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Child Laborers working in a Pennsylvania mine. This photo was taken in February 1911 by Lewis Hine.

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The Working Class and The Progressive Era Background

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The Working Class and The Progressive Era Background

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In the U.S. the Progressive Era relied heavily on its working class which included a large amount of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe.

These people faced harsh conditions and brutal labor which was dangerous, and it came with extremely low pay about 22¢ an hour. They also work long shifts around 10-12 hours a day.

Tasks that they were responsible for doing were repetitive and physically demanding. They were often factory workers, miners, laborers, or even farm hands.

The hardships that these people faced in the United States lasted from the 1890s to 1920s. After the 20s the Progressive Era had basically ended because the working conditions weren't as awful as they had been through the Industrial Revolution.

You may wonder how it would be possible for people to work through conditions like these especially children, but the U.S. was desperate during this time because of rapid industrialization. As factories began developing in big cities, demand for workers increased. They had to keep up with the demand, and this allowed for a lack of regulations.

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A video about Consumer Culture in the Late 19th Century.

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Consumer culture of the progressive era was a phenomenon where Americans began consuming goods as an expression of their lifestyle and identity. It began shaping our beliefs and morals in the United States, and made many people shift to more greedy and possessive lifestyles.

During the late 1800s, shops expanded and society started normalizing materialistic belongings such as clothing, cars, and houses. These became symbols of success and wealth, and it fueled competitive behavior to have "the best" of everything.

Middle class women, especially those living in urban areas, were key to consumer culture. They began shopping at department stores which were appealing because of their flashy advertisements, window displays, and price tags. At this time Macy's utilized tea rooms and childcare. This enticed women to spend shopping day-trips where they could socialize, and it provided business for the store.

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Consumer Culture in the Late 19th Century

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The Panic of 1873 was a time in which the States and Europe went through a financial crisis, sometimes known as the first “Great Depression” or “Long Depression” which was triggered by the downfall of Jay Cooke & company. The fall of the financial state was from 1873 to 1879.

Wealthy manufacturers such as Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller, and Cyrus McCormick used the financial setback to their advantage. These idols acquired their struggling competition’s attention, structuring and developing their companies. They used there advantage to become more politically involved keeping them afloat during the rigorous occasion.

From 1866 to the start of the financial dispute, railroad expansion became desperately popularized to a point where the world barely made a profit. In this decade 35,000 miles of railroads were built costing these companies millions in debt.

The Coinage Act also was a cause of this panic, and ended the minting of the silver dollar efficiently placing the U.S. on the gold standard. This cased a contraction on our money supply. This act caused outrage amongst the farmers and debtors who appreciated the silver further than the paper dollars.

In May of 1873, Vienna's stock market crashed, and in September, Jay Cooke & company failed. The same week, New York Stock Exchange closed.

After this, New York experienced the closing of 89 railroads. In addition, bankruptcy caused over 18,000 business to close throughout the U.S. This prolonged period of economic downturn resulted in severe unemployment and hardship for many. However it also spurred the growth of labor unions and populist movements advocating for greater economic fairness.

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Frederick Winslow Taylor is often called the father of Scientific Management. He was a mechanical engineer and a management consultant. He basically formed a theory called Taylorism which aimed to increase productivity, break work into simple steps, use data and observation to find the best way to perform each task, and eliminate wasted effort.

Taylor formulated his ideas in the 1880s, but the ideas of Scientific Management became influential during the progressive era. His ideas were most important to large industrial cities like Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburg. It also applied to factories and places like steel mills, automobile manufactures, and government workplaces.

An example of this theory being successful was seen through the Bethlehem Steel Shovelers. Taylor noticed that these workers were using different shovels for different materials, so he standardized the shovels based on weight. This increased the worker's output from 16-59 tons per day. This helped the company saved an estimated 80,000 USD, in today's currency this would amount to about 2.5 million dollars.

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The Knights of Labor program, the first major labor union in the U.S., was a secretive program in which laborers were an equal-work equal-pay community. Started by a group of workers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1869 growing publicly from the 1870s-1880s. Their goal was to improve the low standards for working conditions. Their popularity rose because of the other companies’ low pay, long hours, and dangerous work which had no laws against at the time.

Terence V. Powderly helped the rise of the Knights of Labor greatly. In 1879, he became this union’s leader. This labor program accepted A large variety of workers, unlike most companies that discriminated at this time. Terence V. Powderly Influenced so greatly In the 1880s there were over 700,000 laborers.

Nights of Labor tried to make changes to the unfair conditions of work in many ways. Unlike Knights of Labor, it was very common for these types of companies to only hire white men. The Knights of Labor wanted to end the ongoing child labor in the late 1800s. They strived for peaceful boycotts, negotiations, and protests.

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AFL was a large labor union in the U.S. it focused only on skilled labor, and organized laborers by their trade. Some examples include carpenters, machinists, and printers. The organization was formed to protect workers from dangerous and unfair conditions.

The AFL also avoided forming political ties and keeping simplicity. It was founded in 1886 by Samuel Grompers, a former cigar maker and labor activist.

This union achieved higher pay and shorter hours through negotiation and bargains. It was supported by the law through the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 which strengthened it. This helped the organization continue to 1955, and the organization grew from 150,000 members in 1886 to 4 million at the end of the Progressive Era.