Document Based Question - Formation of Labor Unions

The economy was rapidly industrializing in the late 19th Century as factories sprung up across the nation, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest. The workers in these factories were often new immigrants or new migrants from rural areas. They worked hard on long shifts, often in dangerous conditions. Pay was low, benefit packages almost non-existent, and workers had few options if they were injured on the job. Over time, workers began to organize in labor unions to push for more reasonable hours, better working conditions, and higher pay. Labor unions were often strongly opposed by industrial leaders with strikes sometimes turning violent. View the presentation below on the Growth of the Labor Movement and read the following section from Boundless.

Early Organizing

The first local trade unions of men in the United States formed in the late 18th century, and women began organizing in the 1820s. Some of the earliest organizing by women occurred in Lowell, Massachusetts. In 1845, the trade union of the Lowell mills sent representatives to speak to the Massachusetts legislature about conditions in the factories, leading to the first governmental investigation into working conditions. The mill strikes of 1834 and 1836, while largely unsuccessful, involved upwards of 2,000 workers and represented a substantial organizational effort. However, the movement came into its own after the Civil War, when the short-lived National Labor Union (NLU) became the first federation of American unions.

The Knights of Labor/American Federation of Labor

The first successful effort to organize workers' groups on a nationwide basis appeared with The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor in 1869. Originally a secret, ritualistic society organized by Philadelphia garment workers, it was open to all workers, including African Americans, women and farmers. The Knights grew slowly until they succeeded in facing down the great railroad baron, Jay Gould, in an 1885 strike. Within a year, they added 500,000 workers to their rolls, far more than the thin leadership structure of the Knights were prepared for.

The Knights of Labor soon fell into decline, and their place in the labor movement was gradually taken by the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Rather than open its membership to all, the AFL, under former cigar-makers union official Samuel Gompers, focused on skilled workers. His objectives were "pure and simple": increasing wages, reducing hours and improving working conditions. As such, Gompers helped turn the labor movement away from the socialist views earlier labor leaders had espoused. The AFL would gradually become a respected organization in the US, although it would have nothing to do with unskilled laborers.

Notable Strikes

Non-skilled workers' goals—and the unwillingness of business owners to grant them—resulted in some of the most violent labor conflicts in the nation's history. The first of these was the Great Railroad Strike in 1877, when rail workers across the nation went on strike in response to a 10-percent pay cut by owners. Attempts to break the strike led to bloody uprisings in several cities. The Haymarket Riot took place in 1886, when an anarchist apparently threw a bomb at police dispersing a strike rally at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company in Chicago. The killing of policemen greatly embarrassed the Knights of Labor, which was not involved with the bomb but which took much of the blame. In the riots of 1892 at Carnegie's steel works in Homestead, Pennsylvania, a group of 300 Pinkerton detectives, whom the company had hired to break a bitter strike by the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, were fired upon by strikers and 10 were killed. As a result, the National Guard was called in to guard the plant; non-union workers were hired and the strike broken. Two years later, wage cuts at the Pullman Palace Car Company led to a strike, which, with the support of the American Railway Union, soon brought the nation's railway industry to a halt. The shutdown of rail traffic meant the virtual shutdown of the entire national economy, and President Grover Cleveland acted vigorously. He secured injunctions in federal court, which Debs and the other strike leaders ignored. Cleveland then sent in the Army to stop the rioting and get the trains moving. The strike collapsed, as did the ARU.

Industrial Workers of the World

The most militant working class organization of the 1905-1920 era was the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The "Wobblies" as they were commonly known, gained particular prominence from their incendiary and revolutionary rhetoric. Openly calling for class warfare, the Wobblies gained many adherents after they won a difficult 1912 textile strike (commonly known as the "Bread and Roses" strike) in Lawrence, Massachusetts . They proved ineffective in managing peaceful labor relations and members dropped away. The IWW strongly opposed the 1917-18 war effort and was shut down by the federal government (with a tiny remnant still in existence).

Your assignment in this lesson is to write a Document Based Question (DBQ) Essay on how effective labor unions were in improving conditions for workers in this era.

Here is the question:

How successful was organized labor in improving the position of workers in the period from 1875-1900? Analyze the factors that contributed to the level of success achieved.

For this DBQ assignment you are required to complete both the DBQ Outline Document to plan out your DBQ essay and then to write the actual essay based on what you have done on the outline. Only complete the DBQ and not the free response questions that follow it. In your actual DBQ that you type out, I want to you underline or put into italics the thesis statement. This helps in giving good feedback.

Below you will find information from earlier in the class which is helpful if you need to review writing DBQs. View the presentation below.

Listen to the two audio files below.

RESOURCES IN THIS MODULE ARE OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) OR CREATED BY GAVS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. SOME IMAGES USED UNDER SUBSCRIPTION.