HIST 151 1st Edition Lecture 12 Outline of Last Lecture I Chapter 19 The City and its Workers 1870 1900 Outline of Current Lecture II Chapter 19 The City and its Workers 1870 1900 Sweatshops and Child Labor 1877 s Great Railroad Strike Samuel Gompers and AFL Knights of Labor Haymarket Riot and Governor John Peter Atgeld Nickelodeons and Coney Island Current Lecture Sweatshops and Child Labor Sweating mania chaos noise fear and hazardous conditions Rooms in tenement buildings seasonal work 16 18 machines per room Ran by immigrant women young children normally sat at their feet until they were old enough to operate a machine themselves 14 15 hours a day 6 days a week o Doors were locked from the outside and windows were made to be out of reach Forced to work quickly paid by garment made not by the hour Child labor 1900 census accounted for 1 750 000 children 10 15 years old o Comprised 18 of the workforce Susceptible to communicable diseases typhus diphtheria whooping cough 1 5 will succumb to amputation or serious diseases 100 of the 1 750 000 children would never have an education o Further segregated themselves detrimental 1877 s Great Railroad Strike Summertime workers of the B O Railroad walked off site in West Virginia 100 000 workers walked off their jobs wages had been garnished repeatedly sufficient equipment was hardly available Strike was forced to stop 40 men killed 2 000 000 worth of damage done Returned to work only to be penalized more wages garnished more to make up for lost time and to pay for damages caused by the riots These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute Polarizing moment in American labor history more strikes ensued and Unions formed Samuel Gompers and AFL Wanted to organize workers Started American Federation of Labor Took the most skilled and put them in the AFL to gather the lion share of attention against the owners of companies o Only allowed in managers foremen and workers of high importance When an important worker walks off site it calls attention Gompers s intention Only allowed around 150 000 to join the AFL Would explode after the Haymarket Riot with the Knights of Labor s executives executed the amount of members would jump from 150 000 in the 1880 s to 1 000 000 by 1900 Knights of Labor Allowed every type of worker in around 800 000 All were welcome who wanted a Union Won t make it out of the 1880 s too lenient of a group and many were killed in the mission to unionize society Haymarket Riot and Governor John Peter Atgeld Home of the McCormick Reaper Facility in Chicago Illinois o Summer of 1886 Workers wanted a Union asked for assistance from Knights of Labor Haymarket Square a bomb detonated killed police officers o No one knows who planted the bomb or why assumed it was planned by the Knights of Labor A handful of the Knights of Labor are immediately charged tried found guilty and executed o 50 did not speak English and 25 of the 50 were not even in Chicago during the incident Governor Peter Atgeld asked where the evidence was exonerated the remaining victims let them go free Would not be allowed to return to office would be vilified Nickelodeons and Coney Island Nickelodeons were the first forms of entertainment via screen o Form of release relief and escapism Showed audiences brief pictures for 0 05 Reed organs played along with the viewing of the pictures to set a mood Coney Island was the first outdoor amusement park established in Manhattan New York o Low achieving Elitches Many foreigners learned American assimilation there