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Unit 14
indUstrialiZing
aMeriCa
session preparation
Read the following material before attending the workshop. As you read the
excerpts and primary sources, take note of the “Questions to Consider” as
well as any questions you have. The activities in the workshop will draw on
information from the readings and the video shown during the workshop.
Unit introdUCtion
A new era of mass production arose in the United States because of
technological innovations, a favorable patent system, new forms of
factory organization, an abundant supply of natural resources, and foreign
investment. The labor force came from millions of immigrants from around the
world seeking a better way of life, and aided a society that needed to massproduce consumer goods. The changes brought about by industrialization
and immigration gave rise to the labor movement and the emergence of
women’s organizations advocating industrial reforms.
Unit learning oBJeCtives
After reading the text materials, participating in the workshop activities, and
watching the video, teachers will
• understand the forces that brought about unprecedented
economic expansion;
• have a better understanding of the immigrants that came from
Asia, Europe, and Latin America;
• learn how a favorable patent system furthered industrial
expansion;
• explore why the emergence of a labor movement garnered mixed
support, with some Americans calling for reform and others
seeking repression;
• learn how women’s organizations emerged as an influential force
for reform.
Table of Contents
Unit Themes
2
Unit Content Overview
2
Video Related Materials
3
Theme One Materials
4
Theme Two Materials
14
Theme Three Materials
28
Timeline
43
Reference Materials
44
Further Reading
45
Appendix
46
this Unit featUres
•
•
•
Textbook excerpts (sections of U.S. history surveys, written
for introductory college courses by history professors)
Primary sources (documents and other materials created
by the people who lived in the period) including a patent,
photographs, graphics, and text excerpts.
A timeline at the end of the unit, which places important
events in the era of imperialism
1
Content Overview
The “second industrial revolution,” which took place roughly between 1870
and 1920, brought many changes to the United States, including the mass
production of consumer goods; large-scale migration from all parts of the
world; and patterns of social change that reshaped workplace, family,
and gender roles. Mass-produced goods rose in quantity and variety, and
became cheaper to buy. To sell these goods, entrepreneurs developed vast
communication and transportation networks that led to the creation of a
nationwide market. The government supported these developments by
making grants of land to railroad entrepreneurs and by legislating protective
tariffs, a tax on foreign, imported goods.
Often recruited by employers, a labor force eager for economic opportunity
migrated to cities from rural areas of the United States, and from Asia,
Latin America, and Europe. Millions of immigrants from China, Mexico,
Canada, southern and Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia entered all regions
of the country, with the majority settling in the Northeast. Many of these
immigrants hoped to obtain land, but—arriving penniless—often took
the first industrial jobs they could find. At first, these workers might earn
enough to support families left behind or bring the family members over
to join them. When the economy slumped, however, business owners
cut wages, increased work hours and responsibilities, or laid off workers.
In response, workers formed unions to demand improved working
conditions. Local and national strikes became increasingly frequent—even
violent. Acting as concerned consumers, many middle-class women’s
organizations pressed for reforms in labor-industrial relations.
Theme 1:
After the Civil War, the development
of improved industrial methods and
the arrival of masses of immigrants
eager for factory jobs launched a
new era of mass production in the
United States.
Theme 2:
Fleeing religious and political
persecution and poor economic
conditions, millions of people began
to move around the globe, with a
high concentration coming to the
United States.
Theme 3:
Industrial expansion and the
influx of new populations brought
about major changes, including
the rise of a labor movement
and the emergence of women’s
organizations as important agents
of social and political reform.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
Video Related Materials
Historical Perspectives
After Reconstruction, mass production,
mass immigration, and movements for
social change converged to bring about
a period of unprecedented economic
expansion. Advances in mass production
and mass distribution changed how
people worked and lived. The nation’s
patent system encouraged innovation
by protecting the rights of inventors.
The mass production of goods became
more mechanized and efficient, output
increased, and profits rose, allowing
businessmen to invest and expand
American industry.
Through published advertisements,
American businesses recruited overseas
immigrants to work in the nation’s
factories, mills, farms, and railroads.
Millions of immigrations from Asia, Latin
America, and Europe provided the labor
needed by American industry. These
laborers often worked long hours at
low wages and under harsh working
conditions.
Eventually, workers organized to change
these conditions and went on strike to
win their demands. Strikes and other
forms of labor protests continued
throughout the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. National reaction
to labor unrest ranged from calls for
reform to outright repression. Although
many groups favored better treatment of
workers, women’s organizations emerged
as a powerful new force for labor reform:
They fought for an end to child labor,
the introduction of minimum wages,
and improvements in health and safety
conditions in factories.
Faces of America
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a feminist
author; Rose Cohen, a Russian immigrant
garment worker; and Ah Bing, a Chinese
immigrant farmer, represented the diverse
cultures and ideas that emerged during
American industrialization.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a self-educated
artist and author, proposed some radical
ideas about the role of women in society.
Gilman believed that women should have
economic and professional opportunities
beyond the domestic sphere.
Rose Cohen’s memoir described the
immigrant experience in Manhattan’s
tenement district. Her memoir gives
a compelling glimpse into the lives of
European immigrants as they attempted
to build a bridge from their old world
origins into their new world.
Ah Bing immigrated to the United
States from China and worked at the
Lewelling orchard in western Oregon.
During periods of anti-Chinese rioting,
Ah Bing and other Chinese laborers
found refuge in the Lewelling home.
Chinese discrimination culminated with
the passage of the Chinese Exclusion
Act of 1882, which prohibited Chinese
immigration into the United States.
Hands on History
How do you write a historical biography?
Rayvon Fouché, an associate professor
of science and technology studies
at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
recreates the process he used to
write the book Black Inventors in the
Age Segregation. Fouché researched
three African American inventors by
researching history at the National
Archives, examining primary sources at
a historic home, and interviewing the
granddaughter of one of the inventors.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
Theme One
Theme One: After the Civil War, the development of improved industrial
methods and the arrival of masses of immigrants eager for factory jobs
launched a new era of mass production in the United States.
Overview
After Reconstruction, the nation turned its efforts toward economic recovery and expansion.
America’s abundant supply of natural resources, such as coal and oil, encouraged
investment, as did a favorable patent system that protected the rights of inventors. Much of
this investment came from abroad—from already industrialized countries such as Germany,
Great Britain, and France—whose entrepreneurs looked for new investment opportunities
in the United States. These investors put money into the work of mechanics and engineers
with the expertise to develop new, more efficient ways of mass-producing consumer goods.
New forms of factory organization, which allowed business owners to achieve economies of
scale, proliferated across the nation’s industrial areas. These economies of scale benefited
the United States by allowing business owners to specialize in the production of goods and
manufacture them in large quantities to distribute throughout the nation or export abroad.
As a result, the cost of mass-produced goods went down as their quantity and variety
(though not necessarily their quality) went up. Industrial profits rose. An expanding system
of transcontinental railroads—alongside of which a communication network of telegraph and
eventually telephone lines went up—facilitated the growth of national markets to distribute
these goods. The invention of pressure-sealed cans and refrigeration increased the availability
of foodstuffs, thereby improving the quality of life for many of the nation’s city-dwellers.
Questions to Consider
1. What impact did the convergence of immigration, the influx of investment money,
and technological change have on the United States after the Civil War?
2. How did the rise in the quantity of consumer goods affect daily life? What was lost?
What was gained?
Unit 14 Industrializing America
Theme One Excerpts
1. The Texture of Industrial Progress
When Americans went to war in 1861, agriculture was the country’s leading source
of economic growth. Forty years later, manufacturing had taken its place. During
these years, the production of manufactured goods outpaced population growth.
By 1900, three times as many goods per person existed as in 1860. Per capita
income increased by over 2 percent a year. But these aggregate figures disguise
the fact that many people did not win any gains at all.
As the nature of the American economy changed, big businesses became the
characteristic form of economic organization. They could raise the capital to
build huge factories, acquire expensive and efficient machinery, hire hundreds of
workers, and use the most up-to-date methods. The result was more goods at
lower prices.
New regions grew in industrial importance. From New England to the Midwest lay
the country’s industrial heartland. New England remained a center of light industry,
while the Midwest still processed natural resources. Now, however, the production
of iron, steel, and transportation equipment joined older manufacturing operations
there. In the Far West, manufacturers concentrated on processing the region’s
natural resources, but heavy industry made strides as well. In the South, the textile
industry put down roots by the 1890s.
Although many factors contributed to dramatically rising industrial productivity, the
changing character of the industrial sector explains many of the gains. Pre–Civil
War manufacturers had concentrated either on producing textiles, clothing, and
leather products or on processing agricultural and natural resources like grain,
logs, or lumber. Although these operations remained important, heavy industry
grew rapidly after the war. The manufacturing of steel, iron, and machinery meant
producers, rather than consumers, fueled economic growth.
