Labor and Unions

Labor and Unions

Workers, owners and the fight over wages, hours and safety, about 1877 to 1911

The factories, mines and railroads of the Gilded Age made the United States the world’s leading industrial power. They were built and run by millions of workers, many of them immigrants and children, who worked long hours for low pay in dangerous places. Workers organized unions to bargain together. Owners, who had their own worries about competition and hard times, mostly fought back, and courts and governments often took their side.

In this unit we look at what work was like, how the major unions organized, and the great strikes of 1877, 1892 and 1894. We end with the Triangle fire of 1911, which helped move the country toward new labor laws. As you read, keep asking what each side wanted and why.

Working Conditions

A typical factory worker in the 1880s worked ten hours or more a day, six days a week. In steel mills, twelve-hour shifts were common. Many unskilled workers earned less than $1.50 a day (an estimate; pay varied widely by job, region and sex), and women and children were paid much less than men. When business slowed, as in the depressions that began in 1873 and 1893, wages were cut and workers were laid off with no unemployment insurance to fall back on.

Work was dangerous. Machines had few guards, mines collapsed and railroad workers were crushed coupling cars. No one kept a national count, but historians estimate that thousands of workers were killed on the job each year, and many more were injured. An injured worker usually had to sue to get anything, and courts often ruled that the worker had accepted the risk.

Children worked too. The 1900 census counted about 1.75 million children aged 10 to 15 at work, roughly one in six (an estimate, and probably an undercount). They worked in textile mills, coal mines, canneries and city streets. Many families depended on their wages.

Owners saw things differently. Many believed that wages should be set by the market, that a worker who did not like the terms was free to quit, and that unions interfered with their right to run their own property. They faced fierce competition and sudden panics, and some, like George Pullman, believed they were improving workers’ lives.

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877

In July 1877, in the fourth year of a depression, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad cut wages yet again. Workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia, stopped the trains. Within days the strike had spread to Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Chicago and St. Louis, joined by other workers and the unemployed. Crowds burned rail yards in Pittsburgh. President Rutherford B. Hayes sent federal troops, and about 100 people were killed before the strike ended (an estimate). It was the first nationwide strike in the country’s history, and it frightened many middle-class Americans.

The Knights of Labor and the AFL

Knights of Labor

Founded in 1869 as a secret society, the Knights grew fast under Terence V. Powderly, who led them from 1879. They welcomed almost all workers, skilled and unskilled, including women and Black workers, though they excluded Chinese workers and supported Chinese exclusion. They hoped to replace the wage system with cooperatives and preferred arbitration to strikes. Membership peaked at around 700,000 in 1886 (an estimate), then fell quickly after Haymarket and a string of lost strikes.

American Federation of Labor

Founded in December 1886, the AFL was a federation of craft unions of skilled workers. Samuel Gompers, a cigar maker who had immigrated from London, led it almost without a break until 1924. The AFL focused on what Gompers called practical goals: higher wages, shorter hours and better conditions, won through collective bargaining and, when needed, strikes. It mostly left out unskilled workers, and many of its unions shut out women, Black workers and new immigrants.

Haymarket, 1886

On May 1, 1886, hundreds of thousands of workers across the country struck for an eight-hour day. In Chicago, police killed at least two strikers at the McCormick reaper works on May 3. The next evening, May 4, anarchists held a protest rally in Haymarket Square. As police moved in to break it up, someone threw a bomb. The blast and the gunfire that followed killed seven police officers and at least four civilians (counts vary), and many more were wounded.

No one ever learned who threw the bomb. Eight anarchists were convicted anyway, mainly for their speeches and writings; the guilt of the men in the bombing was never proven. Four were hanged in 1887, and one died in jail. In 1893 Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned the three survivors, saying they had not had a fair trial. The pardon ended his political career. Haymarket turned much of the public against unions for years, and the Knights of Labor never recovered.

