Big Business and Labor in

Big Business and Labor in the Late 19th Century 19th Century Industrial Capitalism In the wake of Reconstruction, all of America began to rapidly industrialize. It was no longer divided between an agrarian South and an industrial North -- now all of America was undergoing rapid economic change. On one hand, this shift opened up opportunities for many Americans. Americans could make money, not by relying upon family ties, but by using hard work and technology to make a profit.

Of course, America had always been less hierarchical in nature than aristocratic Europe, a place where profits were there to be had, with the sweat and toil of one's brow. But before, farming was the main means available for individuals to make a small fortune in America -- hence the fascination with Westward expansion into the territories. Industrialism provided a new means and a quicker source of profit for Americans. Now industrialists could make massive profits unprecedented in history. Not only capitalists profited from industrialization.

New inventions made America into a consumer society. Americans no longer had to rely upon handicrafts. They could purchase goods cheaply in stores, and theoretically this allowed for greater leisure time -- at least for the middle class industrialists and their wives and children. The incentives for profit also spurred on new entrepreneurial creativity on the part of inventors. Prepared foods, the sewing machine, the flush toilet, and department stores all flourished during this era.

Edison's lamp illuminated people's lives and the streets, mass production enabled Henry Ford to make cars affordable for more Americans. Yet conditions in factory were often oppressive and miserable -- and, with the creation of interchangeable parts, dull as well, as workers became nothing but a highly specialized pair of assembling hands, rather than an honored individual learning a skill, as was the case when individuals were apprenticed to learn trades.

People no longer owned the fruits of their labor, but worked for others, often in faceless factories, and rented rather than owned and farmed a plot of land. While capitalism theoretically opened up doors of opportunity for many, it also closed just as many doors for the children forced to work in factories for long hours to enable their families to survive. These children often did not earn a rudimentary education, as they might have while working on the family farm.

Few regulations existed at the beginning of the industrial era regarding hours workers had to toil, or specifying safety conditions in the factory, much less mandated compensation for workers who were injured. The Gospel of Wealth as preached by Andrew Carnegie said that earning wealth was a mark of one's inherent goodness as a person and one's industry. Charity made people 'soft.' As Americans in factories grew increasingly dissatisfied with conditions, organized labor began to agitate. Workers spoke out against their low wages.

They pointed out factory owners made so much money, while they worked for pennies. They protested workplace hazards and the treatment of workers like disposable commodities when laborers became injured, sick, or old. The Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor were two of the earliest labor organizations. However, legislation and government actions suppressing the strikers and a failure by the legislature or the legal system to acknowledge the suffering of laborers lead to violent confrontations between workers, managers, and the law.

These workers felt as though the benefits of capitalist consumer society were being gained through their blood, sweat, tears, and lives, and they had no voice other than violence. The railroad strikes of 1877, the Haymarket riot, and the Homestead and Pullman strikes all resulted in bloodshed on both sides. The emerging middle-class grew hostile to labor and began to associate it with violence. Class divisions intensified in American society. Ideologies such as Social Darwinism or that 'survival of the fittest' justified unchecked capitalism became popular.

Defenders the system advanced the idea that those who failed to flourish earned their fates and had to fall to ensure for the improvement of the human race. Not all changes were bad -- technology did make life easier and healthier for many Americans. Processed foods and canning made it easier for people to survive harsh winters without starving to death and made the American diet more varied, while sanitation and medical care improved. Women began to enter the workforce in greater numbers.

Although women laboring in factories rarely benefited from their work because of the harshness of their conditions, women in administrative positions often were able to eke out a middle class existence and independence from their family, although their promotion prospects and wages.