Organized Struggle

Organized struggle

During 1870 through 1900 there was a surge of economical growth with the increasing industrialization of the U.S. The employee who actually did the work did not always have the luxury of leaving after eight hours of work, the right to representation, or the even the right to work in a safe environment. The working class of the late 1800's had to unite in struggle to achieve rights that are taken for granted today. These were many failures and fewer successes in organized labor, the successes that were gained, were gained through losses of the working man, often through lost wages, jobs, or even death.

The first labor union was the Nation Labor established in 1866, successfully persuaded congress to pass a law for eight hour work days, but was not successful in having it enforced. The Knights of Labor formed in 1869 by Uriah Stephens and did best under the leadership of Terrance Powdery, The Knights were an open organization for all whether they were unskilled or skilled, white or black, female or male. The Knights had about 750,000 members in the prime of its years, but the skilled and unskilled workers who had joined the Knights in hope of improvement in their hours and wages found themselves blurred together in the efforts of the organization. Skilled workers tired of labors focus on unskilled workers and who were easily replaced. They were also not the only ones striving to lead the way for labor unions, others such as the AFL, labor

Tape'-Jackson 2

union, and even some socialist entrepreneurs competed to be at the top(Doc F). The Knights had there declined after the Haymarket Square riots were they where accused of throwing a bomb which killed police officers. The Knights where faced with excessive negative publicity, and eventually disbanded. Even though they had an abundance of members there diversity seemed to not work well for them and the media wasn't helpful at all.

The media was one of the prime advocates for negative representation of the labor unions by over generalizing the acts of one group that did something bad and saying that all of them are like that, an example of this is in (Doc B). It is about the Baltimore and Ohio railroad strike, and New York Times stated that "the strike is apparently hopeless... demonstration of resentment by men too ignorant or too reckless..." Document B also ties into document C because doc C says that the laborer killed the goose that lays golden eggs, this is showing how dull the laborers were and how they were against capitalism. The man standing next him has a communist sash on hinting that the laborers have communist affiliations which discredits them even further. The sign STRIKE! STRIKE!! STRIKE!!! Refer to the B and O strike which was not very successful.

Most labor strikes were not successful at that time, many were broken