13.3 Flashcards
What are Company Towns?
Isolated communities near the workers’ workplaces.
Owned by the business and rented out to employees.
“Company store” where workers were forced to buy goods.
What is collective bargaining?
A method factory workers used to try and gain more power.
Workers negotiated as a group to earn higher wages or better working conditions.
Ex) strike
What is Socialism?
First spread throughout Europe.
Economic and political philosophy that favors public, instead of private, control of property and income.
Society at large, not just private individuals, should take charge of a nation’s wealth.
Who are the Knights of Labor?
A labor union.
Founded by Uriah Smith Stephens, a tailor who had lived and worked around the country.
Included all workers of any trade, skilled or unskilled, in his union.
Actively recruited African Americans.
Devoted to broad social reform such as replacing capitalism with workers’ cooperatives.
Who is Terence V. Powderly?
Took on the leadership of the Knights in 1881.
Went from a menial job on the railroad to mayor of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Continue to pursue ideological reforms meant to lead workers out of the bondage of wage labor.
Encouraged boycotts and negotiation with employers.. Abandoned secret nature of the union.
Knights grew under their leadership, it would eventually die out.
What is the American Federation of Labor?
AFL
Founded by Samuel Gompers
Craft union: loose organization of skilled workers from some 100 local unions devoted to specific crafts or trades.
Focused on very specific issues such as wages, working hours, and working conditions.
Who was Samuel Gompers?
Founded the AFL (American Federation of Labor)
Poor Irish immigrant who worked his way up to head the local cigarmakers’ union.
Difference between AFL and Knights of Labor?
Knights of Labor: composed of workers of different trades
AFL: craft union, devoted to specific crafts or trades
What was the Haymarket Riot?
1886 labor-related protest in Chicagowhich ended in deadly violence.
Demonstration for an 8-hour work day.
Strikes erupted in several cities and conflict escalated between police and strikers.
May 4: protestors gathered in Haymarket square.
Frenzy: protestor threw a bomb at a policeman.
Many protestors and policemen were killed.
8 anarchists were tried for murder, 4 were executed.
3 of the others were pardoned but one had already committed suicide in jail.
What was the effect of the Haymarket Riot?
People began to shy away from radicalism.
The Knights of Labor fizzled out because of this.
Employers became more suspicious of union activities, associating them with violence.
What was the Homestead Strike?
Carnegie Steel Plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, cut workers’ wages.
Union immediately called a strike.
Andrew Carnegie’s partner, Henry Frick, responded by calling in the Pinkertons; a private police force known for their ability to break up strikes.
Pinkertons killed and wounded several strikers.
An anarchist who had joined the protestors attempted to assassinate Frick.
What was the effect of the Homestead Strike?
Public opinion was turning against unions.
After losing the standoff; steelworker unions lost power throughout the country.
Who was Eugene V. Debs?
Led the American Railway Union (ARU), and industrial union.
Believed that industrial unions could exert united pressure on employers.
Workers went to him when faced with George Pullman’s decision for workers to live in the company town and control their rents and the price of goods.
What was Pullman’s Strike?
George Pullman’s decision for workers to live in the company town and control their rents and the price of goods.
ARU (American Railway Union) led the strike after being called in for help.
Halted both railway traffic and mail delivery.
Railroad owners sited the Sherman Antitrust Act saying that the union was disrupting free trade.
President Grover Cleveland sent in federal troops, ending the strike.
Debs refused to end the strike and was placed in prison for conspiring against interstate commerce.
What was the effect of Pullman’s Strike?
Employers appealed frequently for court orders against unions, citing legislation like the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Federal government regularly approved these appeals and denied unions recognition as legally protected organizations.
