A SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP:
THE AMERICAN INDUSTRIALISTS AND THE
NEW IMMIGRANTS, 1870-1920
A Thesis
Presented to the faculty of the Department of History
California State University, Sacramento
Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
History
by
Anthony R. Folcarelli
SPRING 2013
©2013
Anthony R. Folcarelli
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii
A SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP:
THE AMERICAN INDUSTRIALISTS AND THE
NEW IMMIGRANTS, 1870-1920
A Thesis
by
Anthony R. Folcarelli
Approved by:
______, First Reader Patrick Ettinger, Ph.D.
______, Second Reader Scott Lupo, Ph.D.
______Date
iii
Student: Anthony R. Folcarelli
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University format manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to be awarded for the thesis.
______Graduate Coordinator______Mona Siegel, Ph.D. Date
Department of History
iv
Abstract
of
A SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP:
THE AMERICAN INDUSTRIALISTS AND THE
NEW IMMIGRANTS, 1870-1920
by
Anthony R. Folcarelli
During the period of 1870-1920, America was transformed into an industrial nation and elevated itself to the status of being a world power economically, politically, and militarily. With an abundance of coal and iron ore, the United States moved slowly and deliberately toward achieving self-sufficiency in the production of iron, steel, and associated products. These industries laid the foundation for a broad transformation in the manufacturing of a variety of goods. Two major forces came together to play essential partnership roles necessary for the extraordinary production of iron and steel.
Private entrepreneurs organized capital to acquire and develop mines and mills. They required an abundant supply of labor in order to manage labor costs as they sought to satisfy the growing demand from America's expanding manufacturing sector. Millions of immigrants, predominantly from Southern and Eastern Europe, immigrated to the United
States between 1870 and 1920, moving in large numbers into unskilled positions in these key industries. These immigrants were eager to join the industrial revolution for jobs, increased wages, and economic riches.
v
This thesis draws on extensive primary and secondary sources to demonstrate a direct correlation in the production of iron and steel, the inflow and increase of immigrant labor, and the rise of production. Immigrant laborers and entrepreneurs in the mining and steel industries established a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship that served the economic needs of each.
______, First Reader
Patrick Ettinger, Ph.D.
______Date
vi
DEDICATION
To my wife Diane whose unwavering support, patience,
continuous encouragement, and love made this challenging adventure a rewarding one.
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to the many professors in the California State University at
Sacramento Department of History for their exciting seminars, required readings, and shared knowledge which has enriched my life. I am particularly grateful to those who assisted me in the fulfillment of my desire to produce this thesis. Dr. Patrick Ettinger whose steadfast encouragement, support, patience, and editing guided the thesis to its completion. I also wish thank Dr. Scott Lupo who, at a critical part in the process, gave generously of this time and skills to help me organize the composition as a logical, unified argument. I am grateful to Dr. Mona Siegel whose guidance throughout the program and the completion of this thesis was superb. Dr. Tom Adams, although not a member of the faculty, was an invaluable mentor who provided additional assistance, guidance, and editing.
viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS Page
Dedication ...... vii
Acknowledgement ...... viii
List of Tables ...... xiii
List of Figures ...... xiii
Chapter Page
1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1
2. AN OVERVIEW OF THE ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION IN THE UNITED STATES, 1870-1920...... 7
Railroads ...... 8
Manufacturing ...... 10
The Growth of a Military Power ...... 14
The Creation of the Atlantic Freeway ...... 15
The Growth of the Modern City:Transformation of a Rural to Urban Society .....17
The Social Revolution of Personal Transportation: The Automobile ...... 22
The Tin Can ...... 23
3. LEGISLATIVE AND COMMERCIAL INITIATIVES FOR THE PURPOSE OF ENCOURAGING IMMIGRATION OF FOREIGN LABOR INTO THE AMERICAN ECONOMY ...... 26
Legislation and Political Actions in the Fulfillment of Hamilton's Guidelines .....32
4. DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSFORMATION WHICH CAUSED A RADICAL CHANGE IN THE ETHNIC AND RACIAL COMPOSITION OF THE COAL, IRON, AND STEEL INDUSTRIES WORK FORCE: 1870-1920 ...... 35
ix
The Civil War and the Loss of a Viable Labor Supply...... 37
Birth Rate Decline and Population ...... 38
5. ACCEPTANCE OF WORKING AND LIVING CONDITIONS BY NEW IMMIGRANTS ...... 44
Accidents and Deaths ...... 45
Working Conditions and the Native Worker's Discrimination ...... 53
Living and Housing Conditions ...... 56
6. ATTRIBUTES THAT MADE THE NEW IMMIGRANTS AN APPEALING LABOR FORCE FOR AMERICAN MANAGEMENT AND INDUSTRY...... 61
Literate or Illiterate -- No Matter ...... 64
Tractable ...... 66
Eager and Desperate Job Seekers ...... 66
Mobility...... 68
Endurance and Physical Strength...... 69
Stable Work Force ...... 71
Piecework ...... 73
Unorganized Labor ...... 76
Financially Indebted Worker ...... 78
Frugal ...... 81
Cheap Labor ...... 82
7. SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP: THE BENEFIT TO THE INDUSTRIALIST ...... 86
Coal Production and Ethnic Composition of the Work Force ...... 88
x
Iron Ore Mining and the Ethnic Composition of the Work Force ...... 94
Iron and Steel Production and the Ethnic Composition of the Work Force ...... 96
8. SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP:THE BENEFIT TO THE NEW IMMIGRANT ...... 103
Immigrant Banks ...... 105
Remittances ...... 107
Property ...... 108
The New Entrepreneurs ...... 110
9. CONCLUSION ...... 112
Bibliography ...... 115
xi
LIST OF TABLES
Tables Page
1. Growth of the Textile Fabric Industry in America, 1859-1914...... 13
2. The Dramatic Shift in the Production of Tinplate and Terne Plate: 1895-1920...... 25
3. Immigration and White Population Demographics of America: 1790-1920...... 40
4. Birth Rates of Selective Countries:1871-1921...... 41
5. Comparative Population Growth in Selective Western Countries: 1790-1930...... 42
6. Widows and Orphans Report - 1892...... 48
7. Accidents in Coal Mining: 1889 to 1908...... 50
8. Percent of Employees in Major Industries by Nativity: 1905-1910...... 55
9. Illiteracy of Old Immigrants versus New Immigrants...... 65
10. The Cultural Transformation of So. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania...... 73
11. Ethnic Composition of Coal Mining Work Force by Areas: 1899...... 93
12. Ethnic Composition of the Workforce in American Coal Industry...... 93
13. Ethnic Composition in the Workforce of Iron Ore Mining: 1899...... 95
14. United States Transformation to a Positive Trade Balance: 1880-1889...... 97
15. Iron Production of United States, Great Britain, and Germany: 1870-1898...... 98
16. Steel Production in America: 1887-1920...... 99
17. Ethnic Employee Composition of Carnegie Steel Company in 1907...... 100
18. Ethnic Composition of the Iron and Steel Workforce in the United States: 1880- 1900...... 101
xii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figures Page
1. The Railway System Expansion in America;1850-1914...... 9
2. America's Increasing Independence on Imported Iron and Steel:1865-1890...... 10
3. A Cotton Spinning Machine Operated by Children...... 12
4. Growth of Textile Industry in America: 1859-1914...... 14
5. The Steel Skeleton of the Flatiron Building, New York,1901...... 18
6. Construction of New Buildings in New York and Chicago: 1870 -1900...... 19
7. United States Tinplate and Terneplate Manufacturing: 1895-1920...... 25
8. Persons Employed, Gross Tons Mined, and Corollary Deaths: 1870-1887...... 51
9. Families Drew their Water Supply from Community Town Pump...... 58
10 Steel Town where Community and Mill Co-Existed...... 59
11 Coal Production United States versus Germany and United Kingdom...... 91
12. Relative Per Capita Production: Coal versus Agriculture...... 92
13. Ethnic Composition of the Workforce in America's Coal Industry in 1899...... 94
14 Ethnic Composition of the Iron Ore Mining Workforce:1899...... 96
15. Iron and Steel Workers in the United States by Nativity; 1880 - 1900...... 101
xiii
1
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
During the era of 1870-1920, America was transformed from an agrarian- based economy to an industrial one. The industrial based economic transformation was an extraordinary accomplishment. It propelled America into the number one position in the world with regards to the production of coal, iron, and steel, the expansion of its railroad system miles, the rise of its skyscraper cities, the enormous increase of consumer products, the manufacturing of automobiles, and the production of an impressive array of military weapons.
Also during this period, one of the momentous events in the history of
America’s immigration was recorded. Following the end of the Civil War, the flow of immigrants to the shores of America increased with each year. From 1870 to
1920, 26.6 million foreigners traveled over great distances to find their beacon for a better life in America. In some of those years, the annual figure exceeded a million immigrants processed through Ellis Island.
During this period, the engines of America’s industrial revolution fueled by an ever increasing source of American capital, was constantly and chronically in need of labor. In the early stages, not unlike what E.P.Thompson presents in his The
Making of the English Working Class, the labor source primarily came from the agrarian economy’s excess labor supply, the import of skilled workers, and the growing lack of opportunity in traditional occupations.
The industrial revolution changed the process of production, which made it
2 attractive to the commerce of any nation able to make such a transformation. The division of tasks, coupled with the increasing use of mechanization, stimulated expansionism that was very appealing to capitalists and entrepreneurs. No longer were skilled workers needed; unskilled labor was less expensive and could easily be trained to do a task or operate a simple machine. This was the attractive position the
American capitalist found themselves with the abundance of coal and iron ore.
The immigrant drama that was played out in America during this period essentially evolved around what became a symbiotic relationship between the industrialist and the immigrant. They held a firm position on the center stage, as this thesis will argue. Political and religious motivations, which stimulated many immigrants to flee to America in prior years, gave way to economic realities facing both the industrialist and the immigrant. That drama, in this thesis, will focus primarily on the coal, iron, and steel industries and its effect on the transformation of America.
The historiography of American immigration, of course, goes beyond the narrow scope of this thesis. It includes, and encompasses, the many facets of immigration to the
United States. Monographs, books, articles, theses and dissertations have explored the subject immigration from a myriad of perspectives. The general synthesis of immigration history has usually pursued an overall examination of events. Maldwyn Jones’s American
Immigration, for example, relying substantially on secondary sources, presents such a synthesis that spans a time-line from the colonial days to the mid 1920s, with an added chronology as an addendum. Rodger Daniels' Coming to America and his Guarding the
3
Golden Door, although restricting itself to a shorter time period, focuses on the immigrant and their migratory causes, the perils they faced in migration, and the opposition to their prominence in America by public and legislative policies.1 Astride R.
Zolberg's A Nation by Design incisively traces, from the early colonial days up until the late twentieth century, the governmental policies, that dictated the width, breadth, and aperture of the "Golden Door."2
The argument of this thesis is that immigrants were directly a critical factor in the industrial development of America. Kathryn Coman's The Industrial History of the
United States, published in 1905, may well be one of the earliest monographs which began to take notice of immigrants in relationship to the economics and industrial development of America. It was Isaac Hourich's Immigration and Labor, The Economic
Aspects of European Immigration to the United States, published in 1922, however, which presented data and statistics from primary sources that specifically defined and documented that relationship. Hourich, like several other authors of that time, utilized the findings of the Dillingham Commission to support what they had gathered with personal analytical observations and secondary sources.
The Dillingham Commission's reports provide the major primary research and source material in support of the argument of this thesis. The reports are contained in 43 volumes, averaging about 700 pages, as presented to U.S. Congress by the Commission in 1911. Founded in 1905 by order of President Theodore Roosevelt, it was a response to
1 Roger Daniels, Guarding the Golden Door (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004) and Roger Daniels, Coming to America (New York: Perrenial, 2002). 2 Astride R. Zolberg, A Nation of Design (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000).
4 the increasing groundswell of native-born hysteria about the increasing number of immigrants arriving from Southern and Eastern Europe. The Commission appointed by the President included not only members of the House and Senate but also scholars from the academic world. Past data collected on the subject was not considered, as the
Commission did not want their reports to be tainted by any possible bias perspectives.
The Commission's field investigators collected census data, industrial statistics, and conducted on location industrial and family investigations. Members of the academic community oversaw the developments and production of the final reports.
In the historiography of immigration, at the early part of the twentieth century, there began to appear more monographs investigating the relationship of immigrants to industry. Charlotte Erickson's American Industry and the European Immigration to
United States was one of the post-WWII treatises that specifically began to focus the immigrant's interconnection with the industrial development of the United States.3 In
Erickson's treatment of the subject, she explores the recruitment of labor from Europe and the commercial and legislative policies and practices. The aggressive pulling of immigrant labor, as she records, resulted in chronic and continuous confrontational situations that arose because of the unskilled labor of immigrants vying for the jobs protected by organized labor.
David Montgomery, in his The Fall of the House of Labor, examines more intensely the underlying causes of the confrontational environment emanating from the
3 Charlotte Erickson, American Industry and the European Immigrant, 1860-1885 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957).
5 in-flow of immigrant labor.4 Surprisingly, Montgomery notes that the piecework method of determining wages, was a very significant issue. Unskilled immigrants, who were always on the low end of the hourly scale of wages, welcomed the method of payment for the amount of pieces they produced. They could earn more money being paid in that manner than relying on the hourly method which usually found them at the lowest end of the pay scale. The older immigrants, usually skilled, and organized labor held firm on their historical method of payment based on hours expended on the job. Management preferred piecework simply because they could exert the work pressures, which resulted in higher production performances.
There are other works, which examine the work relationships in the industrial organizations of management, older immigrants, organized labor and the new immigrants. Among them: Dirk Hoerder, ed., American Labor and Immigration History,
1877-1920s: Recent European Research.; Edwin Fenton, Immigrants and Unions, A
Case Study; Richard L. Erlich, ed., Immigrants in Industrial America; 1850-1920; John
Bodnar, Immigration and Industrialization; Vernon M. Briggs, jr., Immigration Policy and the American Labor Force; and Robert D. Parmet, Labor and Immigration in
Industrial America.5 As each in their own way explores the history of immigration and
4 David Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor (New York; Cambridge University Press, 1987). 5 Dirk Hoerder,ed. American Labor and Immigration History, 1877-1920s: Recent European Research (Urbana, Il: University of Illinois Press, 1983); Edwin Fenton, Immigrants and Unions, A Case Study (New York: Arno Press, 1975); Richard L. Erlich,ed., Immigrants in Industrial America; 1850-1920 (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1977); John Bodnar, Immigration and Industrialization (Pittsburg, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977); Vernon M. Briggs, jr., Immigration Policy and the American Labor Force (Baltimore, MD:The John Hopkins University Press, 1984); Robert D. Parmet, Labor and Immigration in Industrial America (Boston, MA:Twayne Publishers,1981)
6 the importance of immigrants in the industrial development of America. None, however, present any detailed economic production data to the massive infusion of immigrants into
America's industries from 1870-1920.
This thesis argues that the direct correlation of extraordinary industrial production and the utilization of immigrant labor, as presented in the coal, iron, and steel industries, is irrefutable. Furthermore it also created a symbiotic relationship, in which both depended on each other for the achievement of their respective goals. The symbiotic relationship, although it benefitted each party, produced products that benefitted the economic, social, and political status of the nation. As a result, my thesis fits, and adds, into the body of historiography of American history as it relates to industry and the immigrant.
7
Chapter 2
AN OVERVIEW OF THE ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION IN THE UNITED STATES, 1870-1920
In order for the symbiotic relationship to be worthy of any significant attention, its affect on the environment which it inhabited has to be evaluated. Was it a relationship which only satisfied the needs of both parties, sustaining itself by only nourishing each other with their sustenance? Or was it a relationship which was energized and sustained by outside economic forces? The former would have provided a short but relatively swift relationship; it was the latter that gave the relationship a long, continuous reason for being. The products, from the natural resources of coal and iron ore and created by the relationship of capital with an abundant supply of labor, initiated an economic expansion unparalleled in the history of America.
During the period of 1870 to 1920, America witnessed a phenomenal growth precipitated by its entry into the industrial revolution. With an abundant supply of the necessary natural resources embedded in accessible locations, they created an unprecedented transformation in the nation's economic base unparalleled in its history, a transformation that resulted in the emergence of America as a world power. Those resources, transformed by capital and labor, provided the cheaper domestic products that were the infrastructure of America’s economic transformation.
Frederick J. Turner, a leading scholar of America's western history, was so impressed with what he was observing, that he proclaimed in his book The Frontier in
American History the following:
8
The transformations through which the United States is passing in our own day are so profound, so far-reaching, that it is hardly an exaggeration to say that we are witnessing the birth of a new nation in America. The revolution in the social and economic structure of this country during the past two decades is comparable to what occurred when independence was declared and the Constitu- tion was formed. 6
In order to understand the transformation, it is important to visit the emergence of some key industries that were essentially the vanguards that led the way for the creation of a new nation. The new nation was built on an agricultural economy established in the colonial days and expanded westward. There were others but the following industries had one thing in common, the need for critical products produced by the coal, iron, and steel industries in order to emerge, develop, and rise.
Railroads
In 1830, only forty miles of railroad lines had been laid in America. By the eve of the Civil War in 1860, 31,246 miles of iron rails had been laid down connecting rural and urban areas of population.7 This was to be surpassed in 1915 with an achievement of
253,811 miles of iron/steel rails laid from coast to coast. It also represented an increase of
222,565 miles of rails, utilizing American produced iron and fabricated steel, carrying
American-made trains fueled by coal mined in the United States.8 Writing in 1911,
Turner also recorded that:
Railroad statistics tell the same story of unprecedented develop- ment, the formation of a new industrial society. The number of
6 Frederick J. Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1920), 311. 7 Edward C. Kirkland, A History of American Economic Life (New York NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts. 1951.): 244. 8 Ibid.
9
passengers carried one mile more than doubled between 1890 and 1908; freight carried one mile has nearly trebled in the same period and has doubled in the past decade.9
The quantum leap in the fabrication of steel into railroad lines, railroad cars, running frames, and powerful steam engines made possible the explosive expansion of rail services for freight and passengers. The railroad companies, and their aggressive expansionism, were no longer restricted by the high cost of importing iron and steel.
America's industries were meeting their demands while successfully competing with foreign imports in costs and quality.
Figure 1 The Railway System Expansion in America; 1850-1914
What is of similar importance, if not greater, was the fact that America began to rely less and less on iron and steel imports as domestic production increased. Graphic 2
9 Turner, "Social Forces in American History", 219.
10 shows how dramatic that inverse reliance became as the country increased its rail lines.
By the late nineteenth century, the nation no longer needed to import foreign iron or steel for its railroads, skyscrapers, machinery, or automobiles.
Figure 2 America's Increasing Independence on Imported Iron and Steel: 1865-1890
By 1905, America had surpassed Europe in the development of its railway systems. It constituted "about two fifths of the railway mileage of the world, and some ten percent more than that of all Europe."10
Manufacturing
In manufacturing, cottage industries employing several people gave way to factories which operated twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and employed thousands of workers. The machinery that increased the productivity and number of employees was composed of iron frameworks and steel parts. The textile industry, for example, depended on the new inventions from England such as the Arkwright textile
10 Ernest Ludlow Bogart, The Economic History of the United States (London: Londmans, Green, and Co, 1908), 118.
11 machines, which improved the process of converting cotton into thread and thence into finished woven textile cloth. Utilizing the new and ever improving iron and steel machinery, factories were able to increase and expand their facilities and employees for greater production.
The English had led the way in the transformation of textile production from village-based skilled artisans with their wooden spinning wheels to massive factories employing hundreds of people, twenty-four hours a day, operating iron and steel made machinery. This transition to textile machinery, as shown in photo 1, was made possible by the availability of iron and steel. It also made possible the use of unskilled workers, who needed only some minimal basic training to perform a repeated task. The tasks were so repetitive and simple that even a child could operate the equipment and produce far more than an artisan in the seventeenth century could ever have believed possible.
