The Industrial Revolution began in Britain, spread to other countries, and had a strong impact on economics, politics, and society

THE BEGINNINGS OF INDUSTRIALIZATION

 Industrial Revolution  Greatly increased output of machine-made goods that began in England (Britain)  Industrialization: the process of developing machine production of goods THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION

 Enclosures: large fields that were fenced off  More productive seeding and harvesting methods to increase crop yield  2 important results:

1. Landowners tried new agricultural methods

2. Large landowners forced small farmers to become tenant farmers or to give up farming & move to cities  Seed Drill: well-spaced rows at specific depths increasing crop yield CROP ROTATION

 System of growing different crops in same field on succeeding years to preserve the fertility of the soil  One of best developments of Agricultural Revolution  One crop may exhaust soil nutrients, then rotate to restore nutrients LIVESTOCK BREEDERS

 Only allow best to breed

As food supplies increased & living conditions improved, Britain’s population drastically increased • increase in demand for food & goods like cloth • farmers who lost land, moved to cities to become factory workers FACTORS OF PRODUCTION

 Resources needed to produce goods and services that were required by the Industrial Revolution

 LAND (natural resources)

 LABOR

 CAPITAL (Money) FACTORY SYSTEM

 An organized method of production that brought workers and machines together under control of management  Fast working, precise machines allowed for:  Mass production: produce huge quantities of identical goods  Interchangeable parts: machine made parts that were exactly alike and easily assembled or exchanged  Encouraged manufacturers to divide tasks from detailed and specific segments into step-by-step procedures  Division of Labor: Each worker performed a specialized task on a product as it moved by on a conveyor belt aka Assembly Line  Assembly line: allowed the cost of production to decrease causing the price of sale to decrease TEXTILE INDUSTRY

 Britain’s textile industry clothed the world  Boosted profits by speeding up process with inventions  Flying shuttle Flying Shuttle  Spinning jenny  First done by hand, then used water frame  Spinning mule Spinning jenny  Power loom  Because these machines were large, lead to building of factories  Needed power, so built by rivers & streams COTTON

 Britain’s cotton came from America’s South and slave labor  Eli Whitney invented cotton gin to speed up cotton picking

 Invented to reduce need for slaves, but actually increased demand for slaves IMPROVEMENTS IN TRANSPORTATION

 Watt’s Steam Engine  Figured out a way to make the steam engine work faster & more efficiently while burning less fuel  Boulton was Watt’s entrepreneur

 Entrepreneur: person who organizes, manages, and takes on risks of business

 Paid Watt a salary and encouraged him to build better engines; when successful both made more money

Watt STEAMBOAT

 American Robert Fulton built first steamboat: Clermont  Used steamboats on canal (human-made waterways)  Steamboats used to transport raw materials, finished goods, and people  Cut cost of shipping ROADS

 “Macadam” Roads: road beds laid with large stones for drainage then on top, a smooth layer of crushed rock  Allowed heavy wagons to travel during rain without sinking in the mud  Turnpikes: private investors build roads & then operated them for profit -travelers had to stop to pay tolls before traveling further

THE RAILWAY AGE BEGINS

 Trevithick built first steam-driven locomotive  Stephenson built first railroad line THE RAILROAD

 Entrepreneurs wanted to connect ports, farms and cities  Stephenson’s Rocket was the locomotive for it’s strength to hull cargo and fastest speed of 24 mph! RAILROADS REVOLUTIONIZE LIFE

1. Increased industrial growth by giving manufacturers a cheap way to transport materials and finished products 2. Created massive amounts of new jobs for both railroad workers and miners  Miners provided iron for tracks and coal for steam engines 3. Increased agricultural and fishing industries 4. Travel easier SECTION 2: INDUSTRIALIZATION

The factory system changed the way people lived and worked (growth in jobs), introducing a variety of problems: Unhealthy, unsafe working conditions Air & water pollution Issues with child labor Class tensions between working and middle class CHANGES DUE TO INDUSTRIALIZATION

 Earn higher wages in factories vs. farms  Afford to heat homes with coal  Eat better food, both meats and agriculture  Wear better clothing from textile factories

