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doubled, from 4 million to more than 8 million. Twenty percent of the boys and
10 percent of the girls under age 15—some as young as five years old—also held
full-time jobs. With little time or energy left for school, child laborers forfeited
their futures to help their families make ends meet.
In sweatshops, or workshops in tenements rather than in factories, workers
had little choice but to put up with the conditions. Sweatshop employment,
which was tedious and required few skills, was often the only avenue open to
women and children. Jacob Riis described the conditions faced by “sweaters.”
A PERSONAL VOICE JACOB RIIS
“ The bulk of the sweater’s work is done in the tenements, which the law that
regulates factory labor does not reach. . . . In [them] the child works unchallenged from the day he is old enough to pull a thread. There is no such thing as a
dinner hour; men and women eat while they work, and the ‘day’ is lengthened at
both ends far into the night.”
—How the Other Half Lives
E. Answer
Poor working
conditions and
low wages
forced workers
to organize into
unions to
demand fair
treatment.
MAIN IDEA
Analyzing
Issues
E How did
industrial working
conditions
contribute to the
growth of the labor
movement?
Vocabulary
arbitration: a
method of settling
disputes in which
both sides submit
their differences
to a mutually
approved judge
Not surprisingly, sweatshop jobs paid the lowest wages—often as little as 27
cents for a child’s 14-hour day. In 1899, women earned an average of $267 a year,
nearly half of men’s average pay of $498. The very next year Andrew Carnegie
made $23 million—with no income tax.
EARLY LABOR ORGANIZING Skilled workers had formed
small, local unions since the late 1700s. The first large-scale
national organization of laborers, the National Labor Union
(NLU), was formed in 1866 by ironworker William H.
Sylvis. The refusal of some NLU local chapters to admit
African Americans led to the creation of the Colored
National Labor Union (CNLU). Nevertheless, NLU membership grew to 640,000. In 1868, the NLU persuaded Congress
to legalize an eight-hour day for government workers. E
NLU organizers concentrated on linking existing local
unions. In 1869, Uriah Stephens focused his attention on
individual workers and organized the Noble Order of the
Knights of Labor. Its motto was “An injury to one is the
concern of all.” Membership in the Knights of Labor was
officially open to all workers, regardless of race, gender, or
degree of skill. Like the NLU, the Knights supported an
eight-hour workday and advocated “equal pay for equal
work” by men and women. They saw strikes, or refusals to
work, as a last resort and instead advocated arbitration. At
its height in 1886, the Knights of Labor had about 700,000
members. Although the Knights declined after the failure of
a series of strikes, other unions continued to organize.
Union Movements Diverge
As labor activism spread, it diversified. Two major types of
unions made great gains under forceful leaders.
CRAFT UNIONISM One approach to the organization of
labor was craft unionism, which included skilled workers
from one or more trades. Samuel Gompers led the Cigar
Makers’ International Union to join with other craft unions
in 1886. The American Federation of Labor (AFL),
HISTORICAL
S P O TLIG H T
AFRICAN AMERICANS AND
THE LABOR MOVEMENT
Angered by their exclusion from
the NLU, African American laborers formed the Colored National
Labor Union (CNLU) in 1869. Led
by Isaac Meyers, a caulker from
Baltimore, the CNLU emphasized
cooperation between management and labor and the importance of political reform.
The CNLU disbanded in the
early 1870s, but many AfricanAmerican laborers found a home
in the Knights of Labor, the first
union to welcome blacks and
whites alike. The Great Strike of
1877 brought whites and African
Americans together, but the labor
movement remained largely divided along racial lines.
Management often hired African
Americans as strikebreakers,
which intensified white unions’
resistance to accepting blacks.
African Americans continued to
organize on their own, but discrimination and their small numbers relative to white unions hurt
black unions’ effectiveness.
A New Industrial Age
451
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▼
In New York City’s
Union Square in
1914, IWW
members protest
violence against
striking coal
miners in
Colorado.
“
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with Gompers as its president, focused on collective bargaining, or negotiation
between representatives of labor and management, to reach written agreements
on wages, hours, and working conditions. Unlike the Knights of Labor, the AFL
used strikes as a major tactic. Successful strikes helped the AFL win higher wages
and shorter workweeks. Between 1890 and 1915, the average weekly wages in
unionized industries rose from $17.50 to $24, and the average workweek fell from
almost 54.5 hours to just under 49 hours.