Homestead, 1892

At Carnegie Steel’s works in Homestead, Pennsylvania, the company’s manager, Henry Clay Frick, set out to break the skilled workers’ union. When talks failed, he locked the workers out and hired about 300 armed agents from the Pinkerton detective agency. On July 6, 1892, workers and townspeople fought the Pinkertons as they arrived by barge. About ten people were killed (an estimate). The governor sent some 8,000 state militia, and the plant reopened with strikebreakers. Andrew Carnegie, who had written in favor of workers’ right to organize, was in Scotland at the time and backed Frick. Public sympathy for the strikers dropped after an anarchist not connected to the union tried to kill Frick later that month.

Pullman, 1894

George Pullman built sleeping cars for railroads and a model company town for his workers south of Chicago. After the Panic of 1893, he cut wages several times but did not lower rents. In May 1894 the workers struck. The American Railway Union, an industrial union for all railroad workers led by Eugene V. Debs, voted to refuse to handle trains carrying Pullman cars. By early July the boycott had stopped much of the nation’s rail traffic.

The railroads turned to the federal government. On July 2 a federal court issued an injunction ordering the union to stop, on the grounds that the boycott blocked the U.S. mail and interstate commerce. On July 4 President Grover Cleveland sent federal troops to Chicago over the objections of Governor Altgeld. Riots and clashes followed, and about 30 people were killed (an estimate). The strike collapsed. Debs was jailed for six months for defying the injunction, and in In re Debs (1895) the Supreme Court upheld his sentence. Debs came out of jail a socialist. Employers used injunctions against strikes for decades afterward.

Mother Jones

Mary Harris Jones, born in Ireland, lost her husband and four children to yellow fever in 1867 and later her business in the Chicago Fire. She spent the rest of her long life as an organizer, mostly for the United Mine Workers, and became known everywhere as “Mother Jones.” In 1903 she led a group of child textile workers, some of them injured in the mills, on a march from Philadelphia toward President Theodore Roosevelt’s home on Long Island to protest child labor. Roosevelt would not meet them, but the march drew national attention.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, 1911

In 1909, thousands of shirtwaist makers in New York, mostly young Jewish and Italian immigrant women, struck in the Uprising of the 20,000. Some shops agreed to their demands. The Triangle Shirtwaist Company did not.

On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the eighth floor of the Triangle factory, near Washington Square. Workers on the ninth floor found one door locked. The fire escape collapsed, and fire ladders reached only to the sixth floor. In less than half an hour, 146 workers died, most of them young immigrant women. Some jumped to their deaths. The owners were tried for manslaughter and acquitted.

The fire shocked the country. New York set up a Factory Investigating Commission, and within a few years the state passed dozens of laws on fire safety, sanitation and hours for women and children. Frances Perkins, who watched the fire from the street, later became the first woman in a president’s cabinet, as Secretary of Labor.

Toward Labor Laws

Change came slowly and unevenly. Some states passed factory inspection and child labor laws, such as Illinois in 1893. But the Supreme Court often struck such laws down. In Lochner v. New York (1905) it threw out a limit on bakers’ hours as a violation of “freedom of contract,” though in Muller v. Oregon (1908) it upheld a limit on women’s hours. Congress created the Department of Labor in 1913 and gave railroad workers an eight-hour day in 1916. A national minimum wage, a ban on most child labor and a legal right to join a union came only in the 1930s.

Timeline, 1877 to 1911

Click or tap (or Tab to) an event and press Enter to open it. Use the buttons to show only one kind of event.

Dot colors: work life strikes organizing law and government

  1. 1877 Great Railroad Strike strikes

    After a wage cut, railroad workers walk off the job in Martinsburg, West Virginia (July 16). The strike spreads to cities from Baltimore to St. Louis. President Hayes sends federal troops, and about 100 people are killed (an estimate).

  2. 1878 Knights of Labor preamble organizing

    The Knights, founded in 1869, adopt a national statement of goals, including the eight-hour day, equal pay for women and an end to child labor.

