Working Conditions & Labor Movement Gallery Walk

1. Gilded Age Working Conditions & Labor Movement Gallery Walk

2. Factory pay was so low at the time that Children often times had to work to help support their families. • Received Less Pay because they were younger • The number of children under the age of 15 who worked in industrial jobs for wages climbed from 1.5 million in 1890 to 2 million in 1910. • Businesses liked to hire children (2 major reasons): • they worked in unskilled jobs for lower wages than adults • their small hands made them more adept at handling small parts and tools. • Problems with Child Labor • As children worked in industrial settings, they began to develop serious health problems. • Many were underweight. • Some suffered from stunted growth and curvature of the spine. • They developed diseases related to their work environment • tuberculosis and bronchitis =coal mines or cotton mills. • They faced high accident rates due to physical and mental fatigue caused by hard work and long hours. Child Labor

3. Boys working in a spinning room at Bibb Mill No. 1, Macon, Georgia, USA. They are so small they have to climb up on the spinning frame to mend the broken threads and put back the empty bobbins.

4. Women Organize • Many unions barred women • They ended up uniting behind powerful leaders to demand better working conditions, equal pay for equal work and an end to child labor. Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, New York City • March 25, 1911 • Fire started in a scrap bin under one of the cutter's tables at the northeast corner of the eighth floor • Fire spread through the building • No sprinkler system, the fire escape broke and the only way out was blocked by fire • 146 women died (All were women age 16-23) • Because of this New York set up a task force to study factory working conditions

5. Supported the Great Strike of 1877, and organized for the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) • Nickname “Mother Jones” given to her by the coal miners • In 1903 to expose the cruelties of child labor, she led 80 mill children ton a march to President Teddy Roosevelt’s home. The march influenced the passage of child labor laws • Mary Harris Jones – • Pauline Newman (16 yrs old) • First female organizer of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU • Supported the “Uprising of the 20,000” – seamstresses’ strike that won labor agreements and improved conditions for some strikers.

6. Women received less pay than men • 1/5 Women Worked at the turn of the Century • Women gained power in the family structure because they are now wage earners • Women in Industry • Lowell Mills (James Lowell) built a textile mill and dormitory • Families sent young girls to factories to work • Farm Women • Same jobs as they’ve had for centuries – Normal Household work combined with farm chores (taking care of livestock, fieldwork, harvest, etc.) • Women as Domestic Workers • Many African American & Immigrant Women did Domestic Work • In 1870 over 70% of employed Women were domestic servants. Women Workers

7. Lowell Mill Girls

8. Workers join together to try and improve their working conditions - Labor Unions emerge • Two big problems with workplaces • Long Hours • Danger! Labor Unions

9. Labor Strikes!

10. Great Strike of 1877 • July 1877 – lasted approximately 45 days • Workers from Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) • Started in West Virginia and moved through Maryland, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Missouri • Reasons for Strike: • Second wage cut in two months for workers • Striking workers would not allow any of the stock to roll until this second wage cut was revoked • Effects of Strike • Most freight and some passenger trains covering over 50,000 miles were stopped for more than a week • Federal Troops ended the strike

12. May 4, 1886 • Protest Against Police Brutality • A striker had been killed and many wounded at McCormick Harvester plant the day before • A bomb was tossed into the police line at the demonstration • Police fired on the workers – 7 police officers and many workers died • No one knows who caused it, but 3 speakers and 5 other radicals at the demonstration were charged with inciting a riot. • All eight were convicted • 4 hanged, 1 committed suicide in prison • Effect of the Strike: • After the public began to turn against the labor movement • The Haymarket Affair (Chicago)

13. This 1886 engraving was the most widely reproduced image of the Haymarket affair. It inaccurately shows Fielden speaking, the bomb exploding, and the rioting beginning simultaneously Haymarket Martyrs Monument in Forest Home Cemetery Seven of the Eight men convicted for starting the riot at Haymarket

14. The Homestead Strike (Pennsylvania) • June 29, 1892 • Steelworkers (From a Carnegie Factory) • Causes: • Company president (Henry Clay Frick) announced his plan to cut wages • Frick hired guards to protect the plant so he could hire scabs (strikebreakers) to keep it operating • The strikers focused out the guards and kept the plant closed until the Pennsylvania National Guard arrived on July 12. • Strike continued until November but the Union lost its support and finally gave into the company.

15. This image shows the barge that the Pinkerton Guards arrived on which the strikers lit on Fire.

16. The Pullman Company Strike • Railroad Strike (Pullman Palace Car Company made railroad cars) • Causes • During the panic of 1893 the Pullman company laid off 3,000 of its 5,800 employees • Company cut wages of the remaining employees by 25-50% • Strike was called in Spring of 1894 when the Pullman company failed to restore wages or decrease rents • Effects • Many strikers were part of the American Railroad Union (ARU), led byEugene V. Debs, which supported their strike by launching a boycott in which union members refused to run trains containing Pullman cars. • Within four days, 125,000 workers on twenty-nine railroads had quit work rather than handle Pullman cars • Halted Train traffic west of Chicago • “A struggle between the greatest and most important labor organization and the entire railroad capital” – E.V. Debs

17. Effects • Pullman hired strikebreakers & the strike turned violent • President Grover Cleveland sent in federal troops • Debs was jailed and Pullman fired most of the strikers – railroads blacklisted others • Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894 after the strike when President Grover Cleveland and Congress made appeasement of organized labor a top priority.