INDUSTRIAL UNIONISM Some labor leaders felt that unions should include all
laborers—skilled and unskilled—in a specific industry. This concept captured the
imagination of Eugene V. Debs, who made the first major attempt to form such
an industrial union—the American Railway Union (ARU). Most of the new
union’s members were unskilled and semiskilled laborers, but skilled engiThe strike is the neers and firemen joined too. In 1894, the new union won a strike for
higher wages. Within two months, its membership climbed to 150,000,
weapon of the
dwarfing the 90,000 enrolled in the four skilled railroad brotherhoods.
oppressed. ”
Though the ARU, like the Knights of Labor, never recovered after the failure
EUGENE V. DEBS
of a major strike, it added to the momentum of union organizing. F
SOCIALISM AND THE IWW In an attempt to solve the problems faced by workers, Eugene Debs and some other labor activists eventually turned to socialism, an
economic and political system based on government control of business and
property and equal distribution of wealth. Socialism, carried to its extreme form—
communism, as advocated by the German philosopher Karl Marx—would result
in the overthrow of the capitalist system. Most socialists in late-19th-century
America drew back from this goal, however, and worked within the labor movement to achieve better conditions for workers. In 1905, a group of radical unionists and socialists in Chicago organized the Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW), or the Wobblies. Headed by William “Big Bill” Haywood, the Wobblies
included miners, lumberers, and cannery and dock workers. Unlike the ARU, the
IWW welcomed African Americans, but membership never topped 100,000. Its
only major strike victory occurred in 1912. Yet the Wobblies, like other industrial
unions, gave dignity and a sense of solidarity to unskilled workers.
OTHER LABOR ACTIVISM IN THE WEST In April 1903, about 1,000 Japanese
and Mexican workers organized a successful strike in the sugar-beet fields of
Ventura County, California. They formed the Sugar Beet and Farm Laborers’
Union of Oxnard. In Wyoming, the State Federation of Labor supported a union
of Chinese and Japanese miners who sought the same wages and treatment as
other union miners. These small, independent unions increased both the overall
strength of the labor movement and the tension between labor and management.
452
CHAPTER 14
Page 6 of 9
F. Answer
A craft union
included skilled
workers from
many industries.
An industrial
union included
skilled and
unskilled
workers from
a specific
industry.
MAIN IDEA
Contrasting
F How did
craft unions and
industrial unions
differ?
Background
See socialism on
page R44 in the
Economics
Handbook.
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Page 453
Strikes Turn Violent
Industry and government responded forcefully to union activity, which they saw
as a threat to the entire capitalist system.
THE GREAT STRIKE OF 1877 In July 1877, workers for the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad (B&O) struck to protest their second wage cut in two months. The
work stoppage spread to other lines. Most freight and even some passenger traffic, covering over 50,000 miles, was stopped for more than a week. After several
state governors asked President Rutherford B. Hayes to intervene, saying that the
strikers were impeding interstate commerce, federal troops ended the strike.
MAIN IDEA
Analyzing
Causes
G How did the
1877 strike and
Haymarket cause
the public to
resent the labor
movement?
G. Answer
The public began
to associate
labor activists
with violence
and danger.
THE HAYMARKET AFFAIR Encouraged by the impact of the 1877 strike, labor
leaders continued to press for change. On the evening of May 4, 1886, 3,000
people gathered at Chicago’s Haymarket Square to protest police brutality—a striker
had been killed and several had been wounded at the McCormick Harvester plant
the day before. Rain began to fall at about 10 o’clock, and the crowd was dispersing
when police arrived. Then someone tossed a bomb into the
police line. Police fired on the workers; seven police officers and several workers died
in the chaos that followed. No one ever learned who threw the bomb, but the three
speakers at the demonstration and five other radicals were charged with inciting a
riot. All eight were convicted; four were hanged and one committed suicide in
prison. After Haymarket, the public began to turn against the labor movement. G
THE HOMESTEAD STRIKE Despite the violence and rising public anger, workers continued to strike. The writer Hamlin Garland described conditions at the
Carnegie Steel Company’s Homestead plant in Pennsylvania.
A PERSONAL VOICE HAMLIN GARLAND
“ Everywhere . . . groups of pale, lean men slouched in faded garments, grimy
with the soot and grease of the mills. . . . A roar as of a hundred lions, a thunder
as of cannons, . . . jarring clang of falling iron. . . !”