 Above caused people to move to cities to find work  Caused by growth of factory system, where manufactured goods were concentrated in a central location  Factories were built in clusters b/c they were built near sources of energy (coal and water)

LIVING CONDITIONS  B/c cities grew so rapidly, NO development plans, sanitary codes, or building codes  Lacked adequate housing, education, & police protection  Unpaved streets  No drains  No garbage collection  Families lived in one bedroom shelters  Widespread sickness with outbreaks of epidemics  Lifespan in city=17 years vs Lifespan in country=38 years  Factory owners & merchants built mansions is suburbs

WORKING CONDITIONS

 To increase production & profit, factory owners wanted to run machines as many hours as possible  14 hours/day, 6 days/week  Poorly lit or clean  Machines injured workers  No worker’s comp in case of injury  Coal mines=most dangerous job (still true today)  Accidents, damp conditions, breathing coal dust •Women & children paid less  =life span 10 years shorter than men for doing same job than average worker

CHILD LABOR

 Children as young as 6, worked 6 days a week for 13 or 14 hours a day with a ½ hour break for lunch and 1 hour break for dinner  Supervisors beat them so children would stay awake  Many were injured by machines or were suffocated by coal dust or cotton fluff  Factory Act (1819): restricted working age & hours, but children continued to work

ABC REVIEW 1. Which of the following was NOT an example of poor living and working conditions during the Industrial Revolution? A. Over-crowded apartments B. Children working 14 hours a day C. Higher wages D. Sanitation issues

2. What was the main reason for urbanization? A. Job opportunities on farms B. Industrialization C. Wealthy owners & merchants wanted to live there D. Better schools for their children to attend

3. Which of the following was included in child labor reforms passed by parliament? A. Increased the hours that children could work B. Restricted how many men could work C. Increased the hours that men could work D. Restricted the hours that children could work

“From this filthy sewer pure gold flows” -Alexis de Tocqueville POLLUTION

 Putting so much industry in one place polluted the natural environment  Coal blackened the air  Textile dyes & waste poisoned the rivers THE MIDDLE CLASS

 Social class made up of skilled workers, professionals, businesspeople and wealthy farmers  Challenged status and power of landowners & aristocrats  Comfortable standard of living THE WORKING CLASS & LUDDITES

 Saw little improvement in living and working conditions  lost jobs b/c machines took place of human workers  Luddites: attacked whole factories, mobs rioted, destroyed machines b/c of poor living and working conditions POSITIVE EFFECTS OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 1. Created jobs 2. Contributed to the wealth of the nation 3. Fostered technological progress & invention 4. Increased the production of goods 5. Raised the standard of living 6. Provided hope of improvement in people’s lives 7. Healthier diets 8. Better housing 9. Cheaper, mass produced clothing 10. Expanded educational opportunities 11. Workers eventually got higher wages, shorter hours and better working conditions from labor unions LONG-TERM EFFECTS

 Most people today in industrialized countries can afford consumer goods  Continuous improvements in living and working conditions  Profits from industrialization produce tax revenue for governments, which allow the government to invest in urban improvements SECTION 3: INDUSTRIALIZATION SPREADS The industrialization that began in Great Britain spread to other parts of the world -United States & continental Europe INDUSTRIALIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES

 Land: rivers, coal and iron  Labor: farm workers and immigrants  Capital: Britain forced USA to develop own industry that it could no longer import due to its blockade during the War of 1812 USA’S FIRST INDUSTRY

 Textile (just like Britain)  Samuel Slater, a British immigrant, built a spinning machine from memory  Moses Brown opened the first factory in the US to house Slater’s machines  Francis Cabot Lowell, with other investors revolutionized American textile industry  Young single women went to work as mill girls in factory towns  Make higher wages & gain independence  Worked 12 hour/day, 6 days/week  Manufacturing in clothing and shoemaking expanded in the Northeast  Technology boom:

 Wealth of natural resources-oil, coal, iron

 Inventions: electric light bulb & telephone

 Increase in population to make & buy manufactured goods  Railroads played major role in America’s industrialization  Profitable business  Mergers: small companies bought out by larger ones  Large companies controlled 2/3s of nation’s railroads

 To raise money, entrepreneurs sold stock (certain rights of ownership)  People who bought stock owned part of business  Corporation: Business owned by stockholders who share in profits but are not responsible for debt  Standard Oil: John D. Rockefeller CORPORATIONS

 Large corporations looked to control every aspect of their own industry in order to make big profits (monopoly)  Big Business: giant  Carnegie Steel corporations that Company: Andrew controlled entire Carnegie industries & made big profits by reducing the cost of producing goods BUSINESS CYCLES

 Alternating periods of  Business Cycles: business expansion or  Boom: increase decline buying, selling,  Business concentrated production and on specializing on one employment particular kind of  Bust: period of decline product making in business activity industrialization  Depression: lowest dependent upon one point of cycle

another  Bank failures

 Widespread unemployment WORKERS EARNED LOW WAGES FOR LABORING LONG HOURS Stockholders earned high profits and corporate leaders made fortunes IMPACT OF INDUSTRIALIZATION

 Increased competition in  Revolutions: industrialized nations  Agriculture and poverty in non-  Production industrialized nations  Transportation  Industrialized nations  Communication needed raw materials  Shifted world balance of and market to sell power manufactured goods=non-industrialized  Europe & USA=major nations economic powers  IMPERIALISM: stronger  Africa & country taking control of Asia=agricultural & a weaker country for behind economically economic purposes  Population, health &  Creation of middle class: wealth rose  Opportunities for dramatically in all education & democratic industrialized countries participation, which led to social reform CHAPTER 9, SECTION 4 REFORMING THE INDUSTRIAL WORLD The Industrial Revolution led to economic, social and political reforms  Business leaders believed that governments should stay out of business and economic affairs  Reformers felt that governments needed to play an active role to improve conditions for the poor  Workers demanded rights and protection, forming labor unions

THE PHILOSOPHERS OF INDUSTRIALIZATION

 Laissez faire: the economic policy of letting owners of industry and business set working conditions without interference  Favors free market not regulated by the government because government regulations interfere with the production of wealth  Free trade: the flow of commerce in the world market without government regulation; economy will prosper

ADAM SMITH

 Wealth of Nations

 Economic liberty guarantees economic progress

 Government should NOT interfere  3 natural laws of economics

 The law of…

 self-interest: people work for their own good

 competition: competition forces people to make a better product

 supply and demand: enough goods would be produced at the lowest possible price to meet demand in a market economy CAPITALISM

 Definition: an economic system in which the factors of production are privately owned and money is invested in business ventures to make a profit  Thomas Malthus: population increases more rapidly than the food supply, so without wars and epidemics to kill off the extra people, most were destined to be poor and miserable  David Ricardo: a permanent underclass would always be poor; wages should be forced down as population increases  Smith, Malthus, and Ricardo opposed government efforts to help poor  Creating minimum wage and better working conditions would upset the free market system, lower profits, and undermine the production of wealth in society THE RISE OF SOCIALISM

 Utilitarianism: people should judge ideas, institutions, and actions on the basis of their utility or usefulness  Government should try to promote the greatest good for the greatest number of people (Bentham)  The individual should be free to pursue his/her own advantage without interference from the state (Bentham)  J. Stuart Mill

 Believed it was wrong that workers should lead deprived lives that sometimes bordered on starvation

 More equal division of profits

 Cooperative system of agriculture

 Women’s rights, including right to vote

THE RISE OF SOCIALISM CONTINUED:

 Utopian: perfect living  Owen: built houses to rent at low rates, no child under 10 years to work in mills and free education (New Harmony, Indiana)  Socialism: factors of production are owned by the public and operate for the welfare of all  Government should plan the economy which would end poverty and promote equality  Public ownership would help workers