12
Figure 3 A Cotton Spinning Machine Operated by Children
The textile industry in New England was also a magnet for immigrants. As in other manufacturing industries, children and wives of immigrants were also sought as a cheap labor and utilized in certain areas of operation where training was feasible for such repetitive tasks. In 1859 there were 3,104 textile facilities in the United States with
191,952 wage earners producing a total product value of $211,707,000 [5.9 billion].11 By
11 Isaac Lippincott, Economic Development of the United States. (New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company, 1921.), 456. NOTE: The figure bracketed is a translation into its purchasing economic power value in 2011. This conversion, and all others such figures bracketed throughout the thesis, was
13
1914 the textile facilities had increased to 4,991 facilities with 874,702 wage earners producing a total product value of $1,761,711,000 [40.9 billion].12 Of the 260,000 additional workers employed by 1900, sixty four per cent were immigrants and their families. 13
The astounding growth of the textile industry, following the Civil War, as shown in Table 1, demanded a labor force which was simply not available from the post-colonial population.
Table 1 Growth of the Textile Fabric Industry in America, 1859-1914
Growth of the Textile Fabric Industry in America, 1859 - 1914 Number of Number of Value of the 2011 Year Establishements Wage Earners Product Value 1859 3,104 191,152 $211,707,000 $5.9 billion 1869 4,709 367,321 $418,527,000 $7.1 billion 1879 4,290 387,554 $534,674,000 $12.4 billion 1889 4,056 497,822 $730,567,000 $18.4 billion 1899 4,099 631,676 $886,882,000 $24.8 billion 1909 4,825 834,087 $1,591,736,000 $40.6 billion 1914 4,991 874,702 $1,761,711,000 $40.9 billion Source : Isaac Lippincott, Economic Development of the United States (New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company, 1921), 456.
accomplished by utilizing the web site http://www.measuringworth.com. For the credentials of those who created and oversee the web site, as well as their definition of purchasing power please go to Addendum A. 12 Ibid., 456. 13 U.S. Congress, Senate, 61st, 3rd sess, doc. 747., Reports of the Immigration Commission. Abstracts of Reports of the Immigration Commission. vol 2 (Washington,D.C.: GPO, 1911), 811.
14
Growth of Textile Industry, 1859-1914 $1,800 I Diplayed in Value of Product n $1,600 $1,400 M $1,200 i l $1,000 l $800 i $600 o $400 n $200 s $0 1859 1869 1879 1889 1899 1909 1914 Source: Isaac Lippincott, Economic Development of the United States(New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company, 1921), 456.
Figure 4 Growth of Textile Industry in America: 1859-1914
It should be noted that while the number of establishments increased by sixty-one percent from 1859 to 1914, the number of wage earners increased at a rate of three hundred and fifty-eight percent. It was the increase in textile machinery that increased the need for unskilled labor. The mechanization of industry increased the demand for unskilled labor and unskilled labor could be easily trained to operate such equipment.
The Growth of a Military Power
In A Nation of Steel, Thomas J. Misa relates how the United States Navy was transformed from a "loosely organized array of small coast defenders and light cruisers into a unified battle fleet of offensive capability."14 Ships that were once made of timber and carried three inch cannons were replaced by armor plated steel juggernauts with
14 Thomas Misa. A Nation of Steel: the Making of Modern America, 1865-1925 (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1995), 90.
15 eighteen-inch armor plate and fourteen inch guns all domestically produced. In a display of sea power, President Theodore Roosevelt launched his Great White Fleet in 1907, consisting essentially of sixteen battleships. It was, as Misa called it, the "Politics of
Armor."15
America became a second England in its new capacity to manufacture field artillery, repeater rifles, machine guns, tanks, and other such military armament with domestically produced steel. It became one of the superior military forces in the world.
This also prepared the United States to be victorious in both World Wars I and II with its ability to out produce not only its enemies but its allies as well.
The Creation of the Atlantic Freeway
Originally, commercial and passenger ships were made primarily of timber and were propelled by wind, oar, or simply constructed steam engines. After the development of fabricated steel particular with regards to steel sheeting, it became possible to build steamships that had the ability to haul a considerable increase in tonnage of goods or people. The machined steel and interchangeable tooled parts increased the horsepower of new engines that could propel these massive water vehicles across the
Atlantic Ocean and Great Lakes with increased efficiency. This made the transportation of passengers and products increasingly profitable.
For example, the tonnage of ships engaged in domestic trade increased from
2,600,000 in 1880 to 6,700,000 in 1911. The Great Lakes became an area of activity as iron ore and other natural resources were shipped to the iron and steel mills on the
15 Ibid., 91.
16
Eastern seaboard and the upper middle states. On the Great Lakes there were only six steel vessels in 1886, but by 1899 the number had grown to 296. In approximately the same period of time, however, the tonnage of those vessels engaged in foreign trade showed a decline of 1,352,810 in 1880 to 829,694 in 1900.16 This was an indication that the United States was now becoming more of a self-supporting and self-sustaining nation.
The shipbuilding industry continued to increase its productivity, becoming a billion-dollar industry. It replaced the need for old commercial freighters, which carried a few passengers, and began to meet the demand for ocean liners that could carry thousands. Immigration from Europe, which started with the transporting of early settlers by way of wooden ships capable of carrying one hundred passengers, increasingly became inadequate over the course of the seventeenth to the nineteenth century in the face of mounting flows of Europeans coming to the "golden door."
From 1819 - 1840, 2,455,000 immigrants traveled from Europe to the United
States. In the period from 1841 to 1870 that figure increased to 7,725,000, only to be surpassed by 23,466,000 in the period of 1871 to 1910.17 The fabrication of steel, produced ironically by the labor of immigrants, made possible ocean liners that could cross the Atlantic Ocean in approximately seven days and carry "550 first-class, 350 second-class, 300 third-class, and 2,300 steerage passengers."18 The economic "push and
16 Bogart, 334-335 17 Michael R. Haines and Richard H. Steckel, eds. A Population History of North America.(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 315. 18 Bogart, 379.
17 pull" circle of American industry that needed immigrant laborers worked in tandem as each fulfilled the needs of the other.
The Growth of the Modern City: Transformation of a Rural to an Urban Society
In the growth of American cities, once dominated by wooden and masonry commercial structures limited to a few stories, there emerged in the late nineteenth century multi-storied steel skyscrapers. The availability of steel provided the new builders of cities the metal strength to build super-structures well beyond the four to-six- level structures that had previously contained the commerce centers of the country. The skylines of cities would be changed forever as architects and contractors with the new structural steel option could now create buildings of seemingly unlimited heights. Figure
5 of the Flatiron Building in New York gives an excellent example of steel constructed buildings, which began to zoom past the old iron ones.
18
Figure 5 The Steel Skeleton of the Flatiron Building, New York, 1901
Major quantities of cheap steel became the fuel that stimulated the explosive growth of cities, forever changing their skylines and providing the attractive magnet for
Americans seeking a better way of life. No longer the old centers of dusty roads, unconnected clusters, and static movement, cities were transformed into networks of subways, elevated trains, bridge linkages across wide rivers, and paved streets (for the emerging increase in automobiles). It was the tensile strength of iron and steel capable of
19 supporting "loads almost greater than the mind can conceive" which made it absolutely essential in the new physical configurations of America's modernization of its cities.19
The increased availability of steel for the structuring of modern buildings attracted investors to the big cities. In 1890 alone (with dollars adjusted for 1913 according to the author) Chicago and New York witnessed an investment of some $160 million dollars in such real estate construction. In 2011 dollar purchasing power value that would represent
$3.9 billion dollars.20
Figure 6 Construction of New Buildings in New York and Chicago: 1870 -1900
19 J.M. Camp and C.B. Francis, The Making, Shaping and Treating of Steel (Pittsburg, PA: The Carnegie Steel Company, 1920), 1. 20 Thomas A. Misa, A Nation of Steel: The Making of Modern America (Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press. 1995),62.
20
In the meantime, America's population was shifting from an agrarian society sparsely inhabited by those of primarily northern European backgrounds, to an urban- centered society congested with multiple ethnic groups. As Turner states "it is evident that the ethnic21 elements of the United States have undergone startling changes; and instead of spreading over the nation these immigrants have concentrated especially in the cities and great industrial centres in the past decade."22
Historian June Grantir Alexander elaborates with detail that:
During the half-century from 1870 to 1920 the United States underwent spectacular urban growth. The process included villages evolving into towns and small towns developing into larger ones. The growth of medium-sized towns was especially robust. In fewer than 50 years, the number of municipalities with populations ranging from 10,000 to 25,000 tripled, from 116 to 465.23
Alexander further elaborates:
The internal rural-to-urban migration, which helped boost the population of America's 'urban territory' by slightly more than fifty five percent between 1870 and 1890, could not alone satisfy the rising demand for common laborers. Instead, as the 1890s gave way to the 1900s and America's industries continued to clamor for cheap labor, more and more it was immigrants who filled the need. The foreign-born contribution to industrialization extended over time as immigrants, and later their wives and children, joined America's industrial labor force.24
21 NOTE: Throughout this thesis the immigrants will be referred to and categorized as ethnic and racial. The term racial will only appear in the data, tables, and information provided by the Dillingham Commission reports as that was their choice of categorizing immigrants because of the method used by immigrant entry records. Racial as a classification was appropriate because Europe was literally on the move following the turmoil of the nineteenth century. Many of the immigrants immigrated to America from the country of last inhabitance and not their native country. 22 Turner, "Social Forces in American History," 221. 23 June Granatir Alexander. Daily Life in Immigrant America, 1870-1920. (Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee, 2009.), 150-151. 24 Ibid., 99.
21
The migration of immigrants to areas of job opportunity also contributed considerably to the explosive growth of America's cities. The inclusion of immigrants in the ethnic population of such urban areas soon turned them into international centers which lost all semblance of the English-speaking culture of the early nineteenth century.
The population growth of New York City offers one of the most dramatic examples of that cultural change.
William Stone Leete in, The Centennial History of New York City: From the
Discovery to the Present Day, made this observation about his contemporary society of the 1870:
In some respects, the city itself is a majestic organism, and we have light, water, streets, and squares, much to our mind, always excepting the dirt. The scarcity of houses, the costs of rent, living, and taxation are grievous, and driving a large portion of our middling class into the country. Yet the city is full and overflowing, and is likely to be. The work of assimilation is going on, and every debate, controversy, and party, brings the various elements together; and we are seeing each other, whether we differ or agree. Great progress has been made in observing and appreciating our situation and population. Probably New York knows itself better to-day than at any time since its imperial proportions began to appear. In politics, police, philanthropy, education, and religion, we are reckoning our classes, numbers, and tendencies, and feeling our way towards some better harmony of ideas and interests.25
The dirt and living conditions did not deter the immigrants from swarming to cities like New York. The United States Commission on Industrial Relations in 1901 presented statistics about New York City and its ethnic composition. The commission
25 William Stone Leete, The Centennial History of New York City : From the Discovery to the Present Day (New York: R. D. Cooke, 1876), 249. http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text- idx?c=moamono;idno=ston0054 (accessed August 7, 2012).
22 identified 80.46 percent of the population as foreign elements. New York City was essentially an international city of immigrants. Some were naturalized as Americans, others waiting to be naturalized and some would eventually find themselves returning to their native countries.
The Social Revolution of Personal Transportation: The Automobile
In what became a major leap in personal transportation, as well as a social revolution, the increased ability of human beings to travel faster and farther from their villages, towns, and cities was accomplished with the development and introduction of the automobile in the early twentieth century. American automobile makers were able to exercise creativity with the abundance of iron and steel now readily available from
American manufacturers.
With the increasing availability of steel, the automobile industry became a major contributor to the American economy. As Thurman Van Metre states in his 1921 monograph The Economic History of the United States:
Of the new manufacturing industries which developed between 1897 and 1914 the automobile industry was easily the most important. Starting in a modest way almost at the beginning of the twentieth century this remarkable industry grew at such a rate that in 1914 it was holding promise of becoming the leading manufacturing industry of America.26
26 Thurman W. Van Metre, Economic History of the United States (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1921), 545.
23
The Tin Can
The increased domestic production of coal, iron, and steel provided the basic material that made possible the tinplate and terneplate which was used to produce many consumer and commercial products. The manufacture of tin cans to contain prepared foods, eating plates, oil lamps, milk cans, watering cans, kitchen pans, and cooking stoves were just a few of the everyday items crafted with the use of tinplate and terneplate. Internal demands from other American industries became the driving force, relying on the increase productivity of the steel industries that propelled the growth of the product. Standard Oil Company alone became a major driving force in the demand for tinplate as it became the world’s largest tinplate user with its blue five gallon kerosene can.
As late as 1890, America was importing 678.9 million pounds of tinplate and terneplate from England because the United States could only produce 42.1 million pounds to meet the total needs of its commercial enterprises and consumers. It was a trade deficit of 636.8 million pounds at a value of $28.9 million dollars, which in a relative shorter period of time was curtailed, dramatically resulting in a positive trade balance.27 By 1920, America was producing 3.2 billion pounds of tinplate and terneplate for consumption and export, while importing from England a mere 757,000 pounds.28 As
D. E. Dunbar exclaimed in his investigation of the industry:
27 American Iron and Steel Institute, Annual Statistical Report of the American Iron and Steel Institute for 1920 (New York: American Iron and Steel Institute, 1921), 76. 28 Ibid., 52.
24
In 1890 this country did not produce any tin plate at all; to-day (1915) it turns out about 1,000,000 tons per year. At that time America imported all she used; now all she uses she makes, and in addition exports increasing quantities to foreign markets. Truly this has been a spectacular industrial transition.29
Table 2 illustrates the dramatic reversal in America's import and export of tinplate and terneplate. In a relatively short period of manufacturing time, 25 years, the importation and production of tinplate in America were dramatically reversed. During that period the importation of tinplate dropped from 508 million to 844 thousand pounds.
At the same time production in America rose from 254 million to 3.2 billion pounds with exports to the rest of the world.
Table 2 The Dramatic Shift in the Production of Tinplate and Terne Plate: 1895-1920 Import and Production of Tinplates and Terne Plates; United States, 1895-1920 Import in Percent + or - Production in Percent + or - Year Pounds From 1895 Pounds From 1895 1895 508,038,038 254,611,395 1900 147,963,804 -70.88% 850,004,495 233.84% 1905 161,066,820 -68.30% 1,105,440,000 334.17% 1910 154,566,599 -69.58% 1,619,005,000 535.87% 1915 10,642,237 -97.91% 2,365,295,700 828.98% 1920 844,585 -99.83% 3,218,177,730 1163.96% Source: American Iron and Steel Institute, Annual Statistical Review for 1920 (New York: American Iron and Steel Institute), 52, 76.
29 D. E. Dunbar, The Tin-Plate Industry: A Comparative Study of its Growth in the United States and in Wales (Boston MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1915), 14.
25
Tinplate and Terneplate: United States Imports versus Production.
3,500
3,000 ( 2,500 Import 0 0 0 U.S. Production ) 2,000 p o 1,500 u n d 1,000 s
500
0 1895 1900 1905 1910 1915 1920
Source: American Iron and Steel Institute, Annual Statistical Review for 1920 (New York: American Iron and Steel Institute), 52, 76.
Figure 7 United States Tinplate and Terneplate Manufacturing: 1895-1920
What were the conditions, elements, and factors which came together to create such an unusual commercial explosion that elevated the United States into a political, economic, and military world power? This thesis primarily deals with immigrants and their labor in the coal, iron, and steel industries. The conditions that made immigrant labor a critical and needed factor have to be examined before any conclusion can be made as to its importance.
26
Chapter 3
LEGISLATIVE AND COMMERCIAL INITIATIVES FOR THE PURPOSE OF ENCOURAGING IMMIGRATION OF FOREIGN LABOR INTO THE AMERICAN ECONOMY
The legal forces which allowed the symbiotic relationship of industry and world- wide immigrants possible in the period of 1870-1920 were initiated years before with the leaders of a new experiment and a new nation. The foundation for immigration trends to
America began in the early colonial period when essentially the need and demand for labor exceeded what was available from the existing population. It is a legal legacy that started with a unique revolution led by the wealthy elitists of the British colonies, but continues to this very day.
The American Revolutionary War was, among other things, an effort of the commercial elitists to unshackle themselves from the mercantile system of England in order for them to be able to trade American manufactured goods with other foreign countries. It was also a fortuitous time, when political, economic, social, and literary events came together in a revolutionary period where its leaders were, for the most part, elites of literate backgrounds. Philosophers like David Hume influenced their thinking about the humanistic aspects of founding a new country. It did establish a humanistic view of all mankind that would serve to be appealing for immigrants who would come to
America. They were also, however, opportunists who saw the economic potential of the vast resources contained within the virgin lands of America. Samuel Peter Orth in his
1919 book, The Armies of Labor, probably best summarizes this time in a succinct manner with the following:
27
Three momentous things symbolize the era that begins its cycle with the memorable year of 1776: the Declaration of Independence, the steam engine, and Adam Smith's book, "The Wealth of Nations." The Declaration gave birth to a new nation, whose millions of acres of free land were to shift the economic equilibrium of the world; the engine multiplied man's productivity a thousand fold and uprooted in a generation the customs of centuries; the book gave to statesmen a new view of economic affairs and profoundly influenced the course of international trade relations.30
Once the separation was completed, a transition from an association of colonial states, The Continental Congress, to a federated arrangement with a centralized government would help overcome the economic barriers amongst states that prevented the equitable flow of commerce among the states of the new union. A convention dedicated to the constructing of a new set of laws that would be the architect of a new government was called to order. It was apparent by who was in attendance that the economy of the new order was a key concern of the new leaders. The delegates were not chosen by the people or through an election of representatives but appointed by the state legislative political and economic powers. Roy Smith, in his publication Adam Smith and the Origins of American Enterprise, categorizes the delegates by their professions and interests:31
30 Samuel Peter Orth, The Armies of Labor (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1919), 1. 31 Roy Smith, Adam Smith and the Origins of American Enterprise (New York: Truman Talley Books, 2002), 106-108.
28
Categories of Delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 Number
Farmers, Laborers, Craftsman 0 Merchants, Manufacturers, Shippers 11 Large Landholders, Land Speculators 14 Slave Holders 15 Bankers, Money Dealers, Investors 24 Those transacting in government securities 40
Charles Beard, in An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United
States, also makes a compelling case that economic interests were forever present in the constructing of that document which was to be the supreme law of the land.32 The slavery compromise alone is an indication that no laws would be established which would hinder commerce to the detriment of the entrepreneur.
The leading politicians of that era were also learned scholars. They, along with other capitalists of the day, read Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.33 The influence was evident in the fact that the new constitution included not only laws for the regulation and structure of the new government but of commerce as well, treading carefully to adhere to the general intent as expressed by
Jefferson's warning that "Agriculture, manufactures, commerce and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise."34 Congress did not hesitate to keep the commercial agenda moving forward as they prepared to foster and build an environment conducive to their original intent of becoming a productive partner in world trade. The English, because of their oppressive
32 Charles A. Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (New York: The Macmillian Company, 1913), 253-291. 33 Roy Smith, Adam Smith and the Origins of American Enterprise, 112-120. 34 Ibid., 149.
29 laws to preserve their mercantilism, had denied the colonists the right to develop any manufacturing capabilities or create any businesses that would directly compete with
British businesses.
The Revolutionary War came at a cost to the colonies. Population had dropped by some 100,000 as loyalists fled to England, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. In addition to that, British shipments of manufactured goods continued to land in American ports, tipping the balance of payments heavily to the side of their old nemesis. The average for the years 1784-1790 had shown that while the colonies had an export balance of trade of
£949,500, its import trade with England was £2,491,898.35 The British were well on their way to the mechanization and development of the factory system that was beginning to show the increased productive powers of the new manufacturing revolution.
The revolutionary leaders knew that their country "with little accumulated wealth could not long stand such a drain on her resources as was indicated by the export and import figures."36 They also realized that if they were to become competitive that they had to introduce into their economy Britain's "many marvelous new machines and processes."37 This resulted in a history of clandestine operations where American entrepreneurs copied the machinery and processes developed for England's industrial revolution.