—quoted in McClure’s Magazine
The steelworkers finally called a strike on June 29, 1892, after the company
president, Henry Clay Frick, announced his plan to cut wages. Frick hired armed
The Growth of Union Membership, 1878–1904
1500
1300
1100
Members in Thousands
Skillbuilder
Answers
1. The American
Federation of
Labor
2. Membership
in the Knights of
Labor declined
sharply.
Total Nationwide Union Membership
American Federation of Labor
Knights of Labor
American Railway Union
SKILLBUILDER
Interpreting Graphs
1. Which union’s
900
700
500
300
membership
increased in
1889–1890?
2. What effect(s) did
the Haymarket Riot
have on union
membership?
Haymarket Riot
Wabash Railroad
Strike
Pullman Strike
100
0
1878 1880 1882 1884 1886 1888 1890 1892 1894 1896 1898 1900 1902 1904
A New Industrial Age
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Page 454
guards from the Pinkerton Detective Agency to protect the plant so that he could
hire scabs, or strikebreakers, to keep it operating. In a pitched battle that left at
least three detectives and nine workers dead, the steelworkers forced out the
Pinkertons and kept the plant closed until the Pennsylvania National Guard
arrived on July 12. The strike continued until November, but by then the union
had lost much of its support and gave in to the company. It would take 45 years
for steelworkers to mobilize once again.
THE PULLMAN COMPANY STRIKE Strikes continued in other industries, however. During the panic of 1893 and the economic depression that followed, the
Pullman company laid off more than 3,000 of its 5,800 employees and cut the
wages of the rest by 25 to 50 percent, without cutting the cost of its employee
housing. After paying their rent, many workers took home less than $6 a week. A
strike was called in the spring of 1894, when the economy improved and the
Pullman company failed to restore wages or decrease rents. Eugene Debs asked for
arbitration, but Pullman refused to negotiate with the strikers. So the ARU began
boycotting Pullman trains.
After Pullman hired strikebreakers, the strike turned violent, and President
Grover Cleveland sent in federal troops. In the bitter aftermath, Debs was jailed.
Pullman fired most of the strikers, and the railroads blacklisted many others, so
they could never again get railroad jobs.
KEY PLAYERS
454
EUGENE V. DEBS
1855–1926
MOTHER JONES
1830–1930
Born in Indiana, Eugene V.
Debs left home at the age of
14 to work for the railroads.
In 1875 he helped organize
a local lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen,
and after attempts to unite the
local railroad brotherhoods
failed, Debs organized the
American Railway Union.
While in prison following the
Pullman strike in 1894, Debs
read the works of Karl Marx
and became increasingly disillusioned with capitalism. He
became a spokesperson for
the Socialist Party of America
and was its candidate for president five times. In 1912, he
won about 900,000 votes—an
amazing 6 percent of the total.
Mary Harris “Mother” Jones
was a native of Ireland who
immigrated to North America
as a child. She became
involved in the American labor
movement after receiving
assistance from the Knights
of Labor. According to a
reporter who followed “the
mother of the laboring class”
on her children’s march in
1903, “She fights their
battles with a Mother’s Love.”
Jones continued fighting until
her death at age 100.
Jones was definitely not the
kind of woman admired by
industrialists. “God almighty
made women,” she declared,
“and the Rockefeller gang of
thieves made ladies.”
CHAPTER 14
WOMEN ORGANIZE Although
women were barred from many
unions, they united behind
powerful leaders to demand better working conditions, equal
pay for equal work, and an end
to child labor. Perhaps the most
prominent organizer in the
women’s labor movement was
Mary Harris Jones. Jones supported the Great Strike of 1877
and later organized for the
United Mine Workers of America
(UMW). She endured death
threats and jail with the coal
miners, who gave her the nickname Mother Jones. In 1903, to
expose the cruelties of child
labor, she led 80 mill children—
many with hideous injuries—on
a march to the home of
President Theodore Roosevelt.
Their crusade influenced the passage of child labor laws.
