For the railroad workers, the strike represented a chance to express their grievances toward their employers. By destroying equipment, disrupting rail services, and rioting, they fought for their wages, hours, and working conditions. The employers viewed that the differences between them and their workers increased after the Panic of 1873, and pay cuts in 1877 pushed many of the workers to form a strike. The government viewed the strike as a violent disruption to the railroads, their biggest industry at the time. They showed this when they helped employers by sending in federal troops to stop the protests, and ended the chance for workers to gain concessions from their employers.
*Pullman Strike * The Pullman Strike was widespread by the United States railroad workers, approximately a quarter-million worker were on strike at the peak and it impacted the expedition the railroad system across the states. The strike between the American Railway Union and George Pullman changed the course of future strikes when President Grover Cleveland ordered federal troops to break up the strikers; its influenced how the federal government and the court system would handle labor issues. The labor issues during the Pullman Strike were not limited that of rights of the workers, the role of management in the workers private life, and the roles of government resolving labor conflicts. Pullman planned communities for his workers how he determined
The detrimental Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire is considered to be one of the most tragic disasters in history. On March 25th, 1911, a fire broke out and killed 146 garment workers who were mostly women. These women worked countless hours with low wages and inhumane working conditions in a factory. Even though this event was tragic, the triangle shirtwaist fire helped to shape the new world for the better. The multitude of workers trapped within the inferno to their demise was the final straw for the mistreatment of America’s workers. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire led to imperative reforms that sought for adequate conditions for workers and the advent of the Progressive Era. (Source 2).
The Pullman Strike occurred a year later, as an effect of the depression. It had a huge impact on working hours, wages, people losing jobs, as well as transportation for people and goods. The Pullman Strike also was an influential turning point for labor movement and laws in the United States. The conflict between railroad workers and the Pullman company during the strike was influential because
Another result of the Triangle Factory fire that resulted in change in the American workplace was the attempts of labor unions and strikes. Prior to the fire, in 1909, one of the more notable strikes dubbed the "Uprising of 20,000" was organized primarily by female immigrant garment workers because of the awful conditions, long hours, and low wages they were made to work in due to the lack of options available to them (Pool, 2012). The primary challenge was to get attention paid to the mistreatment of immigrant workers. While there were short term agreements for their demands, the strike ultimately failed, however where it did succeed was exposing poor working conditions and stirring a debate about what counted as public and private (Pool,
Before the 1860s U.S. railroads were inefficient for big business to explode, and shipping goods wasn’t as easy before Cornelius Vanderbilt organized a steam ship company. He also controlled all lines of railroad linking New York to the Great Lakes. His strategy was to create a monopoly to gain wealth and power of all the effective railroad lines into one major company. He expressed competition and set unfair prices for the workers. The workers soon revolted and went on strike in 1877 due to the low pay and increase of work hours.
The Effects of the Transcontinental Railroad: Native Americans, Society, and Economy The Transcontinental Railroad had a drastic effects on many aspects of life during the 1860s, including society, the economy, and the Native Americans’ way of life. These are just a few of the ways the Transcontinental Railroad changed the world. Native Americans were forced to relocate, society had a new outlook on life, and the economy had been boosted almost incalculably.
These railroads, however, were expensive and needed many willing workers and finances to keep it going. During the Panic of 1873, many of the railroads that were built or in the process of building, got shut down. The economy was plummeting and the railroad companies could not keep up with the expenses. One Canadian-born,
On a larger scale it created a new system of labor, politics and race relations for America, life as they knew it would change, but not as quickly as many would have
With the advent of the railroad, many of these issues disappeared. Railroads had a major impact on advancing the American economy, transforming America into a modern society, and improving an antiquated transportation system. The building of railroads created rapid economic growth in America. Railroad companies employed more than one million workers to build and maintain railroads. At the same time, coal, timber, and steel industries employed thousands of workers to provide the supplies necessary to build railroads (Chapter 12 Industrialization).
The greatest cultural conflict between the years 1865 and 1898 was the Transcontinental Railroad. The Transcontinental Railroad was a railway stretching from “sea to shining sea”. It was built by two teams of workers, the Central Pacific Railroad Company starting in Sacramento and the Union Pacific Railroad building west from the Missouri River. The teams worked day and night to connect the two ends in Promontory Summit, Utah. The Transcontinental Railroad was a major breakthrough in the connection of markets and the transportation of goods and people from coast to coast.
Especially in the south, were many plantation owners lost their workforce. They would now either be forced to pay their laborers or sell their farms, neither of which they were partial to. Out of this came sharecropping, where landowners gave laborers a house, and land, in exchange for a share of their crops. However this system had many issues, the laborers were almost always African Americans with no savings to buy tools, which they would need to buy from the landowners, putting them in debt, and making it difficult for them to become independent. Another result of the end of the war was the Depression of 1873, which raised the unemployment rate to 15% and created greater tensions among the working class in the United States.
Before the Gilded Age, transportation of any sort was slow, unreliable, and unavailable. However, with the invention of the assembly line and some invention, mass produced automobiles, subterranean trains, elevated trains and basic airplanes were spread out. Therefore, during the late 19th century, transportation was allowing for extreme expanse of trade and economic capability. One of the most prominent methods of transportation even before this time, railways were experiencing a major change during this time. Though it would eventually cause a stock market crash due to the closure of two major rail businesses, the roads themselves saw considerably more traffic due to a major expansion of the system.
Thought this was good for business it did not have the same affect on the workers. More had to learn how to deal with the circumstance of being away from their loved ones while their stuck in a factory all
Because of the rapid settlement of the western land in the 1850s, Congress wanted to enforce a transcontinental railroad to replace America’s current weak transportation system—horse-drawn carriages were still used and soldiers often had to walk. But due to the constant competition between the Northern members and the Southern