An accelerating pace of technological change contributed to, and was shaped
by, the industrial transformation of the late nineteenth century. Technological
breakthroughs allowed more efficient production that, in turn, helped to generate
new needs and further innovation. Developments in the steel and electric
industries exemplify this interdependent process and highlight the contributions of
entrepreneurs and new ways of organizing research and innovation.
Gary B. Nash and others, eds. The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society, 6th ed.
(New York: Pearson Education, 2004), 610.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
Theme One P rimary Source
U.S. Patent for the Refrigerated Railroad
Question to Consider
Creator:
Andrew Chase
Context:
The establishment
of a favorable patent
How did the development of a favorable patent system stimulate
industrial and economic development?
system contributed to
American industrial
expansion
Audience: United States Patent
and Trademark Office
Purpose:
To show the importance
of a patent system
in facilitating the
patent process, and
encouraging innovation
and invention
Historical Significance:
The United States established a Patent
Office, consisting of trained examiners,
to process applications for patents.
The Patent Office also gave applicants
legal recourse to contest the decisions
of the examiners by appealing to the
Supreme Court. In 1869, the United
States Patent Office charged only $35
to obtain a patent, compared to $450
in Britain, France, and Russia; $420
in Belgium; and $350 in Austria. The
process of obtaining patents, the right
to legal recourse, and the low fee made
the patent system in the United States
favorable to industrial and economic
development. In this example,
Andrew Chase patented a refrigerated
railroad car that allowed the cattle
dealer Gustavus Swift to sell his beef
Item 5639
Andrew Chase, U.S. Patent for the Refrigerated Railroad (1867).
Courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
internationally—forever changing the
distribution of food.
See Appendix for larger image – pg. 46
Unit 14 Industrializing America
Theme One P rimary Source
Illustration of the Bessemer Process
Question to Consider
Creator:
Alfred R. Waud
Context:
Technological
innovations transformed
What impact did the Bessemer process have on industrialization in
the United States?
the production process
during industrialization.
Audience: Readers of Harper’s
Weekly
Purpose:
To show how the
Bessemer process
increased production
Historical Significance:
Before the Civil War, skilled workers
used a slow and costly process to
produce iron, which tended to be soft
and malleable. The development of
Henry Bessemer’s converter aided
the search for a more durable metal.
The Bessemer process transformed
iron into steel by injecting air into
it, thereby reducing the amount of
carbon. The process is credited with
launching the steel industry and
cheapening the cost of production
because it was no longer necessary
to employ highly paid skilled workers.
Item 6811
Alfred R. Waud, Bessemer Steel Manufacture (1876).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
See Appendix for larger image – pg. 47
Unit 14 Industrializing America
Theme One Excerpts
2. Technological Innovations
. . . Neither an inventor nor an engineer, Andrew Carnegie recognized the promise
not only of new processes but also of new ways of organizing industry. Steel
companies like Carnegie’s acquired access to raw materials and markets and
brought all stages of steel manufacturing, from smelting to rolling, into one mill.
Output soared, and prices fell. When Andrew Carnegie introduced the Bessemer
process in his plant in the mid-1870s, the price of steel plummeted from $100 a
ton to $12 a ton by 1900.
In turn, the production of a cheaper, stronger, more durable material than iron
created new goods, new demands, and new markets, and it stimulated further
technological change. Bessemer furnaces, geared toward making steel rails, did
not produce steel for building. Experimentation with the open-hearth process
that used very high temperatures resulted in steel for bridge and ship builders,
engineers, architects, and even designers of subways. Countless Americans
bought steel in more humble forms: wire, nails, bolts, needles, and screws.
New power sources facilitated American industry’s shift to mass production and
also suggest the importance of new ways of organizing research and innovation.
In 1869, about half of the nation’s industrial power came from water. The opening
of new anthracite deposits, however, cut the cost of coal, and American industry
rapidly converted to steam. By 1900, steam engines generated 80 percent of the
nation’s industrial energy supply . . .
Nash et al., 610.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
Theme One Secondary Source
Steel Production by the Bessemer Process,
1869–1899
Questions to Consider
1. What impact did the Bessemer process have on the production of steel?
2. What effect did the Bessemer process have on the price of steel?
Item 6642
Nash et al., 612.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
Theme One Excerpts
3. New Systems and Machines—and Their Price
During this period, more and more businesses perfected the so-called American
system of manufacturing, which dated back half a century and relied on the mass
production of interchangeable parts. Factory workers made large numbers of a
particular part, each part exactly the same size and shape. This system enabled
manufacturers to assemble products more cheaply and efficiently, to repair
products easily with new parts, and to redesign products quickly. In the early
1880s the Singer Sewing Machine Company was selling 500,000 units a year.
McCormick was producing 21,600 reapers annually. The American system also
spurred technological innovation. For example, in 1884 the twine binder used in
wheat harvesting was modified with new parts for use in harvesting rice.
New technical processes also facilitated the manufacture and marketing of
foods and other consumer goods. Distributors developed pressure-sealed cans,
which enabled them to market agricultural products in far-flung parts of the
country. Innovative techniques for sheet metal stamping and electric resistance
welding transformed a variety of industries. Eager to satisfy a demand for steel
(an alloy that was stronger and harder than iron), U.S. manufacturers stepped up
production of the versatile metal. For the first time, they broke free of European
suppliers. By 1880, 90 percent of American steel was made by the Bessemer
process (named after its English inventor but developed in this country by William
Kelly), which injected air into molten iron to yield steel.
The agriculture business benefited from engineering innovations as well. These
technological advances included improvements in irrigation and new labor-saving
devices, such as the self-binding harvester (1878) and the first self-steering, selfpropelled traction engine (1882).
As farm productivity boomed, the need for hired hands evaporated. Early in the
nineteenth century, producing an acre of wheat took 56 hours of labor; in 1880,
that number dropped to 20 hours. Machines, such as the self-binding harvester,
reduced labor needs by as much as 75 percent. One agricultural worker in Ohio
observed, “Of one thing we are convinced, that while improved machinery is
gathering our large crops, making our boots and shoes, doing the work of our
carpenters, stone sawyers, and builders, thousands of able, willing men are going
from place to place seeking employment, and finding none. The question naturally
arises, is improved machinery a blessing or a curse?”
Peter H. Wood et al., eds. Created Equal: A Social and Political History of the United States
(New York: Pearson Education, 2003), 542.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
10
Theme One P rimary Source
Iron Chink at Work in P.A.F. cannery
Questions to Consider
Creator:
Asahel Curtis
Context:
Technological
1. How did the Iron Chink change the production of salmon?
2. What impact did the Iron Chink have on the labor force?
innovations during
industrialization sped
up the processing
of canned goods
and contributed to
unemployment.
Audience: Unknown
Purpose:
To show how the Iron
Chink sped up the mass
production of canned
salmon and displaced
workers
Historical Significance:
In 1903, the Iron Chink changed
the production process for canned
Item 6522
Asahel Curtis, Iron Chink at Work in P.A.F. cannery, 1905.
Courtesy of the Museum of History and Industry.
See Appendix for larger image – pg. 48
salmon. Before the Iron Chink, Chinese
cannery workers manually butchered
and canned salmon. This machine,
however, cut the fish open, separated
the fins, and cleaned out the guts.
The Iron Chink drastically cut the
processing time, while simultaneously
taking away the jobs of Chinese
workers.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
11
Theme One Excerpts
4. Scientific Management and Mass Production
[During the early 1900s, a scientific approach to maximize worker productivity
accompanied the new methods of production.] In 1911 Frederick Winslow Taylor
wrote the Principles of Scientific Management, his guide to increased efficiency
in the nation’s industries. Taylor began his career as a laborer in the Midvale
Steel Works near Philadelphia in 1878 and rose through the ranks to become the
plant’s chief engineer. There he developed a system to improve mass production
in factories in order to make more goods more quickly. Taylor’s principles
included analysis of each job to determine the precise motions and tools needed
to maximize each worker’s productivity, detailed instructions for workers and
guidelines for their supervisors, and wage scales with incentives to motivate
workers to achieve high production goals. Over the next decades, industrial
managers all over the country drew on Taylor’s studies. Business leaders
rushed to embrace Taylor’s principles, and Taylor himself became a pioneering
management consultant.
Henry Ford was among the most successful industrialists to employ Taylor’s
techniques. . . . In 1913, Ford introduced assembly line production, a system
in which each worker performed one task repeatedly as each automobile in the
process of construction moved along a conveyor. Assembly-line manufacturing
increased production while cutting costs.
Wood et al., 653–54.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
12
Theme One
Conclusion
New technologies, innovative approaches to business operations, and improved
communication and transportation networks significantly increased the amount,
variety, and affordability of consumer goods available to many Americans. The
workplace, family life, and daily life in urban centers were all profoundly changed by this
development.