Other
organizers
also
achieved significant gains for
women. In 1909, Pauline Newman, just 16 years old, became
the first female organizer of the
International Ladies’ Garment
Workers’ Union (ILGWU). A garment worker from the age of
eight, Newman also supported
Page 1 of 7
The Origins of
Progressivism
Terms & Names
WHY IT MATTERS NOW
MAIN IDEA
Political, economic, and
social change in late 19th
century America led to broad
progressive reforms.
Progressive reforms in areas
such as labor and voting rights
reinforced democratic
principles that continue to exist
today.
•progressive
movement
•Florence Kelley
•prohibition
•muckraker
•scientific
management
•Robert M.
La Follette
•initiative
•referendum
•recall
•Seventeenth
Amendment
One American's Story
Camella Teoli was just 12 years old when she began working in a
Lawrence, Massachusetts, textile mill to help support her family. Soon
after she started, a machine used for twisting cotton into thread tore off
part of her scalp. The young Italian immigrant spent seven months in
the hospital and was scarred for life.
Three years later, when 20,000 Lawrence mill workers went on strike
for higher wages, Camella was selected to testify before a congressional committee investigating labor conditions such as workplace safety
and underage workers. When asked why she had gone on strike, Camella
answered simply, “Because I didn’t get enough to eat at home.” She
explained how she had gone to work before reaching the legal age of 14.
father why I didn’t go to work, so my father says I don’t know whether she is 13
or 14 years old. So, the man say You give me $4 and I will make the papers come
from the old country [Italy] saying [that] you are 14. So, my father gave him
the $4, and in one month came the papers that I was 14. I went to
work, and about two weeks [later] got hurt in my head.”
—at congressional hearings, March 1912
After nine weeks of striking, the mill workers won the sympathy of
the nation as well as five to ten percent pay raises. Stories like Camella’s
set off a national investigation of labor conditions, and reformers across
the country organized to address the problems of industrialization.
Four Goals of Progressivism
At the dawn of the new century, middle-class reformers addressed many of the
problems that had contributed to the social upheavals of the 1890s. Journalists and
writers exposed the unsafe conditions often faced by factory workers, including
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CHAPTER 17
▼
A PERSONAL VOICE CAMELLA TEOLI
“ I used to go to school, and then a man came up to my house and asked my
Mill workers on
strike in 1912
in Lawrence,
Massachusetts
A CHILD ON
STRIKE
The Testimony of
Camella Teoli,
Mill Girl
Page 2 of 7
women and children. Intellectuals questioned the dominant
role of large corporations in American society. Political
reformers struggled to make government more responsive
to the people. Together, these reform efforts formed the
progressive movement, which aimed to return control of
the government to the people, restore economic opportunities, and correct injustices in American life.
Even though reformers never completely agreed on the
problems or the solutions, each of their progressive efforts
shared at least one of the following goals:
KEY PLAYER
• protecting social welfare
• promoting moral improvement
• creating economic reform
• fostering efficiency
Vocabulary
temperance:
refraining from
alcohol
consumption
MAIN IDEA
Analyzing
Motives
A Why did the
prohibition
movement appeal
to so many
women?
The daughter of an antislavery
Republican congressman from
Pennsylvania, Florence Kelley
became a social reformer whose
sympathies lay with the powerless, especially working women
and children. During a long career,
Kelley pushed the government to
solve America’s social problems.
In 1899, Kelley became general
secretary of the National
Consumers’ League, where she
lobbied to improve factory conditions. “Why,” Kelley pointedly
asked while campaigning for a
federal child-labor law, “are seals,
bears, reindeer, fish, wild game in
the national parks, buffalo, [and]
migratory birds all found suitable
for federal protection, but not
children?”
PROMOTING MORAL IMPROVEMENT Other reformers felt that morality, not
the workplace, held the key to improving the lives of poor people. These reformers wanted immigrants and poor city dwellers to uplift themselves by improving
their personal behavior. Prohibition, the banning of alcoholic beverages, was
one such program.
Prohibitionist groups feared that alcohol was undermining American morals.
Founded in Cleveland in 1874, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
(WCTU) spearheaded the crusade for prohibition. Members
advanced their cause by entering saloons, singing, prayIn the 1890s, Carry Nation
worked for prohibition by
ing, and urging saloonkeepers to stop selling alcowalking into saloons,
hol. As momentum grew, the Union was transscolding the customers,
formed by Frances Willard from a small midwestand using her hatchet
ern religious group in 1879 to a national organito destroy bottles
zation. Boasting 245,000 members by 1911, the
of liquor.
