U2L9 The Labor Movement

Question 1

Why did people who worked in factories have low wages.

Answer 1

People worked all day tending machines in a large, crowded, noisy room. Because their skills were easily replaced, many workers were forced to work for low wages.

Question 2

What is a sweatshop?

Answer 2

A sweatshop is a workplace where people labor long hours in poor conditions for low pay. Most sweatshop workers were young women or children.

Question 3

In 1900, how many kids under the age of 15 were working throughout the country?

Answer 3

2 million

Question 4

Where did kids often work?

Answer 4

Boys and girls labored in hazardous textile mills, tobacco factories, and garment sweatshops. In coal mines, they picked stones out of the coal for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.

Question 5

Why was it dangerous to work in a factory?

Answer 5

Lung-damaging dust filled the air of textile mills. Cave-ins and gas explosions plagued mines. In steel mills, vats of molten metal spilled without warning. Some workers had their health destroyed. Others were severely injured or killed in industrial accidents. In one year, 195 workers died in the steel mills of Pittsburgh.

Question 6

What are some ways workers retaliated against their brutal treatment?

Answer 6

Some workers slowed their work pace. Others went on strike.

Question 7

What was the Knights of Labor?

Answer 7

In 1869, workers formed the Knights of Labor. At first, the union was open to skilled workers only. The members held meetings in secret because employers fired workers who joined unions.

Question 8

Who was the president of the Knights of Labor?

Answer 8

In 1879, the Knights of Labor elected Terence Powderly as their president. Powderly worked to strengthen the union by opening its membership to immigrants, African Americans, women, and unskilled workers.

Question 9

What did Powderly do to try to have fair treatment of workers?

Answer 9

Powderly did not believe in strikes. Rather, he relied on rallies and meetings to win public support.

Question 10

What were the goals of the knights?

Answer 10

• shorter workday
• an end to child labor
• equal pay for men and women
• workers and employers to share ownership and profits (most important)

Question 11

What happened at the Missouri Pacific Railroad strike to restore wages?

Answer 11

The Knights did not officially support the strike. Still, workers everywhere saw the strike as a victory for the union. Membership soared to 700,000, including 60,000 African Americans.

Question 12

Wha happened at the McCormick Harvester Company strike?

Answer 12

In 1886, the Knights of Labor ran into serious trouble. Workers at the McCormick Harvester Company in Chicago went on strike. Again, the Knights did not endorse the strike.

Question 13

What did the McCormick Company do in response to the strike?

Answer 13

They hired strikebreakers (replacements for strike workers).

Question 14

What happened between the strikers and the strikebreakers in the McCormick Company?

Answer 14

On May 3, 1886, workers clashed with strikebreakers outside the factory. Police opened fire, and four workers were killed.

Question 15

What happened on Haymarket Square the day after the shooting at the McCormick Company?

Answer 15

Thousands of workers gathered in Haymarket Square to protest the killings. The rally was led by anarchists, people who oppose all forms of organized government. Suddenly, a bomb exploded, killing seven police officers.

Question 16

What was the Haymarket Riot?.

Answer 16

The riot after the shooting at the McCormick Company where thousands of workers gathered in Haymarket Square to protest the killings, but, suddenly, a bomb exploded, killing seven police officers.

Question 17

Who was arrested at the Haymarket Riot? Why?

Answer 17

Eight anarchists were arrested for their part in the Haymarket Riot. No real evidence linked these men to the bombing, but four were tried, convicted, and hanged.

Question 18

What caused the quick drop of membership in the Knights of Labor?

Answer 18

After the 8 ansrachists were arrested for taking part in the Haymarket Riot, a wave of antilabor feeling swept the nation. Many Americans thought that the unions were controlled by anarchists. As a result, membership in the Knights of Labor dropped sharply.

Question 19

When was the American Federation of Labor (AFL) made?

Answer 19

In 1886, an immigrant cigar maker named Samuel Gompers organized a new union in Columbus, Ohio. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was open to skilled workers only.

Question 20

Workers did not directly join the AFL. What did they join instead?

Answer 20

They joined a trade union. The Union joined the AFL. Thus, the AFL was a large organization made up of many different unions.