Questions to Consider
1. How did new technology and technical processes change the workplace during
this period?
2. How did the formation of communication and transportation networks develop
national markets?
3. What impact did these changes have on daily life?
Unit 14 Industrializing America
13
Theme T
Owo
ne
Theme Two: Fleeing religious and political persecution and poor economic
conditions, millions of people began to move about the globe, with a high
concentration coming to the United States.
Overview
Industrial expansion required an ever-growing workforce. American businesses and some
Southern planters actively recruited workers from the nation’s rural areas, as well as from
abroad through advertisements published in foreign languages around the world. Between
1870 and 1920, approximately 26.5 million migrants from Asia, Latin America, and Europe
entered all regions of the United States, with the majority settling in the Northeast and
the Midwest.
Non-native born migrants came to the United States for a variety of reasons. Some were
escaping political and religious persecution. Others, facing a declining quantity of arable
land in their homeland, were attracted its availability in America. Most immigrants left their
homelands looking for economic opportunity. The United States not only offered such
opportunity but also held out the promise of upward mobility for those locked in to the
social classes into which they had been born.
More shipping lines, faster ships, and lower costs of travel made transoceanic travel easier
than ever before. Ships brought immigrants to ports at Baltimore, Boston, New York City,
Galveston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Using transcontinental railroads
and river boats, immigrants fanned out across the country to look for jobs: the Japanese in
California’s fruit orchards, Mexicans in Colorado’s mines and beet fields, Scandinavians in
western mines, Italians in iron mining camps in Missouri, and the Irish in New York factories.
Many migrants arrived hoping to buy land, but they were often so penniless that they could
not afford to move beyond their arrival city, where they took the first job they could find.
Questions to Consider
1. What drew immigrants to the United States?
2. Where did they migrate? Why?
Unit 14 Industrializing America
14
Theme T
Owo
ne E
Secondary
xcerpts Source
Migration to The United States, 1860–1910
This map and table show the regions of the world from where immigrants to
the United States came between 1860–1910. What region of the world had the
highest number of immigrants coming to the United States? What do you think
accounts for the difference?
Item 4016
Nash et al., 619.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
15
Theme T
Owo
ne Excerpts
xcerpts
1. New Labor Supplies for a New Economy
To operate efficiently, expanding industries needed expanding supplies of
workers to grow crops, extract raw materials, and produce manufactured goods.
Many of these workers came from abroad. The year 1880 marked the leading
edge of a new wave of immigration to the United States. Over the next ten years,
5.2 million newcomers entered the country, almost twice the previous decade’s
level of 2.8 million.
In the mid-nineteenth century, most immigrants hailed from western Europe and
the British Isles—from Germany, Scandinavia, England, and Ireland. Between
1880 and 1890, Germans, Scandinavians, and the English kept coming, but
they were joined by numerous Italians, Russians, and Poles. In fact, these last
three groups predominated among newcomers for the next thirty-five years, their
arrival rates peaking between 1890 and 1910 . . . [In 1870, the population of the
United States was 39.8 million people; by 1920, however, the nation’s population
had increased to 105.7 million. During these years, one out of four people (26.5
million) was a new immigrant.]
Many of the new European immigrants sought to escape oppressive economic
and political conditions in Europe, even as they hoped to make a new life
for themselves and their families in the United States. Russian Jews fled
discrimination and violent anti-Semitism in the form of pogroms, organized
massacres, conducted by their Christian neighbors and Russian authorities.
Southern Italians, most of whom were landless farmers, suffered from a
combination of declining agricultural prices and high birth rates. Impoverished
Poles chafed under cultural restrictions imposed by Germany and Russia.
Hungarians, Greeks, Portuguese, and Armenians, among other groups, also
participated in this great migration; members of these groups too were seeking
political freedom and economic opportunity. [People also left because there was
not enough land. The process of dividing up family plots left younger siblings
landless; others lost their lands because landowners consolidated their property
and evicted them.]
Wood et al., 548.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
16
Theme Two P rimary Source
Group of Emigrants (Women and Children)
from Eastern Europe on Deck of the
S.S. Amsterdam
Creator:
Frances Benjamin
Johnston
Context:
Photographers
chronicled the migration
to the United States on
Question to Consider
What do these photographs tell us about an immigrant’s experience
traveling to the United States?
board ships.
Audience: Unknown
Purpose:
To show the journey to
the United States
Historical Significance:
Between 1870 and 1920, the United
States witnessed migration on an
unprecedented scale. New shipping
lines, faster passage, and cheaper
fares brought immigrants to the United
States and other countries such as
Argentina, Australia, and Canada.
These photographs depict the large
numbers of immigrants who made
the journey, the travel conditions, and
their arrival.
Item 4345
Frances Benjamin Johnston, Group of emigrants (women and children)
from Eastern Europe on deck of the S.S. Amsterdam (1899).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
See Appendix for larger image – pg. 49
Unit 14 Industrializing America
17
Theme Two P rimary Source
“The New Colossus”
inscription from the
Statue of Liberty
Creator:
Emma Lazarus
Context:
On arriving in New
York harbor, the Statue
Questions to Consider
of Liberty welcomed
1.Why did Emma Lazarus refer to the Statue of Liberty as
“The New Colossus”?
2. Why might some newcomers reject Lazarus’s portrayal of
immigrants? What does this representation of immigrants say
about how native-born Americans viewed them?
immigrants.
Audience: Immigrants and visitors
to the Statue of Liberty
Purpose:
To raise money for
the Statue of Liberty’s
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
with conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
with silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
the wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
pedestal
Historical Significance:
Many immigrants left poverty and
persecution in Europe, Asia, and Latin
America, hoping to take advantage of
democratic institutions and economic
opportunity in the United States. For
those who entered the country through
New York City’s harbor after 1886,
their first glimpse of America was
often the Statue of Liberty. Despite the
welcoming tone of Emma Lazarus’s
poem, not all Americans were eager to
receive them—even though some were
fairly recent immigrants themselves.
Emma Lazarus “The New Colossus”
(inscription from the Statue of Liberty, New York harbor, 1886).
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Theme T
Owo
ne Excerpts
xcerpts
2. New Labor Supplies for a New Economy
. . . Most of the newcomers found work in the factories, mills, and sweatshops of
New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. At the same time, large numbers of these
fresh arrivals dispersed to other areas of the country to work in a wide variety of
enterprises. Scandinavians populated the prairies of Iowa and Minnesota and the
High Plains of the Dakotas.
[Not all immigrants settled in Northern or Midwestern cities.] In the South, some
planters began to recruit immigrants—especially western Europeans of “hardy
peasant stock”—to take the place of blacks who resisted working for whites.
Nevertheless, planters’ experiments with recruiting immigrants amounted to little.
Given the opportunity, many immigrants sought to flee from the back-breaking
labor and meager wages of the cotton staple crop economy. A group of Germans
brought over to toil in the Louisiana swamps soon after the Civil War quickly
slipped away from their employers; they had agreed to the arrangement only
to gain free passage to America. Thirty Swedes who arrived in Alabama also
deserted at an opportune moment, declaring that they were not slaves. South
Carolina planters who sponsored colonies of Germans and Italians gave up in
exasperation. The few Chinese who began work in the Louisiana sugar fields
soon abandoned the plodding work of the plantations in favor of employment in
the trades and shops of New Orleans. Still, in 1890, immigrant worker enclaves
were scattered throughout the South. Irish, Polish, and Italian men were swinging
pickaxes in Florida railroad camps. Italian men, women, and children were picking
cotton on Louisiana plantations. Hungarian men were digging coal out of mines in
West Virginia.
Wood et al., 548.
3. The Heartland: Land of Newcomers
Known as the nation’s heartland, the upper Midwest carries associations of small
towns dotted with Protestant churches and inhabited by hardy Anglo-Saxon
pioneers and their descendants. But at the dawn of the twentieth century, it was
not the coastal cities, with their visible immigrant ghettos, but the settlements
in the upper Midwest, along with the lower Southwest, where the greatest
concentration of foreign-born residents lived. In the growing towns and cities of
the Midwest, newcomers from central Europe and Italy joined the earlier settlers
from Germany and Scandinavia to form farming and mining communities on the
rich soil and abundant iron deposits of the region.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
19
Theme T
Owo
ne Excerpts
xcerpts
Immigrants from central and southern Europe settled in the region, which came
to be known as the “iron range.” In the 1890s, the area was sparsely settled.
As a result of the Dawes Act of 1887, which divided tribal lands into individual
parcels, much of the land originally held by Indians had been divided and sold.
Most of the Indians who were native to that region were removed to reservations.