35 Edwin C. Eckel, Coal, Iron, and War: A Study in Industrialism Past and Future (New York: Henry Holts and Company, 1920), 23. 36 Ibid., 23. 37 Ibid.
30
On January 15, 1790, the U.S. House of Representatives made a request of the
Secretary of the Treasurer, Alexander Hamilton, to report on the subject of manu- facturing. They were seeking guidelines on how they could build that capability in order to compete on the world market. Hamilton was a respected scholar and politician who had been the creator of the new federal financial system that had unified the states behind the Federalist structure, yielding their independence to a new central authority. Dutifully,
Hamilton studied "Adam Smith and then wrote the Report on Manufactures, developing the theory as to the protection of nascent industries in its application to the
United States." 38
In his report to the United States House of Representatives on December 5, 1791,
Hamilton's reliance on Smith is apparent. Hamilton focused on the need of labor as critical to the economic equations of creating wealth. This was a subject to which Smith devoted a major portion of his book: "Of the Causes of Improvement in the productive
Powers of Labour, and of the Order according to which its Produce is naturally distributed among the different Ranks of the People." 39
America, throughout its history of expansionism, chronically experienced a need for more labor, skilled and unskilled. It is no coincidence, therefore, that Hamilton included a source of immigrant labor as important to help the new country attain its goal as an economic power. Hamilton, while convincing the agrarianists that they too would
38Henry Cabot Lodge, ed. The Works of Alexander Hamilton, Vol. I (New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons, 1904), vi. 39 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1910.), 5.
31 benefit, listed the following areas of importance that needed to be addressed if the country hoped of ever becoming a major industrial independent economy:
1. The division of labor. 2. An extension of the use of machinery. 3. Additional employment to classes of the community not ordinarily engaged in the business. 4. The promoting of emigration from foreign countries. 5. Furnishing greater scope for the diversity of talents and dispositions which discriminate men from each other. 6. The affording a more ample and various field for enterprise. 7. The creating in some instances a new, and securing in all, a more certain and steady demand for the surplus produce of the soil. 40
Essentially this laid down the framework for a federal government to stimulate, regulate, concentrate, and subjugate a spirit of entrepreneurship that would help the new country become the greatest capitalistic society the world has ever known. All of the seven principles, guidelines, and suggestions would in some way be implemented by the government or the private sector to achieve that status in world history.
In what could be considered a prophetic statement that describes one of the chief causes of immigration to America from 1791 until the post World War II era, Hamilton further elaborated on how and why the promotion of emigration would benefit the agrarian and industrial growth of the new country:
The disturbed state of Europe inclining its citizens to emigration, the requisite workmen will be more easily acquired than at another time; and the effect of multiplying the opportunities of employment to those who emigrate, may be an increase of the number and extent of valuable
40 Lodge, 87.
32
acquisitions to the population, arts, and industry of the country.41
The vision of the Americans, in which their country would become a world leader in manufacturing freeing itself from a burden of an unhealthy trade balance, was not to be realized until some one hundred years later. But it would be the increased use of machinery and the inflow of millions of immigrants that would be an important factor in causing America's surge to a world power. It was Smith’s concept and Hamilton’s guidelines that would be necessary to achieve the dreams of final economic freedom from
England and Europe.
Legislation and Political Actions in the Fulfillment of Hamilton's Guidelines
It was not long before Congress began to enact legislation directed toward the control, management, restriction, and encouragement of immigration to America. The
Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, and 1798 established basic rules of how and who could become an American citizen. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 was passed to prevent enemies of the country from residing in America. It was during the Lincoln
Administration, despite its immersion in the policies and administration of a bloody internal conflict, that the encouragement for more immigration received a major promotion. Free of the previous tactics of the obstructionist Southern congressional leaders (whose goals were always to introduce slavery into new territories), Lincoln and his congressional leaders set upon a course of pro-development in a collaborative
41 Ibid.,143.
33 partnership of the public and private sector. The expansionist policies that were intended to link the entire country together paved the way for commercial development of major communications links, such as the railroad and wireless telegraph. It was during this period of progressive legislation that an immigration law was enacted on July 4, 1864, which was very clear in its intent, purpose, and title: "An Act to Encourage Immigration."
The act contained some of the following precedent-setting measures in formulating policies of a public and private partnership: it established the position of
Commissioner of Immigration who reported to the Secretary of State; it allowed and validated labor contracts with immigrants while they were still natives of their countries allowing employers to pay their travel and settling expenses; it exempted immigrants from compulsory military service (to remove a deterrent for immigrants who were leaving their countries for the same reason); it established in New York City an office known as the United States Emigrant Office; and appropriated the sum of $25,000 for carrying out the provisions of the act. The money allocated indicated Congress's seriousness of implementing the act.
The act was repealed in 1868, it did however establish a precedent of an agency which would give its full attention to immigration. The repeal did not deter Congress from pursuing its agenda focused on the entering of aliens into America. What followed was a continuous history of legislative actions whose main focus was the monitoring, controlling, encouragement, and discouragement of immigration into the United States. It also included acts which made exceptions to the law because of special reasons for special interests. Many of the acts were influenced by the availability, or lack thereof, of
34 a labor supply. That also included the control of the labor supply by the actions of organized labor to protect their membership from the free market influence that normally damaged their bargained wage scales.
The early colonial days of indentured servitude and involuntary slave immigration were primarily for the utilization of the agricultural resources in an agrarian-based economy. The Hamiltonians, and the entrepreneurs who followed, were more interested in the development of an industrial society. For that, they needed a new source of labor, one that was willing to move out of their agrarian past into new types of employment that would emerge in America's expanding industrial revolution.
35
Chapter 4
DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSFORMATION WHICH CAUSED A RADICAL CHANGE IN THE ETHNIC AND RACIAL COMPOSITION OF THE COAL, IRON, AND STEEL INDUSTRIES WORK FORCE: 1870-1920
In the symbiotic relationship, which this thesis is addressing, the economic tenet accepted by scholars was that capital, land, and labor was essential for the creation of wealth. The capitalist in this economic triad needed an abundant supply of labor and the laborer needed the capitalist to earn their share of the wealth. This was especially true, in the infant stages of the industrial revolution, where mechanization of the manufacturing process increased the potential production of the product but it also demanded an increased need for the manual operation of the process. A testimony to that fact, and the interdependency, was the effect of World War I on the industrial economy of America.
World War I severely disrupted the flow of immigrant labor creating much consternation among the industrial leaders. Their anxiety was about the disruption the war would cause on the present and future flow of immigrant labor needed by their industries and whether the nation could sustain the requirements of the military. The Wall
Street Journal, in a lengthy article that praised the contributions of immigrant labor to the industrial development of America, expressed their concern about future industrial development as a result of World War I. On February 17, 1915, months before American entered the war, the lengthy article titled "Who Will Do Our Chores" stated the following:
The war has checked the flow of immigration, and it will be a long time till the tide turns our way. The god of war will take his toll. Immigration statistics compiled by the American railroads for ten
36
years ended June 30, 1915, indicate an effect of the European war which will be felt for years to come in the industrial, economic and social life of this nation through a check which will be placed on development as a result of a scarcity of immigrant labor and slow growth of population.42
The Journal was not alone about its viewpoint. There were many industrial and political leaders who echoed the same sentiments regarding the entry of fewer immigrant laborers. Articles such as those that appeared in the Wall Street Journal from 1911 to
1922 are an example of the public expression of such concerns. The titles which introduce the content of those articles were: "Labor Situation Becomes More and More
Serious;"43 "Our Labor Handicap;"44 "Labor Scarce In All Sections of Country;"45 and
"Labor Scarcity Threatens Iron and Steel Industry."46
Probably no other Wall Street Journal article describes such pragmatic sentiments as the speech given by Mr. Joseph J. Butler to the convention of the American Iron and
Steel Institute. Mr. Butler is quoted as stating that:
Of course the shortage of labor in this country will result from the falling off of immigration which has been under way since the beginning of the European war. The furnaces, mills and mines can no longer depend on Europe to supply labor. Heretofore we have employed a large percentage of the immigrants arriving in this country annually. This source of supply has been out off, and due to the slaughter of men and destruction of wealth in the great European war, we cannot expect much of an increase in immigration until a long time after the conflict has been settled.47
42 "Who Will Do Our Chores," Wall Street Journal, February 17, 1915. 43 Ibid., Dec, 15, 1917. 44 Ibid., Dec. 28, 1911. 45 Ibid., Sept. 9, 1922. 46 Ibid., May 28, 1915. 47 Ibid., May 28, 1915.
37
The concern about a sufficient amount of available labor became a major topic of discussion in the early part of the twentieth century. Charles Eliot, President Emeritus of
Harvard University, in a New York Times article of February 26, 1914 titled "Need
Immigrants Badly" was reported as making the following statement:
Not a single argument for further restriction of immigration have I yet seen which does not violate the plainest principles of sound American industrial development.48
It is evident that there was much concern on the eve of WWI, a sense of desperation. The need for immigrants in the systems of the industrial sector could not be denied. The question then is, why such a reliance on foreign labor?
The population was increasing each year as more and more immigrants came to
America looking for jobs. Where were all the native-born who had earlier settled the country? Where were all the strong hearty native-born workers who had cleared the land, opened the west to settlements, and help build a viable commerce that could trade with the rest of the world? Where were they and where were their descendants?
The Civil War and the Loss of a Viable Labor Supply
The Civil War was the most deadly conflict in the history of America. It has been estimated by many reliable sources that some 600,000 men were killed in the conflict; more than all the other United States military conflicts combined to the present date.
This also meant a great loss in the labor supply (slaves excluded) at a time when the industrial revolution was expanding in America. The loss of lives, and the subsequent
48 "Need Immigrants Badly, Says Eliot," New York Times, February 26, 1914.
38 loss of a young labor supply, was not lost on the economic and political powers of the emerging industrial nation. In the midst of the turmoil which had engulfed the nation,
Congress acknowledged the impending disaster for the future commerce of the country by initiating the Immigration Act of 1864, appropriately entitled "An Act to Encourage
Immigration."
The potential and real loss of a labor supply also did not escape the attention of those who financed and operated the textile, iron, and transportation industries. As industrialists, they initiated a private sector organization called the Foreign Aid Emigrant
Society whose primary purpose was to recruit European labor. Independent entrepreneurs also founded, at the same time, the Foreign Aid Emigrant Society for the same purpose.49
Birth Rate Decline and Population
The amount of available labor supply is directly affected by the amount of available population from which it is drawn. In America an interesting phenomena was occurring in that the base population, that population which represented those native born of one or more generations, was suffering from a declining birth rate. Edward Ross argued simply that the old stock of post-Colonial populace was simply reducing itself because of its own cultural practices:
As the bulk of our recent immigration comes from the more prolific European peoples, certain New England states which are rapidly filling with aliens show a slight rise in fecundity. If, however, the contribution of the native
49 Robert D. Parmet, Labor and Immigration in Industrial America (Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers, 1981), 18.
39
women be separated from that of the foreign born women, it appears that the old American stock there is dying out.50
Ross's lamenting was not a cry in the wilderness. The declining birth rate among native parents had become a growing concern, and topic of discussion in the political and academic world of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Warren
S.Thompson and P.K. Whelpton's Population Trends in the United States, published in
1933, an analysis is provided with regards to population projections regarding the inflow of immigrants into America.51 Chapter 3 of that monograph, "National Origins of the
White Population," is focused on the white population as recorded in 1920 when projected from what they define as the colonial stock. In the demographics as presented in that publication, there are only two categories which they track, white (including immigrants) and black (African-Americans).
Table 3 illustrates the effect of immigrants and their descendants on the white population of America as of 1920. By 1920, 56.4 percent of the white population was from post-colonial stock.
50 Edward A. Ross, Changing America: Studies in Contemporary Society (New York, NY: The Century Company,1909), 35. 51 Warren S. Thompson & P.K. Whelpton, Population Trends in the United States (New York: McGraw- Hill, 1933), 91.
40
Table 3 Immigration and White Population Demographics of America: 1790-1920
Oscar Handlin argues in his Immigration as a Factor in American History that the 227 percent increase from 1790 to 1830 was "substantially all out of the loins of the four millions of our own people living in 1790." 52 The turning point in the history of population and immigration in America, according to Handlin, was the turning point in the history of population and immigration in America. What had been an insignificant amount of immigrants to America up until that time soon became a flood that directly affected the population growth. The offspring of foreign countries have to be credited with the dramatic population increases, as the base of 1790 remained relatively static.
Handlin supports his argument by asking a question and providing his own answer:
The question now of vital importance is this: Was the population of the country correspondingly increased? I answer, No! The population of 1840 was almost exactly what by computation it would have been had no increase in foreign arrivals taken place. Population showed no increase over the proportions established before immigration set in like a flood. In other words, as the foreigners began to come in larger numbers, the native population more and more withheld their own increase.53
52 Handlin, Immigration as a Factor in American History,72. 53 Ibid., 72.
41
World-wide statistics as presented in Alfred J. Lotka's article, The America
People: Studies in Population, dramatically indicates the birth rate problem as faced by the the Western World, which at that time was the center of the Industrial Revolution.
Table 4 shows that the birth rate decline was as severe in the United States as it was in other European countries. The average birth rate per 1,000 population for the selected countries in 1871-1875 was 34.1, while the average for 1921 sank to 24.1.
Table 4 Birth Rates of Selective Countries: 1871-1921 Birth Rates per 1,000 Population in Selected Countries for Available Years Country 1871 - 1875 1881 - 1885 1896 - 1900 1915 1921 Sweden 30.66 29.36 26.86 21.59 21.54 England & Wales 35.5 33.5 29.3 21.8 22.4 United States 37 33.2 29.8 25.1 24.2 Italy 36.8 38 34 30.5 30.3 France 25.5 24.7 22 11.6 20.7 Germany 39 37 36 20.4 25.3 Source: Alfred J. Lotka, "The American People: Studies in Population," Annals of the American Academny of Political and Social Science 188 (1936): 1-13.
Interestingly, while the Western world was experiencing a relatively normal increase in population, the United States was experiencing an exceptional population increase. The industrialized countries had to rely on their shrinking labor force while the
United States experienced a population boom. Table 5 presents a very positive population increase for the United States while other industrializing countries were experiencing a much lower growth rate.
42
Table 5 Comparative Population Growth in Selective Western Countries: 1790-1930
Comparative Population Growth in Selective Western Countries: 1790-1930
UNITED STATES UNITED KINGDOM ITALY GERMANY FRANCE AUSTRIA-HUNGARY SWEDEN YEAR Percent YEAR Percent YEAR Percent YEAR Percent YEAR Percent YEAR Percent YEAR Percent Increase Increase Increase Increase Increase Increase Increase 1790 1801 1800 1820 1810 1820 1830 1810 35.1 1811 13.5 1816 6.98 1830 12.64 1820 3.41 1830 11.8 1840 8.69 1820 36.4 1821 13.51 1825 7.07 1840 10.88 1830 6.93 1840 2.35 1850 10.96 1830 33.12 1831 14.76 1840 11.68 1850 8.28 1840 5.25 1850 5.73 1860 10.82 1840 33.49 1841 11.62 1850 10.45 1860 6.52 1850 4.4 1860 -2.44 1870 8.01 1850 80.26 1851 2.23 1861 2.88 1870 8.51 1860 2.53 1870 0.56 1880 9.52 1860 35.58 1861 5.82 1862 -12.8 1871 0.74 1870 1.1 1880 5.87 1890 4.8 1870 25.05 1871 8.59 1870 18.81 1880 9.98 1880 1.63 1890 8.97 1900 7.34 1880 27.56 1881 10.76 1880 8.88 1890 9.29 1890 2.4 1900 9.44 1910 7.52 1890 25.5 1891 8.29 1890 7.45 1900 14.17 1900 1.3 1910 9.51 1920 6.92 1900 20.73 1901 9.76 1900 6.93 1910 15.07 1910 1.54 1914 6.06 1910 21.02 1911 9.13 1910 6.17 1913 3.24 1920 -1.27 1920 14.94 1921 -5.73 1920 5.81 1922 -7.61 1930 6.67 1930 16.14 1931 4.67 1930 12.36 1930 5.17 Sources : United States statistics column [Thompson, Warren S. & P.K. Whelpton. Population Trends in the United States (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1933),1; B.R. Mitchell, International Historical Statistics : Europe, 1750-2000 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 3-8.
For the industrialized countries such as England, France, and Germany, whatever labor supply that was available would of course be aggressively recruited for their own industrial needs. On the contrary, the countries in Southern Europe and Eastern Europe, because of sparse reserves of coal and iron ore resources, remained essentially societies relying on agricultural products as the main source of their economy. Such agrarian societies provided an overabundance of labor supply primarily because land ownership rested in the hands of relatively few from whom unskilled laborers depended for employment. The progenitor tradition where the eldest son inherited the father's land, also created generations of excess labor supply from the remaining children.
As a result, the many landless immigrants who came to America were in their most productive period of their lives. The Dillingham Commission confirmed this in its data collecting process of immigrants as they entered the United States. From 1899 to
43
1910 (inclusive) 9,555,673 immigrants (male and female) entered the United States. Of that number, 7,919,549 or 82.9 percent ranged in the ages of 14 and 44. 1,157,148 or
12.1 percent of the total amount of immigrants were under the age of 14; potential future laborers in America's industries. Only 478,976 or 5 percent of the group was above the age of 44, a period in an individual's life that was considered the least productive and the most burdensome on the community.54
The majority was, therefore, an age group that could stand the rigors of the working and living conditions one would experience in the coal, iron, and steel industries of America. Such conditions deterred many potential workers, native or foreign, from seeking employment in those industries. It was a factor, which contributed to the demographic composition of the employees. It was also a necessary requirement in order for labor to provide the energy for a symbiotic relationship, which would benefit industry.
54 U.S.Senate, 61st Congress,3d session, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Statistical Review of Immigration 1820-1910 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1911), 88.
44
Chapter 5
ACCEPTANCE OF WORKING AND LIVING CONDITIONS BY NEW IMMIGRANTS
The capitalist and entrepreneurs provided the finances, knowledge, and early infrastructure for the symbiotic relationship. The production of coal, iron, and steel, however, needed manual unskilled labor. Labor needed to excavate the coal and iron ore.
Labor needed to operated and maintain the machinery, which helped to increase production. Labor needed to fuel and operate the processes like the Bessemer Converter and Open Hearth that produced the iron and the steel. Unskilled labor could be used in any of the operations regardless of literacy boundaries they could be trained to do such simple individualized tasks by gestures in the traditional "watch-what-I-do" method, unless one of their own countrymen served as supervisor.
The skilled laborer, or older immigrants, was being either pushed up to supervisorial positions or pushed out of their jobs. David Montgomery, in his The Fall of the House of Labor, competently describes this period in which organized labor, consisting of skilled and older immigrants, refused to accept the deteriorating working and living conditions of industry. This was in conflict with the capitalist, entrepreneur, and management’s productivity goals, where production rose with the rise of deaths and accidents. Organized labor’s efforts collapsed because the available and abundant supply of immigrant labor, eager for better economic opportunities, was always willing to accept such conditions, thus providing industry the perfect symbiotic partner.
45
The working and living conditions that existed in and around the coal, iron, and steel industries may well appear horrendous, almost fictitious, to today’s American worker; nonetheless they have been documented in reports, data, and statistics. To the naïve unskilled individual desperately seeking employment for purposes of survival, such conditions would readily be accepted. To the worker who had other employment choices because of an advantage of language skills, native birth, or work skills, such conditions could be unacceptable.
Accidents and Deaths
There were in America up until the nineteenth and early twentieth century very few laws to aid and protect the working citizen, and newly arrived immigrant regardless of their occupation. Unemployment insurance did not exist. Employees out of work had no income other than what they could eke out while waiting to be called back by their main employer. Their only remedy for any family needs came primarily from private charity or through their church. Workers compensation laws began to appear sparingly in
America at a state level after the turn of twentieth century.
