Class, Race, Ethnicity and Gender in the U.S. Economy (Econ 250/ES250) Phil Martinez, Instructor (Last Updated: April 7, 2004)

This guide was originally created by James D. Brown, Jr. for the Illinois Labor History Society in cooperation with teachers from the metro Chicago area and local union members. The Illinois Labor History Society is a non-profit organization with a mission to preserve and promote awareness of labor history in Illinois. ILHS is staffed by volunteers. This project is also produced by volunteers and one graduate intern. The original HTML version is maintained by Chicago-Kent College of Law.

Overview. The Europeans began arriving after 1492 upon the shores of the Americas. They found a land rich in resources and native culture. As news reached Europe it sparked waves of explorations and colonization. Many, if not most, of the early colonists to America arrived under some version of bound labor, either as a slave or an indentured servant. This was the way many free persons could pay for their passage. Upon arrival they would be sold out to an artisan, gentleman or farmer according to his or her abilities. They would then work for 5-7 years which would repay their passage costs. Slaves obviously had little chance to earn their freedom, though some did.

GO TO PBS - UNSOLVED HISTORY - BOSTON MASSACRE

Selected Labor Related Events of the Period.

1619  Opening of the African slave trade.

1620  Slavery introduced into Virginia.

1620s  Mayflower Compact signed creating "just and equal laws."

1676  Boston shoemakers and coopers form guilds.

1683  Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia, farmers revolt against corrupt government

1724  Carolina Slave Code created which regulates slave life.

1765  Stono Rebellion of slaves in South Carolina.

1766  The first society of working women is organized as an auxliary of the Sons of Liberty, called the Daughters of Liberty.

Green Mountain uprising of farmers against landowners over the inequality of political power.

The Revolutionary Era: 1763-1789

Overview. In the colonies' struggle for independence, workers and their interests played an important role in the success of the revolutionary movement. One example most people are aware of is the Boston Massacre. This event had roots in the unhappiness of Boston ropemakers over competition from off duty British soldiers who sought casual work to supplement their wages. What began as a verbal confrontation between one ropemaker and a soldier moved to a confrontation between workers and sentries and then ended as a battle cry for the revolution.

Further evidence of the importance of common people in the movement is the success of Thomas Paine's 1776 pamphlet, Common Sense, which was written for the masses and not the upper class. The tremendous sales (over 150,000 and three printings) indicate the level of interest the average person had in the emerging ideology of independence. During this period people continued to work and there were instances of workers uniting to better their condition. The involvement of the worker and the common person truly made this more than a rebellion into a revolution.   

Like Australia, many American colonists were sent here as a sentence. Here is an example of how Laurence Kennedy had his death sentence commuted in return for his being sent to America. Other related documents show the arrangements the mayor made for Kennedy's transportation to Liverpool and on to the Colonies. The mayor and the ship's captain both made a profit off the deal.

Labor Related Issues of the Period.

* Support of Adam Smith's free trade ideology grew. Workers used this to fight wartime monopolies and price controls

* Most soldiers were commoners, eg. farmers, slaves, apprentices, laborers,fishermen, artisans and women.

* Growth of political organization and action.

* Ideally the Revolution creates a government and society based on equality offree white men.

* In reality the Revolution maintains an elitist system that favors the educated upper class.

* Slavery deliberately not addressed by the Declaration of Independence.

Labor Related Events of the Period.

1775        United Company of Philadelphia employs 400 women under one roof. Points toward future industrialization.

1776       Common Sense published throughout colonies.

Colonial delegates sign Declaration of Independence

The Wealth of Nations published. In it Adam Smith promotes laissez-faire economics, individualism, yet opposes monopolies and mercantilism.

New York City shoemakers strike for three weeks.

1786       Printers in Philadelphia walk out to protest a wage reduction. Result::Gained a $6 a         week minimum wage.

1787       Constitution counts five slaves as three people for Congressional representation.

The Growth of a New Nation: 1789-1830

Overview: Jefferson had warned of the evils of an industrialized society where wealth separated men. He and his supporters hoped America would remain a rural agricultural society where equality and a man's dignity could be maintained by tying men to the land. An industrial class system would erode democracy and equality. The Jeffersonians lost this struggle to retain their vision of America in the face of industrialization. Yet there were some who sought to blend these competing interests. A fine example of this is the experiment at Lowell, Massachusetts. The founders of the Lowell experiment sought to preserve America's agricultural base by employing rural women who would supplement the income on the farm. The experiment failed and soon Jefferson's vision would be relegated to the history books (or curriculums).

Labor Related Issues of the Period

* The debate and struggle between agrarian democrats and industrial interests.

* Pattern of economic hard times (depression and recession) followed by periods of prosperity began to emerge, as the national economy matures.