WCTU became the largest women’s group in
the nation’s history. A
WCTU members followed Willard’s “do
everything” slogan and began opening
kindergartens for immigrants, visiting
▼
A. Possible
Answer Many
women believed
this was an area
in which they
could make a
difference in
society.
PROTECTING SOCIAL WELFARE Many social welfare
reformers worked to soften some of the harsh conditions of
industrialization. The Social Gospel and settlement house
movements of the late 1800s, which aimed to help the poor
through community centers, churches, and social services,
continued during the Progressive Era and inspired even more
reform activities.
The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), for
example, opened libraries, sponsored classes, and built
swimming pools and handball courts. The Salvation Army
fed poor people in soup kitchens, cared for children in nurseries, and sent “slum brigades” to instruct poor immigrants
in middle-class values of hard work and temperance.
In addition, many women were inspired by the settlement houses to take action. Florence Kelley became an
advocate for improving the lives of women and children. She
was appointed chief inspector of factories for Illinois after she
had helped to win passage of the Illinois Factory Act in 1893.
The act, which prohibited child labor and limited women’s
working hours, soon became a model for other states.
FLORENCE KELLEY
1859–1932
513
Page 3 of 7
HISTORICAL
S P O TLIG H T
ANTI–SALOON LEAGUE
Quietly founded by progressive
women in 1895, the Anti-Saloon
League called itself “the Church
in action against the saloon.”
Whereas early temperance
efforts had asked individuals to
change their ways, the AntiSaloon League worked to pass
laws to force people to change
and to punish those who drank.
The Anti-Saloon League
endorsed politicians who opposed
“Demon Rum,” no matter which
party they belonged to or where
they stood on other issues. It also
organized statewide referendums
to ban alcohol. Between 1900
and 1917, voters in nearly half of
the states—mostly in the South
and the West—prohibited the
sale, production, and use of alcohol. Individual towns, city wards,
and rural areas also voted themselves “dry.”
inmates in prisons and asylums, and working for suffrage.
The WCTU reform activities, like those of the settlementhouse movement, provided women with expanded public
roles, which they used to justify giving women voting rights.
Sometimes efforts at prohibition led to trouble with
immigrant groups. Such was the case with the Anti-Saloon
League, founded in 1895. As members sought to close
saloons to cure society’s problems, tension arose between
them and many immigrants, whose customs often included the consumption of alcohol. Additionally, saloons filled
a number of roles within the immigrant community such as
cashing paychecks and serving meals.
CREATING ECONOMIC REFORM As moral reformers
sought to change individual behavior, a severe economic
panic in 1893 prompted some Americans to question the
capitalist economic system. As a result, some Americans,
especially workers, embraced socialism. Labor leader
Eugene V. Debs, who helped organize the American
Socialist Party in 1901, commented on the uneven balance
among big business, government, and ordinary people
under the free-market system of capitalism.
Background
See capitalism
and socialism
on pages R38
and R44 in the
Economics
Handbook.
A PERSONAL VOICE EUGENE V. DEBS
“ Competition was natural enough at one time, but do you
think you are competing today? Many of you think you are
competing. Against whom? Against [oil magnate John D.]
Rockefeller? About as I would if I had a wheelbarrow and competed with the Santa Fe [railroad] from here to Kansas City.”
—Debs: His Life, Writings and Speeches
Though most progressives distanced themselves from socialism, they saw the
truth of many of Debs’s criticisms. Big business often received favorable treatment
from government officials and politicians and could use its economic power to
limit competition.
Journalists who wrote about the corrupt side of business and public life in mass
circulation magazines during the early 20th century became known as muckrakers
(mOkPrAkQr). (The term refers to John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress,” in which a
character is so busy using a rake to clean up the muck of this world that he does not
raise his eyes to heaven.) In her “History of the Standard Oil Company,” a monthly serial in McClure’s Magazine, the writer Ida M. Tarbell described the company’s
cutthroat methods of eliminating competition. “Mr. Rockefeller has systematically
played with loaded dice,” Tarbell charged, “and it is doubtful if there has been a
time since 1872 when he has run a race with a competitor and started fair.” B
FOSTERING EFFICIENCY Many progressive leaders put their faith in experts
and scientific principles to make society and the workplace more efficient. In
defending an Oregon law that limited women factory and laundry workers to a
ten-hour day, lawyer Louis D. Brandeis paid little attention to legal argument.