The desperation of immigrants put them at the mercy of the industrial and mining companies; they had no choices. The oral history from a Lithuanian immigrant probably best summarizes the plight of the foreign worker in a strange country:
Soon after my arrival in this country, I knew that money was everything I needed. My money was almost gone and I thought that I would soon die unless I got a job, for this was not like home. Here money was everything and a man without money must die. One morning my friends woke me up at five o'clock and said, "Now, if you want life, liberty and happiness," they laughed, "you must push for yourself.
46
You must get a job. Come with us." And we went to the yards. Men and women were walking in by thousands as far as we could see...There was a crowd of about 200 men waiting there for a job... That night I told my friends that I would not do this many days, but would go some place else. "Where?" they asked me, and I began to see then that I was in bad trouble, because I spoke no English.55
Thomas Kessner, in his book The Golden Door, describes what was a typical scene, whether the immigrant entered through Castle Gardens or Ellis
Island:
Few of the newcomers could sit back to weigh their options. As quickly as they settled, often within days and sometimes within hours of landing, they had to take their first jobs.56
What awaited many immigrants was not a refuge for their tired, poor, and hungry beings unto the land of milk and honey, but jobs that most native born of native-parent sons and daughters would not seek or want. Jobs in the coal, iron, and steel industries were fraught with danger; they were jobs that literally became daily a chance at life or death.
Workers in the coal, iron, and steel industry faced a daily possibility of dying or being involved in an accident that would render them incapable of ever earning a meaningful income for their families for the rest of their lives. Compensation decisions for any deaths or injuries rested entirely with the corporation for which they worked, and in most instances monetary compensations were trivial or nil.
55 Eli Ginzberg & Hyman Berman, The American Worker in the Twentieth Century (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963), 47-48. Those who live in the twenty first century must keep reminding themselves, as they read this thesis, that there was no such thing as a government unemployment insurance program, social security or workmen’s compensation. If one did not earn an income, the prospects for purchasing basic sustenance was extremely dim. 56 Thomas Kessner, The Golden Door (New York: Oxford Press, 1977), xii.
47
The newspaper became the chief printed media source of news and commercial advertising for the public and its expansion continued throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, making it a readily accessible communications vehicle for the public. For those who could read English, of course, it was a communicator of news; for those who could not it was literally foreign. Along with other news, deaths and accidents occurring in the coal, iron, and steel industry were also reported, alerting the literate English reading common worker of the dangers inherent in such employment.
Death and accidents reports, sometimes appeared in a dramatic fashion such as what appeared in the Carbon Advocate in September 1883:
The number of accidents in the anthracite coal mines of Luzerne and Carbon counties during 1882 were 258, of which seventy-three were fatal, making thirty-five widows and ninety one orphans.57
A matter of fact business report, connecting the amount of tonnage produced for lives lost, appeared in the Scranton Tribune in February of 1900:
During 1898, 15,851 persons were employed in the mines of the district: 5,469,150 tons of coal were produced, resulting in 31 fatal and 154 non-fatal accidents: therefore, 177,295 tons was produced per life lost, and 29,169 per accident.58
In an article appearing on January 5, 1899 in the Evening Herald (Shenandoah, PA), the dead were identified by nationalities: Poles, Americans, Irish, Italians, Germans, Welsh,
English and Scotch. In another, the toll for five districts were presented as something similar to a score card or tally sheet. The Carbon Advocate on Christmas Eve, December
57 The Carbon Advocate (Lehighton, PA), September 1, 1883, 2. 58 The Scranton Tribune (Scranton, PA), February 20, 1900, pa1.
48
24, 1892, reported that the year 1892 would bring to a close "one of the most heart rendering chapters in the inspector's reports." It listed the tragic record of coal mining in five districts around the Lehigh area.59
Table 6 Widows and Orphans Report - 1892
Widows and Orphans Report: December 24, 1892 DISTRICT Accidents Fatal Widows Orphans First 162 50 22 73 Second 199 31 13 48 Third 196 49 18 44 Fourth 240 74 36 122 Fifth 144 39 19 31 Totals 941 243 108 318 Source : The Carbon Advocate (Lehighton, PA), December 24, 1892, 1, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83032231/1892-12-24/ed-1 (accessed June 15, 2011).
The opportunities to report such casualties were many and often. In an article that appeared in the Scranton Tribune on February 23, 1901 titled “Figures For Last Year,” the 1900 annual report of the mine inspector for the state of Pennsylvania was reviewed.
In addition to the production figures, it was reported that there were forty fatal and one hundred and eighteen non-fatal accidents listed individually by coal companies.60 So severe was the number of fatalities during the later part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century that, by the beginning of the twentieth century, organized efforts to curb the incidences began to emerge with full-page ads sponsored by insurance
59 The Carbon Advocate (Lehighton, PA), December 24, 1892, pa1. 60 Scranton Tribune, Scranton PA, February 23, 1901. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026355/1901-02-04/ed-1/seq-1// (accessed 12/11/2010.
49 companies, corporations, public service organizations, financial institutions and individuals "in the interest of humanity."61
A better understanding and appreciation of such hazardous working conditions could be acquired by reviewing the information that came out of official coal industry reports. In the anthracite coal mines of Pennsylvania from 1870 to 1902, there were
10,841 deaths, or an average of 328 deaths per year.62 In the bituminous coal mines of the
United States and Canada from 1889 to 1908, there was a total of 29, 293 deaths or an average of 1,464 deaths per year.63 Such deaths included children, as they became an integral part of the work force in the coal and iron industry as early as ten years old.
Twelve-hour days (including day and evening shifts that continued around the clock) were the norm. A survey funded by the Russell Sage Foundation found that with
"nearly four-fifths of the workmen on a twelve-hour schedule, working longer hours from time to time" that it was fair to say that the "twelve-hour day prevails."64 Such demands on the physical stamina of immigrants and the long working hours produced horrific accident and death records for companies in the coal, iron, and steel industries.
Chrystal Eastman reported in her 1910 findings as published in Work-Accidents and the
Law that:
This work demands so much of eyes and nerves and muscles, and
61 Evening Ledger, Philadelphia PA, August 31, 1917 http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045211/1917-08-31/ed-1/seq-5/ accessed 07/21/2010, 62 James E. Roderick, Report of the Bureau of Mines, 1902 (Pennsylvania State: W. Stanley Ray, 1903), 23. 63 Hourwich, Immigration and Labor, The Economic Aspects of European Immigration to the United States, 557. Figures for table taken from U. S. Statistical Abstract, 1910, Tables 180 and 181, p. 284, also Table 168, p. 265; U. S. Bureau of Labor Bulletin 90, Table xxiv., pp. 655-659; Bulletin 32, p. 8. 64 John A. Fitch, The Steel Workers (Pittsburgh, PA: Russell Sage Foundation, 1910), 171.
50
is done in such intense heat, that the men work in half-hour shifts, six hours of work during a twelve-hour day. Even so, it is only exceptional men who will attempt it, and with all their skill and agility, there are frequent accidents among them.65
There are literally thousands of stories about young boys being injured or killed in mining accidents if one took the time to read the investigative reports of the State of
Pennsylvania. Men and children, father and sons, sometimes were injured or died together.
Table 7 presents the case that dangers lay in waiting for the worker in the coal industries. The reduction of deaths and accidents received more attention in the
European countries than in the United States during the same period of time, possibly because the workers were native to their countries.
Table 7 Accidents in Coal Mining: 1889 to 1908 Number of Fatal Accidents in Coal Mining: 1889-1908 Anthracite Mines 9,665 Bithuminous Mines (U,S, and Canada) 29,293
Source : Issac A. Hourwich's, Immigration and Labor: The Economic Aspects of European Immigration to the United States . (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1912). Noted by author: Figures for 1891-1908 from U. S. Statistical Abstract, 1910
The management pressures for increased productivity, however, with the increasing inclusion of non-American citizens into the labor force, continued to create a general disregard for safety in these American industries. Production was the master.
65 Crystal Eastman, Work-Accidents and the Law (Pittsburgh, PA: Russell Sage Foundation,1910), 55.
51
Figure 8 Persons Employed, Gross Tons Mined, and Corollary Deaths: 1870-1887
The complexity of the operations, the multitude of machine operations, and the same general disregard for safety in deference to production schedules generally created a work environment waiting for accidents to happen.66 Graphic 6 is a dynamic illustration of how the drive for increase production influenced the deaths of employees. From July
1, 1906 to June 30, 1907, there were 195 fatalities in steel plants located in the Pittsburgh area from the following causes; hot metal explosions, asphyxiation by furnace gas, operation of rolls, operation of broad gauge railroad, operation of narrow gauge railroad,
66 John A. Fitch, The Steel Workers (New York: The Russell Sage Foundation, 1911), 64.
52
falling from height or into pit, and loading and piling of steel and iron products.67
Ignorance of the English language could be a detriment to the safety immigrant laborer. This was because signs warning of danger or instructing safety procedures were commonly in English. In some cases, however, knowledge of the language made no difference as the process of making iron and steel was always a risky process. In Work
Accidents and the Law, Paul Underwood Kellogg gives a vivid description of how dangerous such a working environment was regardless of any language abilities: "If, however, the fall is excessive, or the furnace defective, the sides may give way and the molten metal burst out at the bottom, bringing death to all who are working near."68
The Bessemer and Siemens steel processes, which required a range of 1700 to
2300 degrees Fahrenheit in order to produce marketable iron or steel products, also created an environment that caused deaths other than by accidents. Occupational health hazards were as deadly as industrial accidents. Pneumonia was the scourge of the iron and steel worker and generally accounted for as many or more deaths per year than accidents. As Horace B. Davis reported in his 1933 book Labor and Steel:
Excess deaths from pneumonia alone were nearly as numerous in the industry in 1929 as all deaths from accidents and the severity rate for non-fatal cases of sickness has been higher than the severity rate for non-fatal accidents 69
67 Ibid. 68 Paul Underwood Kellogg, ed, Work Accidents and the Law (Pittsburgh, PA: Russell Sage Foundation, 1910), 50. 69 Horace B. Davis, Labor and Steel (New York: International Publishers, 1933), 51.
53
Working Conditions and the Native Worker's Discrimination
A 1929 joint occupation study of the Actuarial Society of America and the
Association of Life Insurance Medical Directors found that the ratio of iron and steel workers' deaths to average deaths of all men in society of same age was higher.70 It showed that "accidental deaths for iron and steel workers" were "far above normal for mechanics, 396 percent of normal; for laborers 334 percent; rollers and roll hands 162 percent; and semi-skilled operatives generally 144 percent."71
The work time for a factory employee in these industries during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was twelve hours, six days a week, as a crew member assigned to a particular rotating shift. These industries tended to operate twenty- four hours a day, seven days a week, particularly as the demand for their products by ancillary industries continued to increase during the late nineteenth and early half of the twentieth century. If nothing else the sheer exhaustion of such a work schedule, which demanded a considerable amount of physical energy, easily contributed to making the worker susceptible to accidents. It is no wonder that an individual of native parents, especially one who was literate in English, would choose to seek employment in industries where the safety and health conditions were considerably better than in the coal, iron, and steel.
For some native whites, their prejudicial attitude about the new immigrants influenced them in their choices of employment. Robert D. Parmet in his Labor and
70 Ibid., 283. 71 Ibid., 37.
54
Immigration in Industrial America records that:
So antagonistic were the Irish that they initially refused to work in the same gangs with the Italians. The more irritated they became, the easier it was to force them out and replace them with additional Italians. Shrewd foremen regularly exacerbated friction between the Irish and the "Guineas" or "Dagoes," as the Italian competitors were called. Consequently, not only the Irish, but Germans and Scandinavians, too sought employment elsewhere.72
The same antagonism existed between the older immigrants and the new entries into the job market: Slavs, Hungarians, Poles, Austrians, Russians, and Slovaks. Other shrewd foremen made sure to take advantage of the situation as they were able to take advantage of the desperate immigrants. Unwillingness on the part of native-born workers was easily disposed of by replacing them with willing immigrant laborers:
The seams changed, there was more brawn needed, more powder per ton of coal must be burned, and " white men " refused to work under conditions that meant more labor, more expense, and less pay. Then they called in the willing Slav and submissive Lithuanian, and the work was done. They bent their strong young backs under the load, and black diamond has been dug from deeper depths, from smaller seams, and from more dangerous places by men of the new immigration than was done by the men of the old.73 There were also incidences where the native whites simply refused to work alongside an immigrant or take a job, in time of recession, normally performed by immigrant labor.
John Bodnar in his monograph Immigration and Industrialization writes of a situation created by the depression of 1908 when the plant manager "offered his skilled men jobs that were normally performed by immigrants," but they instead "preferred to be laid
72 Robert D. Parmet, Labor and Immigration in Industrial America (Boston. MA: Twayne Publishers, 1981), 136. 73 Peter Roberts, The New Immigration (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1913), 55.
55 off."74
The following table shows that there was a majority of newly immigrated workers in such dangerous industries as: iron and steel (86.6 percent), slaughter house and meat packing (85.5 percent), oil refining (88.2 percent), and sugar refining (93.7 percent).
While those natives, born of native fathers, were more likely to migrate to less hazardous occupations such as: collar, cuff, and shirt manufacturing (50.1 percent); glove manufacturing (50.8 percent); cigars and tobacco (52 percent); and boots and shoes manufacturing (47 percent). In only three of sixteen manufacturing employments do native-born workers of native parents hold a majority, and then by a very slight edge. In the hazardous occupations such as iron, steel, and coal, the percentages for the foreign- born and native-born of foreign parents display an overwhelming majority of workers.
Table 8 Percent of Employees in Major Industries by Nativity: 1905-1910
Percent of Employees in Major Industries by Nativity: 1905-1910. Native Native Total Born of Born of Foreign Born and Employees Foreign Foreign Native Native Born of Surveyed Born Fathers Fathers Foreign Parents IRON AND STEEL MANUFACTURING 86,089 57.7% 28.9% 13.4% 86.6% SLAUGHTERING AND MEAT PACKING 43,502 60.7% 24.8% 14.5% 85.5% BITUMINOUS COAL MINING. 88,368 61.9% 9.5% 28.5% 71.4% GLASS MANUFACTURING. 11,615 39.3% 18.4% 42.3% 57.7% WOOLEN AND WORSTED MANUFACTURING. 23,388 61.9% 24.4% 13.7% 86.3% SILK GOODS MFG & DYEING 12,994 34.3% 44.9% 20.8% 79.2% COTTON GOODS MANUFACTURING 66,800 68.7% 21.8% 9.4% 90.5% CLOTHING MANUFACTURING. 19,502 72.2% 22.4% 5.3% 94.6% BOOTS AND SHOES. 19,946 27.3% 25.6% 47.0% 52.9% FURNITURE MANUFACTURING. 4,295 59.1% 19.6% 21.2% 78.7% COLLAR, CUFF, AND SHIRT MANUFACTURING. 1,508 13.4% 36.5% 50.1% 49.9% LEATHER TANNING, CURRYING, AND FINISHING 12,839 67.0% 15.7% 17.4% 82.7% GLOVE MANUFACTURING. 908 33.5% 15.7% 50.8% 49.2% OIL REFINING. 6,123 66.7% 21.5% 11.8% 88.2% SUGAR REFINING. 5,826 85.3% 8.4% 6.3% 93.7% CIGARS AND TOBACCO. 36,564 32.6% 15.5% 52.0% 48.1% Source: U.S. Congress, 61st, 3d Session, Senate Documents, doc. 747, Abstracts of Reports of the Immigration Commission, (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office., 1911), 297-314.
74John Bodnar, Immigration and Industrialization (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977), 40.
56
The communities, in which the workers lived, given their limitations on private transportation, offered no drastic environmental change from their working conditions.
Such communities existed in contiguous areas situated in close proximity to their place of work. With more employment opportunities available to the older English-speaking immigrants, they did not have to accept such living conditions.
Living and Housing Conditions
The urban areas in America became magnets for immigrants because of the greater possibilities for employment in the industrial sector. In 1790, 4.3 percent of the population in America resided in areas of 8,000 persons or more; that figure jumped to
43.8 percent by 1920.75
It was in those urban areas, stimulated by its main industry of mining coal or processing of iron or steel, where the percent of immigrant population eventually became the majority. Places like South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, for example, started off as a small colonial village of early settlers whose lineage went back to the early years of pre-revolutionary America. The accessibility of surface coal and iron ore started the early production of iron by skilled artisans. Eventually the evolutionary development of the Bethlehem Steel Company changed the social, cultural, ecological, and demographical composition of the area. As immigrants were directed to the area for their unskilled labor, the percentage of the native-born population dwindled in comparison.
75 P. K. Whelpton, "Industrial Development and Population Growth," Social Forces, 6, no. 3. (Mar., 1928): 460.
57
Housing and living conditions were configured by the policies of the company, and the once pastoral landscape was converted into congested, poorly planned, communities. For the immigrant and his family, such living conditions were tolerable.
The majority of immigrants, who came from the agrarian-based societies of Southern and
Eastern Europe, lived in communities that offered only the basic of accommodations for them, their families, and their livestock. The German peasant farmer strove to have the biggest manure pile in front of his house because it brought him prestige in his village.76
In Russia, housing typically consisted of a little wooden hut with a thatched roof. It had one room, which included the kitchen, dining area and bedrooms. During the winter it was also shared with the animals as a calf-pen, pig-sty and horse stall. 77 In Bulgaria they practiced what they called "zadruga" in which several married brothers and their families lived in the same house. In Poland the houses were made of stone, logs, or planks covered with mud and a thatched roof. The interior consisted of two halves: on one side the family slept, ate, and cooked, and on the other the live stock and poultry of the farm were given shelter. 78
The majority of European peasants lived for centuries in such base housing and living conditions. The work ethic was the core value of their existence because it always meant survival of the individual and the family. A low-income existence meant the necessity of living together as families and in many instances in the same dwelling(s) that had been occupied for centuries by their past generations. The crowded industrial
76 Hannibal Gerald Duncan, Immigration and Assimilation (New York: D.C. Heath and Company, 1933), 60. 77 Ibid., 271. 78 Ibid., 287.
58 town and/or city was acceptable to the desperate immigrant despite the added burden of soot-filled air that covered everything with a black dust.
Health conditions in such industrial towns were always substandard and usually out of bounds to any outside inspections. Outdoor toilets were the norm in such communities.
Figure 9 Families Drew their Water Supply from Community Town Pump
59
Figure 10 Steel Town where Community and Mill Co-Existed
The working and living conditions associated with the coal, iron, and steel industries were not what one would consider a decent quality of life. With an increasing abundance of immigrant labor that was willing to endure such conditions, doing so after traveling thousands of miles, it is not difficult to conclude why the ethnic composition of the workforce changed. New immigrants would accept those arrangements because albeit
60 the conditions, working or living, the opportunity existed for the fulfillment of their economic goals.
There was also no doubt that the capitalistic entrepreneur needed their work ethic, enduring labor skills, and generally compliant natures. Together they would form a symbiotic relationship both of them in achieving their economic goals. With increasing demands for iron and steel by America’s industries, productivity was key to the capitalist's hope of achieving a positive return on their investments. We will now explore the interdependency of industry and immigrant labor in the achievement of ever- increasing productivity levels.
61
Chapter 6
ATTRIBUTES THAT MADE THE NEW IMMIGRANTS AN APPEALING LABOR FORCE FOR AMERICAN MANAGEMENT AND INDUSTRY
America’s entrepreneurs brought capital and fixed assets into the symbiotic relationship. The natural resources of America were there for the exploitation by whomever was willing to invest in their excavation. What was needed to complete the formula for the creation of wealth was labor. Without labor, the symbiotic relationship would not be complete because the manual energy needed to produce the saleable product during this period of the industrial revolution would be insufficient to meet the ever increasing demands.