* Sweatshops begin to form in eastern cities.

* Growth of northern textile industry.

* Cordwainer Conspiracy Cases weaken the union movement by ruling that organizations of workers were conspiracies.

 

Labor Related Events of the Period

1790   Cabinet and chairmakers in Philadelphia fight an attempt by employers to blacklist union members.

First textile mill is established in Pawtucket, RI. All the workers are under age 12 -seven boys and two girls.

1791   Philadelphia carpenters struck unsuccessfully for a 10 hour day and over-time pay.

1797   Philadelphia carpenters go on strike.

1800  Gabriel Prosser organized an unsuccessful slave revolt near Richmond, VA.

1806   Members of Philadelphia Journeymen Cordwainers tried for conspiracy after a strike for higher wages. Charged with combining to raise wages and to injure others. Forced to disband after being fined and going bankrupt. First union to be tried for conspiracy.

1808   U.S. Federal law prohibits the importation of slaves. Smuggling brought in a slaves until just before the Civil War.

1810   First American cigar factory opens in Suffield, Connecticut. All the workers are women.

1817   New York state legislature passes law freeing slaves born before 4 July, 1799.

1820   Missouri Compromise admits Missouri as a slave state but bans slavery in the northern Louisiana Territory.

1823   Hatters in New York City were tried and convicted of conspiracy.

1824   First reported strike of women workers when they join male weavers protesting wage cuts and extended workdays in Pawtucket, RI.

1825   The United Tailoresses of New York, a women-only trade union, struck in the first all women strike to demand a wage increase.

1827  Tailors in Philadelphia tried for conspiracy, verdict stressed the "injury to trade" aspect of their organization.

1828  The first all-women factory strike in Dover, NH.

Philadelphia Mechanics Union of Trade Associations unsuccessfully strikes for a ten hour day.

Expansion and Sectionalism: 1830-1850

Overview: This was a significant period of reform in American history. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were contemplating the essentials of life and William Lloyd Garrison founded the abolition movement. Out of this climate came the ten-hour movement. The movement achieved legislative success in several states for the ten-hour day. However these laws contained one loophole which employers used. All these laws allowed employees to contract for longer hours if they wanted. Employers manipulated this to apply to all workers and those who refused were fired and/or blacklisted.

Labor Related Issues of the Period

* The threat of conspiracy lawsuits is lifted by the reversal of previous court desicions in Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842).

* Growth of the Ten Hour movement and subsequent passage of ten-hour laws in several states.

* Land reform movements called for the free distribution of the public domain to help cure labor ills.

* In the 1830s children under 16 made up about one-third of the New England labor force.

* Reform organizations seek a wide range of changes from abolition to child labor restrictions to the ten-hour day.

Labor Related Events of the Period

1831      Birth of American abolition movement when The Liberator is published by William. L. Garrison.

      Nat Turner leads a slave rebellion in Virginia, he was later executed.

1834      The National Trades Union formed in New York City. The first attempt at a national labor federation.

             The Factory Girls' Association is formed in Lowell and go on strike over working conditions and wages.

      800 women go on strike over wage reductions and the right to organize in Dover, NH.

1835      Geneva NY shoemakers tried and convicted for conspiracy.

1836      Lowell girls go on strike again over working conditions and wages.

1837      Panic of 1837 puts an end to most unions.

             President Jackson declares ten hour day in Philadelphia Navy Yard to quell discontent caused by Panic of 1837.

1838      One-third of the nation's workers were unemployed due to the economic depression.

1840      Ten hour day without reduction in pay proclaimed by President Van Buren for all federal employees on public works.

1842      In Commonwealth v. Hunt, the Massachusetts Supreme Court rules that labor unions, as such, are not illegal conspiracies.

             Connecticut and Massachusetts pass laws prohibiting children from working over ten hours per day.

1845      Female workers in five cotton mills in Allegheny, PA strike for the ten hour day. They are supported by workers in Lowell, Mass. and Manchester, NH.

1847      New Hampshire is the first state to make the ten hour day the legal workday.

1848      Child labor law in Pennsylvania makes twelve the minimum age for workers in commercial occupations.

             Pennsylvania passes a ten hour day law. When employers violate it women mill workers riot and attack the factory gates with axes.

1850      Compromise of 1850 perpetuates slavery and the sectional debates between North and South.

The following table shows the average hours of work per day,

throughout the year, in the Lowell Mills:

A Description of Factory Life by an Associationist in 1846

"...We have lately visited the cities of Lowell and Manchester, and have had an opportunity of examining the factory system more closely than before. We had distrusted the accounts, which we had heard from persons engaged in the Labor Reform, now beginning to agitate New England; we could scarcely credit the statements made in relation to the exhausting nature of the labor in the mills, and to the manner in which the young women, the operatives, lived in their boarding-houses, six sleeping in a room, poorl y ventilated.