The iron-rich areas, previously the hunting, fishing, and gathering areas of the
Native Americans, were now inhabited by lumberjacks who cut the forests. The
harsh climate, ranging from 40°F in the snowy winters to more than 110°F in the
sweltering summers, plus aggressive swarms of biting insects made it a difficult
place to settle. Nevertheless, mining companies discovered the iron deposits and
began recruiting workers, first from northern Europe and then, after 1900, from
southern and eastern Europe. By 1910, the iron range was home to 35 European
immigrant groups. Gradually, these cohesive working-class communities, like
others elsewhere, developed their own brand of ethnic Americanism, complete
with elaborate Fourth of July celebrations and other festivities that expressed
both their distinctive ethnic identities and their allegiance to their adopted country.
Wood et al., 645.
4. New Labor Supplies for a New Economy
The influx of so many foreign-born workers transformed the American labor
market. Native-born Protestant men moved up the employment ladder to
become members of the white-collar (that is, professional) middle class, while
recent immigrants filled the ranks in construction and manufacturing. By
1890 Italian immigrants accounted for 90 percent of New York’s public works
employees and 99 percent of Chicago’s street construction and maintenance
crews. Women and children, both native and foreign-born, predominated in the
textile, garment-making, and food processing industries.
Specific groups of immigrants often gravitated toward particular kinds of jobs.
For example, many Poles found work in the vast steel plants of Pittsburgh,
and Russian Jews went into the garment industry and street-peddling trade
in New York City. California fruit orchards and vegetable farms employed
numerous Japanese immigrants. Cuban immigrants rolled cigars in Florida. In
Hawaii, the Chinese and Japanese labored in the sugar fields; after they had
accumulated a little money, they became rice farmers and shopkeepers. In
Boston and New York City, second-generation Irish took advantage of their
prominent place in the Democratic Party to become public school teachers,
firefighters, and police officers.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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These ethnic niches proved crucial for the well-being of many immigrant
communities. They provided newcomers with an entrée into the economy;
indeed, many men and women got their first jobs with the help of kin and other
compatriots. Niches also helped immigrants advance within an industry or
economic sector. Finally, they enriched immigrant communities by keeping profits
and wages within those communities.
The experience of Kinji Ushijima (later known as George Shima) graphically
illustrates the power of immigrant niches. Shima arrived in California in 1887
and, like many other [Asian] immigrants, he found work as a potato picker in
the San Joaquin Valley. Soon, Shima moved up to become a labor contractor,
securing Japanese laborers for the valley’s white farmers. With the money he
made, he bought 15 acres of land and began his own potato farm. Eventually he
built a large potato business by expanding his holdings, reclaiming swampland,
and investing in a fleet of boats to ship his crops up the coast to San Francisco.
Taking advantage of a Japanese niche, Shima had prospered through a
combination of good luck and hard work.
[American businesses recruited Asians to work in sugar fields in Hawaii and on
the railroads in Utah. On the Central Pacific Railroad, the Chinese accounted for
about 90 percent of the workforce. The Chinese also worked in the shoe, cigar,
and garment industries in California. By 1870, San Francisco was the ninthlargest manufacturing city in the United States, and about 40 percent of the
workforce was Chinese. Employers had an advantage in hiring Chinese labor:
There was a dual wage system and they paid the Chinese about one-third less
than they paid white laborers.
Typically, the sons left and sent money back to their families. Even though many
were already married, employers prevented the Chinese from bringing their families
into the country; employers only wanted male laborers. Chinese men circumvented
the law by claiming they had parents who were American citizens. Some Americanborn Chinese men provided documentation for numerous “paper sons” unrelated
to them, who then entered the country legally. Because record keeping was
irregular, and many birth records were lost in fires following the 1906 San Francisco
earthquake, immigration authorities often failed to discover the truth.
As more Chinese laborers replaced white laborers, there was a growing
resentment against them. Native-born or European-born workers accused Asians
of lowering wages and causing unemployment. The popular press stereotyped
and ridiculed the way they looked, dressed, and wore their hair.]
Wood et al., 548.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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5. The Homestead and Pullman Strikes of 1892 and 1894
[This tension] appeared most dramatically in the anti-Chinese campaign of the
1870s and 1880s as white workers in the West began to blame the Chinese for
economic hardships. The Chinese were particularly vulnerable because, unlike
European immigrants, they could not be naturalized. A meeting of San Francisco
workers in 1877 in favor of the eight-hour day exploded into a rampage against
the Chinese. In the following years, angry mobs killed Chinese workers in Tacoma,
Seattle, Denver, and Rock Springs, Wyoming. “The Chinese must go! They are
stealing our jobs!” became a rallying cry for American workers. When one Chinese
immigrant arrived in San Francisco in 1900, he reported that “some white boys
came up and starting throwing rocks” at the carriage in which he was sitting.
Hostility was also expressed at the national level with the Chinese Exclusion
Act of 1882. The law, which enjoyed support from the Knights of Labor in the
West, prohibited the immigration of both skilled and unskilled Chinese workers
for a 10-year period. It was extended in 1892 and made permanent in 1902.
It paved the way for further restriction of immigration in the 1920s. Although
both middle- and working-class Americans supported sporadic efforts to cut
off immigration, working-class antipathy exacerbated the deep divisions that
undermined worker unity.
Nash et al., 642.
6. Chinese Lawsuits in California
. . . In rural California, job-hungry whites formed anti-Chinese groups such as
the American and European Labor Association, founded in Colusa County in
1882. The association also included employers who resented Chinese demands
for equal pay. (Most of these immigrants received two-thirds the wages of their
white counterparts for the same work.) Yet despite all the personal and legal
discrimination, the Chinese resisted.
Opposition to the Chinese hardened in the 1880s. In San Francisco, the Knights
of Labor and the Workingmen’s Party of California helped to engineer the passage
of the Chinese Exclusion Act, approved by Congress in 1882. This measure
denied any additional Chinese laborers entry into the country while allowing some
Chinese merchants and students to immigrate. (Put to the voters of California
in 1879, the possibility of total exclusion of Chinese had garnered 150,000
votes for and only 900 against.) In railroad towns and mining camps, vigilantes
looted and burned Chinese communities, in some cases murdering or expelling
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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their inhabitants. In 1885 in Rock Springs, Wyoming, white workers massacred
28 Chinese and drove hundreds out of town in the wake of an announcement
by Union Pacific officials that the railroad would begin hiring the lower-paid
immigrants. While white women cheered from the sidelines, their husbands and
brothers burned the Chinese section of the town to the ground. Such attacks
erupted more and more frequently throughout the West in the late 1880s and into
the 1890s. White men contended that they must present a united front against
all Chinese, who, they claimed, threatened the economic well-being of white
working-class communities . . .
In other instances, local white prejudice overwhelmed even Chinese who sought
legal redress from violence and discrimination. In 1886 the Chinese living in
the Wood River mining district in southern Idaho faced down a group of whites
who had met and announced that all Chinese had three months to leave town.
Members of the Chinese community promptly hired their own lawyers and
took out an advertisement in the local paper stating their intention to hold their
ground. As a community they managed to survive. Still, their numbers dropped
precipitously throughout Idaho as whites managed to hound many of them out
of the state.
Wood et al., 575.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Theme Two P rimary Source
Some Reasons for Chinese Exclusion
Creator:
American Federation
of Labor and Hermann
Questions to Consider
1. What was the pamphlet’s argument for Chinese Exclusion?
2. How did the pamphlet present its argument?
Samuel Gompers of the
Gutstadt
Context:
Anti-Asian agitation
during the late
nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries
Audience: United States Senate
Purpose:
To promote a second
extension of the Chinese
Exclusion Act of 1882
Historical Significance:
In 1901, Samuel Gompers, who was
the leader of the AFL, and Hermann
Gutstadt, German-born cigarmaker
and avid anti-Chinese labor organizer
in San Francisco, favored Chinese
exclusion, arguing that Chinese
immigrants lowered the standard of
living for white workers. The pamphlet’s
aim was to persuade senators to renew
the extension of the Chinese Exclusion
Act of 1882. With its subsequent
Item 4010
American Federation of Labor, Some Reasons for Chinese Exclusion.
Meat vs. Rice. American Manhood Against Asiatic Coolieism.
Which Shall Survive? (1901). Courtesy of the Bancroft Library,
the University of California—Berkeley.
extension in 1902, the Chinese
Exclusion Act barred all Chinese
from American citizenship through
naturalization. In order to maintain
trade relations with China, the United
States did allow entry of travelers,
“In view of the near expiration of the present law excluding
Chinese laborers from coming to the United States and the
recognized necessity of either reenacting the present or
adopting a similar law, the American Federation of Labor has
determined to present its reasons and solicit the cooperation of
not only all of its affiliated organizations, but also of all citizens
who may consider the preservation of American institutions and
the welfare of a majority of our people of sufficient importance to
assist in this work.
merchants, diplomats, students, and
teachers. Restrictions and exclusions
on other immigrant groups followed.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Theme Two P rimary Source
. . . We furthermore desire to assure our readers that in maintaining
our position we are not inspired by a scintilla of prejudice of any
kind, but with the best interests of our country uppermost in our
mind simply request fair consideration.