Instead, he focused on data produced by social scientists documenting the high
costs of long working hours for both the individual and society. This type of argument—the “Brandeis brief”—would become a model for later reform litigation.
Within industry, Frederick Winslow Taylor began using time and motion studies to improve efficiency by breaking manufacturing tasks into simpler parts.
“Taylorism” became a management fad, as industry reformers applied these scientific management studies to see just how quickly each task could be performed.
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CHAPTER 17
MAIN IDEA
Evaluating
B What
contribution did
muckrakers make
to the reform
movement?
B. Answer
Muckrakers
exposed the
dangers and
corruption of
industrial life to
the public.
Page 4 of 7
▼
MAIN IDEA
Contrasting
C Contrast the
goals of scientific
management with
other progressive
reforms.
C. Answer
Scientific
management
reformers
worked to
improve efficiency and
productivity,
while other
reformers aimed
at improving
behavior or
addressing
economic
inequality.
Workers at the
Ford flywheel
factory cope with
the demanding
pace of the
assembly line to
earn five dollars a
day—a good
wage in 1914.
However, not all workers could work at the same rate, and although the introduction of the assembly lines did speed up production, the system required people to work like machines. This caused a high worker turnover, often due to
injuries suffered by fatigued workers. To keep automobile workers
happy and to prevent strikes, Henry Ford reduced the workday to
“ Everybody will
eight hours and paid workers five dollars a day. This incentive attractbe able to afford
ed thousands of workers, but they exhausted themselves. As one
[a car], and about
homemaker complained in a letter to Henry Ford in 1914, “That $5
everyone will have
is a blessing—a bigger one than you know but oh they earn it.”
one.”
Such efforts at improving efficiency, an important part of proC
gressivism, targeted not only industry, but government as well.
HENRY FORD, 1909
Cleaning Up Local Government
Cities faced some of the most obvious social problems of the new industrial age.
In many large cities, political bosses rewarded their supporters with jobs and kickbacks and openly bought votes with favors and bribes. Efforts to reform city politics stemmed in part from the desire to make government more efficient and
more responsive to its constituents. But those efforts also grew from distrust of
immigrants’ participation in politics.
REFORMING LOCAL GOVERNMENT Natural disasters sometimes played an
important role in prompting reform of city governments. In 1900, a hurricane
and tidal wave almost demolished Galveston, Texas. The politicians on the city
council botched the huge relief and rebuilding job so badly that the Texas legislature appointed a five-member commission of experts to take over. Each expert
took charge of a different city department, and soon Galveston was rebuilt. This
success prompted the city to adopt the commission idea as a form of government,
and by 1917, 500 cities had followed Galveston's example.
Another natural disaster—a flood in Dayton, Ohio, in 1913—led to the widespread adoption of the council-manager form of government. Staunton, Virginia,
had already pioneered this system, in which people elected a city council to make
laws. The council in turn appointed a manager, typically a person with training
and experience in public administration, to run the city’s departments. By 1925,
managers were administering nearly 250 cities.
The Progressive Era
515
Page 5 of 7
REFORM MAYORS In some cities, mayors such as Hazen Pingree of Detroit,
Michigan (1890–1897), and Tom Johnson of Cleveland, Ohio (1901–1909), introduced progressive reforms without changing how government was organized.
Concentrating on economics, Pingree instituted a fairer tax structure, lowered fares for public transportation, rooted out corruption, and set up a system of
work relief for the unemployed. Detroit city workers built schools, parks, and a
municipal lighting plant.
Johnson was only one of 19 socialist mayors who worked to institute progressive reforms in America’s cities. In general, these mayors focused on dismissing corrupt and greedy private owners of utilities—such as gasworks, waterworks,
and transit lines—and converting the utilities to publicly owned enterprises.
Johnson believed that citizens should play a more active role in city government.
He held meetings in a large circus tent and invited them to question officials
about how the city was managed. D
Reform at the State Level
Local reforms coincided with progressive efforts at the state level. Spurred by progressive governors, many states passed laws to regulate railroads, mines, mills,
telephone companies, and other large businesses.
HISTORICAL
S P O TLIG H T
JAMES S. HOGG, TEXAS
GOVERNOR (1891–1895)
Among the most colorful of the
reform governors was James S.
