Download IID. - Le Moyne College

Civil War and Reconstruction
Lecture 1
Administrative
• Reading for next class – all reading for this
topic
• Essay Reminder
Review
• The continued importance of forced labor
in the American Republic
• The limited rights of free labor in the USA
• Early unions developed around crafts
• The government intervened early on the
side of employers, criminal conspiracy
Today
I.
Workers during the Civil War
II.
African-American workers during
Reconstruction
I- Workers During the Civil War
• Which side did most workers support?
• Why?
• How did working people participate in the
War?
• What was the effect of the Emancipation
Proclamation on worker attitudes?
Workers During the Civil War
• What role did African-American’s and
African-American workers play?
• How were they treated by the Union?
• How were they treated by white workers in
the North?
• 13th amendment abolishing slavery was
not adopted until after the war
II- African-American Workers in
Reconstruction
• Really three phases
– Immediately after the war, Andrew Johnson
puts southern whites back in charge
– Reconstruction bans confederates and former
slave owners from positions of power,
beginning in 1867
– End of reconstruction and the reinstallation of
racialist society, by early 1870s
• Few of hopes of ex-slaves realized
Phase 1
• Former confederate states adopted “Black
Codes.” What were they?
• Widespread violence against freedpeople
Phase 2
• Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866
– Gave all Americans (except Native
Americans) equal right to benefits of
citizenship without regard to race
– Was routinely ignored in the South
• What was done in this period to distribute
land to former slaves?
Phase 3
• Reinstitution of white control
• Creation of system of segregation
• Development of the sharecropping system
– What was this?
– How did it work?
– What was the impact on African-American
farm workers
In the North
• Even in the north, continued employment
segregation
• Also routinely paid less than white workers
• In both north and south, African-Americans
resisted and demanded equal treatment
Next Time
• Alternative groups of workers
• Development of Unions
Civil War and Reconstruction
Lecture 2
Development of Unions and
Working Class Protest
Administrative
• Reading for next time
• Essay reminder
– Not accepted any other time
– Don’t put your name on the essay
– Hard copy and e-mail
– Read instructions, especially re citations
Review
• Role of workers during the Civil War
• African-Americans in the Reconstruction
period
Today
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
Other groups in the labor force
National Labor Union
Knights of Labor
Colored National Labor Union
Panic of 1873
I. Other Groups in the Labor Force
• Were African-Americans the only racial
group to suffer significant discrimination?
• How were the Chinese treated?
• How were women treated?
– Still paid less
– Still subject to occupational segregation
II. National Labor Union
• Founded 1866
• President was William H. Silvis, 1st truly
national labor leader
• Ended in 1872 over decision to emphasize
currency reform and National Labor Party
project
• Why would workers be interested in
currency reform?
• Why no labor party in the United States?
III. Knights of Labor: Origins and
Philosophy
• Founded by nine Garment Cutters in
Philadelphia, Dec. 1869
• The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights
of Labor
• Membership open to anyone who had ever
worked for a wage
Knights of Labor
• Secret and highly ritualistic organization
with quasi-religious overtones
• Uriah Stephens - 1st Grand Master
Workman
– Trained for the Baptist Ministry
– Had to abandon school and become tailor
after Panic of 1837
• Stephens completely obsessed with
secrecy
Stephens
• “Cultivate friendship among the great
brotherhood of toil”
• Eventually he became interested in politics
and currency reform
• Ran for Congress on the Greenback ticket
in 1878 and resigned from the Knights
Goals and Philosophy
• "to raise the wage earner above the
narrow view of his class, or trade or job“
• Antithesis of craft unionism
• Objected in principle to strikes
• Alternatives
– Cooperation – definition
– Arbitration - definition
Structure
• Individual workers joined the Knights and
its districts directly
• Also, whole unions affiliated and became
districts
• Dominance of the “mixed district
assembly”
• More about Knights later
IV. Colored National Labor Union
• Founded in Washington, D.C. 1869
• Called for equality of job opportunity and
equality before the law
• Called for land for freedmen
• Endorsed the Republican Party
V. Panic of 1873
• Almost total collapse of unionism
– 2/3 of national unions disappeared
– Union membership fell to less than 20% of its
previous total
• Employers took advantage to promote
racial divisions
• For an idea of what times were like in the
coal mines, see the film “The Molly
Macguires”
Tomkins Square Riot
• January 1874 New York’s unemployed
rallied in Tomkins Square
• Mayor sent the police who began clubbing
people on all sides
• Witnessed by a young cigar maker,
Samuel Gompers
Next Time
Begin Labor in the Gilded Age