. . . Beginning with the most menial avocations they gradually
invaded our industry they gradually invaded one industry after
another until they not merely took the places of our girls as
domestics and cooks, the laundry of our poorer white women,
but the places of the men and boys, as boot and shoemakers,
cigarmakers, bagmakers, miners, farm laborers, brickmakers,
tailors, slippermakers, etc. In the ladies’ furnishing line they have
absolute control, displacing hundreds of our girls, who would
otherwise find profitable employment. Whatever business or
trade they enter is doomed for the white laborer, as competition is
surely impossible. Not that the Chinese would not rather work for
high wages than low, but in order to gain control he will work so
cheaply as to bar all efforts of his competitor. But not only has the
workingman gained this bitter experience, but the manufacturers
and merchants have equally been the sufferers. The Chinese
laborer will work cheaper for a Chinese employer than he will
for a white man, as has been invariably proven, and, as a rule,
he boards with his Chinese employer. The Chinese merchant or
manufacturer will undersell his white confrere, and if uninterrupted
will finally gain possession of the entire field. Such is the history of
the race wherever they have come in contact with other peoples.
None can understand their silent and irresistible flow, and their
millions already populate and command labor and the trade of the
islands and nations of the Pacific . . .
Whereas the experience of the last thirty years in California and
on the Pacific coast having proved conclusively that the presence
of Chinese and their competition with free white labor is one
of the greatest evils with which any country can be afflicted:
Therefore be it Resolved, That we use our best efforts to get
rid of this monstrous evil (which threatens, unless checked,
to extend to other parts of the Union) by the dissemination of
information respecting its true character, and by urging upon
our Representatives in the United States Congress the absolute
necessity of passing laws entirely prohibiting the immigration of
Chinese into the United States.
American Federation of Labor, Some Reasons for Chinese Exclusion.
Meat vs. Rice. American Manhood Against Asiatic Coolieism.
Which Shall Survive? (1901; reprinted as U.S. Senate Document 102 in 1902;
reissued in 1908 by the Asiatic Exclusion League, which identified
Samuel Gompers and Hermann Gudstadt as its authors).
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Theme Two P rimary Source
Wells Fargo & Company Express
Directory of Chinese Business Houses
Creator:
Wells Fargo & Company
Express
Context:
Anti-Chinese hostility
occurred during the
1870s and 1880s,
but some companies
profited from doing
business with Chinese
immigrants.
Question to Consider
How did entrepreneurs conduct business with Chinese communities
in a climate of anti-Chinese sentiment?
Audience: Chinese merchants in
California, Nevada,
and Oregon
Purpose:
To further promote the
economic viability of
Chinese communities
by facilitating commerce
with Chinese businesses
on the West Coast
Historical Significance:
Item 6524
Wells Fargo & Company, Directory of Chinese Business Houses (1878).
Courtesy of Wells Fargo Bank.
See Appendix for larger image – pg. 50
During the height of the anti-Chinese
movement, Wells Fargo produced
English-Chinese merchant directories
in the 1870s, and again in 1882—the
same year that the Chinese Exclusion
Act restricted Chinese immigration.
Chinese communities in remote
towns and mining camps relied on
Wells Fargo’s express service to
communicate with Asian merchants
and importers in cities of the West.
The directories not only benefited
Chinese communities, but also bridged
the language barrier separating
Chinese communities from Englishspeaking communities. At the Chicago
exposition of 1893, Wells Fargo
displayed an advertisement signaling
its reliance on Chinese businesses:
“The Company by its fair and
impartial treatment of the public, has
always enjoyed the special favor and
patronage of the Chinese of the Pacific
Coast, who have unbounded faith in its
responsibility and integrity, both as an
Express and a Bank.”
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Theme Two
Conclusion
Throughout the late 1800s, industrialization fueled the need for more labor. Some
businesses recruited workers from abroad, arousing resentment among native-born
Americans, as well as among migrants who had come in earlier waves. As industry
boomed, it resulted in the recruitment of workers from abroad. A global movement
of people took place with millions of people migrating to the United States, Canada,
Argentina, and Australia. Although some migrants returned home, most of the new
arrivals settled in niche communities where previous immigrants from their homeland
spoke their language and shared their values.
Questions to Consider
1. Why was a niche community so important to a new immigrant?
2. How did hiring Chinese workers affect relations with white workers?
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Theme Three: Industrial expansion and the influx of new populations
brought about major changes, including the rise of a labor movement and
the emergence of women’s organizations as important agents of social and
political reform.
Overview
The conditions under which industrial labor worked could be difficult. Unrestrained by
regulatory laws, employers obliged their laborers to work ten- to fifteen-hour shifts, usually six
days a week. They could fire workers who complained or refused to stay on the job, especially
in periods when demand for output was high. In bad economic times, employers cut wages
and increased the number and speed of machines workers were expected to operate. Some
machines were highly dangerous. The rate of industrial accidents rose, and workers rarely got
adequate compensation. At this time, no government assistance programs existed to protect
workers from accidents on the job or from cyclical unemployment.
Labor responded to such conditions in a variety of ways. Some tried to control the production
process by denouncing—or even injuring—workers whose output exceeded the norm. Others
formed local and national unions, which organized collective actions such as walk-outs and
strikes. Over the last three decades of the nineteenth century, unions waged thousands of
strikes. Some of these actions turned violent. The authorities often blamed “outside agitators”
espousing radical ideologies such as socialism, communism, and anarchism, for these
developments. Anarchists were especially feared, as they opposed all forms of government
authority, and sometimes incited followers to acts of terror.
The coming of the second industrial revolution changed the role of middle-class women in
American society. For the most part removed from the production process, they focused
their lives increasingly on being good consumers. But, because the goods they bought were
generally mass-produced far from their homes and under conditions that might not be healthy
or safe, many middle-class women began to work through their voluntary organizations—
church groups, clubs, and reform societies—to call for not only safer industrial products but
also improved working conditions for industrial labor. The tradition that women should be
concerned only with the private, domestic sphere became weaker as a result of their activism.
Questions to Consider
1. How and why did the relationship between managers and workers change during the last
quarter of the nineteenth century?
2. How did mass production change the role of women in society?
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Excerpts
1. Militancy in the Factories and Mines
[During this period, workers were subject to the effects of business cycles and
the hazards of the workplace. Worker’s compensation, unemployment insurance,
social security, and health insurance did not exist.] Because no laws regulated
private industry, employers could impose 10- to 15-hour workdays, six days a
week. (By the 1890s, bakers were working as long as 65 hours a week.) Industrial
accidents were all too common, and some industries lacked safety precautions.
Steelworkers labored in excessive heat, and miners and textile mill employees
alike contracted respiratory diseases. With windows closed and machines
speeded up, new forms of technology created new risks for workers. The Chicago
meatpackers, who wielded gigantic cleavers in subfreezing lockers, and the
California wheat harvesters, who operated complex mechanical binders and
threshers, were among those confronting danger on the job.
Women wage-earners also faced dangerous working conditions. In 1884 the
Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor issued a report outlining the
occupational hazards for working women in the city of Boston. In button-making
establishments, female workers often got their fingers caught under punch and
die machines. Employers provided a surgeon to dress an employee’s wounds the
first three times she was injured; thereafter, she had to pay for her own medical
care. Women operated heavy power machinery in the garment industry and
exposed themselves to dangerous chemicals and food-processing materials in
paper-box making, fish packing, and confectionery manufacturing.
Some women workers, especially those who monopolized certain kinds of jobs,
organized and struck for higher wages. Three thousand Atlanta washerwomen
launched such an effort in 1881 but failed to get their demands met. Most
women found it difficult to win the respect not only of employers but also of male
unionists. Leonora Barry, an organizer for the Knights of Labor, sought to change
all that. Barry visited mills and factories around the country. At each stop, she
highlighted women’s unique difficulties and condemned the “selfishness of their
brothers in toil” who resented women’s intrusion into the workplace. Barry was
reacting to men such as Edward O’Donnell, a prominent labor official who claimed
that wage-earning women threatened the role of men as family breadwinners.
For both men and women workers, the influx of 5.25 million new immigrants
in the 1880s stiffened job competition at worksites throughout the country. To
make matters worse, vast outlays of capital needed to mechanize and organize
manufacturing plants placed pressure on employers to economize. Many of them
did so by cutting wages. Like the family farmer who could no longer claim the
status of the independent yeoman, industrial workers depended on employers
and consumers for their physical well-being and very survival.
