History of Labor and Work in the United States from 1880 to 1945

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History of Labor and Work, 1880-1945
Introduction
The United States witnessed massive growth in economy towards the end of 1800s spurred by both agricultural and industrial revolution. The northern part of country was largely involved in industrial processing with men, women, and children from different ethnic, racial and occupational background served as wage laborers. The southerners were agriculturalist where several former slaves worked for rich employers and landowners. While workers committed to earn wages to feed their families, one major issue emerged during this time that could see an eruption of conflict between the laborers and their employers. Complaints from laborers included long working days, mistreatments at workplaces, and discrimination on the basis of gender among others. There was also a widening socio-economic gulf between the workers and their employers, causing a massive labor movement to emerge in the late 1880s (Clark et al 91). As the struggle between workers and capital intensified, efforts were staged among laborers with common interests to form political organizations and unions to address their challenges. Examples of such organization included the Knights of Labor and New York City’s Central Labor Union (CLU), which powerfully defended the rights of the American workers in the late 19th century. This paper identifies the major efforts by workers to form unions or political organizations in improving their jobs in the late 1800s and the cause for resistance among government officials and the employers against protesting laborers.
In 1869, nine tailors in Philadelphia founded a group known as the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor (Clark et al 94). This group became the centre of all labor involvements later in 1880s (Kemmerer and Wickersham 213). Since the group members feared blacklisting and firing by their employers, they chose to keep the list of members in tight secret. Led by Uriah Stephens, the group welcomed all workers regardless of their occupation, race, nationality or their level of skills (94). Later leader such as Terence V. Powderly, an Irish Catholic machinist patronized the group for fifteen years. With Powderly’s leadership, the group’s secrecy, which had in part hampered the Knights to spread and its membership to soar, was finally broken (Ohio Central History). This resulted in the group becoming national movement comprised of hundreds of local assemblies and its diversity made it difficult to generalize about its policies and approaches. In their “Labor Catechism”, the members demanded a fair wage and shorter working hours. The 1880s’ drastic wage cuts and economic downturn saw the Knights become powerful and giant many workers across the country were brought into the organization (Clark 96). The Knights saw Jay Gould, the financier of Southwestern railroad and one of the most hated leaders in the United States at the time, recruited thousands of new members into the group. Wage rates were restored and they signed an agreement that no union member should be discriminated during job recruitment.
Women had unique challenges in forming unions that could facilitat...