Hogg of Texas. Hogg helped to
drive illegal insurance companies
from the state and championed
antitrust legislation. His chief interest, however, was in regulating the
railroads. He pointed out abuses
in rates—noting, for example, that
it cost more to ship lumber from
East Texas to Dallas than to ship it
all the way to Nebraska. A railroad
commission, established largely as
a result of his efforts, helped
increase milling and manufacturing
in Texas by lowering freight rates.
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CHAPTER 17
REFORM GOVERNORS Under the progressive Republican
leadership of Robert M. La Follette, Wisconsin led the
way in regulating big business. “Fighting Bob” La Follette
served three terms as governor before he entered the U.S.
Senate in 1906. He explained that, as governor, he did not
mean to “smash corporations, but merely to drive them out
of politics, and then to treat them exactly the same as other
people are treated.”
La Follette’s major target was the railroad industry. He
taxed railroad property at the same rate as other business property, set up a commission to regulate rates, and forbade railroads to issue free passes to state officials. Other reform governors who attacked big business interests included Charles B.
Aycock of North Carolina and James S. Hogg of Texas.
PROTECTING WORKING CHILDREN As the number of
child workers rose dramatically, reformers worked to protect
workers and to end child labor. Businesses hired children
because they performed unskilled jobs for lower wages and
because children’s small hands made them more adept at
handling small parts and tools. Immigrants and rural
migrants often sent their children to work because they
viewed their children as part of the family economy. Often
wages were so low for adults that every family member needed to work to pull the family out of poverty.
In industrial settings, however, children were more
prone to accidents caused by fatigue. Many developed serious health problems and suffered from stunted growth. E
Formed in 1904, the National Child Labor Committee
sent investigators to gather evidence of children working in
harsh conditions. They then organized exhibitions with photographs and statistics to dramatize the children’s plight. They
were joined by labor union members who argued that child
labor lowered wages for all workers. These groups pressured
MAIN IDEA
Summarizing
D How did city
government
change during the
Progressive Era?
D. Answer The
commission
system and
council-manager system were
introduced;
some reform
mayors made
citizens more
active in managing cities.
E. Answer
Businesses
exploited children, paying
them low wages
and forcing
them to work
long hours in
dangerous conditions.
MAIN IDEA
Analyzing
Causes
E Why did
reformers seek to
end child labor?
Page 6 of 7
History Through
IMAGES OF CHILD LABOR
In 1908, Lewis Hine quit his teaching job to document child labor practices. Hine’s photographs and
descriptions of young laborers—some only three
years old—were widely distributed and displayed
in exhibits. His compelling images of exploitation
helped to convince the public of the need for child
labor regulations.
Hine devised a host of clever tactics to gain
access to his subjects, such as learning shop
managers’ schedules and arriving during their
lunch breaks. While talking casually with the children, he secretly scribbled notes on paper hidden
in his pocket.
Because of their small size, spindle boys and girls (top) were
forced to climb atop moving machinery to replace parts. For fouryear-old Mary (left), shucking two pots of oysters was a typical
day’s work.
SKILLBUILDER Interpreting Visual Sources
1. Lewis Hine believed in the power of photography to move
people to action. What elements of these photographs do
you find most striking?
2. Why do you think Hine was a successful photographer?
SEE SKILLBUILDER HANDBOOK, PAGE R23.
national politicians to pass the Keating-Owen Act in 1916. The act prohibited the
transportation across state lines of goods produced with child labor.
Two years later the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional due to
interference with states’ rights to regulate labor. Reformers did, however, succeed
in nearly every state by effecting legislation that banned child labor and set maximum hours.
EFFORTS TO LIMIT WORKING HOURS The Supreme Court sometimes took a
more sympathetic view of the plight of workers. In the 1908 case of Muller v.
Oregon, Louis D. Brandeis—assisted by Florence Kelley and Josephine Goldmark—
persuasively argued that poor working women were much more economically
insecure than large corporations. Asserting that women required the state’s protection against powerful employers, Brandeis convinced the Court to uphold an
Oregon law limiting women to a ten-hour workday. Other states responded by
enacting or strengthening laws to reduce women’s hours of work. A similar
Brandeis brief in Bunting v. Oregon in 1917 persuaded the Court to uphold a tenhour workday for men.