Wood et al., 589.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Excerpts
2. The Family Economy
. . . Like colonial families, late-nineteenth-century working-class families operated
as cooperative economic units. The unpaid domestic labor of working-class
wives was critical to family survival. With husbands away for 10 to 11 hours a day,
women bore the burden of child care and the domestic chores. Because workingclass families could not afford labor-saving conveniences, housework was timeconsuming and arduous. Without an ice box, a working-class woman spent part
of each day shopping for food (more expensive in small quantities). Doing laundry
entailed carrying water from outside pumps, heating it on the stove, washing the
clothes, rinsing them with fresh water, and hanging them up to dry. Ironing was
a hot and unpleasant job in small and stuffy quarters. Keeping an apartment or
house clean when the atmosphere was grimy and unpaved roads were littered
with refuse and horse dung was a challenge.
As managers of family resources, married women bore important responsibilities.
What American families had once produced for themselves now had to be
bought. It was up to the working-class wife to scour secondhand shops to find
cheap clothes for her family. Domestic economies were vital to survival. “In
summer and winter alike,” one woman explained, “I must try to buy the food that
will sustain us the greatest number of meals at the lowest price.”
Women also supplemented family income by taking in work. Jewish and Italian
women frequently did piecework and sewing at home. In the Northeast and
the Midwest, between 10 and 40 percent of all working-class families kept
boarders. Immigrant families in particular often made ends meet by taking
single, young countrymen into their homes. Having boarders meant providing
meals and clean laundry, juggling different work schedules, and sacrificing
privacy. But the advantages of extra income far outweighed the disadvantages
for many working-class families.
Black women’s working lives reflected the obstacles African Americans faced
in late-nineteenth-century cities. Although only about 7 percent of married
white women worked outside the home, African-American women did so both
before and after marriage. In southern cities in 1880, about three-quarters of
single black women and one-third of married women worked outside the home.
Because industrial employers would not hire African-American women, most of
them had to work as domestics or laundresses. The high percentage of married
black women in the labor force reflected the marginal wages their husbands
earned. But it may also be explained in part by the lesson learned during slavery
that children could thrive without the constant attention of their mothers.
Nash et al., 635.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Secondary Source
Number of Women Employed in Select Industries,
1870–1910
The chart below shows the rise of women workers in industry. What industries
witnessed the largest increase? Why?
Item 6618
Nash et al., 634.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Excerpts
3. The Family Economy
By 1900, nearly 20 percent of American women were in the labor force. Employed
women earned far less than men. An experienced female factory worker might be
paid between $5 and $6 a week, whereas an unskilled male laborer could make
about $8. Discrimination, present from women’s earliest days in the workforce,
persisted. Still, factory jobs were desirable because they often paid better than
other kinds of work open to women.
By the 1890s, new forms of employment in office work, nursing, and clerking
in department stores offered some young women . . . opportunities. In San
Francisco, the number of clerical jobs doubled between 1852 and 1880. But
most women faced limited employment options, and ethnic taboos and cultural
traditions helped shape choices. About a quarter of working women secured
factory jobs. Italian and Jewish women (whose cultural backgrounds virtually
forbade their going into domestic service) clustered in the garment industry,
and Poles and Slavs went into textiles, food processing, and meatpacking.
In some industries, like textiles and tobacco, women composed an important
segment of the workforce. But about 40 percent of them, especially those
from Irish, Scandinavian, and black families, took jobs as maids, cooks,
laundresses, and nurses.
Nash et al., 634.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Theme Three P rimary Source
Strikes, Ladies Tailors, n.y., Feb. 1910,
Picket Girls on Duty
Creator:
Unknown
Context:
Two women garment
workers on picket line
Question to Consider
during the “Uprising of
What do these photographs tell us about how the strike was
organized?
the 20,000”
Audience: People standing along
St. Paul Street, New
York City
Purpose:
To show the striking
garment workers
Historical Significance:
In 1913, garment workers in New York’s
largest clothing factory went on strike
for better working conditions. Their
demands included an eight-hour work
day, increased overtime pay, holiday
leave, and union recognition. They won
some concessions, including a fiftyfour-hour work week, time-and-a-half
Item 5975
Unknown, Strikes, ladies tailors, N.Y., Feb. 1910, picket girls on duty (1910).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
See Appendix for larger image – pg. 51
for overtime, and five legal holidays
off. The general public supported this
strike largely because of publicity
surrounding the report of the New
York State Factory Investigating
Commission, which had exposed the
harsh and unsafe working conditions
in many of the state’s factories. The
commission was established after
146 workers, mostly young immigrant
girls, died in the 1911 Triangle Shirt
Waist Company fire in New York City.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Excerpts
4. New Freedoms for Middle-Class Women
Job opportunities for . . . educated, middle-class women were generally limited to
the social services and teaching. Still regarded as a suitable female occupation,
teaching was a highly demanding job as urban schools expanded under the
pressure of a burgeoning population. Women teachers, frequently hired because
they accepted lower pay than men, often faced classes of 40 to 50 children in
poorly equipped rooms. In Poughkeepsie, New York, teachers earned the same
salaries as school janitors. Moving up to high-status jobs proved difficult.
After the Civil War, educational opportunities for women expanded. New
women’s colleges such as Smith, Vassar, Bryn Mawr, and Goucher offered
programs similar to those at competitive men’s colleges, while state schools in
the Midwest and the West dropped prohibitions against women. The number of
women attending college rose. In 1890, some 13 percent of all college graduates
were women; by 1900, this number had increased to nearly 20 percent.
Higher education prepared middle-class women for conventional female roles
as well as for work and public service. A few courageous graduates succeeded
in joining the professions, but they had to overcome barriers. Many medical
schools refused to accept women students. As a Harvard doctor explained in
1875, a woman’s monthly period “unfits her from taking those responsibilities
which are to control questions often of life and death.” Despite the obstacles,
2,500 women managed to become physicians and surgeons by 1880
(constituting 2.8 percent of the total). Women were less successful at breaking
into the legal world. In 1880, fewer than 50 female lawyers practiced in the
entire country, and as late as 1920, only 1.4 percent of the nation’s lawyers and
judges were women. George Washington University did not admit women to law
school because mixed classes would be an “injurious diversion of attention of
the students.”
Despite such resistance, by the early twentieth century, the number of
women professionals (including teachers) was increasing at three times the
rate for men . . .
Nash et al., 625.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Excerpts
5. Challenges to Traditional Gender Roles
[During the latter part of the nineteenth century, American women moved
steadily into the public sphere. Working-class women were already in the public
sphere through their wage-earning activities. Middle- and upper-class women
took on increasingly important public roles through reform movements. These
movements, such as those for temperance, suffrage, and labor-industrial reform,
attracted thousands of black and white, middle- and upper-class women into
a growing involvement with the public sphere.] Identifying themselves primarily
as wives and mothers, some women entered the political realm through local
women’s clubs. They believed that personal intellectual development and group
political activity would benefit both their own families and society in general. In
the 1880s, the typical club focused on self-improvement through reading history
and literature. By the 1890s, many clubs had embraced political activism. They
lobbied local politicians for improvements in education and social welfare and
raised money for hospitals and playgrounds. The General Federation of Women’s
Clubs (GFWC), founded in 1892, united 100,000 women in 500 affiliate clubs
throughout the nation . . .
[State and local consumers’ leagues developed in the 1890s to work for decent
working conditions for laborers, and safe and reliable products for consumers.
They formed a National Consumers’ League in 1899. Under the leadership
of Florence Kelley, the League exposed the appalling working conditions in
sweatshops; and campaigned for minimum wages for women, the abolition of
child labor, and laws to guarantee the purity of food and drugs.]
Wood et al., 624.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Excerpts
6. On-the-Job Protests
[As women’s reformers fought for legislation to protect children and families],
workers sought to control the pace of production. Too many goods meant an
inhuman pace of work and might result in overproduction, massive layoffs, and
a reduction in the prices paid for piecework. So an experienced worker might
whisper to a new hand, “See here, young fellow, you’re working too fast. You’ll
spoil our job for us if you don’t go slower.”
In attempting to protect themselves and the dignity of their labor, workers devised
ways of combating employer attempts to speed up the production process.
Denouncing fellow workers who refused to honor production codes as “hogs,”
“runners,” “chasers,” and “job wreckers,” they ostracized and even injured them.
As the banner of the Detroit Coopers’ Union proudly proclaimed at a parade in
1880: “Each for himself is the bosses’ plea / [but] Union for all will make you free.”
Absenteeism, drunkenness at work, and general inefficiency were other
widespread worker practices that contained elements of protest. In three
industrial firms in the late nineteenth century, one-quarter of the workers stayed
home at least one day a week. Some of these lost days were due to layoffs, but
not all. The efforts of employers to impose stiff fines on absent workers suggested
their frustration with uncooperative workers.
To a surprising extent, workers made the final protest by quitting their jobs
altogether. Most employers responded by penalizing workers who left without
giving sufficient notice—but to little avail. A Massachusetts labor study in 1878
found that although two-thirds of the workers surveyed had been in the same
occupation for more than 10 years, only 15 percent of them were in the same job.
