Topic > The Labor Revolution in the United States During Reconstruction

As America recovered from the Civil War and entered the Reconstruction era, a new revolution was just around the corner. The increase in industry eventually led to America's Second Industrial Revolution. The success of the railroads, the creation of steel, and increased immigration led to a boom in American industry. During the new revolution, urban centers grew on a large scale, creating new jobs and changing Americans' standard of living. The new jobs required much more labor than before, employing more people. Wages changed and Americans became increasingly dependent on work. Although there were more jobs, during the period from 1875 to 1900, organized labor failed to improve the lives of workers. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay To begin with, when there were worker strikes, they were generally put down because they were considered useless and had little or no results. During the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, a New York Times article concluded that the strikes were “hopeless” and considered them reckless decisions made by men who did not understand what they were fighting for (Document B). In this strike the workers were fighting because their wages had been cut. In the end, many men were killed or imprisoned and the results were much less. Later in 1895, because of the Coach Strike, which was a large-scale railroad strike and boycott, the national government was granted permission to regulate interstate commerce (Document H). Ultimately, the strike was unsuccessful as the government eventually intervened to restore control of the railways. Another way workers were restricted was by being asked to sign a contract. They would pledge loyalty to their company and agree not to join unions while employed there (Document E). This prevented workers from asserting themselves. Thanks to these contracts, companies could maintain tighter control over their employees so that they did not disagree with their policies. This restriction was seen in the graphic image of Document F. The caption of the image is: "Too many cooks spoil the broth" (Document F). Here we see that there were too many groups trying to control organized labor. Due to all the efforts to control the interests of the workers, the conditions of the workers worsened. Furthermore, the daily circumstances of industrial workers did not change much. As noted in Document A, over sixteen years the average daily hours only dropped from 9.9 hours to 9.4 hours. Unions typically fought for an eight-hour workday. While there has been some improvement in wages, it has been entirely insignificant. Men were also becoming less skilled and less significant in their work. Because the work was extremely divided into different components, workers only knew part of how to create something. In the testimony of a machinist before the Senate Committee, he stated: "In the case of making sewing machines, for example, it turns out that the trade is so subdivided that a man is not considered a machinist at all" (Document D). As employees have become less skilled, they have become more dependent on their wages. If their wages were cut, they would now have fewer opportunities to find new work since they only know how to make a tiny part of a product. Furthermore, several groups were excluded from unions. When Samuel Gromper, a labor leader, created the American Federation of.