Industrial America At Work (Quiz June 5)

Question 1

Piecework

Answer 1

a payment system where those who worked fastest & produced the most made the most money; laborers worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, and were paid not by hour but by what they produced

Question 2

Sweatshop

Answer 2

shop where employees worked long hours for low wages under poor/dangerous working conditions without medical insurance

Question 3

Frederick Winslow Taylor

Answer 3

organizer at steel factory; broke down tasks into a number of steps and over all timing in order to increase workplace efficiency and profits

Question 4

Division of Labor

Answer 4

dividing labor into separate tasks proved efficient, but made work extremely boring and repetitive

Question 5

Factory Work Environment

Answer 5

ruled by clock, with strict discipline, a fear of being fired, and unsafe conditions– but factory work offered higher pay than many other jobs

Question 6

Jacob Riis

Answer 6

1892: a social worker who, in his book “Children of the Poor,” explained the impact of factory work on children. Children made up 5% of the labor force, and child labor came under attack in the 1890s and 1900.

Question 7

Socialism

Answer 7

workers complained to employers about conditions, but they didn’t care– this popularized socialism with the workers. It was an economic and political philosophy favoring public control of property and income, and was promoted by German author Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto

Question 8

Communist Manifesto

Answer 8

by Karl Marx; denounced capitalist economic system & predicted that workers (the proletariat) would overturn it; promoted socialism

Question 9

Knights of Labor (1869)

Answer 9

1869: national union in Philadelphia led by Terence Powderly. Supported 8 hour workday, equal pay for all, and accepted all: skilled or unskilled laborers, women, and black Americans. Denounced child labor (under 15)

Question 10

National Trades Union

Answer 10

first union open to workers of all crafts, but lasted only a few years

Question 11

American Federation of Labor (1886)

Answer 11

led by Samuel Gompers; union of skilled workers (excluding women and Africans) focused on preserving skilled labor. Focused on wages, hours, and working conditions, and used strikes and boycotts; wanted collective bargaining and a closed shop workplace.

Question 12

Collective Bargaining

Answer 12

workers negotiate with employers as a group

Question 13

Closed Shop

Answer 13

workplace where ONLY union members were employed

Question 14

Industrial Workers of the World (1905)

Answer 14

Chicago-based union formed by 43 groups opposing AFL; radical union of unskilled workers open to socialists & anarchists that led violent strikes. Believed that employers and workers had nothing in common. Wanted to abolish wage system, dismantle trade unions, destroy capitalism entirely, and for workers to seize means of production

Question 15

Employers’ reactions

Answer 15

banned union meetings, fired union organizers, had workers sign yellow dog contracts, refused to bargain collectively

Question 16

Yellow Dog Contract

Answer 16

worker agrees not to unionize

Question 17

Great Railroad Strike of 1877

Answer 17

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad announced 10% wage cut during economic depression + imposed double headers (train w/ 2 engines and twice as many cars; huge accident risk and dangerous for workers). Workers organized strikes & clashed w/ local militia; violence spread to Pittsburgh, Chicago, St. Louis; state governors requested federal aid, and President Rutherford B. Hayes sent in federal troops. Pittsburgh soldiers fired on rioters 1 week later, and 20,000 rioters set fire to railroad property ($5 million in damages). Hayes sent troops in again, and employers now relied on federal troops to restore order in the workplace

Question 18

Eugene V. Debs

Answer 18

opposed railway violence; proposed American Railway Union (new industrial union for railway workers)

Question 19

Haymarket Riot (1866)

Answer 19

Knights of Labor union workers mounted demonstration for 8-hr workday; police broke up fights between workers and scabs at McCormick Reaper factory in Chicago, but their intervention caused casualties among the workers. Union leaders called for a protest rally in Haymarket Square, Chicago, where anarchists also joined. A bomb thrown into the police killed an officer; gunfire between both parties caused casualties on both sides. 4 anarchists were hanged for conspiring to commit murder.

Question 20

Scabs

Answer 20

workers called in by employer to replace laborers on strike

Question 21

Anarchists

Answer 21

joined strikers at Haymarket riot; 4 hanged for conspiring to commit murder

Question 22

Homestead Strike (1892)

Answer 22

Henry Frick (Carnegie’s partner) tried to cut wages @ Carnegie Steel; union at Carnegie plant in Homestead, PA called for strike. Frick hired Pinkertons, and shootout between workers and Pinkertons left several dead. Strikers eventually cross picket line (go back to working)

Question 23

Pinkertons

Answer 23

private strike breakers

Question 24

Alexander Berkman

Answer 24

anarchist who tried to assassinate Frick on July 23, 1892

Question 25

Pullman Strike

Answer 25

Pullman laid off workers + cut wages by 25% in Panic of 1893, but kept rent & food prices the same. Workers sought aid from American Railway Union under Debs; 260,000 workers joined Pullman Strike, which disrupted mail delivery. Railroad owners sought government help; federal government ordered that all union activity regarding railway traffic was illegal. In years ahead, factory owners kept looking to the government for court orders against unions.

Question 26

George Pullman

Answer 26

invented luxury sleeping train cars; built town + housing for workers in Chicago