A similar rate of turnover occurred in the industrial workforce in the early twentieth
century. Workers unmistakably and clearly voted with their feet.
Nash et al., 636.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Secondary Source
Labor Union Movement
American industrial workers began to form unions in the early 1800s. They
believed they could win better wages and working conditions from business
and factory owners if they made their demands as a group rather than
confronting employers individually. They had a hard time establishing a labor
union movement, however. Most Americans at the time valued individual
enterprise. They also accepted an economic theory called “laissez-faire,” which
held that government should not interfere with the workings of business. Thus,
when employers and workers clashed, government was usually unwilling to
help workers fight for better conditions.
By the Gilded Age, two types of unions had emerged, “craft” (or “trade”)
unions and “industrial” unions. Trade unions organized workers within specific
lines of skilled labor, such as carpentry, iron moulding, or shoemaking. Trade
unions existed for specific industries, and were linked through multiple “locals”
around the country. In the nineteenth century, only white males could belong
to trade unions. “Industrial” unions offered membership to all workers, skilled
or unskilled, within a particular industry. The American Railway Union, for
example, was an industrial union open to every worker connected with the
railroads, from track checkers to office staff to engine drivers.
Both trade unions and industrial unions belonged to national federations.
In 1886, craft unions representing hundreds of different trades created the
American Federation of Labor (AFL). Industrial unions were vast, and could
themselves be affiliated with even larger umbrella-style confederations such
as the Knights of Labor, founded in the 1870s, or the Industrial Workers
of the World, founded in 1905. Both the Knights and the IWW welcomed
women and African Americans as members. The AFL eventually encouraged
women and minorities to form separate affiliated “locals” of their own. One
such organization was the Women’s Trade Union League, founded at an AFL
meeting in 1903.
In this era, workers needed permission from their employers to “organize” a
union. Most businesses and industries resisted unions, since unions forced
them to share control with their workers. To prevent workers from forming
unions, some managers fired union organizers. Other managers forced
prospective employees to sign so-called “yellow dog” contracts in which they
promised not to join a union. Yet other managers accepted unions, recognizing
that doing so might prevent costly strikes. Once a business accepted a union,
it agreed to let the union’s elected leaders negotiate contracts on behalf of their
members. This style of negotiation was known as “collective bargaining.”
Sometimes unions tried to institute “closed shops.” In a closed shop union
members compelled the factory to hire only workers who would join the union.
Court cases in the early twentieth century overturned union rights to closed
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shops, arguing that such shops violated workers’ rights to contract freely
with employers. In this period, unions could be taken to court for “restraint of
trade,” and, just like giant corporations, could be indicted for operating “trusts”
or “unlawful combinations” that restrained trade.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, American labor unions used a number
of tactics to win concessions. Among these were strikes, boycotts,
demonstrations, and lawsuits. They also formed alliances with political parties
and social reformers. Through these strategies, they won the right to organize
in many industries and to affiliate with other unions and federations. They
founded a number of powerful unions, such as the United Mine Workers (UMW)
and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU).
Using the courts, unions fought injunctions, or court orders, that prevented
them from striking. Through legislation they won maximum hours and
minimum wage laws, workman’s compensation and workplace safety laws,
and restrictions on child labor. Through strikes won and lost, including some in
which striking workers died, labor unions pushed the government to mediate
or arbitrate stalled disputes. Eventually, unions and their allies compelled the
major political parties and prominent politicians, especially members of the
Democratic Party, to address labor concerns that minority parties from the
Greenback Labor Party to the Socialist Party had been advocating since the
1870s.
Although many Americans sympathized with industrial workers, the union
movement did not always enjoy widespread popular support. The public was
especially suspicious of unions during national strikes and times of national
crisis, such as wars and depressions, when some people feared that union
agitation might lead to violent revolution. Nor did union appeals for government
backing always succeed.
The government did respond positively to unions in several ways. First it
established a Bureau of Labor within the Department of the Interior and, in
1913, a full Department of Labor with a Secretary of Labor in the President’s
Cabinet. In 1914, Congress passed the Clayton Antitrust Act, which included a
section declaring that unions could not be considered “unlawful combinations”
operating in “restraint of trade,” and that strikes, boycotting, and picketing did
not violate federal law. By World War I the U.S. government had abandoned
“laissez-faire” policies and become more responsive to the issues that the
union movement had brought to its attention.
Elisabeth I. Perry and Karen Manners Smith, The Gilded Age and Progressive Era:
A Student Companion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 190–92.
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7. Militancy in the Factories and Mines
Not until 1935 would American workers have the right to organize and bargain
collectively with their employers. Until then, laborers who saw strength in
numbers and expressed an interest in a union could be summarily fired,
blacklisted (their names circulated to other employers), and harassed by private
security forces.
. . . [T]he growing diversity of the labor force made unity difficult. For example,
among the white workers of the Richmond Knights were leaders with names such
as Kaufman, Kaufeldt, Kelly, and Molloy, suggesting the ethnic variety of latenineteenth-century union leadership. This diversity paralleled the composition
of the general population. In 1880, between 78 and 87 percent of all workers in
San Francisco, St. Louis, Cleveland, New York, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Chicago
were either immigrants or the children of immigrants. Most hailed from England,
Germany, or Ireland, although the Chinese made up a significant part of the
laboring classes on the West Coast. By 1890 Poles and Slavs were organizing in
steel mills, and New York Jews were providing leadership in the garment industry.
Italians were prominent in construction and the building trades. In many places,
the laboring classes remained vulnerable to divisive social and cultural animosities.
The diversity of ethnic groups, coupled with the fact that many newcomers
adopted racist ideas to become “Americans,” drove wedges between workers.
Wood et al., 589.
8. Strike Activity After 1876
Between 1881 and 1905, a total of 36,757 strikes erupted, involving over 6 million
workers—three times the strike activity in France. These numbers indicate that far
more than the “poorest part” of the workers were involved. Many investigations
of this era found evidence of widespread working-class discontent. When Samuel
M. Hotchkiss, commissioner of the Connecticut Bureau of Labor Statistics,
informally surveyed the state’s workers in 1887, he was shocked by the “feeling
of bitterness,” the “distrust of employers,” and the “discontent and unrest.” These
sentiments exploded into strikes, sabotage, and violence, most often linked to
demands for higher wages and shorter hours.
As industrialization transformed work and an increasing percentage of the
workforce entered factories, collective actions at the workplace spread. Local and
national unions played a more important role in organizing protest, conducting 60
percent of the strikes between 1881 and 1905. As working-class leaders realized
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more clearly the importance of collective action and perceived that transportation
had knit the nation together, they worked to coordinate local and national efforts.
By 1891, more than one-tenth of the strikes called by unionized workers were
sympathy strikes. Coordination among strikers employed by different companies
improved as workers made similar wage demands. Finally, pay among the most
highly unionized workers became less of an issue. Workers sought more humane
conditions. Some attempted to end subcontracting and the degradation of skills.
Others, like the glassblowers, struggled to enforce work rules. Indeed, by the
early 1890s, over one-fifth of strikes involved the rules governing the workplace.
Nash et al., 636.
9. The Homestead and Pullman Strikes of 1892 and 1894
The failures of the American labor movement are apparent when compared
to union actions in European industrialized nations. There, the working class,
more homogeneous than its American counterpart, gained the vote as their
countries experienced the second industrial revolution. Working class and political
consciousness developed together, and labor and socialist political parties
emerged. Labor parties gave workers and their concerns a voice in the political
forum and strengthened the hands of trade unions.
But in the United States, most labor conflicts ran up against the widespread
middle- and upper-class conviction that unions and their demands were unAmerican. Many people claimed to accept the idea of worker organizations, but
they would not concede that unions should participate in making economic or
work decisions. Most employers violently resisted union demands as infringements
of their rights to make production decisions, hire and fire, lock workers out, hire
scabs, or reduce wages in times of depression. The sharp competition of the late
nineteenth century, combined with a pattern of falling prices, stiffened employers’
resistance to workers’ demands. State and local governments and the courts
frequently supported them in their battles to curb worker activism.
The severe depressions of the 1870s and 1890s also undermined working-class
activism. Workers could not focus on union issues when survival itself was in
question. They could not afford union dues or turn down offers of work, even at
wages below union standards. Many unions collapsed during hard times. Of the 30
national unions in 1873, fewer than one-third managed to survive the depression.
A far more serious problem was the reluctance of most workers to organize even in
favorable times. In 1870, less than one-tenth of the industrial workforce belonged
to unions, about the same as on the eve of the Civil War. Thirty years later, despite
the expansion of the workforce, only 8.4 percent (mostly skilled workers) were
union members. This percentage was far lower than in Europe.