  3. 1879 Powderly leads the Knights organizing

    Terence V. Powderly becomes Grand Master Workman. Under him the Knights open their doors to almost all workers, including women and Black workers, but not Chinese workers.

  4. 1886 May Day strikes strikes

    Hundreds of thousands of workers across the country strike for an eight-hour day, starting May 1 (an estimate).

  5. 1886 Haymarket strikes

    A bomb explodes as police break up a labor rally in Chicago’s Haymarket Square (May 4). Police officers and civilians are killed. Eight anarchists are convicted, though no evidence ever tied them to the bomb.

  6. 1886 AFL founded organizing

    Craft unions form the American Federation of Labor in Columbus, Ohio, in December, with Samuel Gompers as president.

  7. 1887 Four men hanged law and government

    Four of the Haymarket defendants are executed (November 11). A fifth had died in jail the day before.

  8. 1892 Homestead law and government

    Steelworkers at Carnegie’s Homestead plant near Pittsburgh fight armed Pinkerton agents hired by the company (July 6). The state militia arrives, and the union is broken.

  9. 1893 Altgeld’s pardon law and government

    Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld pardons the three surviving Haymarket defendants, saying their trial was unfair (June 26).

  10. 1893 Panic of 1893 work life

    A financial panic sets off a deep depression. Millions lose work, and many employers cut wages.

  11. 1894 Pullman strike strikes

    Workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company strike on May 11 after wage cuts with no cut in rents. In late June the American Railway Union refuses to handle Pullman cars.

  12. 1894 Injunction and troops law and government

    A federal court orders the boycott to stop (July 2), and President Cleveland sends troops to Chicago over Governor Altgeld’s objection (July 4).

  13. 1894 Labor Day law and government

    Congress makes Labor Day a national holiday (June 28), in the middle of the Pullman crisis.

  14. 1895 In re Debs law and government

    The Supreme Court upholds the injunction and Eugene V. Debs’s jail sentence for defying it.

  15. 1900 Children at work work life

    The census counts about 1.75 million children aged 10 to 15 at work (an estimate; many more went uncounted).

  16. 1903 March of the Mill Children organizing

    Mother Jones leads child textile workers from Philadelphia toward President Theodore Roosevelt’s home in New York to protest child labor.

  17. 1905 Lochner v. New York law and government

    The Supreme Court strikes down a New York law limiting bakers to ten hours a day, calling it a violation of freedom of contract.

  18. 1908 Muller v. Oregon law and government

    The Court upholds an Oregon law limiting working hours for women.

  19. 1909 Uprising of the 20,000 organizing

    Thousands of shirtwaist makers in New York, most of them young immigrant women, strike for better pay and safer shops (an estimate of their number).

  20. 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire work life

    Fire sweeps the top floors of a New York garment factory on March 25. With exits locked or blocked, 146 workers die, most of them young immigrant women.

Activity: Strike or Settle? The Pullman Case

Either answer can be defended with evidence. It is June 1894, and you are a delegate to the American Railway Union convention, deciding whether to support the Pullman strikers. For each piece of evidence, decide whether it points toward striking, points toward settling, or could support either choice. You can change your mind at any time.

Primary Sources

4 short excerpts, checked word for word against the online copies listed below. Ellipses (…) mark skipped text.

“The alarming development and aggressiveness of great capitalists and corporations, unless checked, will inevitably lead to the pauperization and hopeless degradation of the toiling masses.”
Knights of Labor, Preamble, first adopted 1878

“Pauperization” means being pushed into poverty. The Knights went on to call for an eight-hour day, equal pay for equal work, laws against child labor and arbitration to settle disputes. They hoped to replace the wage system with worker-owned cooperatives.

