Ch. 24 - 3 notes
• In South after the Civil War industry continued to lag behind agriculture • Tobacco grew – Am. Tobacco Co. founder James Buchanan Duke • North also hindered Southern production via RR rates (e. g. Birmingham steel) • Textile mills in South developed slowly w/ cheap non-union labor • Textile mills, despite often paying in company $, was consistent pay
• In the decades after the C. W. , industry thrived and TJ’s “ideal agrarian society” was fading – standard of living and physical comforts also increased • The factory whistle, not the sun, structured peoples’ lives • The “Gibson Girl” – athletic independent woman of 1890’s • Women were profoundly affected by industrial age w/ new jobs • Workers became dependent on wages – feared job security • Workers became de-individualized- employers controlled fate • Workers were severally threatened by injury and no job security and unskilled immigrant workers and replacement • Additional employers advantages: buy press, politicians, scabs, federal judges, “lockouts”, “black lists”, “yellow-dog contracts” )to not join unions), company stores, strikes and union members were seen as foreign and socialist
• The Civil War gave unions a boast due to labor shortages • 1866 – National Labor Union – lasted 8 yrs. , union for nearly all workers; won 8 hr workdays for gov’t workers; ended w/ depressions in 1870’s • 1869 – Knights of Labor – also included all workers; Terence V. Powderly; won many successful 8 -hr. work • Downfall – Haymarket Affair – Chicago 1886 – bomb thrown at police (anarchists) but Knights were blamed • Also, too many workers’ wishes to fulfill • Skilled workers soon organized the American Federation of Labor (1886) under Samuel Gompers • Association of self-governing national unions – no central org. but a unifying strategy of achieving “more” • By 1900, just 3% of workers in the U. S. were in unions • Public began to understand unions grievences by 1900 but not employers