The American Work
Force
What conditions faced the worker in the early
stages of industrialization? Response?
http://www.teacheroz.com/19thcent.ht
m
Basic Econmics
 Science
of production: capital, labor
consumption and distribution of
goods and services
 What is the task of the market?
 Producers top priority?
 Workers concerns?
 Insecurities?
 Is an equilibrium in interests possible
Colonial Labor
 Agrarian
dominancy in 1776
 Aristocrats and Professionals
 Mercantile interests
 Craftsmen, artisans, mechanics
 Laborers and Landless
 Servants and Slaves
Labor in Age of Machines
Implementing New Technologies
 Farmers and Shopkeepers No More
 Sciences of Business and Economics
 Scientific Management Principles
 Demise of Artisans (Carnegie’s Pa)
 David Ricardo:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_
wages
 Southern Critic: Wage Slavery &
Dependency

Conditions facing Workers
Low wages and lack of control
 Excessive work hours
 Dangerous conditions
 Women and Child Labor
 http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates
/childlabor/
 Job security?
 Poverty, squalor and cities
 Courts, Military and Owners Allied

Immigration
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The Variable Cost of Business
Irish and Potato Famine: 1 Mil
German Revolt: 19th Century: 6 Mil
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/
SW Europe post Civil War: 20 mil
The Chinese Experience
The Uprooted: Their Story
http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1
998/summer/women-and-naturalization-1.html
Bewilderment: Industry & Urbanization
Justification of Wealth
Divine Providence: Rockefeller Says
 Protestant Work Ethic
 Social Darwinism & Survival of Fit
 Charles Darwin & Herbert Spencer
 http://www.victorianweb.org/philosophy/s
ocdar.html
 Socio Economic Order: Natural Law
 Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth
 http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5767/
 Paragon of Progress?

The Labor Movement
Working Class Consciousness and The
National Labor Union
 Trade Unionism from England
 Highlights:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/US
Atu.htm
 Knights of Labor & AFL 8 Hour Day
 Bread and Butter Unionism
 Mining, Steel, Rail & Workingman’s
 IWW, Socialists, Utopians & Radicals

Labor v. Capital
1881-1905 over 36K strikes
 The Molly Maguires:
http://www.lehigh.edu/~ineng/paw/pawhistory.htm
 The Haymarket Affair
 Pullman Strike
 Carnegie/Frick and Homestead:
http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/strikes.ht
ml
 Public Perceptions, The State & Media

Beyond Unionization
 The
Theory of the Leisure Class
 Henry George and the Single Tax
 http://www.henrygeorge.org/denigri
s.htm
 Edward Bellamy: Looking Backwards
 The Robber Barons Analogy
 World War I: Armistice
 Heavens Weep Documentary