The American Work Force

1
The American Work Force

• What conditions faced the worker in the early
  stages of industrialization? Response?
• http//www.teacheroz.com/19thcent.htm

2
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

3
Colonial Labor

• Agrarian dominancy in 1776
• Aristocrats and Professionals
• Mercantile interests
• Craftsmen, artisans, mechanics
• Laborers and Landless
• Servants and Slaves

4
Labor in Age of Machines

• Implementing New Technologies
• Farmers and Shopkeepers No More
• Sciences of Business and Economics
• Scientific Management Principles
• Demise of Artisans (Carnegies Pa)
• David Ricardo http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_
  law_of_wages
• Southern Critic Wage Slavery Dependency

5
Conditions facing Workers

• Low wages and lack of control
• Excessive work hours
• Dangerous conditions
• Women and Child Labor
• http//www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabo
  r/
• Job security?
• Poverty, squalor and cities
• Courts, Military and Owners Allied

6
Immigration

• 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/1998
  /summer/women-and-naturalization-1.html
• Bewilderment Industry Urbanization

7
Justification of Wealth

• Divine Providence Rockefeller Says
• Protestant Work Ethic
• Social Darwinism Survival of Fit
• Charles Darwin Herbert Spencer
• http//www.victorianweb.org/philosophy/socdar.html
  
• Socio Economic Order Natural Law
• Carnegies Gospel of Wealth
• http//historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5767/
• Paragon of Progress?

8
The Labor Movement

• Working Class Consciousness and The National
  Labor Union
• Trade Unionism from England
• Highlights http//www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/
  USAtu.htm
• Knights of Labor AFL 8 Hour Day
• Bread and Butter Unionism
• Mining, Steel, Rail Workingmans
• IWW, Socialists, Utopians Radicals

9
Labor v. Capital

• 1881-1905 over 36K strikes
• The Molly Maguires http//www.lehigh.edu/ineng/
  paw/paw-history.htm
• The Haymarket Affair
• Pullman Strike
• Carnegie/Frick and Homestead http//projects.vas
  sar.edu/1896/strikes.html
• Public Perceptions, The State Media

10
Beyond Unionization

• The Theory of the Leisure Class
• Henry George and the Single Tax
• http//www.henrygeorge.org/denigris.htm
• Edward Bellamy Looking Backwards
• The Robber Barons Analogy
• World War I Armistice
• Heavens Weep Documentary