The era of 1870-1920 witnessed a major immigration event in the history of the
United States. Previous immigration, and the labor they provided, from colonial days to the early nineteenth century, was lured to occupy and settle the vast amounts of new land; a treasure unavailable in the native countries from where they had emigrated. The immediate use of such lands was primarily for agriculture and the reaping of natural resources such as timber, animal pelts, fish, and food.
As the new capitalists in America turned their attention to the possibilities of producing new products that were in demand and made possible by the evolution of the industrial revolution, the labor sought gradually changed to accommodate this new industrial era. Skilled artisans gradually disappeared as unskilled maintainers of machinery increased as needed by the industrial sector. In addition, those northern
European countries that had provided the bulk of immigrant labor for the development of
62 the land were also well into the industrialization of their economy and far less cooperative in sending over any labor that they needed for their own commerce.
As the demands, domestic and foreign, for the products of the coal, iron, and steel industries increased, so did the need for an increasing supply of available labor. The doors were open for a source that had already taken advantage of job opportunities in the new country, the land laborers from Southern and Eastern Europe. These were immigrants who had been enmeshed in an agrarian society for generations where public education was provided in a limited manner to the lower working class.
The characteristics of this immigrant labor force are not being presented to denigrate, demean, or debase these courageous individuals. It is merely a presentation of the truth, as also recorded by others, of those qualities that made them attractive to the industrialists. Their work ethic stands equally with other American examples as the early colonists, land settlers, and pioneers. Their characteristics also explain why the industrialists considered them an important asset.
The often used phrase “cheap labor" was undoubtedly an attractive motivator for industrial actions in recruiting the immigrants. The phrase itself, convenient for many reasons, nevertheless does not begin to present the human qualities of such individuals that made them an integral part of the industrial production. Cheap labor alone did not provide those necessary qualities; it was still the fact that "The fittest survive; that is, those that fit the conditions best."79
79 Prescott F. Hall, Immigration and its Effects upon the United States (New York: Henry Holt and Company,1906), 126.
63
Elaborating on the immigrant's qualities, Kitty Calavita in her monograph U.S.
Immigration Law and the Control of Labor: 1820-1924 stated in the language of Marxist didactic materialism:
This necessitates the continued immigration of cheap labor, a condition that contributes to the class-conflict nature of the situation as this tactic is protested. This irony, that the same national groups that now advance the class struggle had once been elements of its resolution, is not only intuitively appealing, as it paints human faces into the abstract dialectic, but it underlines the fact that the dialectical process is not propelled by personal attributes of individuals or individual ethnic groups, but is structurally driven.80
These are some of the same characteristic qualities recorded in other histories of
America as the epitome of pioneer potency. It was a work ethic, highly touted, which established the colonies and expanded the United States to its western shores. As Turner recognized, however, it was a new era and a different set of resources to be exploited for an emerging new society but the characters had not changed. In his Presidential speech to the American Historical Association, he stated:
When we turn to consider the effect upon American society and domestic policy in these two decades of transition we are met with palpable evidences of the invasion of the old pioneer democratic order. Obvious among them is the effect of unprecedented immigration to supply the mobile army of cheap labor for the centres of industrial life. In the past ten years, beginning with 1900 over eight million immigrants have arrived.81
80 Kitty Calavita, U.S. Immigration Law and the Control of Labor: 1820-1924 (New York: Academic Press, 1984),49. 81 Frederick J. Turner, "Social Forces in American History," The American Historical Review 16, no. 2 (1911): 220. Note: The article is the speech he gave to the American Historical Association in Indianapolis on December 28, 1910.
64
Literate or Illiterate -- No Matter
The ability of the immigrants from Southern and Easton Europe to read or write in their own language, or English for that matter, became a major contention regarding the qualifications for entry into the country. In most major industries, particularly in the coal, iron, and steel industries, the jobs for which the immigrant was recruited could be learned without literacy, much as they had learned how to plow land, grow crops, and reap the harvest. Tasks in the coal, iron, and steel industries were usually simple and repetitive.
William Hamilton of the Wall Street Journal noted in a 1915 speech given to the
Patria Club that :
There is one important way in which we must be seriously affected in the matter of production. This is in the effect upon immigration. We are dependent upon Europe for a mobile army of unskilled labor. It does not matter to us economically whether the immigrant can read and write his own language. It does matter that he shall have the physique to do that bullock labor which is indispensable for all enterprise in its initial stages.82
In addition, experienced immigrants who acquired the ability of understanding rudimentary English were usually elevated to a position of foreman and assigned to the ethnic group whose language he could speak. Essentially, he became the translator.
Northern European immigrants had higher literacy rates than those from Southern and
Eastern Europe. The earlier transformation on Northern countries to industrialized society and the influence of the Protestant Reformation had a positive affect on the education of
82 “Economic Aspects of the Great European War, Address by William P. Hamilton of the Wall Street Journal before the Patria Club” Wall Street Journal, March 15, 1915.
65 their citizens. The literacy rate among the Southern and Eastern Europeans was much lower.
The 1899-1909 data collected at the point of immigration entries showed that the rate of literacy of the Southern and Eastern European group ranged from a low of 68 percent among the Rumanians to a high of 1.1 percent among the English. The general average was 26 percent, which included such ethnic groups as: Greek - 27.5 percent;
Hebrew - 25.7 percent; Southern Italians - 54.2 percent; Ruthenians - 51 percent; and
Turkish - 58.9 percent.83
In a further comparison, Table 9 illustrates the considerable difference with regards to literacy abilities of the old versus the new immigrants.
Table 9 Illiteracy of Old Immigrants versus New Immigrants
Illiteracy of Immigrants 14 Years of Age or Older Data Collected from 1899 to 1909 Inclusive and Compared to Earlier Immigration. Total Number Persons 14 Years of Over Class 14 Years or Who Could not Read or Write Over Number Percent Old Immigration 1,983,618 52,833 2.7 New Immigration 5,215,442 1,859,298 35.6 TOTAL 7,199,060 1,912,131 26.6 Source: U.S. Senate, 61st, 2d Session, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Emigration Conditions in Europe , (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911), 30.
This was a characteristic, which, when immigrants and their offspring were given the opportunity of the public educational system was generally remedied; in fact their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren eventually inhabited the halls of
83 Source: U.S. Senate, 61st, 2d Session, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Emigration Conditions in Europe (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911), 30.
66 academia. President Woodrow Wilson exposed the false logic of the anti-immigrationers when he stated in his veto of the Literacy Bill on January 28, 1915 "and it excludes those to whom the opportunities of elementary education have been denied, without regard to their character, their purposes, or their natural capacity."84
Tractable
Although rarely used today, the word "tractable" still has the meaning of easily managed or controlled; a quality that was a manager's desire of an ideal employee. "All of the immigrants were easier to handle, and were more tractable than the natives"85 reported the Dillingham Commission. This observation was documented by many industrial employers, investigators, and historians.86
Eager and Desperate Job Seekers
Whether it was in the early part of the nineteenth century when the "old" immigrants, as they are generally labeled by historians, in the era of 1840 to 1870 or the later part when they "new" immigrants from 1870 to 1920 came to America, the primary focus was to seek better economic opportunities. Since the majority of the immigrants
84 Philip Davis, ed., Immigration and Americanization (New York: Ginn and Company, 1920) 378. 85 U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Senate Documents, vol. 69 (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911), 227. 86 See Also:U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Senate Documents, vol. 69 (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911), 226, 227; U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Senate Documents, doc. 633. Immigrants in Industries: Part 18 & Part 20, (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911), 341,419,430, 800, 807; Edwin Fenton, Immigrants and Unions (New York: Arno Press, 1975), 79; Prescott Hall. Immigration and its Effects Upon the United States (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1907) 57; Edith M Phelps, Restriction of Immigration (New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1920), 48; John Higham, Strangers in the Land:Patterns of American Nativism 1869-1925 (New York: Antheneum, 1967), 115; Frederic J. Haskin, The Immigrant: An Asset and a Liability (London: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1913), 117; Joseph McGarity Perry, The Impact of Immigration on Three American Industries, 1865 - 1914. (New York: Arno Press, 1978), 115; and Edward Alsworth Ross, The Old World and the New (New York: The Century Co., 1814), 207.
67 were generally classes of laborers, skilled to unskilled, their opportunity lie wherever someone was willing to pay them more for their services.
The Dillingham Commission reported that:
The immigrants are also generally said to manifest much greater perseverance in their endeavors to secure work than is shown by natives. An American who applies for work when told that there is none available lets the matter drop. On the other hand, the immigrant who is refused employment on one day goes back the next and besieges the employer until cause is shown why there is no work or a place is secured. The same general disposition marks the immigrant's efforts to secure work for his fellows. The native will go so far as to introduce his friend to the foreman, but the immigrant does not stop at this point. He pleads with the foreman and assumes responsibility for the satisfactory working qualities of his fellow countryman.87
It was a perfect marriage between the nascent capitalistic entrepreneur in America and the flood of immigrants who poured daily into the eastern ports looking for jobs. The method and means by which they were able to transverse the Atlantic Ocean and the many states could vary but the ultimate goals never waivered. An employer, whether in the public or private sector, needed a labor supply to operate his project and the immigrant willing to provide that supply.
Each morning, the employer who was seeking labor for their operation could expect a new source of immigrants at their gates eager to be hired. As Don Leschoier in his article "Immigration and Labor Supply" presents the scene:
Inasmuch as there was no organized labor market, and as immigration continually replenished the labor-supply, each
87 U.S. Senate, 61st Congress, 2d session. Reports of the Immigration Commission: Immigrants in Industry. Part 1: Bituminous Coal Mining (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1911), 650.
68
American employer and each locality developed a local labor- reserve. Each employer expected as a matter of course that there would be idle men at his factory-gate to-morrow morning--every morning. And there were. He based his production policy upon that expectation.88
Mobility
For the needs of industry, especially in a period of dramatic expansionism, a workforce that would travel to meet the needs of their labor force was indeed an attractive resource for management. The marketing and business cycles in the capitalistic system had a history of periods of recession and prosperity. A floating labor supply that was willing to travel any distance to offer their labor at any given time was an attribute most managers desired to fulfill their timely needs which changed with the business cycles.
The Dillingham Commission reported this salient quality of recent immigrants and their fulfilling the needs of local labor markets regardless of where they originated from:
Another salient quality of recent immigrants who have sought work in American industries has frequently been that they have constituted a mobile, migratory, wage-earning class, constrained mainly by their economic interest, and moving readily from place to place according to changes in working conditions or fluctuations in the demand for labor. This condition of affairs is made possible by the fact that so large a proportion of the recent immigrant employees, as already pointed out, are single men or married men whose wives are abroad, and by the additional fact that the prevailing method of living among immigrant workmen is such as to enable them to detach themselves from a locality or an occupation whenever they may wish. Their accumulations are also,
88 Don D. Leschoier "Immigration and the Labor-Supply" Atlantic Monthly. April 1919 http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/immigrat/lescof.htm (accessed: June 11, 2011).
69
as a rule, in the form of cash or quickly convertible into cash. In brief, the recent immigrants have no property or other restraining interests which attach them to a community, and a large proportion are free to follow the best industrial inducements.89
Endurance and Physical Strength
In Edward Slavishak's "Bodies of Work: Industrial Workers' Bodies in
Pittsburgh, 1880-1915," he explores in-depth the physiological requirements of workers who had to fulfill their requirements of tasks in order to retain their employment and receive their wages:
Employers believed that the much-valued combination of strength, endurance, and docility could be found much more readily in immigrants from southern and eastern Europe than in western Europeans and native-born Americans. New immigrants, with their "splendid physiques and powers of endurance," were "apparently insensible to the rigors of January" and could withstand the summer heat as well.90
Peter F. Roberts also attests to the physical strengths of the immigrant labor:
The Slav is a good machine in the hands of competent director. He is obedient and amenable to discipline, courageous and willing to work, prodigal of his physical strength and capable of great physical endurance.91
The immigrant worker received high marks for possessing the physical abilities that were so important to the attainment of production goals. Those qualities of endurance
89 U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Senate Documents, doc. 747, Abstracts of Reports of the Immigration Commission, (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911), 500. 90 Edward Steven Slavishak, "Bodies of Work: Industrial Workers' Bodies in Pittsburgh, 1880-1915" (dissertation, University of North Carolina, 2002), 67. 91 Peter Roberts, Peter Roberts, The New Immigration (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1913), 36.
70 and physical strength were reported by the Dillingham Commission as well as the observations of many scholars and historians.92
The introduction of mechanization to the coal and iron-making process did not lessen the need for such physiological abilities. In fact the care and feeding of such machinery, in some cases, intensified the physiological demands from labor.
Charles Reitell, in his 1917 book "Machinery and its Benefits to Labor in the
Crude Iron and Steel Industries" defines the physical endurance and strength needed to perform in such industries:
Their duty is to take the stock in the barrows from the elevator, haul them twenty to twenty-five feet to the bell, where they dump the contents into the furnace. They also operate the mechanism which lowers the bell and drops the charge into the furnace proper. This latter operation permits the escape of large quantities of gas, which makes it both disagreeable, and often dangerous, to the workers. Top-fillers are common, unskilled laborers, and receive ordinary laboring wages. Their work demands tremendous physical endurance.93
92 For additional testimonies to the endurance and physical strength of immigrants see: Andrew Roy, A History of the Coal Miners of the United States (Columbus, OH: Trauger Printing Co., 1907), 303, 414, 452; Kellogg, 17,98; Robert F. Zeidel, Immigrants, Progressives, and Exclusion Politics:The Dillingham Commission, 1900-1927 (DeKalb,IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2004), 55; Peter Roberts, The New Immigration (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1913) 20, 61, 219; Paul Fox, The Poles in America (New York: George H Doran Company, 1922) 69, 75; William P. Shriver, Immigrant Forces : Factors in the New Democracy (New York: Missionary Education Movement of the United States and Canada, 1913) 84; U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, doc. 633. Reports of the Immigration Commission: Immigrants in Industries, Part 2 Iron and Steel Manufacturing (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911.) 611; Emily Greene Balch, Our Slavic Fellow Citizens (Philadelphia, PA: Wm. F. Fell Co.,1910) 301, 365, 377; Frank Julian Warne, “The Effect of Unionism upon the Mine Worker," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 21 (1903), 23; Erickson, 23,127; and Edward Alsworth Ross, The Old World in the New (New York: The Century Company, 1914), 102, 228. 93 Charles Reitell, Machinery and its Benefits to Labor in the Crude Iron and Steel Industries (Menasha, WI: The Collegiate Press, 1917), 12.
71
Stable Work Force
In the case of those immigrants who eventually decided to stay and provide the means for their families to join them, mobility was no longer one of their characteristics as they settled in industrial cities and towns. The one-town, one-company arrangements guaranteed to the manufacturer a stable supply of labor that would be available with the ebb and flow of production demands. It also provided a labor supply of women and children, since such immigrants families were always in need of additional income, particularly in times of layoffs due to downside business cycles.
The community, in most instances, became part of the industrial complex as its provision of an available labor supply when needed was of great importance to the company. It is no wonder then that the Dillingham Commission, in its fieldwork of data collection, went beyond the walls of the factory and into the contiguous community. W.
Jett Lauck in his 1917 article, "The Economic Investigations of the United States
Immigration Commission", explains the data collecting methodology used by the investigators in collecting the data. Lauck, one of several academic members of the commission, reported on those criteria that were used in the investigation of families in the community. They were:
(1) household conditions; (2) living arrangements; (3) rent; (4) residence and birthplace of children; (5) ability to speak English; (6) literacy; (7) schooling in United States and abroad; (8) language spoken at home, at work, at school, and at church; (9) annual earnings of members of households at work; (10) months worked during past year; (11) amount and sources of annual family income; (12) property owned in the United States; (13) affiliations with labor and fraternal organizations; (14) money sent abroad; (15) money on landing in the United States; (16) reasons for coming to
72
the United States; (17) occupation in which engaged since landing in the United States; (18) periodicals and newspapers read. 94
With particular relevance to this thesis, Laucks completes his reporting with the following footnote:
In several industries, such as coal mining and iron and steel, family budgets showing annual family income and expenditures were also collected. It was planned to do this for employees for all industries, but time was not available.95
The companies often crossed the line in consolidating some relationship with the employees in their communities.
South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is a good example of the one company, one-town development in America during this period of time. Originally founded by the Moravians as a farming community, the development and expansion of the Bethlehem Steel
Company, following the Civil War, turned the area into an industrial complex. By 1910, the inflow of immigrants needed to fill the demands of the company turned the area into a multi-ethnic community. In the approximate area of some 25 miles, contiguous to the giant industrial complex, before 1880 only six Protestant and one Catholic church existed. By the year 1920, there were now twenty-one churches and a synagogue.
94 W. Jett Lauck, "The Economic Investigation of the United States Commission," The Journal of Political Economy 18, no. 7 (1910): 529-530. 95 Ibid., 530.
73
Table 10 The Cultural Transformation of So. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Ethnic Transformation of So. Bethlehem, PA. as Indicated by the Construction of Religious Places of Worship Year Church Congregation Established The First Moravian Church of South Bethlem Moravian 1862 Saint Peter's Lutheran Church German 1864 Episcopal Church of the Nativity English 1865 Holy Infancy Roman Catholic Church Irish 1883 Saint Bernard's Roman Catholic Church German 1886 Saints Cyril and Methodius Roman Catholic Church Slovak 1891 Fritz Memonal Methodist Church multi-ethnic 1893 First Reformed Church of South Bethlehem German 1896 Church of the Holy Rosary Italian 1902 Saint John Capistrano Roman Catholic Church Hungarian 1903 Saint Mathew's Lutheran, (missionary) multi-ethnic 1904 Saint Mark's Evangelical (missionary) multi-ethnic 1904 Saint Stanislaus Roman Catholic Church Polish 1906 Holy Ghost Roman Catholic Church German/Ausrian 1910 Saint John's Evangelical Lutheran Slovenian Congregation Lutheran 1910 Saint Josaphat's Ukrainian (Byzantine) Catholic Church Ukrainian 1916 Saint John's Windish Evangelical Lutheran Church multi-ethnic 1916 Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church Greek 1917 Saints Peter and Paul Byzantine Catholic Ruthenian- 1917 Saint Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church Russian 1917 Source: Woodward Christian Carson "South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1880-1920: Industrialization, Immigration and the Development of a Religious Landscape" (master's thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 2000), 10 - 92.
The significance of such a transformation is that the worker and employer were located in a contiguous relationship to each other. There was, essentially, a supply of labor literally at the doorstep of the industry. As the families settled in the community with the purchase of homes and funding of churches, it was a work force that was stable and literally beholden to the company for employment.
Piecework
For centuries and generations, the European peasant laborer was paid for what they achieved or accomplished for the employer. There were no time clocks, union contracts, labor arbitrators, or paid vacations or holidays. If the land laborer picked four bushels of olives the landlord would only pay him for those bushels. If he sowed seven
74 acres of wheat, he received payment for that specific amount of work. If the artisan made a new pair of shoes for the purchaser he was paid for what he produced, not on how much time he spent making them.
It was therefore not a radical change for the immigrant to enter an industrial world that preferred utilizing, in most cases, the system of piecework that compensated the employees based on what they had produced, not on how much time they spent at their job 96 So prevalent was the practice, which of course rewarded the worker on the basis of production, that Frederick Winslow Taylor devoted some seventy-nine pages of his one- hundred page treatise on The Principle of Scientific Management on the investigation of such a practice. Taylor's purpose was to illuminate management on methods by which they could obtain increased production from the worker by revolutionizing those current methods and practices.
The method of paying the worker for the tasks, or pieces, he had accomplished was commonplace during the period covered by this thesis. Scott Nearing and Frank
Watson in their 1911 economics book produced for their classes at the Wharton School of
Finance at the University of Pennsylvania simplify the manufacturer's reason why he preferred to pay the worker on a piecework basis:
96For further information on the subject of "piece work" see also: Edward Young, Labor in Europe and America (Philadelphia, PA: S.A. George and Company, 1875) 205-724; State of New York, Reports of the Factory Investigating Commission volumes 1- 5(Albany, NY: J.B. Lyon Company, 1915); U.S. Commissioner on Labor, Cost of Production : Iron, Steel, Coal (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1891); U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Immigrants in Industries, Part 23:Summary Report on Immigrants in Manufacturing and Mining, Vol. 2 (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911.), 71,404.
