USA Modern History: Challenges by workers to industrialization.

Crime: Criminal Behavior. Criminal Justice Glossary. Criminal Investigation. Samenow's Inside the Criminal Mind.
Brian Innes's The Body in Question: Exploring the Cutting Edge of Forensic Science.

Psychology: Biopsychology. Evolutionary Psychology.
Personality Psychology Psychological research methods.
Psychology books: Know How: Guided Programs for Inventing Your Own Best Future by Leslie Cameron-Bandler. Nature of Prejudice by Gordon W. Allport. Learned Optimism by Martin E. P. Seligman. Pessimism (defensive) (Norem).

Political science: Introduction to Political Science. Political Science Glossary.
USA Modern History: Challenges for freedpeople after the Civil War. Challenges by workers to industrialization. Populist reformers. USA Modern History Glossary.

Related: Death and Dying. Ecology. Enneagram. Evolution.

Disclaimer Links. Books read recently. Best books read. Harry Potter books.

Text book [AGBV, 2005]:
American Government: Brief Version

by James Q. Wilson
for a class on Political Science.
Chapters:

What Should We Know About American Government?
The Constitution
Civil Liberties and Civil Rights
Federalism
Public Opinion and the Media
Political Parties and Interest Groups
Campaigns and Elections
Congress
The Presidency
The Bureaucracy
The Judiciary
Making Domestic Policy
Making Foreign and Military Policy
American Government: Continuity and Change

Glossary: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

The Questions

In the late-19th century, the U.S. fostered industrial expansion, technological advancements, and commercialization. The working class challenged the expanding economic and political order, trying to impose their vision of a more fair and equitable America:

What were the challenges by American workers?
Did the challenges succeed?
If so, how? And if not, why not?

Some Answers

What American workers protested and challenged:

low wages and reduction of wages.
unsafe conditions.
long workday (up to 15 hours).
tools, technology, machines.
strike breakers; people who would work for less, particularly Asian immigrants and African Americans.
debt.
poverty.

Whether the challenges succeeded:

Initially, arrogant industrialists and politicians collaborated to use police support (sometimes violent) to support the factory bosses and break strikes.

Eventually, after over a century, the worker does see huge benefits, resulting from the workers' protests that began at the end of the 19th century and that include:

Unions are legal.
Factory workers wages have increased compared to the cost of living.
A 5-day (instead of 6-day) week and an 8-hour (compared with 10-hour, 12-hour, or more) work day.
safer conditions.
Workers' rights, not just to be unionized but to be given safe working conditions and to be allowed work breaks.
Health benefits, including paid vacation.
child labor laws to get children out of the factories and into the schools.

How the challenges succeeded and failed at the end of the 19th century:

1865

Civil War ends.

1866

NLU (National Labor Union): members could be farmers or factory workers; promoted support for:

(1) 8-hour day

(2) legislation for arbitration of labor/owner disputes.

Disappeared in 1873 depression.

1867

The Grange (begun by a farmer (Kelly)): farmers' cooperative to:

(1) market crops

(2) compete with railroad discrimination.

1869

Knights of Labor began in Philadelphia by Uriah Stephens & tailors; committed to:

(1) private property

(2) independence.

of farmers and factory workers (versus "non-producing" people who included bankers, lawyers, liquor sellers, gamblers).

1870s

Increased use of machines reduced industry's demand for "willing men".

1875

Start of Carnegie steel mills, with eventual vertical integration so that Carnegie controlled the extraction and shipping of ore, coke, and limestone, as well as the production and marketing of steel.

1877

1-in-7 worked in the railroad industry. Great labor uprising: first strike in US history when the railroad required longer hours for 10% less pay.

1878

Greenback Labor party, which led to Populist party. Excluded women and African Americans.
Employers manipulated the workers through their ethnic, religious, and racial prejudices.

1880

Challenged by cheap immigrant labor (up to half a million immigrant laborers per year). In 1880s: increasing opposition to Chinese by job-hunting whites.

1880s

Taylor and other efficiency experts shaved factory costs, which often included getting more work for the same pay and reducing the number of employees needed to accomplish the same ends as before.

1882

Congress's Chinese Exclusion Act, engineered partly by the Knights of Labor and the Workingman's party of California.

1882

Challenge: Rockefeller petrol (Standard Oil Trust): horizontal integration.

1884

Haymarket bombing. 8 anarchists arrested and sentenced to death. Demoralized labor. Demise of Knights of Labor.

1886

Gompers found AFL for skilled workers to demand:

(1) better wages

(2) better working conditions.

1889

Emma Goldman (age 20) commits herself to being an Anarchist. In addition to promoting sexual liberation for women, encouraged:

Individual aspiration, self-expression, and self-development.
Contempt for government, organized religion, and other rigid institutions.
Belief that social harmony could arise spontaneously.
Direct action and open resistance to authority.

1890

United Mine Workers: a union of radical labor.

early 1890s

Populist (peoples') party formed, combining: urban and rural, male and female, agricultural and industrial workers. Missions:

(1) protest hardships of the workers

(2) demand federal government action to fix the problems.

1892

Steel workers strike following wage cuts. Troops escorted strike-breaking workers into the mill. The strike ended with strike-breakers taking the jobs, mill workforce being cut by 25%, and reduction of the strike-breakers' wages.

1892

Miners (gold, silver, copper) walked off the job in response to wage cutting. After strike-breakers were brought in, the srikers blew up the mines, but were captured and defeated. 1893: Formation of Western Federation of Miners.

1893

Worst nationwide depression to date; 20% of workers lost their jobs.

1894

Pullman workers' strike (led by Eugene V. Debs, who founded the American Railway Union the previous year) after their wages were cut by a third. President Cleveland declared the strike was interfering with U.S. mail delivery and executed an injunction for the strikers to return to work.

1901

Assassination of President McKinley by an anarchist.

1905

IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) founded by socialist and labor militants. Open to all. Included women, African Americans, immigrants, and the unskilled.

1906

Upton Sinclair's The Jungle revealed squalor of meat-packing plants. Led to the Pure Food and Drug Act.

1909

Garment workers' strike for:

(1) reduction to 52 hours per week

(2) overtime pay

(3) union recognition

Failed compromise and the strike fell apart.

1911

Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire. 146 women died and were perceived as having been murdered by the Company.

1900-1920

Debs ran as socialist party candidate for congress.

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