MARXISM: RADICAL SOCIALISM

 Karl Marx/Marxism & Engels  The Communist Manifesto

 Human societies have always been divided into warring classes:  The middle class/employers or bourgeoisie “haves” VS.  workers or the proletariat “have-nots”  Wealthy control means of production and the poor perform the labor in terrible working conditions  Eventually the workers would overthrow the owners “ The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the World unite” THE FUTURE ACCORDING TO MARX

 Capitalism would eventually destroy itself

 Factories would drive small businesses out of business, creating monopolies

 Workers would seize control and produce what society needed, bringing economic equality to everyone

 Control the government which would provide common living and education, eventually leading to no government and a classless society  Pure communism: no government and classless society COMMUNISM

 Communism: form of complete socialism in which the means of production would be owned by the people

 No private property

 All goods and services equally shared  Future communist leaders (who adopted some, not all, ideas of Marx to fit their situations and needs in a dictatorship:  Lenin of Russia  Mao of China  Castro of Cuba

LABOR UNIONS AND REFORM LAWS

 Long hours, unsafe working conditions, low pay

 Unions: voluntary labor associations  Spoke for all the workers in a particular trade  Collective bargaining: negotiations between workers and their employers

 Bargained for better condition, shorter hours, better pay  Strike: refuse to work; if factory owners refused to meet demands  Began with skilled workers b/c special skills gave them extra bargaining power & management would have trouble replacing them

 Reform Laws  Factory Act 1833:

 made it illegal to hire children under 9 years old

 9-12 years could work no more than 8 hours/day

 13-17 years could work no more than 12 hours/day  Mines Act 1842: illegal for women and children to work underground  Ten Hours Act 1847: women and children only work 10 hours/day in factories  National Child Labor Committee: banned child labor and set maximum working hours in USA THE REFORM MOVEMENT SPREADS

 The abolition of slavery  Wilberforce helped to bring an end to slavery and slave trade in the British Empire  Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War in the United States freed the slaves  The Fight for Women’s Rights  Factory work did offer higher wages than work done at home, but only earned 1/3rd as much money as men  Formed unions  Ran settlement houses: community centers that served the poor residents of slum neighborhoods (Jane Addams of Hull House)

REFORMS SPREAD TO MANY AREAS OF LIFE

 Reforms Spread to Many Areas of Life  Public Education

 Horace Mann (Massachusetts) favored free public education for all children

 “If we do not prepare children to become good citizens…if we do not enrich their minds with knowledge, then our republic must go down to destruction”  Prison Reform

 Goal of providing prisoners with the means to lead a useful life upon release   Democracy will grow in industrialized countries as foreign expansion increases!

AMERICA’S NEW INDUSTRIAL AGE Technological innovations and the growth of the railroad industry help fuel an industrial boom. Some business leaders follow corrupt practices, and workers, suffering harsh working conditions, try to organize. THE EXPANSION O F INDUSTRY Industry booms as natural resources, creative ideas, and growing markets fuel technological development.

NATURAL RESOURCES FUEL INDUSTRIALIZATION

 After the Civil War, the US was still mainly agricultural, but 60 years later, it had become the leading industrial power in the world  Wealth of natural resources  Government support for business  Growing urban population: cheap labor and markets for new products  Black Gold  Edwin L. Drake: successfully used a steam engine to drill for oil  Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Texas  Entrepreneurs invested to make oil into kerosene  Gasoline, a byproduct of making kerosene from oil, was thrown away

BESSEMER STEEL PROCESS

 US had large deposits of coal and iron  Iron is soft and tends to break and rust  Removing the carbon from iron=steel  Bessemer process-cheap and efficient manufacturing process to turn iron into steel  Open-hearth process-produce quality steel from scrap metal as well as raw materials  New Uses for Steel  Railroad track=largest use  Barbed wire  John Deere farming equipment=made plains largest agricultural region in nation  Brooklyn Bridge  William Le Baron Jenney=first skyscraper w/ steel frame

INVENTIONS PROMOTE CHANGE

 Electricity  Thomas Alva Edison  Established world’s first research lab  Patented the incandescent light bulb  Grid system for producing and distributing electrical power  George Westinghouse  Made electricity safer and less expensive  Became inexpensive and convenient source of energy available in homes  Inventions of time-saving home appliances  Helped to locate factories anywhere-not near sources of raw material energy  Electric streetcars=cheap, efficient city travel  Led to suburbs INVENTIONS CHANGE LIFESTYLES