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Why were American workers so slow to join unions? Certainly, diverse work
settings and ethnic differences made it difficult for workers to recognize common
bonds. Moreover, many unskilled workers sensed that labor aristocrats did not
have their interests at heart. Said one Cleveland Pole, “The [union] committee gets
the money, ‘Bricky’ Flannigan [a prominent Irish striker] gets the whiskey, and the
Polack gets nothing.”
Moreover, many native-born Americans still clung to the tradition of individualism.
“The sooner working-people get rid of the idea that somebody or something is
going to help them,” one Massachusetts shoemaker declared, “the better it will
be for them.” Others dreamt of escaping from the working class and entering the
ranks of the middle class. The number of workers who started their own small
businesses attests to the power of that ideal, which prevented an identification
with working-class causes.
The comments of an Irish woman highlight another important point. “There should
be a law ... to give a job to every decent man that’s out of work,” she declared,
“and another law to keep all them Italians from comin’ in and takin’ the bread
out of the mouths of honest people.” The ethnic and religious diversity of the
workforce made it difficult to forge a common front. No other industrial country
depended so heavily on immigrants for its manufacturing labor force. The lack
of common cultural traditions, goals, and a common language created friction
and misunderstandings. In addition, immigrants clustered in certain jobs and
were insulated from other workers, both foreign-born and American. When Italian
women working in New York canneries wanted to strike, their Syrian and Polish
workers, who were satisfied with their pay, refused. American workers supported
the owners rather than “Eyetalians.” Skill differences related to ethnic group
membership also clouded common class concerns.
The perspective of immigrant workers contributed to their indifference to unions
and to tension with native-born Americans. . . . At the same time, many immigrants, especially those who were skilled, did
support unions and cooperate with native-born Americans. Irish Americans played
important roles in the Knights of Labor and the AFL. British and Germans also
helped build up the unions. Often ethnic bonds served labor causes by tying
members to one another and to the community. For example, in the 1860s and
1870s, as the Molders’ Union in Troy, New York, battled with manufacturers, its
Irish membership won sympathy and support from the Irish-dominated police
force, the Roman Catholic Church, fraternal orders, and public officials.
Nash et al., 641–43.
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Theme Three
Conclusion
Between 1870 and 1920, profound changes in the workplace occurred. Workers worked
longer, sustained more injuries, and faced reduced wages during business downturns.
Unprotected from the consequences of these changes, they also faced increased job
competition from new immigrants, who were always ready to work longer hours and for
lower wages. Many workers organized in unions to control the pace of production, win
improved work conditions, and protect job security. They often mobilized through such
collective actions as the shutdown, walkout, and strike.
Middle-class women’s roles in society also began to change as they became involved in
philanthropic or benevolent groups, formed clubs, and focused on reform issues. This
participation spurred many women on to become involved in the movement for suffrage,
and to further themselves through growing educational opportunities.
Questions to Consider
1. How did workers respond to the challenges they faced in the industrial workplace?
2. How successful were unions in preserving jobs and improving work conditions?
3. How did women use their power as consumers to bring about social and industrial
reform? How did their activism change their position in the home and society?
Unit Conclusion
Between 1870 and 1920, American industrialization resulted in the mass production of
consumer goods on a large scale; an influx of immigrants from all regions of the world;
and social change that transformed workplace, family, and gender roles. Through mass
production, consumers witnessed an increased quantity and variety of goods at a lower
price. To sell these goods, entrepreneurs expanded communication and transportation
networks from coast to coast and established a nationwide market.
Employers often recruited workers from abroad to mass-produce consumer goods.
Immigrants seeking economic opportunity came from Asia, Europe, and Latin America.
When economic downturns occurred, employers reduced wages, increased work hours
and responsibilities, or laid off workers.
Workers responded by organizing unions to press for better working conditions. Unions
resorted to local and national strikes that became increasingly frequent and violent.
The authorities held “outside agitators” responsible for the labor unrest because they
endorsed radical ideologies.
Acting as concerned consumers, many middle-class women worked through voluntary
organizations—church groups, clubs, and reform societies—to press for safer industrial
products and improved working conditions for workers. This participation encouraged
many women to become involved in the movement for woman suffrage and to seek
educational opportunities.
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Timeline
1855 Ah Bing begins working for the Lewelling family in Milwaukie, Oregon.
1877 Railroad workers angry about wage cuts halt rail traffic in Martinsburg,
West Virginia. This is the first nationwide strike.
1878 The self-binding harvester is sold to farmers. The technology advance
aids the agriculture industry and improves farming conditions.
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act is passed. This law prohibits Chinese immigration
into the U.S. for ten years.
May 4, 1886 Haymarket Square Riot
Nov. 7, 1885 President Grover Cleveland sends the U.S. Military to Seattle and
Tacoma, Washington, to suppress anti-Chinese riots.
Nov. 11, 1887 August Spies hanged for his role in the Haymarket Square Riot.
1892 Congress extends the Chinese Exclusion Act; the General Federation of
Women’s Clubs is founded.
1898 Rose Cohen arrives in the U.S. at the age of 12; Charlotte Perkins
Gilman’s book Women in Economics is published.
1899 National Consumers’ League is founded for the purpose of supporting
a fair marketplace for workers and consumers, and promoting the
manufacture of safe and reliable products.
1900 Female workers are represented in 360 of the census’s 369 occupations.
1904 National Child Labor Committee is founded.
1914
Congress passes the Clayton Antitrust Act, declaring that unions
could not be considered “unlawful combinations” operating in “restraint
of trade” and that strikes, boycotting, and picketing did not violate
federal law.
1920 The nation’s population hits 105.7 million; approximately 25 percent of
the population are new immigrants.
1935 American workers gain the right to organize and bargain collectively with
their employers.
1938 The Fair Labor Standards Act legalizes the eight-hour workday.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Unit Reference Materials
- Cohen, Rose. Out of the Shadow: A Russian Jewish Girlhood on the Lower East Side.
New York: George H. Doran Co., 1918; reprinted Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1995.
- Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. “Herland,” The Forerunner, vol. 6 (1915); reprinted,
New York: Pantheon Books, 1979.
- ——. “The Yellow Wall-paper.” New England Magazine vol. 5 (1892); reprinted Oxford:
Oxford University Press in 1995 with an introduction by Robert Shulman.
- ——. Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men
and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution. Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1898.
Reprinted in 1966, Carl N. Degler, ed., New York: Harper & Row, 1966.
- ——. The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography. New York and
London: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1935; reprinted, New Yok: Arno Press, 1972.
- Knight, Denise D. Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York:
Twayne Publishers, 1997.
- Fouche, Rayvon. Black Inventors in the Age of Segregation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2003.
- Takaki, Ron. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Boston:
Little, Brown and Company, 1989.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Further Reading
1- Daniels, Roger. Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in
American Life. New York: HarperPerennial, 1991.
2- Dobyns, Kenneth. The Patent Office Pony: A History of the Early Patent Office.
San Diego: Sergeant Kirkland’s Press, 1997.
3- Glenn, Susan Anita. Daughters of the Shtetl: Life and Labor in the Immigration
Generation. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.
4- Karson, Marc. American Labor Unions and Politics, 1900–1918. Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1958
5- Lee, Erika. At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882–
1943. Raleigh: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
6- Meyer, David R. The Roots of American Industrialization (Creating the North American
Landscape). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.
Visit the Web Site
Explore these themes further on the America’s History in the Making Web site. See how
this content aligns with your own state standards, browse the resource archive, review
the series timeline, and explore the Web interactives. You can also read full versions of
selected Magazine of History (MOH) articles or selected National Center for History in
the Schools (NCHS) lesson plans.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Appendix 1-1
THEME ONE PRIMARY SOURCE
Item 5639
Andrew Chase, U.S. Patent for the Refrigerated Railroad (1867).
Courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Appendix 1-2
THEME ONE PRIMARY SOURCE
Item 6811
Alfred R. Waud, Bessemer Steel Manufacture (1876).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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THEME ONE PRIMARY SOURCE
Item 6522
Asahel Curtis, Iron Chink at Work in P.A.F. cannery, 1905.
Courtesy of the Museum of History and Industry.
Appendix 1-3
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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THEME TWO PRIMARY SOURCE
Item 4345
Frances Benjamin Johnston, Group of emigrants (women and children) from Eastern Europe on deck of the S.S. Amsterdam (1899).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Appendix 2-1
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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Appendix 2-2
THEME TWO PRIMARY SOURCE
Item 6524
Wells Fargo & Company, Directory of Chinese Business Houses (1878).
Courtesy of Wells Fargo Bank.
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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THEME THREE PRIMARY SOURCE
Item 5975
Unknown, Strikes, ladies tailors, N.Y., Feb. 1910, picket girls on duty (1910).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Appendix 3-1
Unit 14 Industrializing America
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