Working-Class Life

ASU HST 200 (Historical Themes) Industrialization and the Rise of Big Business, 1870-1900 Working-Class Life The nature of the American workforce changed dramatically between the conclusion of the Civil War and the turn of the century. By the early 1900s, about 40% of Americans still resided in rural regions, with the remaining population residing and working in urban and early suburban neighborhoods. In 1865, over 60% of Americans still worked and lived on farms. Many of these people who lived in cities and suburbs got their pay from manufacturing. Farm mechanical improvements made it possible to produce more with less manual labor, which encouraged many Americans to go for work in the expanding cities' industries. Unsurprisingly, there was a parallel trend in which fewer Americans were working for themselves and more were hired by others, relying on the industrial wage system for their subsistence. However, most manufacturing pay were quite low. The typical manufacturing wage in 1900 was around twenty cents per hour, or about six hundred dollars a year. Based on historical approximations, over 20% of the populace in industrialized cities lived at or below the poverty line as a result of that pay. Although workers at steel mills put in twelve hours a day, seven days a week, an average manufacturing work week was sixty hours, or 10 hours each day, six days a week. Workers' safety was not a top priority for factory owners. As late as 1913, around 25,000 Americans lost their lives while working, and another 700,000 sustained injuries that prevented them from working for at least one month. These figures come from one of the few reliable measurements that are now accessible. The fact that their jobs were becoming more and more degrading was another source of suffering for employees. During their lengthy shifts, factory workers performed monotonous duties with little interaction with managers or other workers. For individuals accustomed to more teamoriented and skill-driven jobs, such as those in craft stores or on farms, this isolated and monotonous work style was a challenging transition. Managers adopted Fredrick Taylor's scientific management theories, often known as "stop-watch management," in which he separated production jobs into brief, recurring intervals using data from stopwatch research. Taylor, a mechanical engineer by background, pushed factory owners to prioritize productivity and profit over the advantages of interpersonal relationships. Owners embraced this concept, turning employees into well-oiled gears in a machine. Factory owners were able to recruit women and children to handle a lot of the chores as a result of the new division of labor. The proportion of women working outside the house quadrupled between 1870 and 1900. Five million American women were employed at the conclusion of this time, with 25% of them working in factories. The majority were young, under twenty-five, and either immigrant daughters or immigrants themselves. Their entry into the workforce was viewed as a hardship brought on by financial need rather than as a move toward equality or empowerment. Women were more likely to work in textile or apparel industries because males, who believed that heavy industry belonged to them, found their appearances less objectionable there. Other working-age women held clerical jobs as sales clerks, secretaries, and bookkeepers. Unsurprisingly, women received lower pay than males, allegedly because they were supposed to be cared for by men and didn't need a livable income. The same justification was offered by factory owners for the pitifully low salary they gave minors. Children could be engaged for menial labor for a small portion of an adult man's salary since they were small enough to fit easily amid the machinery. Children are seen working the night shift at a glass industry in the photograph below (Figure 18.10). The amount of child labor in industries quadrupled between 1870 and 1900. Political advocacy organizations ultimately sprang out of progressive reformers' growing worries about the safety of women and children in the workplace. laws ensuring a safe workplace was approved by several states, and lobby organizations exerted pressure on Congress to enact protective laws. But this kind of law would not come about until much later in the twentieth century. Despite the unfavorable working circumstances, many working-class immigrants in the interim still preferred the higher income that child and women's labor generated.