Industrial Expansion In The Late 19th Century

As a country we have gone through many changes throughout history. One of the most important times our country has ever faced was the industrial expansion of the late 19th century. Although it was overall beneficial to our countries success, it did have obstacles we’d eventually overcome. The expansion of the west, new technologies, big businesses, as well as advances in transportation fueled the industrial expansion in the late 19th century. However, the workers weren’t considered with the low wages, dangerous working environments, and unhealthy living conditions.
In the late 1800’s after the Civil War, many people migrated in hopes of the economic opportunity. Considering the Trans-Mississippi West, many western territories were turning
Furthermore, with the companies growing at an exponential rate, they had to improve their business practices to match the demand. This is when America saw it’s first new development of different management techniques. In midst of all this, all the development changed the structure of the labor force and overall nature of the work dramatically as well. The big businesses were always looking for ways to save the dollar. I mean the typical workplace was usually a large factory with low-waged workers. Instead of skilled workers, unskilled workers came in for less pay and longer hours to take over doing repetitive, tedious work in hopes of producing more products. With unskilled workers in high demand, little kids and women also joined the work force. Personally, I believe these were the people who were abused the most in the whole ordeal. Women and kids sometimes not even paid, worked in the most precarious environments. According to (Jones, 1903) “many weren’t even over the age of 10 years old.” The workers didn’t have any type of protection from layoffs, accidents, or even wage cuts. They knew they had to fight
Although at first these unions didn’t have much effect, after some time they gained momentum. The labor workers realized that they were more powerful in numbers. They fought back the big companies by boycotting and orchestrating strikes. Specifically, the ‘wildcat strike’ against the railroad ended up being one of the nations most notorious strikes. It was only stopped by the advent of federal troops. It might seem like the laborers were making progress but realistically they weren’t. The big business corporations had the law in their favor using injunctions, blacklists, and in severe cases required the workers to sign yellow dog contracts, which stated that they couldn’t and wouldn’t join any form of a union. The management prevailed, as the workers were quite