Growing Pains Work in Factories Pg. 215-220. Work in Factories After the Civil War, many people...
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Transcript of Growing Pains Work in Factories Pg. 215-220. Work in Factories After the Civil War, many people...
Growing PainsWork in Factories
Pg. 215-220
Work in Factories
• After the Civil War, many people moved to cities to find work. This was also true in Tennessee.
• Factory owners need lots of workers. They hired American workers as well as immigrants.
• Since so many were looking for jobs, factory owners were able to hire people for low wages.
Work in Factories
• Entire families were hired, the men for heavy labor and the women and children for lighter work.
• Work days typically ran from dawn to sunset, with longer hours in winter, resulting in a 68-72 hour work week.
• Many families also lived in company owned houses.
Children Go to Work• To earn more money, many
parents sent their children to work
• Between 1890 and 1910, the number of working children between the ages of 10 and 15 went from 1.5 million to 2 million.
• The 1900 census reported that 1 child in every 5 between the ages of 10 and 15 was employed as a full time laborer.
Children Go to Work
• The pay for children varied from sixty cents to one dollar for eight hours of work.
• Workers had to be careful because many machines were not safe.
• Hundreds of workers were killed each year in factory accidents, and thousands were badly hurt.
Owners Against Workers
• Some workers complained about their working conditions.
• Others went on strike, or stopped working, as a way to get factory owners to listen to them.
• Few factory owners listened. They simply fired the workers who wanted better working conditions and hired new ones.
Owners Against Workers
• As conditions grew worse, many factory workers joined labor unions.
• A labor union is a group of workers who join together to improve their working conditions.
• Samuel Gompers was a labor union leader.
Samuel Gompers
• At the age of 13, Sam went to work in a cigar makers’ shop.
• He worked hard but was only paid pennies for hours of hard work.
• Soon he joined a cigar makers’ union and later became the leader in his shop.
• In 1877 he brought all the separate cigar makers’ unions together into one large union.
Samuel Gompers
• Members of the union went on strike for a shorter workday and better wages, but the strike failed.
• Gompers thought that only skilled workers should join the labor union.
• He knew that if skilled workers went on strike, it would be hard to replace them.
• Gompers began to organize one large federation of skilled workers.
The AFL
• In 1886 Gompers formed the American Federation of Labor. As the union grew, business leaders began to listen to its representatives.
• The AFL wanted to improve working conditions, asked for higher wages, and a shorter workday.
• In addition the AFL wanted an end to child labor and accident insurance.
Accident Insurance
• The insurance would pay the wages and medical bills of workers who were hurt on the job.