Progressives also succeeded in winning workers’ compensation to aid the
families of workers who were hurt or killed on the job. Beginning with Maryland
in 1902, one state after another passed legislation requiring employers to pay benefits in death cases.
The Progressive Era
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Page 5 of 9
Coal Mining in the Early 1900s
Coal played a key role in America’s industrial boom around the turn of the century,
providing the United States with about 90 percent of its energy. Miners often had
to dig for coal hundreds of feet below the earth’s surface. The work in these
mines was among the hardest and most dangerous in the world. Progressive Era
reforms helped improve conditions for miners, as many won wage increases and
shorter work hours.
▼
The coal mines employed
thousands of children, like this
boy pictured in 1909. In 1916,
progressives helped secure
passage of a child labor law that
forbade interstate commerce of
goods produced by children
under the age of 14.
Most underground mines had
two shafts—an elevator shaft
(shown here) for transporting
workers and coal, and an air
shaft for ventilation.
▼
pillars
The miners’ main
tool was the pick.
Many also used
drilling machines.
Donkeys or mules pulled the
coal cars to the elevators,
which transported the coal
to the surface.
air shaft
room
Like these men
working in 1908,
miners typically
spent their days
in dark, cramped
spaces underground.
elevator
shaft
room
Most mines used a room-and-pillar method for extracting
coal. This entailed digging out “rooms” of coal off a series
of tunnels, leaving enough coal behind to form a pillar that
prevented the room from collapsing.
The Progressive Era
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Page 714
Page 5 of 6
The Growing Labor Movement, 1933–1940
▼
Robert F. Wagner
▼
The Growth of Union
Membership, 1930–1940
Union Members (in millions)
A Democratic senator from New
York (1927–1949), Robert F.
Wagner was especially interested
in workers’ welfare. Wagner introduced the National Labor Relations
Act in Congress in 1935.
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
1930
1932
1934
1936
1938
Union
membership soars
A Ben Shahn poster
from the late 1930s
boasted of the rise
in union membership.
1940
Sit-down strikes
▼
Source: Historical Statistics of the United States
Union workers—such as these CIO strikers at
the Fisher automobile plant in Flint, Michigan, in
1937—found the sit-down strike an extremely
effective method for getting their demands met.
E. Answer New
Deal labor laws
gave unions
greater power
to organize and
negotiate with
employers. As a
result, unions
grew in size and
joined with
other groups in
the New Deal
coalition.
The American Federation of Labor (AFL) had traditionally been restricted to
the craft unions, such as carpenters and electricians. Most of the AFL leaders
opposed industrywide unions that represented all the workers in a given industry, such as automobile manufacturing. E
Frustrated by this position, several key labor leaders, including John L. Lewis
of the United Mine Workers of America and David Dubinsky of the International
Ladies Garment Workers, formed the Committee for Industrial Organization to
organize industrial unions. The committee rapidly signed up unskilled and semiskilled workers, and within two years it succeeded in gaining union recognition
in the steel and automobile industries. In 1938, the Committee for Industrial
Organization was expelled from the AFL and changed its name to the Congress
of Industrial Organizations (CIO). This split lasted until 1955.
LABOR DISPUTES One of the main bargaining tactics of the labor movement in
the 1930s was the sit-down strike. Instead of walking off their jobs, workers
remained inside their plants, but they did not work. This prevented the factory
owners from carrying on production with strikebreakers, or scabs. Some Americans
disapproved of the sit-down strike, calling it a violation of private property.
Nonetheless, it proved to be an effective bargaining tool.
Not all labor disputes in the 1930s were peaceful. Perhaps the most dramatic
incident was the clash at the Republic Steel plant in Chicago on Memorial Day,
1937. Police attacked striking steelworkers outside the plant. One striker, an
African-American man, recalled the experience.
A PERSONAL VOICE JESSE REESE
“ I began to see people drop. There was a Mexican on my side, and he fell; and
there was a black man on my side and he fell. Down I went. I crawled around in
the grass and saw that people were getting beat. I’d never seen police beat
women, not white women. I’d seen them beat black women, but this was the
first time in my life I’d seen them beat white women—with sticks.”
—quoted in The Great Depression
714
CHAPTER 23
MAIN IDEA
Analyzing
Effects
E How did New
Deal policies
affect organized
labor?
Background
See strike on
page R45 in the
Economics
Handbook.