 Christopher Sholes: invented typewriter- changed work environment  Alexander Graham Bell & Thomas Watson: invented telephone-allowed for worldwide communication  Typewriter and telephone created new jobs for women  Samuel Morse: telegraph, which carried information at high speeds. Able to link cities “Morse Code” ENERGY & ENGINES

 Daimler: engine run on gasoline  Diesel: diesel fuel engines to run large machines and industrial plants  Zeppelin  Wilbur & Orville Wright: (Ohioans)  1903: first flight of motorized airplane  Led to increase in rubber & gasoline (petroleum) AMERICA’S AGE OF RAILROADS The growth and consolidation of railroads benefited the nation but also led to corruption and required government regulation.

RAILROADS SPAN TIME & SPACE

 Railroads made local transit reliable and westward expansion possible for businesses and people  Government made huge land grants and loans to railroad companies to help expand westward and develop the country  A National Network  Transcontinental railroad: railroad crossed the nation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean

 Central Pacific and Union Pacific met with a golden spike at Promontory, Utah

ROMANCE & REALITY

 Dreams of available land, adventure and fresh start (Romance)  Reality:

 Central Pacific=Chinese Immigrants

 Union Pacific=Irish immigrants & Civil War Vets

 Lay track in treacherous terrain

 Faced Native American attacks

 Accidents & disease

RAILROAD TIME

 Noon was always when the sun was directly overhead, which is different in every place, making traveling very difficult  C.F. Dowd

 Earth surface divided into 24 time zones, one for each hour of the day

 US would have 4 time zones at this time-Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific  Would be adopted by the railroad industry to help with travel & then eventually by the world as standardized time OPPORTUNITIES & OPPORTUNISTS

 Iron, coal, steel, lumber, and glass industries grew rapidly to keep up with the demands of the railroad industry  New Towns & Markets  Towns were created & also grew with spread of railroad lines, creating new markets  Railroads promoted trade and interdependence  Towns began specializing in particular products & prospered by selling large quantities of their products to the entire country

PULLMAN

 George M. Pullman

 Built a factory for manufacturing sleepers and other railroad cars

 Built a town for his employees

 Well-lit, clean homes

 Services: doctor, shops, athletic fields

 Strictly controlled by Pullman to ensure stable workforce  Couldn’t gather  Not allowed to drink alcohol

 Raise in rent after cut in pay caused major riot/strike CREDIT MOBILIER

 Railroad Magnate: powerful & influential industrialists  Infamous Scheme-Credit Mobilier

 Construction company was created by stockholders in the Union Pacific Railroad

 Stockholders gave the company a contract to lay tract at double or triple the actual cost & pocketed the profits

 Stockholders included 20 representatives in the US Congress  Including future President James A. Garfield

 Federal investigation found that stockholders had schemed $23 million in stocks

 Nothing happened to the stockholders despite being found guilty

THE GRANGE & THE RAILROADS

 The Grangers-member of the Grange, a farmers’ organization, began demanding governmental control over the railroad industry  Railroad Abuses  Farmers were upset by the misuse of government land grants  Railroads sold the grants to other businesses, not to settlers like the government originally intended  Railroads fixed prices to keep farmers in their debt  Railroads charged different customers different rates  Charging more to carry loads shorter distances (long distances on agriculture would destroy farmers’ crops)

GRANGER LAWS

 Grangers sponsored state and local political candidates to pass laws to protect the interest of farmers  Granger Laws: “to establish maximum freight and passenger rates and prohibit discrimination”  Munn v. Illinois: Supreme Court upheld the Granger Laws

 States won the right to regulate the railroads for the benefit of farmers and consumers

 Federal government has the right to regulate private industry to serve the public interest (BIG DEAL!!!! First time government gets involved to regulate private business)

