The Industrial Workers Industrial Workers Industrial work was

The Industrial Workers

Industrial Workers • Industrial work was hard: – Laborers worked long hours & received low wages but had expensive living costs – Industrial work was unskilled, dangerous, & monotonous – Gender, religious, & racial biases led to different pay scales • These conditions led to a small, but significant union movement

Early American Labor Unions • In 1868, Knights of Labor formed to help all type of workers escape the “wage system” regardless of skill, race, or sex Membership • The most successful union, the American The Ko. L lacked organization to survive Excluded women, blacks, unskilled Federation of Labor (1886) led bylaborers Samuel Gompers: – Made up only of skilled labor & sought practical objectives (better pay, hours, conditions) – Included 1/3 of all U. S. laborers

The U. S. experienced an “era of strikes” from 1870 -1890 The Great RR Strike of 1877 During The Homestead the Chicago Strike Haymarket (1892) Strike (1886), from shut downresulted railroads froma 20% unionists pay cut demanded at one of. WV an. Carnegie’s 8 -hr day; led toplants mob to CA &steel resulted in violence & the death ofhundreds the Knights of Labor of deaths

• Essential Question: Question – How did the industrialization of the Gilded Age transform cities & immigration in America? • Reading Quiz Ch 19 A (648— 663)

Urbanization: 1870 -1900

Gilded Age Urbanization • From 1870 to 1900, American cities grew 700% due to new job opportunities in factories: – European, Latin American, & Asian immigrants flooded cities – Blacks migrated into the North – Rural farmers moved from the countryside to cities

The Lure of the City By 1920, for the 1 st time in U. S. history, more than 50% of the American population lived in cities

Skyscrapers and Suburbs • By the 1880 s, steel allowed cities to build skyscrapers • The Chicago fire of 1871 allowed for rebuilding with new designs: – John Root & Louis Sullivan were the “fathers of modern urban architecture” – New York & other cities used Chicago as their model

Louis Sullivan “Form follows John Root “Simple & Dignified” function”

Western Union Building, NYC Grand Central Station in NYC Wadsworth Building, NYC

Skyscrapers and Suburbs • Cities developed distinct zones: – Central business district with working- & upperclass residents – Middle-class in the suburbs • Electric streetcars & elevated rapid transit made travel easy

Tenements & Overcrowding • ½ of NYC’s buildings were tenements which housed the poor working class – “Dumbbell” tenements were popular but were cramped & plagued by firetraps – Slums had poor sanitation, polluted water & air, tuberculosis – Homicide, suicide, & alcoholism rates all increased in U. S. cities

Jacob Riis’ “How the Other Half Lives” (1890) exposed the poverty of the urban poor

Strangers in a New Land • From 1880 -1920, 23 million immigrants came looking for jobs: – These “new” immigrants were from eastern & southern Europe; Catholics & Jews, not Protestant – Kept their language & religion; created ethnic newspapers, schools, & social associations – Led to a resurgence in Nativism & attempts to limit immigration