did lead to other improvement of labor situations within the twentieth century. The actions betweens businesses and laborers, the conservative mindset of the government, the different opinions of laborers, and the growing images of labor efforts resulted in the small benefits of labor resistance.

In the late eighteen hundreds, machines started to take place of people in industries. Work became unskilled labor, or labor that requires zero to little experience. Not soon after, the economy crashed and left millions out of work. Workers who got to continue working had their wages cut. By 1877, railway workers had enough of the wage inequity and went on strike. This was known as the Great Railroad Strike. From Pennsylvania to California, railroad systems had workers leave their posts. Not long after the strikes, state governments started calling for Federal troops to take down the activity. Though the majority of the middle class agreed with the strikers motivations and reasoning, they were disappointed in the damage that occurred.

Therefore the strikes may have hurt them then, but later on it helped the workers with wages, safety, and rights. Most workers lost their

There had been strikes in years before about better working conditions and more safe precautions in the factory. One reporter that was an eyewitness to the fire said, “I remembered their great strike of last year, in which these girls demanded more sanitary workrooms, and more safety precautions in the shops. These dead bodies told the results.” 1 The workers wanted safer conditions the year before, so much so that they went on strike. Nothing changed through this strike and the worst thing happened, the unsafe conditions killed 146

1865 marked the beginning of the Gilded Age a time period known for its innovations, corruption, progress and violence. At the same time as the phonogram and automobiles were being produced the major corporations employed child labor and offered deplorable working conditions. Laborers soon rose together to form labor unions that would have a fair advantage when dealing with large corporations. One of the pros of being a Unionist was the great numbers of unionists in several states this facilitated international strikes and placed pressure on the corporations. Depending on social class and economic background the antagonist and protagonist of the era were either large corporations or their wage workers. Members of the middle class were unsympathetic toward the Unionist at strike and prominent members of society. For example, Henry Ward Beecher and Henry Clew both members of the middle class clearly expressed their discontent towards the strikers. Unionist, and their family members, defended their actions and the Pullman strikers and Samuel Gompers were their advocates.

One of the key issues that workers were fighting for was wages. During the 1870s to 1920s, employers often lowered the workers’ wages. For example, when the legislature of Massachusetts enacted a fifty-four hour working limit per week, employers decided to lower the wages. During the first national labor walkout, laborers protested against employers decreasing their wages; this event became known as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. An example of a successful strike was in New Orleans of 1907, 10,000 dockworkers were able to stop employers from reducing their wages. In 1912, the Industrial Workers of the World and other workers went on strike

The hard working women who worked in these factories suffered horrible working conditions, not to mention low salary.

Employees were often in dangerous working zones or conditions and there were not many laws to protect their wellbeing and their safety. Workers during this time employees like the workers that worked in steel mills had very long work days, longer than most citizens in the United States. Many times the workers in the steel mill would lose fingers just working in the mill. Also at this time, there was a lot of child labor going

-During this time factory workers faced harsh working conditions and had low paying wages. They weren't given basic rights as workers and they were certainly not protected. The conditions they had to work in were horrible having due that there weren't any reliable emergency exits and they were exposed to unsafe, dangerous equipment. In many cases workers lost limbs or were seriously

Ironically, there were over 3,000 strikes that took place during the early 1900’s, as owners refused to give raises and banned the formation of unions. This angered many people and sparked some of the biggest strikes to ever occur up to this point in time. Two of these strikes were the Boston Police Strike and Steel Mill Strike. Due to these worker restrictions, Police Officers in Boston were infuriated and many were actually fired and the rest went on strike. This strike was taken down,

Also along with that were the living conditions, which became to be unsatisfying, very poor and challenging to maintain. They expected everything and more and no black-lash in return. During the nineteenth century the corrupt “bosses” that ran everything became to be known and label as “Bossism”. These people saw an opportunity by expanding jobs due to building more places of entertainment, subways, docks, streets and facilities. The thought process to them was “there is always money to be made”. In order to stay on top and keep the throne, these bosses implemented what was known as a political machine. This machine was set in place to have the people feel like if they were a part of making a choice for change and for the better. But in fact, the bosses managed the polls and it always worked in their favor, they even went as far into making a bold public statement saying “As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it”. In the beginning I wouldn’t jump to pledge my loyalty to anything unless it was for a better cause and for the working class people. It makes no sense to believe into a cause and then if out it was all a sham. If that was to be the outcome and the truth was relieved, I would then agree to engage in a strike. Strike to make a change and defend the rights of the working people for the better, and to stop the abuse and the corruption of

workers could no longer handle the work load and where then bosses were forced to fire them

the average work days were 11.4 hours. which made workers tired and more likely to get injured. Factories had no cooling or heating units. so it got really hot in the summer, and really cold in the winter. there were no laws to protect workers. children had to work 12 hours. 6 days a week. the work was dangerous and hard. They began forming unions. they began strikes.