Of Working Conditions in America

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, America was stricken with poverty and deplorable conditions abound. Although some lived like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, the majority of the population was a struggling working class. Entire families worked for up to ten hours a day (with barely any progress towards a lowering of these days for approximately sixteen years) *A*, six days a week, in dangerous, unsanitary factories just to make enough money to survive into the next day. The big issue of working conditions was duly noted by the intelligentsia of the times and became the next 'thing' for Americans to focus on improving. Organized labor was for the most part unsuccessful in improving the position of workers because of the latent feeling of superiority of employers over employees, the initial ineffectiveness of strikes, and the complete and utter lack of governmental support.

Since there had been practically no precedent for even organizing labor in a way that would benefit all, it was difficult to lay any framework regarding such a task. If unions had a chance to succeed, strikes would have to become much more effective than they were at the time. In 1866 the National Labor Union was created to unite workers in fighting for a non-reduction of wages and an eight hour work day. While it did not make an actionable difference, it definitely paved the way for future unions. On a single occasion, trans-continental railroad workers of this union participated in a strike that ended with mass violence and few reforms. An editorial in The New York Times said: "the strike is apparently hopeless, and must be regarded as nothing more than a rash and spiteful demonstration of resentment by men too ignorant or too reckless to understand their own interests" *B*. This editorial as hinted at by its next sentence, is in favor of labor reforms and lauds the people who attempt to enact change in labor even with such a hopeless/presently-ineffectual effort. Even though there appeared to be no hope for strikes to exact change, they continued with intense fervor, speaking volumes for the kind of mentality Americans collectively held at the time. In 1892, workers at a steel plant near Pittsburgh retaliated with violence killing quite a few average citizens on top of the couple of Pinkertons that they probably only meant to kill *G*. The escalation in violent acts at Homestead not only proves that tension was quickly rising between workers and employers, but also shows that people were becoming desperate from the lack of change. After all these strikes were defeated it was clear that organized labor was less than successful and was not a particularly effective method of improving conditions for workers.

The industrial era gave more power to those in charge of the corporate scene than ever before. Many Americans incorrectly believed that employers were on a higher level than employees because of the way that employers

...