We went through many of the mills, talked particularly to a large number of the operatives, and ate at their boarding-houses, on purpose to ascertain by personal inspection the facts of the case. We assure our readers that very little information is po ssessed, and no correct judgments formed, by the public at large, of our factory system, which is the first germ of the Industrial or Commercial Feudalism, that is to spread over our land.

In Lowell live between seven and eight thousand young women, who are generally daughters of farmers of the different States of New England; Some of them are members of families that were rich the generation before.

The operatives work thirteen hours a day in the summer time, and from daylight to dark in the winter. At half past four in the morning the factory bell rings, and at five the girls must be in the mills. A clerk, placed as a watch, observes those who a re a few minutes behind the time, and effectual means are taken to stimulate to punctuality. This is the morning commencement of the industrial discipline- (should we not rather say industrial tyranny?) which is established in these Associations of this m oral and Christian community. At seven the girls are allowed thirty minutes for breakfast, and at noon thirty minutes more for dinner, except during the first quarter of the year, when the time is extended to forty-five minutes. But within this time they must hurry to their boarding-houses and return to the factory, and that through the hot sun, or the rain and cold. A meal eaten under such circumstances must be quite unfavorable to digestion and health, as any medical man will inform us. At seven o'clock in the evening the factory bell sounds the close of the days work.

Thus thirteen hours per day of close attention and monotonous labor are exacted from the young women in these manufactories. . . So fatigued-we should say, exhausted and worn out but we wish to speak of the system in the simplest language-are numbers o f the girls, that they go to bed soon after their evening meal? and endeavor by a comparatively long sleep to resuscitate their weakened frames for the toils of the coming day. When Capital has got thirteen hours of labor daily out of a being, it can get nothing more. It could be a poor speculation in an industrial point of view to own the operative; for the trouble and expense of providing for times of sickness and old age could more than counterbalance the difference between the price of wages and the e xpense of board and clothing. The far greater number of fortunes, accumulated by the North in comparison with the South, shows that hireling labor is more profitable for Capital than slave labor.

Now let us examine the nature of the labor itself, and the conditions under which it is performed. Enter with us into the large rooms, when the looms are at work. The largest that we saw is in the Amoskeag Mills at Manchester. It is four hundred feet l ong, and about seventy broad; there are five hundred looms, and twenty-one thousand spindles in it. The din and clatter of these five hundred looms under full operation, struck us on first entering as something frightful and infernal, for it seemed such a n atrocious violation of one of the faculties of the human soul, the sense of hearing. After a while we became somewhat inured to it, and by speaking quite close to the ear of an operative and quite loud, we could hold a conversation, and make the inquiri es we wished.

The girls attend upon an average three looms; many attend four, but this requires a very active person, and the most unremitting care. However, a great many do it. Attention to two is as much as should be demanded of an operative. This gives us some id ea of the application required during the thirteen hours of daily laborer. The atmosphere of such a room cannot of course be pure; on the contrary it is charged with cotton filaments and dust, which, we were told, are very injurious to the lungs. On enter ing the room, although the day was warm, we remarked that the windows were down; we asked the reason, and a young woman answered very naively, and without seeming to be in the least aware that this privation of fresh air was anything else than perfectly n atural, that "when the wind blew, the threads did not work so well." After we had been in the room for fifteen or twenty minutes, we found ourselves, as did the persons who accompanied us, in quite a perspiration, produced by a certain moisture which we o bserved in the air, as well as by the heat.

The young women sleep upon an average six in room; three beds to a room. There is no privacy, no retirement here; it is almost impossible to read or write alone, as the parlor is full and so many sleep in the same chamber. A young woman remarked to us , that if she had a letter to write, she did it on the head of a band-box, sitting on a trunk, as there was not space for a table. So live and toil the young women of our country in the boarding-houses and manufactories, which the rich and influential of our land have built for them.

The Editor of the Courier and Enquirer has often accused the Associationists of wishing to reduce men "to herd together like beasts of the field." We would ask him whether he does not find as much of what may be called "herding together in these modern industrial Associations, established by men of his own kidney as he thinks would exist in one of the Industrial Phalanxes, which we propose."

VAN BUREN'S TEN-HOUR ORDER

Washington City, March 31, 1840. The President of the United States, finding that different rules prevail at different places as well in respect to the hours of labor by persons employed on the public works under the immediate authority of himsel f and the Departments as also in relation to the different classes of workmen, and believing that much inconvenience and dissatisfaction would be removed by adopting a uniform course, hereby directs that all such persons, whether laborers or mechanics, be required to work only the number of hours prescribed by the ten-hour system.