75
The boss does not use the whip to keep his laborers at work, but he does employ various means which are even more effective. He puts his men on a system of "piecework;" that is, they are paid so much per piece of work that they do, instead of so much per hour. For example, a man may solder the bottom to the frame of a lantern at three cents per lantern or thirty cents per hour. If he works by the hour, there is no incentive to work hard, but if by the piece, he will do his best to solder at least ten lanterns an hour, and perhaps eleven or twelve, for each additional one means an addition to the pay envelope. Then it is tacitly understood that a man must solder ten lanterns an hour or leave. So the piece-work system sets a rapid standard and places every incentive before the wage worker to exceed that standard.97
David Montgomery in his The Fall of the House of Labor explores the reasons why organized labor lost its battle against management. As Montgomery explains throughout his book, piecework became the contentious and cathartic issue that created confrontational battles between management and organized labor. The older immigrants, usually skilled, who made up the core of organized labor would not accept the method of piecework as a basis for their compensation. They fought to maintain the hourly system for compensation of their time.98
The new immigrant, however, preferred the piecework method of compensation because as laborer usually at the bottom of the pay scale they could earn much more than their usual hourly wage. The willingness of the immigrant to accept that arrangement made him the preferred employee of management because it helped them to control costs while increasing production. Since the immigrant was so willing, and there were many
97 Scott Nearing and Frank Watson, Economics (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1911), 183. 98 David Brody, The Fall of the House of Labor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 216, 218, 226, 227, 235, 244, 246.
76 always looking for a job, labor was not only unsuccessful in their demands they lost their power as more and more immigrants migrated to America looking for employment.99
In an investigative report by the State of Illinois it is noted simply that, "Most of the men work on a tonnage basis, so that, as for all piecework, the saying is 'the miner is paid what he earns.'"100 Further references, as indicated in the footnote, clearly indicates that the employer has established a system whereby they could control the rate of production by compensating the employee based on "piecework."
Immigrants, whose major motivation was to accumulate as much cash as possible in order to send remittances back to his family in Europe, save enough to finance the passage of his family and/or relatives to America, or return to his native land to buy the land he always dreamed of, was eager to produce as much as he could accomplish to achieve his personal financial goals. It was a quid pro quo that the capitalistic American entrepreneur delighted in accommodating.
Unorganized Labor
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the active rise of organized labor led generally by those workers whose parentage were born in America, began to agitate against the dangerous work environments of American industries; this was especially true in the coal, iron and steel industries. Their educational levels made them
99 David Brody, The Fall of the House of Labor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 18, 48, 66, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79. 100 State of Illinois, The Immigrant and the Coal Mining Communities of Illinois (Springfield, IL: Bulletin of the Immigrants Commission No. 2, 1920), 20.
77 more aware of civil and legal rights embodied within the laws of the country, in particular
Amendment Fourteen of the U.S. Constitution.
The era gave rise to some of the bloodiest conformations of labor against industry in American history which involved thousands of workers resulting in deaths and destruction: the Great Southwest Railroad Strike of 1886 (200,000 strikers); the Pullman
Strike of 1894 (250,000 strikers); the Great Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902 (147,000 strikers); and the Steel Strike of 1919 (350,000 strikers) to mention only those which involved a huge amount of workers.101 There were many local skirmishes like the
Homestead strike of 1892, which pitted the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel
Workers against the Carnegie Steel Corporation. Sever strikers were killed in that confrontation.102
This disruptiveness to the actual or planned production goals of the corporations was decidedly devastating by such strikes or work slowdowns. The availability of an unorganized, unaffiliated source of labor supply was extremely appealing to the industrial sector. Immigrants were used in many instances to supply the labor needs when the older employees decided to go on strike or organize as unions for the purpose of arbitrating their grievances with management. It was only a matter of time, however, when the immigrants began to join the unions as they began to understand their rights in America.
101 http://247wallst.com/2010/09/03/the-ten-biggest-labor-strikes-in-american-history/2/ (accessed 11/09/2011) 102 Edward W. Bemis, “The Homestead Strike,” Journal of Political Economy, 2, no. 3 (1894): 369-396.
78
The increased use of mechanization also benefitted the company as it helped rid itself of skilled workers who tended to be members of labor organizations. As Priscilla
Long tells us in her treatise Where the Sun Never Shines, "The undercutting machine benefited the coal operator only ... The machine became the means to political ends, inasmuch as the skilled workers it eliminated were also the most pro-union segment of the work force."103
Financially Indebted Worker
Immigrants were almost always burdened with a financial obligation that continued the pressure of maintaining their employment, whatever the circumstances. An immigrant was therefore vulnerable to the management's dictates as to working and living conditions.
From the moment immigrants decided to courageously venture out from their villages and travel to America for a better life for themselves or their families, they would incur indebtedness to one or more parties along the way. The payment of those one time and reoccurring debts made the immigrant an attractive employee for management. There were no public sector services; one either worked or they relied on the limited resources of churches, friends, or the income of their wife and/or children.
The immediate obligation of immigrants in their venture to America usually entailed some sort of financial remittance to their immediate family for their continued support or savings intended for their eventual joining then in America, friends who had helped them with finances needed for their voyage, or debtors who had loaned them the
103 Priscilla Long, Where the Sun Never Shines (New York: Paragon House, 1989), 136.
79 money for their trip to America. It was in a sense an investment, which was usually done with young men since they were the most attractive candidates for industrial work in
America. But it was a moral obligation, as well, witnessed by the amounts of remittances that they sent back to families throughout Europe. From January 1, 1907 to June 30,
1909, $245.9 million dollars were remitted by the immigrant via their "correspondent banking houses of their immigrant banks" to their homelands.104
Once employed, and particularly in an industrial complex commonly known as a
"mill town" or "company town," immigrants and their families had no choice but to utilize those living arrangements owned and operated by the company either directly or indirectly. One of the arrangements for employment was that immigrants must patronize the company store. Since some states prevented the practice of companies operating a company stores, they used various legal methods to avoid that violation with formation of a separate corporation. It was well worth it for the industrial sector to do so because besides holding the worker in a state of financial bondage, it was also a very lucrative arrangement for the company.
The company usually purchased most of the land surrounding its manufacturing establishment and controlled the building of any structures including lodging facilities. It would then rent out such facilities to the workers as groups of men living together or
104 U.S. Congress, 61st, 3d Session, Abstracts of the Reports of the Immigration Commission (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911), 425.
80 families. According to the Federal Bureau of Labor estimate, the rent amounted each year to more than 200 per cent of the company's original investment."105
The company store was virtually the only place where most workers could purchase whatever they needed to work, eat, clothe themselves, or buy necessities for their lodgings or houses. Miners, for instance, leased their tools (picks and axes) and had them sharpened occasionally at the company store where they were also "compelled to purchase their powder and other explosives."106
The family bought its groceries from the company store. Credit was available to the families but such a financial arrangement ended if the worker was fired. One could also pay in company scrip, which he received as pay in lieu of money, but such scrip was only cashable at the company store. Deductions from the pay of workers were commonplace, used to pay for rentals and purchases at the company store. This arrangement also applied to health benefits, including local physician services, deducted from the worker's pay in the form of monthly dues.
The worker's entire life was tied into the company. Union organizers attempted not only to change working conditions but often times to dissolve this state of semi- slavery with the financial indebtedness that had a hold on their entire life. The company had no incentive to change the situation:
The companies were not compelled as a result of agitation or protest to increase wages, shorten hours, make their mines safer, improve their houses, or free their operatives from trading at the
105 Brody, 111. 106 U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Immigrants in Industries, Part 1: Bituminous Coal Mining (Washington, D.C., 1911), 95.
81
company stores, in order to hold the natives and former workmen since they were able to full their places without difficulty with recent immigrants107
For the immigrant worker such living conditions, in most cases, were a step up from their previous life. A convenient store existed where they had a variety of choices in food, they now had health care, they no longer were subject to the whims of despotic rulers and no longer subject to the agricultural landlords power of paying them or not paying them for the work they performed. For the non-immigrant worker, however, who had choices there were other opportunities in a rapidly expanding economy.
Frugal
Whatever their national origin, Southern or Eastern Europe, the lower class citizens of those countries learned how to live on very limited budgets. The agrarian economy offered little opportunity for the common land laborer to possess any significant amount of spendable income. Dependency on crops, which could be affected by a numerous amount of calamities (insects, weather, droughts), had over the centuries trained them to be frugal. It was basically a question of their survival. It was a trait which would help them to survive the business cycles which affected their terms of employment. Richmond Mayo Smith recorded that the immigrant worker was "extremely industrious, frugal and peaceable."108 Prescott Hall, who generally wrote about immigrants in tones of distaste, stated that "they lived in the cheapest locations and in the
107 Ibid, 424. 108 Richmond Mayo Smith, Emigration and Immigration (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898), 144.
82 most frugal way."109 Frank Julian Warne lauded them for their attitude:"Here they have the prospect by industry, frugality, and perseverance, of bettering their condition, and raising themselves in society." 110 Edward A. Steiner, a supporter of immigration, observed that they were "industrious, intelligent, honest, frugal, patriotic, and God- fearing noble qualities for American citizenship."111
Frugality fit well with the goals and motives of the industrial operators, because the immigrant would not demand much and would make do within the wage scale that was most beneficial to the corporate entrepreneur and investor. Such frugality, however, translated into the acceptance of bare essentials as a standard of living, which unfortunately created a negative perception in the eyes of native-born Americans. As a result, the traditional American chose not to live in the same neighborhoods as new immigrants. With the encroachment of immigrants into the established neighborhoods, what generally resulted was an exodus out of the area by earlier immigrants.
Cheap Labor
"Cheap labor" is probably the one term which most historians repeatedly use with regards to immigration and its attractiveness to the industrial employers. It is a trite expression that does not do justice to all the complexities of the immigrant and employers' inter-relationship about market, wages, and labor pressures.112 Cheap labor
109 Prescott Hall, Immigration and its Effect Upon the United States (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1907), 110. 110 Frank Julian Warne, The Tide of Immigration (New York: Appleton & Co., 1916), 161. 111 Edward A. Steiner, On the Trail of the Immigrant (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co, 1906), 109. 112 For the uses of cheap labor as the only reason for the explanation of the relationship between immigrants and employers see the following: U.S. Congress, 42d, 1st session, Special Report on
83 was no doubt one of the main considerations but by far not the only one. In addition the term itself connotes far more in the capitalistic rules of profit-making than the fact that they were able to attract such immigrant workers at a lower wage scale than the current employee or the traditional American worker.
The lowering of wage scales were not created merely by the availability of immigrants. It was the result of the industrial revolution, which in its process of evolution relied less on artisan skilled help and more on unskilled labor and machinery. This evolution was caused by the increasing introduction of mechanization in the process of production. According to Priscilla Long:
At the root of increased productivity was the undercutting machine, introduced into the largest mines to mechanize the task requiring the most skill. Even more fundamental, managers attempted to reorganize the work so that unskilled men could do it.113
The unskilled worker could be trained in a few days to perform a simple repetitive task. According to the Dillingham Commission report:
Herein lies the chief value of the machine to the mine owner. It relieves him for the most part of skilled labor and of all the restraints which that implies. It opens to him the whole labor market from which to recruit his force; it enables him to concentrate the work of the mine at given points, and it admits of the graduation of wages to specific work and payment of wages by the day. The results of this introduction of machinery consist not only in the greater execution of the machine, but in the subdivision
Immigration, (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1871), 64, 120; U.S. Congress, 42d, 1st session, Special Report on Immigration, (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1871), 64, 120; Priscilla Long, Where the Sun Never Shines (New York: Paragon House, 1989), 132, 133; Roberts, 33, 195, 343; Eckel, 247, 342; Van Metre, 358; Isaac A. Hourwich, “The Economic Aspects of Immigration," The Academy of Political Science Vol. 26, No. 4 (1911), 634, 641; and William M. Leiserson, Adjusting Immigrant and Industry (New York Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1924), 54, 129, 130, 184. 113 Priscilla Long, Where the Sun Never Shines (New York: Paragon House, 1989), 119.
84
of labor which it involves, and the greater per capita efficiency of the force thus secured. The gain is consequently to the employer rather than to the men. The mining machine is in fact the natural enemy of the coal miner; it destroys the value of his skill and experience, obliterates his trade, and reduces him to the rank of a common laborer or machine driver if he remains where it is.114
Since the primary goal of capital investment is to maximize profits, the unskilled worker, not expected to be on the same level of the wage scale as the skilled or semi- skilled, proved to be the more desirable candidate for employment in the ever increasing mechanized industrial evolution. Native-born American workers generally did not accept those jobs on the lower wage scale in such unskilled positions:
The question of improved machinery and its bearing upon the labor situation is of great importance everywhere, but nowhere more than in the steel industry. There has been a policy of daring, almost to the point of recklessness, that probably no other industry can duplicate. No change has been overlooked that would put a machine at work in place of a man; thousands of men have been displaced in this way since 1892, and yet the industry has so grown that more men, in the aggregate, are employed than ever before.115
As David Brody wrote in his monograph Steelworkers in America: the
Nonunion Era, "the market position of the skilled men was deteriorating under the impact of technological advance."116 The immigrant was willing to sell their unskilled services at the market price while the traditional American workers were not inclined to do so. The immigrant, therefore, in the expanding coal, iron,
114 U.S. Congress, Session 2d, Senate Document 683, Immigrants in Industries:Bituminous Coal Mining, Part 1 (Washington, D.C.:GPO, 1911), 657. 115 Fitch, 140. 116 Brody, 51.
85 and steel industries became a most welcomed commodity for the capitalist and the entrepreneur. 117
With the attributes and work ethics as presented in this chapter, the capitalists, entrepreneurs, and management had an able and competent working partnership that would seal the symbiotic relationship. The benefits to America, in its expansive era of 1870-1920, have been presented in the early chapters. We will now see how interrelated that relationship became with direct correlative evidence of the foreign-born ethnic composition of labor to the growth of major industries that nurtured the symbiotic relationship.
117 For more information on mechanization in the industrial revolution and its affect on production, wages, status of laborers and working conditions see the following: Lippincott; Kellogg,; Hourwich, "The Economic Aspects of Immigration," Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Dec. 1911), pp. 615-642; and Willard I. Thorp, "Evolution of Industry and Organization of Labor," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 184, (Mar., 1936), pp. 39-44.
86
Chapter 7
SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP: THE BENEFIT TO THE INDUSTRIALIST
Like the Möbius strip, the capital-labor relationship represented a continuous reliance on each other for the achievement of their respective goals. Such a symbiotic relationship of co-dependence existed in the coal, iron, and steel industries. They are the industries that are recognized as the bedrock for the industrial revolution.
What will now be presented is statistical data that will show the importance of that symbiotic relationship to the economic growth of America. Data on native-born workers, those born of foreign parents or born in foreign countries, and production will display the interdependent need of capital and labor for each other’s resources. Such interdependence influenced the productive levels that determined the industrialist’s success. I will also present that due to other factors presented in this thesis, the symbiotic relationship of the immigrant laborer to the industrialist was a major determinant in the industrialist’s production levels.
In the opening chapter of Burton J. Hendrick's The Age of Big Business published
in 1919, he states, with a certain amount of exhilarated pride, that America has experienced enormous change since its Civil War days:
The America of Civil War days was a country without transcontinental railroads, without telephones, without European cables, or wireless stations, or automobiles, or electric lights, or sky-scrapers, or million-dollar hotels, or trolley cars, or a thousand other contrivances that today supply the conveniences and comforts of what we call our American civilization.118
118 Burton J. Hendrick, The Age of Big Business (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1919), 2.
87
He fails to mention, however, that each one of the achievements, from the railroads to the trolley cars, which indicate the vast change in American society, would not have been possible without the amazing advancements and production in the coal, iron, and steel industries in America. His narrative focuses on the history of big business in America and its startling growth during the post-Civil War era without too much detail as to how it achieved such advancements.
The Dillingham Commission, on the contrary, dedicated most of its investigative work to the details of what had created such a productive environment in the big business frontier of America. But as Robert F. Zeidel points out in his monograph on the
Dillingham Commission, “Even those who have recognized the breadth of the commission's investigation have criticized its methodology, asserting that it was intended to show the so-called new immigrants at their worst."119 But one of their major conclusions presented in the reports by the Dillingham Commission did not, however, support that intended objective. Far from it:
It is undoubtedly true that the expansion in all branches of industry between thirty and forty years ago was primarily responsible for the original entrance of the southern and eastern Europeans into the operating forces of the mines and manufacturing establishments. They were found, from the standpoint of the employer, to be tractable and uncomplaining. Although they were possessed of a low order of industrial efficiency, it was possible to use them in a more or less satisfactory way. Upon the ascertainment of this fact by the employers and with the realization of the existence of this large source of labor supply, a reversal of conditions occurred. The industrial expansion which had originally caused the immigration of southern and eastern Europeans was in turn stimulated by their
119 Robert F. Zeidel, Immigrants, Progressives, and Exclusion Politics: The Dillingham Commission, 1900- 1927 (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2004), 5.
88
presence, and new industrial undertakings were doubtless projected on the assumption of the continuing availability of this class of labor. At the same time, the influx of southern and eastern Europeans brought about conditions of employment under which there was no sufficient inducement to the races of Great Britain and northern Europe to continue to seek work in those industries. It may be said, therefore, that industrial expansion was the original reason for the employment of races of recent immigration, but that after the availability of this labor became known further industrial expansion was stimulated by the fact of this availability, the original cause thus becoming largely an effect of the conditions it had created.120
Inherent in the Dillingham Commission’s statement is the fact that capital and labor essentially collaborated in an informal but symbiotic manner to provide the impetus for America’s industrial revolution at least during the period of 1870 - 1920. It is difficult to understate such a conclusion, especially after the Dillingham Commission produced forty-two volumes of at least five years’ investigated data. To assure the importance of such a statement it is worth repeating what is the keynote sentence: “after the availability of this (immigrant) labor became known further industrial expansion was stimulated by the fact of this availability, the original cause thus becoming largely an effect of the conditions it had created.”121
Coal Production and Ethnic Composition of the Work Force
Coal was the primary source of power during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. It was essential as the energy supply if one wished to use the methods and practices of production invented by the industrial revolution. Oil and electricity
120 U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Abstracts of Reports of the Immigration Commission, Vol.1, (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911), 494. 121 Ibid., 494.
89 would eventually replace it in certain industries but for this period there were no other efficient sources as coal. Fortunately, it was a resource readily available in the United
States in abundant and seemingly unlimited quantity.122
As in England and earlier pioneers of coal extracting, surface diggings eventually led to tunnels, shaft development, and mines in order to excavate the precious fuel from the depths of the earth. The process became more and more labor intensive as the demands for coal continued to rise during this period. What started out as an artisan's procedure of pick and shovel evolved into one that demanded more unskilled labor with the introduction of machinery. Ironically, machines did not replace labor, but in fact increased its demand as each step in the process was intensified in order to increase production:
The use of machines, therefore, rendered unnecessary the securing of experienced miners in large numbers ... In other words, it was possible to employ unskilled and inexperienced labor to meet demands arising from the rapidly increasing expansion in coal mining and, under these conditions, more and more reliance was placed on the immigrant seeking work in this country... The inexperienced immigrant was more and more used to follow the machines where machine mining could he employed and to do the rough and unskilled work in hand-mining localities.123
In the efficiency of industrial evolution, unskilled workers were given specific tasks to perform in order to get the optimal results for the overall production of the product. In the coal-mining jobs for unskilled workers they were sub-specialists such as:
122 William McInnes et al, ed. The Coal Resources of the World, (Toronto, Canada: Morang & Co. Ltd, 1913). xix - xxix. Note: According to this geological report, United States had a reserve of 3.8 trillion tons of coal. This was far more than all of Europe (east and west) which had a reserve of 784 billion tons. 123 U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Immigrants in Industries, Part 1 Bituminous Coal Mining, Vol.1, (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911.), 658.