Question 21

What is a trade Union?

Answer 21

A union of persons working in the same trade. For example, a typesetter joined a typesetter’s union.

Question 22

How were the AFL different from the Knights of Labor?

Answer 22

Unlike the Knights of Labor, the AFL stressed practical goals. It focused on higher wages, shorter hours, and improved working conditions. It led the fight for collective bargaining. The AFL also supported the use of strikes to achieve its goals.

Question 23

What is collective bargaining?

Answer 23

The right of unions to negotiate with management for workers as a group

Question 24

Its practical approach helped the AFL become the most powerful labor organization in the nation. Between 1886 and 1910, membership in the AFL swelled from 150,000 to more than one and a half million. However, because African Americans, immigrants, and unskilled workers were barred from most trade unions, they could not join the AFL.

Answer 24

I didn’t know how to turn that into a question… so that’s that ;-;

Question 25

How many woman worked in American factories?

Answer 25

One million

Question 26

Where did woman mainly work?

Answer 26

In the textile mills of New England and the tobacco factories of the South, women formed the majority of workers. In New York City, women outnumbered men in the garment industry.

Question 27

What was a Union woman formed? What happened to them?

Answer 27

One woman Union was all-black Washerwoman’s Association of Atlanta, they stuck for higher wages. None of the woman unions succeeded though.

Question 28

Who was Mary Harris Jones?

Answer 28

She was the best-known woman in the labor movement, she was also known as Mother Jones.

Question 29

What did Mary Jones do?

Answer 29

Jones spoke out about the hard lives of children in textile mills. By calling attention to such abuses, Mother Jones helped pave the way for reform.

Question 30

What was the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU)?

Answer 30

In 1900, garment workers organized the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU). More than 20,000 women and men in the ILGWU walked off their jobs in 1909. After a few weeks, employers met union demands for better pay and shorter hours. The ILGWU became a key member of the AFL.

Question 31

How many woman with jobs joined the ILGWU?

Answer 31

Despite the efforts of the ILGWU and other labor groups, most women with factory jobs did not join unions.

Question 32

What happened on March 1911 in the Triangle Fire?

Answer 32

The workday was just ending on a cool March day in 1911, when a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, a sweatshop in New York City. Within minutes, the upper stories were ablaze. Hundreds of workers raced for the exits, only to find them locked. The company had locked the doors to keep workers at their jobs. In their panic, workers ran headlong into the doors, blocking them with their bodies. Fire trucks arrived almost immediately, but their ladders could not reach the upper floors. One after another, workers trying to escape the flames leapt to their deaths. Nearly 150 people, mostly young women, lost their lives in the Triangle Fire. The deaths shocked the public. As a result, New York and other states approved new safety laws to help protect factory workers.

Question 33

What caused states to approve safely laws to protect factory workers?

Answer 33

The Triangle Fire

IT TOOK ALL OF THAT TO FINALLY REALIZE THE YOU HAVE TO PROTECT PEOPLE. THESE MOTHERFUC-

Question 34

Why was industries expanding quickly a bad thing?

Answer 34

As goods flooded the market, prices dropped. To cut their losses, factory owners often fired workers. As the supply of goods fell, prices rose again. In turn, factories geared up again, and the cycle was repeated.

Question 35

During a severe depression in the 1870s, railroad workers were forced to take several cuts in pay. What did this cause?

Answer 35

In July 1877, workers went on strike, shutting down rail lines across the country. Riots erupted in many cities as workers burned rail yards and ripped up track.

Question 36

What side did the federal government and court systems usually take when it comes to strikes?

Answer 36

The federal government usually sided with factory owners. Several Presidents sent in troops to end strikes. Courts usually ruled against strikers, too.

Question 37

During the strike period, how was the Sherman Antitrust Act misused?

Answer 37

A federal judge ordered the Pullman workers to stop their strike. Leaders of the strike were jailed for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. This act had been meant to keep trusts from limiting free trade. The courts, however, said that the strikers were limiting free trade.

Question 38

Why did many Americans oppose strikes?

Answer 38

Some were afraid that unions were run by foreign-born radicals. Because unions were unpopular, owners felt free to try to crush them.