With a partner quietly discuss the following topics. You will contribute your responses in a class

discussion.

• The affects that industrialization and urbanization have on each other

• The increased immigration to the U.S. during this time period

• What people are involved in the workforce, and what are working conditions like?

Labor Unions & Strikes

The Labor Movement: 1866–1894Events

• 1866 National Labor Union forms• 1869 Knights of Labor forms• 1877 Railroad workers strike nationwide• 1886 Haymarket Square bombing American

Federation of Labor forms• 1892 Miners strike in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho

Homestead Strike occurs• 1894 Pullman Strike occurs

Key People• Eugene V. Debs - Labor leader who helped

organize Pullman Strike; later became socialist leader and presidential candidate

• Samuel Gompers - Union leader; founded American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886 to represent skilled urban craftsmen

The National Labor Union• First large scale Labor Union in the U.S.• organize skilled and unskilled laborers,

farmers, and factory workers• Blacks and Women were not allowed to join

The Knights of Labor• Originally a secret society in 1869• united skilled and unskilled laborers in the

countryside and cities in one group• blacks and women were allowed to join– Except the Chinese (Chinese exclusion act)

• members were falsely associated with the Haymarket Square Bombing in Chicago in 1886, the union fell apart soon thereafter.

Railroad Workers Strike• Started in Martinsburg, West Virginia,

continued throughout the U.S.• Response to cutting of wages for the third time

in a year by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O)

• No trains, mainly freight trains, were allowed to roll until this third wage cut was revoked

• Federal Troops were sent city to city to stop the strikes

Haymarket Riot• Bombing that took place at the Haymarket

Square in Chicago• began as a peaceful rally of workers striking

for an eight-hour day• 7 Police officers & 4 Civilians were killed, many

other wounded

Homestead Strike• protested wage cuts at one of Andrew

Carnegie’s steel plants in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

• police refused to end the strike, Carnegie hired 300 private agents from the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency to subdue the protest

• Laborers won• President Benjamin Harrison eventually sent

troops to end the strike

Who is Andrew Carnegie?

• owner of the Carnegie Steel Company• Philanthropist - a person who seeks to promote the

welfare of others, especially by the generous donation of money to good causes.

• Came from poverty to become one of the wealthiest individuals in the history of the world

• “Gospel of Wealth”- feeling that it was the duty of the wealthy to give back to those less fortunate. Also had a responsibility to keep getting rich.

Pullman Strike• In Chicago• Pullman, a railroad car company, cut employees’

wages by 30%• Eugene V. Debs organized the strike• Workers refused to work, destroyed rail cars, trains

were cut off across the country– Mail delivery was stopped

• Troops were sent to break up the strike & Debs was arrested

• This strike is the reason we have LABOR DAY!!