90 tipple man, trapper, cager's helper, car coupler, car oiler, mule driver, motor trip rider, check puller, slack shoveler, slate picker, pick carrier, bottom laborer, outside laborer, spragging, and door tender.124 But all these tasks were not part of the old method.
Originally, one skilled miner would have done most of these tasks.
Coal was first excavated in the Appalachian Mountains. With the availability of an immigrant labor supply and the increasing demand for energy (home and industry), coal mining operations expanded westward. The immigrant labor supply, among other positive characteristics, was very mobile as its focus was primarily on employment and immigrants readily moved to places of opportunity. In fact such development of the industry and expansion into new territories, according to the Dillingham Commission report, would not have been possible without such a mobile supply of immigrant labor.
The Commission makes the point by concluding with an example that:
In considering the effects of immigration, the conclusion is irresistible that the employment of immigrant labor has made possible the remarkable expansion of coal mining in the Middle West. Whatever may have been the other effects of the coming of the recent immigrant to the bituminous fields of the Middle West, it is clear that the increase in the output of coal within a comparatively short period would not have been possible without resort to this source of labor supply. The operators would not have been able to secure miners or laborers to develop the territory, and to the employment of recent immigrants the rapid growth of the industry is to be attributed. This fact is at once made evident by a comparison of the increase in output and in number of employees in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois during recent years.125
124 U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Immigrants in Industries, Part 1 Bituminous Coal Mining, Vol.1, (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911.), 626. 125 U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Immigrants in Industries, Part 1 Bituminous Coal Mining, Vol.1, (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911.),661.
91
Figure 11 Coal Production United States versus Germany and United Kingdom Source: J.H. Ronaldson, Monograph on Mineral Resources with Special Reference to the British Empire, (London: John Murray, 1920), 9.
92
Source: Issac A. Hourich, Ph.D. Immigration and Labor, The Economic Aspects of European Immigration to the United States. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1912), 105.
Figure 12 Relative Per Capita Production: Coal versus Agriculture
93
The astounding productive record of coal excavation would not have been possible without the arrival of immigrants who were willing to accept employment in coal mining:
Table 11 Ethnic Composition of Coal Mining Work Force by Areas: 1899
Racial Composition of the Work Force in the Bitumuonous Coal Mines by States, 1899. Pennsylvania Illinois, Indiana Kansas and Middle West South and Ohio Oklahoma Number of Percent Number of Percent Number of Percent Number of Percent Number of Percent Employees to Total Employees of Total Employees of Total Employees of Total Employees of Total Native White (native parents) 36,297 20.11 34,352 40.91 5,691 41.4 6,003 32.04 35,520 55.93 Native Born (foreign parents) 36,716 20.34 16,926 20.16 1,620 11.79 2,717 14.5 2,628 4.14 Foreign White 105,845 58.65 30,143 35.9 4,334 31.53 9,433 50.34 2,968 4.67 Colored/Negro 1,616 0.9 2,547 3.03 2,101 15.28 584 3.12 22,394 35.26 Total 180,474 100 83,968 100 13,746 100 18,737 100 63,510 100 One or both parents are foreign born 142,561 78.99 47,069 56.06 5,954 43.31 12,150 64.84 5,596 8.81 Native Whites 36,297 20.11 34,352 40.91 5,691 41.4 6,003 32.04 35,520 55.93 Colored/Negro 1,616 0.9 2,547 3.03 2,101 15.28 584 3.12 22,394 35.26 Total 180,474 100 83,968 100 13,746 100 18,737 100 63,510 100 Source: U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Immigrants in Industries, Part 1:Bituminous Coal Mining, (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1911) 253, 589, 374-375.
Table 12 Ethnic Composition of the Workforce in American Coal Industry Racial Composition of the Workforce Number of Percent in America's Coal Industry - 1899 Employees of Total
One or both parents are foreign born 213,330 64.41 Native Whites born of Native Parents 117,863 35.59 Colored/Negro 29,242 8.83 Total 331,193 100 Source: U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Immigrants in Industries Part 1:Bituminous Coal Mining, (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 1911) 253, 589, 374-375.
94
Racial Composition of the Workforce in America's Coal Industry - 1899
N u 250,000 m b e 200,000 r
o 150,000 f
W 100,000 o r k 50,000 e r s 0 Born of Foreign Parents Born of Native White Negro Parents Source: U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Immigrants in Industries Part 1:Bituminous Coal Mining, (Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911) 253, 589, 374-375.
Figure 13 Ethnic Composition of the Workforce in America's Coal Industry in 1899
Iron Ore Mining and the Ethnic Composition of the Work Force
One of the essential ingredients in producing iron and steel was iron ore. The intense, steady, and stable heat generated by coal increased the level of productivity of creating the basic iron product. Charcoal had been the original energy source but it was depleted with the overuse of the forests. In colonial America, iron ore was often found on surface areas, especially swampy environments, and could be shoveled with little or no excavation of the earth surface.
The iron makers in America soon discovered that there was even a more abundant supply below the surface. The discovery of iron ore and the making of the basic metal
95 usually labeled as 'pig iron' (because the melted iron poured into a sand bottom and its shapes reminded them of piglets) was an important advancement in America's industrial development.
Iron became an essential product not only for the industrial revolution but also for the agrarian revolution. Wooden implements which were fragile and had a short life of use were replaced by iron ones that were stronger and lasted for a considerably longer time. In the industrial revolution the first railroad lines were made with iron. The first innovative manufacturing machinery of steel, which also made the transition away from wood, were more durable, longer lasting, and stronger.
Table 13 Ethnic Composition in the Workforce of Iron Ore Mining: 1899
Racial Composition in Iron Michigan Minnesota Alabama Ore Mining in the United States Number of Percent Number of Percent Number of Percent 1899 Employees of Total Employees of Total Employees of Total Native White (native parents) 58 2.5 60 3.51 907 25.46 Native (born of foreign parents) 257 11.07 100 5.85 0 0 Foreign 2004 86.34 1548 90.63 203 5.7 Colored/Negro 2 0.09 0 0 2452 68.84 TOTAL 2321 100 1708 100 3562 100 Source: U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Immigrants in Industries, Part 18: Iron Ore Mining , (Washington, D.C., 1911) 510, 549, 563.
96
4,500 Racial Composition of the Workforce In America's Three Leading States in Iron Ore Mining - 1899 N 4,000 u m 3,500 b e r 3,000
o 2,500 f 2,000 W o r 1,500 k e 1,000 r s 500
0 Born of Foreign Parents Native White Negro Source: U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Reports of the Immigration Commission:Immigrants in Industries, Part 18: Iron Ore Mining (Washington, D.C.:GPO, 1911) 510, 549, 563.
Figure 14 Ethnic Composition of the Iron Ore Mining Workforce:1899
Iron and Steel Production and the Ethnic Composition of the Work Force
When Alexander Hamilton outlined how the new country could free itself from the mercantile system of Britain and become a major economic power in the world, he gave a basic blueprint that would take years to complete. One major indicator that the
United States finally achieved that goal in the late nineteenth century was the major increase in the production of iron.
Iron was the base metal from which almost all things were made possible in the industrial development of America. More importantly, the decrease in importation of iron, as in all economic equations, decreased the cost of the product and no longer held
America economic hostage to foreign countries. In the momentous leap in iron production the United States was able to have a surplus sufficient enough to export, despite the home demands for the product.
97
The trade balance placed America in a favorable manufacturing position as other countries relied on imported iron in order to compete on the world market. It was not until 1893 (more than 100 years after Hamilton's suggestions and Congress's vision) that
America turned the corner with a positive iron trade balance.126 By 1899 trade balance for iron was shifted into a positive direction with a recorded $90,600,000, or a shift of 39 million dollars in the period of just nineteen years.
Table 14 United States Transformation to a Positive Trade Balance: 1880-1889
United States and its Shift to a Positive Trade Balance in Iron Imports and Exports: 1880-1899 YEAR Exports Imports Trade Balance 1880 $15,400,000 $64,000,000 ($48,600,000) 1885 $16,600,000 $31,100,000 ($14,500,000) 1890 $27,000,000 $44,500,000 ($17,500,000) 1895 $35,100,000 $25,800,000 $9,300,000 1899 $105,700,000 $15,100,000 $90,600,000 Source: F. W. Taussig, "The Iron Industry in the United States," The Quarterly Jourrnal of Economics , Vol. 14, No. 4 (1900), 475-508.
The achievement of a positive trade balance in iron was due largely to the increase in the production of pig iron. It is the base product that was used for conversion into other iron products and steel and which recorded an amazing increase in output in tandem with the increase in immigrant labor. It is evident that the post-Civil War era, with the introduction of the Bessemer and Open Hearth systems into America's iron industries, witnessed an astounding increase in pig iron. The two major systems, however, needed a substantial increase in unskilled labor to feed, maintain, operate, and
126 F. W. Taussig, "The Iron Industry in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 14, no. 4 (Aug., 1900), pp. 475-508.
98 clean the operations in order to effectively increase production. In the forty-year period of 1830 -1860, 1.8 million gross tons of pig iron was produced. In the forty-year period of 1870- 1910, the era which this thesis is examining, 55.8 million gross tons of pig iron was produced.127
This not only made the value of iron an important trade export but it also raised the United States to the top position in the world. In 1850, America was trailing Great
Britain, Germany, and France; by 1898 America had overtaken them all.
Table 15 Iron Production of United States, Great Britain, and Germany: 1870-1898 Iron Production of United States, Great Britain, and Germany: 1870-1898 Great Britain United States. Germany. Gross Increase % Increase Gross Increase % Increase Gross Increase % Increase Tons Over Prior over Prior Tons Over Prior over Prior Tons Over Prior over Prior YEAR (000) Year (000) Year (000) Year (000) Year (000) Year (000) Year 1870 5,963 1,665 1,391 1875 6,365 402 6.74 2,024 359 21.56 2,029 638 45.87 1880 7,749 1,384 21.74 3,835 1,811 89.48 2,729 700 34.5 1885 7,415 -334 -4.3 4,044 209 5.45 3,687 958 35.1 1890 7,904 489 6.59 9,203 5,159 127.57 4,658 971 26.34 1895 7,703 -201 -2.54 9,446 243 2.64 5,464 806 17.3 1896 8,563 860 11.16 8,623 -823 -8.71 6,375 911 16.67 1897 8,817 254 2.97 9,653 1,030 11.94 6,864 489 7.67 1898 8,681 -136 -1.54 11,774 2,121 21.97 7,216 352 5.13 Source : F.W. Taussig, "The Iron Industry in the United States", The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 14, No. 2 (1900), pp. 143-170.
Iron itself had limited uses; but when converted into steel it was essential for the commercial changes of the industrial revolution. Steel rails not only reduced the maintenance of the old iron rail system but helped to accelerate the building of thousands of new miles. Plates and sheets were necessary for the automobile and tin can industries,
127 Peter Temin, Iron and Steel in Nineteenth-Century America (Boston: The M.I.T. Press, 1964), 264-267.
99 as well as many others which needed steel sheeting to create and produce their products.
Structural steel was necessary for the building of multi-story buildings, skyscrapers, and bridges, which transformed America's towns into modern cities.
The following table shows the astonishing growth in the production of steel products. From 1887-1920, a staggering 27.1 million tons (or 54.2 billion pounds) were produced in America's steel mills.
Table 16 Steel Production in America: 1887-1920 Total Production of Finished Rolled Iron and Steel in Gross Tons : 1887-1920 Iron and Plates and Nail Wire Structural All Other Total Year steel Rails sheets plate rods shapes Rolled Products Gross tons. 1887 2,139,640 603,355 308,432 0 0 2,184,279 5,235,706 1900 2,385,682 1,794,528 70,245 846,291 815,161 3,575,526 9,487,443 1910 3,636,031 4,955,484 45,294 2,241,830 2,266,890 8,475,750 21,621,279 1920 2,604,116 9,337,680 20,577 3,136,907 3,306,748 13,941,835 32,347,863 1887 to 1920 Comparitive Growth in Production Tonnage Increase 464,476 8,734,325 -287,855 3,136,907 3,306,748 11,757,556 27,112,157 Percent Increase 21.71 1,447.63 -93.33 ND ND 538.28 517.83 1887 to 1920 Total Production Tonnage Produced 10,765,469 16,691,047 444,548 6,225,028 6,388,799 28,177,390 68,692,291 Source : American Iron and Steel Institute, Annual Statistical Report for 1920 (New York: American Iron and Steel Institute, 1921), 34.
Andrew J. Carnegie and his steel company, along with other steel companies, were actively involved in hiring immigrant labor. The following statistics validated the above statement. The recruitment of foreign labor enabled Carnegie steel to embark on its program of expansion. Through mergers and acquisitions, and thanks to the availability of an immigrant labor supply that was willing to work in such industrial conditions, capitalization was available to create the United States Steel Corporation. United States
Steel eventually became the world's largest steel producer and Carnegie became a famous figure in America's industrial history.
100
Table 17 shows the ethnic composition of its employees in 1907 during the period of time when Carnegie began his business strategy of acquisitions, mergers, and buy- outs. At the time, 69.52 per cent of the workforce was comprised of foreign labor.
Table 17 Ethnic Employee Composition of Carnegie Steel Company in 1907
Racial Composition of Labor Force Carnegie Steel Company - 1907 Number of Percentage Workers of Labor Force American Born - total 6,036 25.86 White 2,316 9.92 Colored 331 1.42 Foreign Born - total 16,224 69.52 Teuton 1,820 7.8 Celt 1,401 6 Slav 13,003 55.72 Other Races 1,077 4.61 TOTAL 23,337 100 Source: John A. Fitch, The Steel Workers, The Pittsburgh Survey. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1910), 349.
Carnegie was not alone. The entire steel industry came to rely on immigrant labor. The ethnic composition throughout the iron and steel industry mirrored the statistics of the
Carnegie Steel Company.
101
Table 18 Ethnic Composition of the Iron and Steel Workforce in the United States: 1880-1900
Iron and Steel Workers in the United States by Nativity: 1880 - 1900 1880 1890 1900 Number of Percent Number of Percent Number of Percent Employees of Total Employees of Total Employees of Total Native White (native parents) 72,931 63.67 44,813 31.43 94,228 32.78 Native Born (foreign parents) 34,240 24.01 77,665 27.02 Foreign 41,608 36.33 57,754 40.5 103,214 35.91 Negro 5,778 4.05 12,320 4.29 Total 114,539 100.00 142,585 100.00 287,427 100.00
Foreign and Native Born of Foreign Parents 41,608 36.33 91,994 64.52 180,879 62.93 Native Whites 72,931 63.67 44,813 31.43 94,228 32.78 Negro na 0.00 5,778 4.05 12,320 4.29 Total 114,539 100.00 142,585 100.00 287,427 100.00 Source: U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Immigrants in Industries, Part 2: Iron and Steel Manufacturing ( Washington, D.C., 1911), 21-23. [information compiled from U.S. Census]
Iron and Steel Workers in the United States by Nativity: 1880 - 1900
300,000 N Negro u W 250,000 m o 200,000 b r Native Whites e k 150,000 r e r 100,000 o s Born of Foreign 50,000 f Parents 0 1880 1890 1900
Source: U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Immigrants in Industries, Part 2: Iron and Steel Manufacturing (Washington, D.C., GPO,1911), 21-23.
Figure 15 Iron and Steel Workers in the United States by Nativity; 1880 to 1900
From 1880 to 1900 the number of workers more than doubled, driven by the needs of the industry, with an increase of 150.94 per cent or 172,888 workers. Of that increase, immigrant labor and their immediate descendents increased in the workforce by
102
148.06 per cent or 139,271. From 1870 - 1900, they became the majority (62.93 per cent) of the workforce at a time and represented 80.5 percent of the increase in additional workers. At the same time production of all forms of fabricated steel increased from 5.2 to 9.4 millions gross ton. The increase continued into 1920 achieving a level of 32.3 millions tons.128 Ironically, these production achievements came at a time when Congress began to enact laws restricting immigration based on national origin quotas. In 1924, the
“Golden Door” was closed to the very people who had comprised the major source of laborers in the coal, iron, and steel industries. The doors were golden to immigrants because in the symbiotic relationship with industry their lives were transformed for the most part as land laborers and shopkeepers to capitalists themselves. They were elevated into a higer economic status, in America and their homeland.
128 U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Immigrants in Industries, Part 2: Iron and Steel Manufacturing (Washington, D.C., 1911), 21-23.
103
Chapter 8
SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP: THE BENEFIT TO THE NEW IMMIGRANT
The immigrants in their venture to another country and culture faced unparallel obstacles in their travel and settlement. The trip alone from various sectors of southern and eastern Europe offered perilous, dangerous, and unsafe conditions, which could end their lives or the lives of their families. The acclimation process in the new country presented the immigrants with a series of challenges. They found it difficult to assimilate into the culture with little or no knowledge of the language. Predominantly employment opportunities for the unskilled immigrant laborer were those that only needed physical endurance, strength, and stamina. The living conditions in most of the industrial cities were substandard, unhealthy, and dirty. In the coal, iron, and steel industries, the immigrant's possibility of never seeing their families again due to dangers in their employment was above average.
So why would the immigrant chance such a major disruption of life to venture to a new land, a life to which they knew would never return? Why would they chance a new interdependence on an economic system of which for which they had no previous skills? Why would they disengage themselves from a culture which had centuries of identification to enter a new one with which they had no heritage connection? Why would they increase their chance of never seeing again their loved ones, wives, children, parents, and elders? Why would they forge a new symbiotic relationship with an industrial environment, which placed themselves and their families in considerably greater hardships than they were used to?
104
This chapter will show that such a new symbiosis with industrial America offered monetary rewards beyond their wildest dreams. Those monetary rewards would benefit not only themselves but their families as well. It would also benefit their condition in the village or town from where they came, as well as economy of the society they left. It would benefit their own economic quality of life in their new country compared to what they left in the old country. It would transform many of them from poor agrarian laborers to property-owning capitalists, with liquid assets in banks.
Letters by immigrants to their native lands were a major means of communicating those potential economic elevations of anyone wishing to take the chance, the gamble, and the challenge. The return of immigrants who left poor and came back to retrieve their families of course impressed the natives. As Marcus Lee Hansen, notes in his book
The Atlantic Migration, 1907-1860:
Letters, remittances and legacies attested that emigrants were making a success, but the most convincing and un- answerable evidence was the reappearance of the expatriate himself. Sometimes he returned in so short a space of time as to be scarcely credible, as when the emigrant of one spring came back the following winter with earnings sufficient to transport the rest of his family.129
According to the Immigration Commission reports of 1911:
The word comes again and again that "work is abundant and wages princely in America." In an Italian village near Milan the Immigration Bureau's inspectors found an English-speaking peasant acting as receiver and distributer of letters from America. Letters are sent from village to village by persons having friends in the United
129 Marcus Lee Hansen, The Atlantic Migration, 1607-1860 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961), 54.
105
States, and one letter may influence in this way a score of peasants.130
Immigrant Banks
One of the peculiar financial institutions which began to appear in America were those created and supported by the earnings of the new immigrants. They became known as immigrant banks, which came into being for a variety of reasons. A major one was the language barrier, which kept immigrants away from the front door of established
American financial institutions. Another was the failue of those institutions to cater to the needs of immigrants other than the depositing and withdrawl of their funds. The immigrants distrust of placing their money in the control of people from another culture was another factor.
The Dillingham Commision in its investigations found that there were 2,625 immigrant banks, which they could locate, throughout the United States. In their investigation they found that many of them were closely connected with an ethnic group.
Many of the immigrant banks were operated as part of an enterprise or business which could also serve the needs of the immigrant. Such business enterprises that were conducted along with the immigrant banks included: real estate agencies, insurance and collecting agencies, notarial offices, labor agencies, postal substations, book, jewelry, and foreign novelty stores; saloon keepers, grocers, butchers, and fruit venders; general merchants, wholesalers and importers, barbers, boarding bosses or room renters,
130 U.S. Congress, Senate, 61st, 3d sess., doc. 748. Reports of the Industrial Commission. Emigration Conditions in Europe (Washington, DC: GPO, 1911), 57.