INTERSTATE COMMERCE ACT

 However, the Supreme Court would also rule that a state could NOT set rates on interstate commerce-railroad traffic that either came from or was going to another state  Interstate Commerce Act: the right of the federal government to supervise railroad activities and established a 5 member Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)

 Difficulty regulating b/c of legal process and railroad resistance

 Supreme Court also ruled that the ICC could NOT set maximum railroad rates

PANIC & CONSOLIDATION

 Corporate abuses, mismanagement, overbuilding, and competition pushed many railroads to almost bankruptcy

 Leading to a nationwide economic collapse-worst depression up to that time

 Railroads were taken over by financial companies

 Investment firms, like J.P. Morgan Company, reorganized the railroads

 7 powerful companies held control of 2/3 of the nation’s railroad tracks

BIG BUSINESS & LABOR The expansion of industry resulted in the growth of big business and prompted laborers to form unions to better their lives. CARNEGIE’S INNOVATIONS

 Andrew Carnegie was one of the first industrial moguls to make his own fortune  Started in the railroad business, the expanded to the steel industry

 Would manufacture more steel that all of Britain’s steel factories combined NEW BUSINESS STRATEGIES

 Continually search for ways to make better products more cheaply

 New machines & techniques  Attracting talented people by offering them stock in the company

 Encouraged competition among his employees  Control as much of the industry (steel) as possible

 Vertical integration: process in which you buy out your suppliers in order to control the raw materials and transportation systems

 Horizontal integration: companies that produce similar products merge into one company SOCIAL DARWINISM & BUSINESS

 Some individuals/companies flourish and pass their traits along to the next generation, while others do not  Process of natural selection got rid of less-suited individuals/companies and enabled the best- adapted to survive  Used social Darwinism to justify laissez faire  Marketplace should not be regulated  Success and failure in business were governed by natural law and that no one had the right to intervene  A New Definition of Success  Protestants believed that riches were a sign of God’s favor, and therefore the poor must be lazy or interior people who deserved their misfortunes in life

FEWER CONTROL MORE

 Growth & Consolidation  Most industrialists used horizontal integration  Merger: one corporation bough out the stock of another  A firm that bought out all its competitors could achieve a monopoly: complete control over its industry’s production, wages and prices  Holding company: a corporation that did nothing but buy out the stock of other companies  Corporations like Standard Oil Company in Ohio (John D. Rockefeller) used mergers by joining with competing companies in trust agreements  Participants in a trust turn their stock over to a group of trustees -people who run the separate companies as one large corporation  In return, the companies are entitled to the dividends on profits earned by the trust

ROCKEFELLER AND THE ROBBER BARONS

 Controlled 90% of the oil refining business  Paid employees extremely low wages  Drove competitors out of business by selling his oil at a lower price than it cost to produce it  Then, once all his competitors were gone, he raised his prices way above the standard level  Giving him and others who used the same tactic the name of robber baron  Industrialists were also philanthropists: give money to charities, foundations, the arts, clinics, etc.  Rockefeller gave away over $500 million  Carnegie donated 90% of his wealth; his fortune still continues to support arts and learning today SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT

 Government became very concerned that expanding corporations would limit or end free competition  Sherman Antitrust Act: illegal to form a trust that interfered with free trade between states or with other countries

 Act didn’t clearly define “trust”

 Large corporations avoided by becoming a number of smaller companies still controlled by one person

 Ultimately failed

BUSINESS BOOM BYPASSES THE SOUTH

 Industrial growth was focused in the North b/c of natural and urban resources  South:  Recovering from Civil War where most of the battles were fought  Lacked capital  People unwilling to invest  North owned 90% of stock in most profitable Southern business-railroads  Remained agricultural and farmers at mercy of railroad corporations  High tariffs on raw materials and imports  Lacked skilled workers  Industry: railroads, forestry, mining, tobacco, and cotton/textile

LABOR UNIONS EMERGE

 Long hours and danger  Some companies demanded 7 day work week or 12 hour days  No vacation, sick leave, unemployment compensation, workmen’s compensation for injury or death on job  Factories were dirty, poorly ventilated, faulty or dangerous equipment  Wages so low, couldn’t survive unless whole family worked  Child: 27cents for 14 hour/day  Women: $267/year (same job as men)  Men: $498/year  Andrew Carnegie: $23 million/year with no income tax

