Industrialization

1. Problems of Industrialization
Not everything of the IR was positive

2. Working Conditions
• Very Dangerous
• Long hours
• Low wages
• No job security
• No benefits
• Company towns—Factory owner also
owns housing and grocery stores

3. Child Labor
• Some children around the age of five
began to work in factories
• Conditions were the same for children and
adults
• Easy to get around state laws
• Why did children work?
– Because if they did not, their families would
starve or not be able to buy clothes or pay
rent.

4. Images of Child Labor and
Sweat Shops

22. Labor Unions
How the employees fight back

23. Knights of Labor
• All laborers
• Equal wages
• Better work conditions
• Eliminate gap between labor and capital

24. American Federation of Labor (AFL)
• Skilled laborers
• Samuel Gompers
• More power and
benefits for workers

25. American Railways Union
• Railroad
• Eugene V. Debs
• Better conditions &
wages

26. Industrial Ladies’ Garment Workers
Union (ILGWU)
• Clothing, textiles
• Better work conditions
• No sweatshops

27. Strikes
People striking back against
“the man”

28. Haymarket Square Riot
1886
All laborers
Demanded shorter workday
Turned violent
Decline of Knights of Labor

30. Homestead Strike
1892
Steel
Turned very bloody
National guard suppressed

31. Pullman Strike
1894
Railroad
Protesting lay offs & company town
Turned Violent
President asked the army to suppress the
strike
Eugene Debs imprisoned

34. Results and Gains
The good that came from
unions/strikes

35. Results
Limited Work Hours
40 hour work week
Regulated Work Conditions
Minimum wages
Workers Compensation

36. Results-Child Labor
• By 1914 all but one state set minimum
ages for workers
• Many established limits on child labor
• Children’s Bureau was created to
investigate child labor violations