106 printers, pool-room keepers, furniture dealer, and undertakers.131 Such establishments offered the immigrant additional services, such as writing letters to their families, reading such responding letters, interpretation and completion of official forms required by the federal or local governments, and job referrals.
Established financial institutions were also used by the immigrants once they began to learn the native language and became more comfortable with dealing with such banks. The failure, as well as perpetrated frauds by some immigrant banks, also helped to hasten the immigrants move to such facilities. As the Dillingham Commission in one of its main conclusion stated, "Immigrant banks are usually unauthorized concerns, privately owned, irresponsibly managed, and seldom subject to any efficient supervision or examination." 132 Regulations were eventually legislated as bankruptcies, fraud, and absconding with immigrant savings made the major ones less reliable and untrustworthy even for the immigrants.
What had developed, in this symbiotic relationship with the American economy, was the creation of new wealth among those who previously had little or none. This new wealth, whether or not they intended to stay in America or return home, gave them the financial power they had never previously possessed. This wealth was expendable above the necessities of life with which they could support their families, acquire new possessions, relieve old debts, and invest for future returns.
131 Ibid.,416. 132 Ibid., 301.
107
Remittances
Remittances to the countries abroad was not new to this period in American history. Since the earliest colonial settlers, such form of wealth sharing by an immigrant, indenture servant, or colonist to their home of origin was an integral part of their lives. It remains the same to this day as the wave of new immigrants monthly send millions of dollars to such countries as Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and the Phllippines, among others.
The millions of dollars that were remitted to the European countries by the immigrants provides some astounding figures. From January 1907 to June 1909, for example, a total of $243,878,478 or a little more than $20 million dollars a month was sent to the following European countries: Austria-Hungary, Finland, Germany, Italy,
Russia, Balkan and Scandinavian States. In addition, remittance to other European countries and Asian nations totaled $5,615,583.
Immigrants also transmitted their funds through international money orders.
From 1900 to 1909 a total of $419 million dollars by international money orders were sent to European countries. Some of the leading countries, with the figure in millions of dollars following the name in parenthesis, were Great Britain (82), Austria (41), Russia
(41), Germany (34), and Italy (28).
Remittance not only served to pay for immigrants families to come to America but were also instrumental in boosting the economy of their native land with their infusion of needed cash. Immigrants were able to pay off past debts, buy property, support extended families, and generally improve their lives. The possibilities of
108 remittances provided a lure for other immigrants who knowingly were prepared to suffer harsh working conditions where "...the long shifts meant greater earnings." This would enable them to send their new wealth to families back home.133 It may well have been one of the major stimuli for the recruitment of immigration labor to America. As Hansen points out in The Atlantic Migration, 1607-1869, "From America came a swelling stream of remittances that firmly established the principle that "emigration begets emigration."134
Property
Whether or not the immigrant laborer stayed in America or was merely a "bird of passage" seeking to earn enough money to improve his economic well being in the old country, property was, and had always been, his most important asset.135 The ownership of property was a major social, as well as an economic, driving force in the immigrants life. Mark Wyman sums it up well in his book Return to Europe:
Thus the peasant, with mortgage payments which he could not meet or with children for whom he could not provide an adequate patrimony, saw himself face to face with an intolerable decline of social status for himself or for his children; namely, reduction to the position of a property less day laborer. This is the sting which induces many a man among the Slovaks, the Poles, the Ruthenians, to fare overseas or to send out his son to the new land from which men come back with savings.136
133 June Granatir Alexander, Daily Life in Immigrant America, 1870-1920 ( Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2009), 141. 134 Marcus Lee Hansen, The Atlantic Migration, 1607-1860 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1940), 270. 135 Astride R. A Zolberg, Nation by Design (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 6. NOTE: "bird of passage" was a generic name given to immigrants, thanks to the relatively cheap steamship tickets, whose only goal was to work in America but eventually return to their native land. They provided an abundant supply of labor to America that usually coincided with the business cycles. 136 Mark Wyman, Return to Europe, 1880-1930 (London: Cornell University Press, 1993), 37.
109
Such traditional pressures were not lost on the immigrant who came to stay in America. Ethnic enclaves were the norm as those who did stay usually migrated toward those clusters of cultures that were most in line with theirs. Once established, the purchase of property, regardless of size, became one of their primary goals. An unskilled laborer was relatively the same status as a landless peasant in their country of native origin.
For the new immigrant who settled in urban America, the ownership of a home was their means to property wealth since land was scarce or to expensive for their budgets.
The Dillingham Commission studied the home ownership of immigrants and non- immigrants in the following cities: Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee,
New York, and Philadelphia. The data collected in their study gave a decided edge to the recent new immigrants. Of the 10,526 families researched only 5.7 percent of the native- born owned their homes, of the native-born of foreign parents 11.0 percent owned their homes, and of the foreign-born, 10.4 percent owned their homes. The symbiotic relationship with American industry was providing the rewards they were seeking.
Pauperism was slowly being left behind. It was also a testimony to the immigrant’s frugality and eagerness to be Americans, considering that the native born had considerably more time to accumulate wealth with which they could purchase a home.137
137 U.S. Congress, Senate, 61st, 2d sess., doc. 338., Reports of the Industrial Commission. Immigrants in Cities, vI.(Washington, DC: GPO, 1911), 105.
110
The New Entrepreneurs
The immigrants entered the world of American commerce usually as small business operators. In industrial towns there was a tendency for ethnic enclaves to be served by a business owned and operated by one of their culture or from their country. In major cities where the opportunity existed to serve a greater diverse population, the immigrant had the opportunity to cater to a much wider range of customers.
The opportunities to start a business were significantly greater in this period because the population of urban America was accelerating due to immigration from its rural areas as well as foreign countries. In a survey conducted by the Dillingham
Commissions field staff regarding the employment of the head of households in six major cities, interesting statistics emerged about immigrants operating businesses for profit. Of the 2,337 male-heads of households surveyed, 420 of those were in business for profit. Of that number only 18 were native born of native fathers. The remaining were either native- born of foreign fathers while the majority, 397, were foreign born. The Syrians led the group with 139 in business for profit, followed by Hebrews, Italians, Germans,
Bohemians and Moravians, Magyars, and Slovaks.
The same entrepreneurial spirit was evident in those communities general known as industrial town because they were located contiguously to the major place of employment for the populace. In one of the communities (designated as Community A) that was located in the bituminous coal region, small businesses emerged, owned and operated by local immigrants. The field investigators of the Dillingham Commission uncovered some 17 small businesses that included bankers, barbers, butchers, contractors,
111 grocers, lumbermen, merchants, photographers, and steamship agent. The range of 11 ethnic groups operating such businesses included Hebrews, Italians, Poles, Swedes,
Slovaks, and Syrians.138
The immigrants, regardless of racial or ethnic background or societal status in their country of origin, began to reward themselves with their expendable wealth by entering into business. They now possessed land, properties, savings, remittance power, surplus wages and businesses, which made them an active player in the American capitalist economy. And, in addition, with public education opportunities available to their children, the progenitor traditions of their old country no longer held them, or their siblings, captive to the land or family. They were free to seek unlimited opportunities in the new country unencumbered by the economic restrictions in their former countries held by the rich and powerful; sometimes for centuries. The change in their economic status changed them socially, politically, economically, and culturally.
138 U.S. Congress, Senate, 61st, 2d sess, doc. 633., Reports of the Immigration Commission. Immigrants in Industry, Bituminous Coal Mining, vI (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1911), 517.
112
Chapter 9
CONCLUSION
Between 1870 and 1920, America made its transformation from post-colonial agrarian communities to a modern industrial society. Its record of achievements in this transformation is a thing of wonderment. Although preceded by the initial, but slow growing, industrial development following the Civil War, America was able to exceed the production records of leading European countries. Those countries, which also had natural resources and a century head start, were relegated to a lower global ranking with regards to the coal, iron, and steel production.
As cited in this thesis, primary and secondary sources are available to quantify the increasing productivity beyond the average norm during this period of 1870-1920. Also with these primary and secondary sources the immigration inflow into the critical industries of coal, iron, and steel has also been documented with the use of a research methodology overseen by the Dillingham Commission.
This thesis has presented the data and facts that there was a direct correlation between the increased growth of immigrant labor in the workforce and a parallel growth in the coal, iron, and steel industry. A commercial and political agenda for the recruitment of immigrant labor was established from the very early days of the new
Republic. Particularly in this period of 1870-1920, a partnership of commerce and immigration was formed that was a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship. This relationship helped both the entrepreneur of the coal, iron, and steel industries and the immigrants to achieve their respective economic goals. In this period because of
113 demographic factors in Europe and America, a major source of labor power was drawn largely from southern and eastern European immigrants. The creation of such a symbiotic relationship not only benefitted industry and immigrants but also produced products that benefitted the rest of the American populace.
A symbiotic relationship was a perfect partnership for that time and place, the capitalist had an available supply of labor-individuals whose attributes made them perform well under the most hazardous conditions created by the increasing utilization of machinery, without complaint, and in conformity with management's wishes. It was a labor supply that was an asset, which helped the capitalists to expand the production in the coal, iron, and steel industries, guaranteeing an attractive return on their investment. It was a return that made possible profits that were used for further investment in the advancement and expansion of the coal, iron, and steel industries.
Immigrants also profited in this symbiotic relationship. They left their native countries where for generations, and even centuries, hope of extracting themselves from the quagmire of poverty was minimal. They came to America and offered their labor as an asset to the formation of a symbiotic relationship, which benefitted industry as well them and their families. The immigrant's economic well being, in the relationship, accelerated beyond their wildest dreams, as many later became capitalists with their increased savings, property holdings, business investments, and ability to share their wealth with others in America and in their native land.
The symbiotic relationship also proved to be a bountiful partnership for America.
The products produced were necessary for the phenomenal economic growth of America
114 in this period. It also transformed America into a global economic and political power, which made it a leading player in the shaping our modern world.
115
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Sources
Governmental Documents
U.S. Congress, Senate, 61st, 3rd sess, doc. 747, Reports of the Immigration Commission. Abstracts of Reports of the Immigration Commission. vol 2. Washington, D.C.: GPO 1911.
U.S. Congress, House, 57th, 1st sess., doc. 811, Reports of the Industrial Commission. Immigration and Education. Washington, DC: GPO, 1901.
U.S. Congress, Senate, 62d, 1st sess., Report on Conditions of Employment in the Iron and Steel Industry in the United States, vol.1, Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911.
U.S. Senate, 61st Congress, 3d session, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Statistical Review of Immigration 1820-1910. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1911.
U.S. Senate, 61st, 2d Session, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Emigration Conditions in Europe. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1911.
U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Senate Documents, vol. 69. Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911.
U.S. Senate, 61st Congress, 2d session. Reports of the Immigration Commission: Immigrants in Industry. Part 1: Bituminous Coal Mining. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1911.
U.S. Congress, 61st, 3d Session, Abstracts of the Reports of the Immigration Commission. Washington, D.C: GPO, 1911.
U.S. Congress, 61st, 2d Session, Reports of the Immigration Commission: Immigrants in Industries, Part 2: Iron and Steel Manufacturing. Washington, D.C., 1911.
State of Illinois. The Immigrant and the Coal Mining Communities of Illinois. Springfield, IL: Bulletin of the Immigrants Commission No. 2, 1920.
State of Pennsylvania. Report of the Bureau of Mines, 1902. Pennsylvania State: W. Stanley Ray, 1903.
Industrial Reports
116
American Iron and Steel Institute. Annual Statistical Report of the American Iron and Steel Institute for 1920. New York: American Iron and Steel Institute, 1921.
Newspapers
"Cut in Immigration Hits Labor Market, War Has Created Shortage of 4,000,000 Workers, Says Inter-Racial Council." New York Times, January 1, 1920.
"President Corey on Labor Supply." Wall Street Journal, October 17, 1906.
"Who Will Do Our Chores," Wall Street Journal, February 17, 1915.
"Need Immigrants Badly, Says Eliot." New York Times, February 26, 1914.
"Labor Situation Becomes More and More Serious.” New York Times, December 15, 1917.
"Our Labor Handicap." New York Times, December 28, 1911.
"Labor Scarce In All Sections of Country." New York Times, September 9, 1912.
"Labor Scarcity Threatens Iron and Steel Industry." New York Times, May 28, 1915.
“Widows and Orphans Report.” The Carbon Advocate, Lehighton, PA, September 1, 1883.
“Report on Coal Production.” The Scranton Tribune, Scranton, PA, February 20, 1900.
“Record of Coal Mining.” The Carbon Advocate, Lehighton, PA, December 24, 1892.
“Figures for last year.”Scranton Tribune, Scranton, PA, February 23, 1901
“Who Pays.” Evening Ledger, Philadelphia, PA, August 31, 1917.
“Economic Aspects of the Great European War, Address by William P. Hamilton of the Wall Street Journal before the Patria Club,” Wall Street Journal, March 15, 1915.
Secondary Sources
Books
Addams, Jane. Twenty Years at Hull-House. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1912.
117
Alexander, June Granatir. Daily Life in Immigrant America, 1870-1920. Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee, 2009.
Atchinson, Rena Michaels. Un-American Immigration: Its Present Effects and Future Perils Chicago: Charles H Kerr & Company, 1894.
Beard, Charles A. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States New York: The Macmillian Company, 1913.
Bodnar, John. Immigration and Industrialization. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977.
Bogart, Ernest Ludlow. The Economic History of the United States. London: Londmans, Green, and Co, 1908.
Calavita, Kitty U.S. Immigration Law and the Control of Labor: 1820-1924. New York: Academic Press, 1984.
Camp, J. M. and C. B. Francis. The Making, Shaping and Treating of Steel. Pittsburg, PA: The Carnegie Steel Company, 1920.
Carey, Henry C. The Harmony of Interests, Agriculture, Manufacturing, and Commercial. Philadelphia, PA: J. S. Sckinner,1851.
Croscup, George E. and Ernest D. Lewis. United States History; A Synchronic Chart and Statistical Tables. New York: Windsor Publishing Co., 1912.
Daniels, Roger. Guarding the Golden Door. New York: Hill and Wang, 2004. ______Coming to America. New York: Perennial, 2002.
Davis, Philip ed. Immigration and Americanization. New York: Ginn and Company, 1920.
Davis, Horace B. Labor and Steel New York: International Publishers, 1933.
Dunbar, D. E. The Tin-Plate Industry: A Comparative Study of its Growth in the United States and in Wales. Boston MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1915.
Duncan, Hannibal Gerald. Immigration and Assimilatio. New York: D.C. Heath and Company, 1933.
Eastman, Crystal. Work-Accidents and the Law. Pittsburgh, PA: Russell Sage Foundation,1910.
118
Eckel, Edwin C. Coal, Iron, and War: A Study in Industrialism Past and Future. New York: Henry Holts and Company, 1920.
Erickson, Charlotte. American Industry and the European Immigrant, 1860-1885. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957.
Fitch, John A. The Steel Workers. Pittsburgh, PA: Russell Sage Foundation, 1910.
Ginzberg, Eli & Hyman Berman The American Worker in the Twentieth Century. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963.
Grant, Madison. The Passing of the Great Race. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922.
Haines, Michael R. and Richard H. Steckel. A Population History of North America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Hall, Prescott F. Immigration and its Effects Upon the United States. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1967.
Handlin, Oscar. The Uprooted. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1951. ______Immigration as a Factor in American History. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1959.
Hansen, Marcus Lee. The Atlantic Migration, 1607-1869. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961.
Hendrick, Burton J. The Age of Big Business. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1919.
Hourich, Issac A. Immigration and Labor: The Economic Aspects of European Immigration to the United States. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1912.
Jenks, Jeremiah W. and W. Jett Lauck. The Immigration Problem. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1922.
Jones, Maldwyn Allan. American Immigration. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960.
Jones,Thomas Jesse. The Sociology of a New York City Block. New York: Columbia University Press, 1904.
119
Kellogg, Paul Underwood ed, Work Accidents and the Law. Pittsburgh, PA: Russell Sage Foundation, 1910.
Kessner,Thomas. The Golden Door. New York: Oxford Press, 1977.
Kirkland, Edward C. A History of American Economic Life. New York NY: Appleton- Century-Crofts. 1951.
Leete, William Stone. The Centennial History of New York City: From the Discovery to the Present Day. New York: R. D. Cooke, 1876.
Long, Priscilla. Where the Sun Never Shines. New York: Paragon House, 1989.
Lippincott, Isaac. Economic Development of the United States. New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company, 1921.
Lodge, Henry Cabot ed. The Works of Alexander Hamilton, Vol. I. New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons, 1904.
McInnes, William, ed. The Coal Resources of the World. Toronto, Canada: Morang & Co. Ltd, 1913.
Misa, Thomas. A Nation of Steel: the Making of Modern America, 1865-1925. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Montgomery, David. The Fall of the House of Labor. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Moore, Elwood S. Coal: Its Properties, Analysis, Classification, Geology, Extraction, Uses and Distribution. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1922.
Morris, Charles R. The Tycoons. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005.
Nearing, Scott and Frank Watson. Economics. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1911.
Orth, Samuel Peter. The Armies of Labor. New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1919.
Parmet, Robert D. Labor and Immigration in Industrial America. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers, 1981.
Ripley, William Z. The Races of Europe. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1899.
120
Roberts, Kenneth Lewis. Why Europe Leaves Home. Brooklyn, NY: The Bobbs-Merill Co., 1922.
Roberts, Peter. The New Immigration. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1913.
Ross, Edward A. Changing America: Studies in Contemporary Society. New York, NY: The Century Company,1909.
Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1910.
Smith, Roy. Adam Smith and the Origins of American Enterprise. New York: Truman Talley Books, 2002.
Smith, Richmond Mayo. Emigration and Immigration. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898.
Steiner, Edward A. On the Trail of the Immigrant. New York: Fleming H. Revell Co, 1906.
Taylor, Frederick Winslow. The Principles of Scientific Management. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1919.
Temin, Peter. Iron and Steel in Nineteenth-Century America. Boston: The M.I.T. Press, 1964.
Thompson, E.P., The Making of the English Working Class. New York: Vintage Books, 1966.
Thompson, Warren S. & P.K. Whelpton. Population Trends in the United States New York: McGraw-Hill, 1933.
Turner, Frederick J. The Frontier in American History. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1920.
Van Metre, Thurman W. Economic History of the United States. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1921.
Warne, Frank Julian. The Tide of Immigration. New York: Appleton & Co., 1916.
Wyman, Mark. Return to Europe, 1880-1930. London: Cornell University Press, 1993. Zeidel, Robert F. Immigrants, Progressives, and Exclusion Politics: The Dillingham Commission, 1900-192. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2004.
121
Zolberg, Astride R. A Nation by Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.
Dissertations
Slavishak, Edward Steven "Bodies of Work: Industrial Workers' Bodies in Pittsburgh, 1880-1915" University of North Carolina, 2002.
Articles
Bemis, Edward W. “The Homestead Strike,” Journal of Political Economy, 2, no. 3 (1894).
Hoffman, Frederick L. "The Decline in Birth Rate," The North American Review, 189, no. 642 (May, 1909).
Leschoier, Don D. "Immigration and the Labor-Supply" Atlantic Monthly, April 1919.
Lauck, W. Jett "The Economic Investigation of the United States Commission," The Journal of Political Economy 18, no. 7 (1910).
Lotka,Alfred J. "Modern Trends in the Birth Rate," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 188, (Nov. 1936).
Taussig, F. W. "The Iron Industry in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 14, no. 4 (Aug., 1900).
Turner, Frederick J. "Social Forces in American History," The American Historical Review 16, no. 2 (1911).
Whelpton, P. K. "Industrial Development and Population Growth," Social Forces, 6, no. 3. (Mar., 1928).