• • •

                                                                                                                        

  

                                                                                                

            Political cartoon depicting robber barons (1889).

• What changed when your factory “moved” to the city? It became crowded. Immigrants replaced workers and agreed to work for less $

• What groups of people moved to the city? What was their life like there? Immigrants and rural Americans flocked to the cities where they lived in crowded, unclean, and dangerous tenements.

• Why was the Asch Building unsafe for the workers in the Triangle Factory? It had only two narrow staircases. Doors opened inward, not outward.

Social

• What were working conditions like in factories? Working people had to endure low wages, child labor, crowded conditions, uncomfortable temperatures, and fire danger.

• What were working conditions like in the Triangle Factory?

1.People worked long hours at low wages.2. Workers were charged for supplies and prohibited from

leaving the factory floor to go to the toilet or for a drink.3. Machines were crowded together. Fire danger was a real

problem.

Social

• Trade unions- early labor organization that brought workers in the same trade, or job, to fight for better wages and working conditions

• KNIGHTS OF LABOR

• American Federation of Labor (AF of L)- started by Samuel Gompers.

• Collective bargaining- a method for negotiating labor issue in which union representatives bargain with employers on behalf of the union members

New words

• How many people?

Urbanization-more people moving to the city

“Dumbell “- tenement or cheap apartment

• Cities group upwards.. So we start to see skyscrapers and elevators

Because of new material and lack of space..

Mulberry Street Bend, 1889

5-Cent Lodgings

Men’s Lodgings

Women’s Lodgings

• Long Hours and DangerNorthern wages generally higher than Southern

• Exploitation, unsafe conditions unite workers across regions

• Work at plant, rent taken from check, wages cut, and strikes violently confronted

• Most workers have 12 hour days, 6 day workweeks• Perform repetitive, mind-dulling tasks• No vacation, sick leave, injury compensation• To survive, families need all member to work, including children• Sweatshops, tenement workshops often only jobs for women,

children• Require few skills; pay lowest wages

Working Conditions

• We will start to see issues all over the country start with labor…

• What is labor?

Because of working conditions

Labor Unrest: 1870-1900

1877 = Great Strike of 1877 for railroad workers protesting wage cuts.

• 1886 = Haymarket riot (shorter work day) results in a fear of anarchy and a blow to labor movement.

1892 = Homestead lockout pits Carnegie steelworkers against hired Pinkertons. Ended with assasination attempt against Henry Frick.

Key Labor Revolts

Pullman as an example of Labor Unrest

• Pullman cut wages and yet did not lower rent on homes or prices on goods at the companies town.

17

A “Compa

nyTown”:

Pullman, IL

The American Federation

of Labor: 1886

Samuel Gompers

How the AF of L Would Help the

Workersù Catered to the skilled worker.

ù Represented workers in matters of national legislation.

ù Maintained a national strike fund.

ù Evangelized the cause of unionism.

ù Prevented disputes among the many craft unions.

ù Mediated disputes between management and labor.

ù Pushed for closed shops.