“We want more school houses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more constant work and less crime; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge …”
Samuel Gompers, address, August 28, 1893

Gompers repeated versions of this line in many speeches. It is often quoted beginning with “What does labor want?” Gompers is best known for “bread-and-butter” goals such as wages and hours, but here he ties them to a larger hope for a better life.

“We struck at Pullman because we were without hope. We joined the American Railway Union because it gave us a glimmer of hope.”
Statement of the Pullman strikers to the American Railway Union convention, Chicago, June 1894

The strikers went on to complain that George Pullman cut wages several times in 1893 but did not lower the rents in the company town he owned. Pullman argued that rents were a separate business, and that he had kept the shops open in a depression by taking contracts at a loss.

“The life of men and women is so cheap and property is so sacred. There are so many of us for one job it matters little if 146 of us are burned to death.”
Rose Schneiderman, speech at a memorial meeting, Metropolitan Opera House, New York, April 2, 1911

Schneiderman was a union organizer and a leader of the Women’s Trade Union League. She spoke a week after the Triangle fire to an audience that included many wealthy supporters of reform. She told them that charity was not enough and that workers had to save themselves through a strong labor movement.

Key Terms

Labor union
An organization of workers who join together to bargain with employers over wages, hours and conditions.
Collective bargaining
Talks between a union and an employer to agree on pay and working conditions for a group of workers.
Strike
When workers stop working together to pressure an employer.
Boycott
Refusing to buy, use or handle a product or a company’s goods, as the American Railway Union did with Pullman cars.
Lockout
When an employer shuts workers out of the workplace to pressure them, as at Homestead in 1892.
Strikebreaker
A worker hired to replace strikers. Strikers often called them “scabs.”
Injunction
A court order that tells someone to stop doing something. Employers used injunctions to end strikes.
Craft union
A union of skilled workers in one trade, such as cigar makers or carpenters. The AFL was built on craft unions.
Industrial union
A union open to all workers in an industry, skilled or not, such as the American Railway Union.
Company town
A town owned by an employer, which also owned the housing and stores, such as Pullman, Illinois.
Anarchist
A person who believes that government should be abolished. Some, not all, called for violence.
Freedom of contract
The legal idea that workers and employers should be free to agree to any terms, used to strike down many labor laws.

Discussion Questions

  1. The Knights of Labor welcomed almost all workers, while the AFL focused on skilled workers. Which approach do you think made a union stronger, and why?
  2. After Haymarket, many Americans blamed unions for violence that none of them were proven to have caused. Why do you think one event changed public opinion so much?
  3. In 1877, 1892 and 1894 the government sent troops or courts against strikers. Was it keeping order, taking the owners’ side, or both?
  4. George Pullman thought of his town as a gift to his workers. His workers saw it as a trap. How can both views come from the same facts?
  5. Rose Schneiderman said that charity was not enough after the Triangle fire. What do you think she wanted instead, and was she right?

Test Yourself

10 questions on workers and unions. Click an answer to check it.

Workers and Unions

Sources and Further Reading

Primary sources quoted

  1. Knights of Labor, Preamble (adopted 1878; text as printed in 1886). The Samuel Gompers Papers, University of Maryland, Preamble of the Knights of Labor.
  2. Samuel Gompers, address of August 28, 1893. The Samuel Gompers Papers, University of Maryland, Gompers quotations (vol. 3).
  3. Statement of the Pullman strikers, June 1894. Hanover College History Department, Pullman workers’ statement.
  4. Rose Schneiderman, speech of April 2, 1911, first published in The Survey, April 8, 1911. Cornell University Kheel Center, Triangle Factory Fire testimonials.

Further reading

Interpretation

  1. James Green, Death in the Haymarket (2006).
  2. Paul Krause, The Battle for Homestead, 1880–1892 (1992).
  3. Richard Schneirov, Shelton Stromquist and Nick Salvatore, eds., The Pullman Strike and the Crisis of the 1890s (1999).
  4. David Von Drehle, Triangle: The Fire That Changed America (2003).