Chapter 10 of Zinn discusses the struggle between class systems that was going on when the North and the South conflicted in the United States. During the nineteenth century, there was a competition between class systems that resulted in strikes, killings, and the formation of unions. While reading the chapter, one thing that surprised me was The Contract Labor Law. This law gave business’ bring in foreign workers that provided a source of cheap labor and workers to fill in the spots that strikers left (Zinn, 165). This law rewards business while punishing its workers. It’s saying that industries value money and power more than the well being of their workers, which isn’t right. It amazed me that lawmaker’s valued business more than people’s safety. There were no laws that protected worker’s or their health and safety. No wonder they fought and established strikes. Workers weren’t protected at all during the nineteenth century, to business’ they were disposable and cheap. While reading …show more content…
Rich multimillionaires paid to escape military service by paying for substitutes to take their place. Not everyone had that luxury so it’s seems unfair that people could have just done that. Money can’t solve all problems. In addition, the bribing and secret deals that wealthy inventors and business workers made the country look corrupt. For example, Thomas Edison promised New Jersey politicians $1,000 if they crafted laws that favored his business interests and The Central Pacific line spent $200,000 on bribes to Washington, D.C. just to get free land and loans (Zinn, 173). Back then if you had money you could do whatever, which is unfair. Wealth shouldn’t matter and it definitely shouldn’t interfere with politics and law making. Both chapter 10 and 11 taught me new things that I believe should be taught in the social studies curriculum. Not only were they interesting but they are worth being
After the civil war, up until the early 1900s, the need for a larger workforce grew as industrialization expanded. Samuel Slater brought the industrial revolution from England, and even since then, there were people trying to get better working conditions. Due to the growth in population by immigrants and expansion of industrialization, the working conditions became worse and worse, causing workers to suffer. Many people fought to solve this problem and changed many American’s lives for the better.
What evidence does Zinn offer to show the US government was not opposed to fascism on principle?
As the exploitation of the government came to light, Congress was forced to save face and demonstrate a neutrality towards businesses. The Interstate Commerce Act of 1877 quenched the thirst for change because it regulated railroads and the pools being formed. It called for carriers to decline from offering “undue…preferences” to any particular person, company, firm, etc. Favoritism would be eliminated, but so would opportunity to advance competitively as exemplified in the act of legislature of 1888. Apprentices that had been indentured had a right to properly learning the skill of their practiced trade. However, as technological advances took control of factories, laborers lost relevance to production. They no longer needed to be mindful of operating machines considering the machine itself did most of the services. A balance between employers and laborers was virtuously necessary, but concluded in a stalemate. (Doc 4, Doc 5)
Between the years 1870-1900, Americans began to respond to the effects fostered by these corporations. From urban factory workers to rural farmers, Americans began to organize against these big businesses. With mass industrialization, more job’s were made available to women, these jobs were often in factories with terrible conditions, sweatshops. There was a sameness about working in mass production factories. Thus, working in these modern mass production factories created a homogenous environment that diminished individualism and the need for skilled workers. (Doc. C) Strikers were common during this era, workers participated in strikes and joined labor unions, such as The American Federation of Labor and the Knights of Labor, due to the terrible working conditions. The American Federation of Labor, headed by Samuel Gompers, was specifically for skilled workers and argued for better wages and a reduction in working hours. (Doc. G) Although urban workers were greatly impacted by the growth of these corporations, they were not the ones. Farmers, suffered
This onslaught of capitalism directly revolutionized modern industrialism as well as the industrial city. Machines morphed the predominately agricultural nation to a herd of factory and corporate workers. Swarms of people, both native and immigrant, flocked to major cities. “The present century has been marked by a prodigious increase in wealth-producing power. The utilization of steam and electricity, the introduction of improved processes and labor saving machinery, the greater subdivision and grander scale of production, the wonderful facilitation of exchanges, have multiplied enormously the effectiveness of labor.”(George, p.20) The major problem with this newfound industrialism was the way in which the workforce was treated. Capitalism was supposed to provide a way out, a way ascend the financial and social staircase, if you worked hard enough. This however was not the case, if you were a loyal, hardworking employee you simply got to keep your job, and if you were in any way injured or incompetent you were fired.
