Rise of Industrial America
Political:
• Businesses benefited from friendly government policies that protected private property, subsidized railroads with land grants and loans, supported US manufacturers with protective tariffs, and refrained from either regulating business operations or heavily taxing corporate profits.
• Government policies gave 170 million acres of land to railroad companies for expansion of business.
• Land grants and cash loans made poor construction and increased corruption in government.
• Since the 19th century had a lot of cheap labor, worker strikes were prominent and were also easily put down by other scabs who were desperate for work. Strikes involved quitting jobs rather than violence.
• Employers used many tactics for defending unions such as the lockout, blacklists, yellow-dog contracts, e.t.c.
• Labor was often divided on the best methods to fighting management.
• Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was during an economic depression, when the railroad companies cut wages in order to reduce costs and this strike spread to 11 states creating a national strike made of 500,000 people.
• National Labor Union (1866) was the first attempt to organize all workers in all states – both skilled and unskilled, both agricultural and industrial workers. NLU also had many reforms such as the 8-hour work day.
• Knights of Labor (1869) was a 2nd national labor union which began as a secret society in order to avoid detection by employers and went into public in 1881 and lost popularity/membership in 1886 due to bombing.
• Reforms of Powderly 1. Abolition of child labor 2. Make each man his own employer 3. Abolition of monopolies and trusts.
• Haymarket bombing (1866) was an event where knights were gathered in Haymarket Square for a general strike to achieve an 8-hour day and as police attempted to stop them, a bomb was thrown killing 7 police men and this led to the loss of popularity and membership of KOL as more people were against it.
• American Federation of Labor
• Businesses benefited from friendly government policies that protected private property, subsidized railroads with land grants and loans, supported US manufacturers with protective tariffs, and refrained from either regulating business operations or heavily taxing corporate profits.
• Government policies gave 170 million acres of land to railroad companies for expansion of business.
• Land grants and cash loans made poor construction and increased corruption in government.
• Since the 19th century had a lot of cheap labor, worker strikes were prominent and were also easily put down by other scabs who were desperate for work. Strikes involved quitting jobs rather than violence.
• Employers used many tactics for defending unions such as the lockout, blacklists, yellow-dog contracts, e.t.c.
• Labor was often divided on the best methods to fighting management.
• Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was during an economic depression, when the railroad companies cut wages in order to reduce costs and this strike spread to 11 states creating a national strike made of 500,000 people.
• National Labor Union (1866) was the first attempt to organize all workers in all states – both skilled and unskilled, both agricultural and industrial workers. NLU also had many reforms such as the 8-hour work day.
• Knights of Labor (1869) was a 2nd national labor union which began as a secret society in order to avoid detection by employers and went into public in 1881 and lost popularity/membership in 1886 due to bombing.
• Reforms of Powderly 1. Abolition of child labor 2. Make each man his own employer 3. Abolition of monopolies and trusts.
• Haymarket bombing (1866) was an event where knights were gathered in Haymarket Square for a general strike to achieve an 8-hour day and as police attempted to stop them, a bomb was thrown killing 7 police men and this led to the loss of popularity and membership of KOL as more people were against it.
• American Federation of Labor