EARLY LABOR ORGANIZING

 National Labor Union (NLU)

 Refused to let in African Americans, so they formed the CNLU- Colored National Labor Union

 Got Congress to legalize an 8 hour day for government workers  Noble Order of the Knights of Labor

 Membership open to all workers no matter race, gender or degree of skill

 Advocated for equal pay for equal work by men and women

 Striking was a last resort 

UNION MOVEMENTS DIVERGE

 Craft Unionism  Included skilled workers from one or more trades  Samuel Gompers formed the American Federation of Labor (AFL)  Focused on collective bargaining to reach written agreements  Striking was a major tactic that help win higher wages and shorter workweeks  In 25 years, they managed to raise their weekly wage by $6.50 and shortened their workweek by 5.5 hours to 49 hours/week  Industrial Unionism  Eugene V. Debs formed the American Railway Union  Included both skilled and unskilled laborers  Strike for higher wages

SOCIALISM AND THE IWW

 Labor activists, like Debs, turned to socialism (economic and political system based on government control of business and property with equal distribution of wealth)  Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) aka. The Wobblies  Led by William “Big Bill” Haywood  Welcomed African Americans  Unskilled workers  Radical unionists and socialists  Other Labor Activism in the West  Sugar Beet & Farm Laborers’ Union: Japanese & Mexican workers  State Federation of Labor: Chinese & Japanese miners STRIKES TURN VIOLENT

 Industry and government saw unions as a threat to capitalism  The Great Strike of 1877  Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O Railroad): struck to protest 2nd wage cut in 2 months

 Strike spread to other lines and most freight and passenger traffic covering 50,000 miles stopped for more than a week

 Federal troops ended the strike b/c it was disrupting interstate commerce

THE HAYMARKET AFFAIR OR THE HAYMARKET SQUARE RIOT

 Gathered in Chicago’s Haymarket Square to protest police brutality  When someone tossed a bomb into the police line, the police opened fire on the unarmed crowd  Number of police and workers died and speakers/radicals were charged with inciting a riot

 4 hanged and 1 committed suicide in prison  Public began to turn against the labor movement

HOMESTEAD STRIKE

 Workers struck due to wage cuts  Armed guards brought in to protect scabs (strikebreaker)  Number died before Pennsylvania National Guard was brought in and workers were defeated

THE PULLMAN COMPANY STRIKE

 During the economic panic and depression, company laid off over ½ of its workers and cut wages of rest by up to 50% & didn’t cut the cost of employee housing payments

 Debs asked for arbitration & Pullman refused

 ARU boycotted Pullman trains

 Pullman hired scabs, strike turned violent, President Cleveland sent in troops

 Debs was jailed

 Pullman fired most of strikers

 Railroads blacklisted others (wouldn’t give anyone on the list a job)

WOMEN ORGANIZE

 Barred from most unions  Mary Harris Jones  Most dominant organizer in women’s labor movement  Led 80 mill children, with horrible injuries, on march to President T. Roosevelt’s home, to influence the passage of child labor laws  Pauline Newman (16 years old): organizer of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union  Triangle Shirtwaist Factory th th th  Fire spread quickly through factory’s 8 , 9 , and 10 floors due to oil on machines & piles of cloth  When women tried to escape, found that company had locked all but one of the exit doors  Unlocked door was blocked by fire  No sprinkler system  One fire escape collapsed  146 women died-some jumping out of windows  Jury found factory owners NOT GUILTY of manslaughter  Public outraged!  Forced changes in working conditions, building and factory laws MANAGEMENT AND GOVERNMENT PRESSURE UNIONS

 Management refused to recognize unions  Employers forbade union meetings

 Fired union members

 Forced new employees to sign “yellow-dog contracts” that they would NOT join unions  Used the Sherman Antitrust Act against labor by saying their strike or boycott was hurting interstate trade and the federal government would issue a statement forcing the workers back to work