Question 4: Zinn’s interpretation of late nineteenth-century labor unions and strikes differs from Schweikart and Allen’s by Zinn tells all the bad of the labor unions and strikes while Schweikart and Allen tell all the good of the labor unions and
Consider the great "reform" of the New Deal in Labor/Management relations, the Wagner Act, which created the National Labor Relations Board, and defined an alliance between a Union and the ownership of an American Company as an "unfair labor practice." It might be unfair to suggest that the major intention of the Wagner Act was to instill the concept of Class Warfare at the core of Labor/Management relations. Its main thrust was to intrude the Executive branch of the Federal Government into those relations under the pretended authority of the Interstate Commerce clause of the Federal Constitution. Guaranteeing a certain antagonism between the players was one way to increase the opportunities to invoke the Federal role asserted.
Imagine your parents died at work when you were a young child, and your family was in poverty. This happened all of the time in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s because of the lack of rights for workers. It was the job of many early labor unions of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s make working conditions for workers better. Early labor unions such as the Knights of Columbus, the American Federation of Labor, and the National Labor Union were all successful in creating rights for workers and making working conditions better. There are many ways that labor unions have affected modern day society.
Kracha portrays the two distinct classes in America as “it’s run just like any other country. In Europe your emperors and grand dukes own everything and over here it’s your millionaires and your trust” (Bell 66). Specifically, the May Day Strike where the working class rose against the owners in order to receive eight hour work days on May 1, 1886, where numerous workers left business all over the nation. Unfortunately, on May 3. 1886 violence broke out against the strikers and the police resulting in two strikers killed and many wounded. Violence also occurred in the Homestead strike resulting in “ten men were dead, seven of them steelworkers, and sixty wounded” (Bell 42). These protests by working men for their rights ultimately always ended in violence were the government had to break up the
The early 19th century in America saw the rise of industry and a booming economy, however, with industry came businessmen who saw an opportunity for power and profit. Even with help from the government, it would be a long time before the American people saw an improvement in the condition of the laborers and the regulation of corporations. Fast forward to the 21st century; two hundred years have passed and people are still struggling at the hands of a corporation-run economy. Throughout history, American laborers have been at the mercy of an industry controlled by a small few that did not have the best interest of the people in mind.
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.
In the first half of the 19th Century the working class in the newly industrializing American society suffered many forms of exploitation. The working class of the mid-nineteenth century, with constant oppression by the capitalist and by the division between class, race, and ethnicity, made it difficult to form solidarity. After years of oppression and exploitation by the ruling class, the working class struck back and briefly paralyzed American commerce. The strike, which only lasted a few weeks, was the spark needed to ignite a national revolt by the working class with the most violent labor upheavals of the century.
The labor relations movement has been one of the most successful driving forces behind such efforts as: providing aid to workers who were injured or retired, better health benefits and to stop the practice of child labor in the workforce. Ostensibly, unions in the United States arose out of the need to better protect the “common interests” of laborers. Today, many of the social movements and alliances forged are created under the guise to better protect the employer from a plethora of interests made against the organization, rather than, increasing wages, improving reasonable employment hours and/or enhancing work conditions.
Two years after the infamous Triangle fire, 20,000 workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts; angered over wage cuts and deplorable conditions went on strike, prompting the twin reactions of police brutality and press coverage (Hodson & Sullivan, 2008). “As a result of the strike, not only were wages raised and conditions improved in the textile industry as a whole, but important legislation was also enacted that restricted the exploitation of child and female labor” (Hodson & Sullivan, 2008, p. 132). It is doubtful that working conditions would have evolved to the level of equity we find today, without the sacrifice and activism of unions and their members.
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