An Observation of The Beneficial Failure of Pre-war American Organized Labor

From the beginning of the Reconstruction Era in the United States, Americans had new dreams for their future. Northern defenders of Reconstruction envisioned America as an industrialized nation; however, many prostrate southern confederates wished to restore southern society as it once was. Federal intervention from the north was needed to ensure that a backwards aristocracy would not emerge in the south that would ultimately subject former slaves to unfair treatment. Northern supporters of the Reconstruction believed that the mistreatment of former slaves would delay readmission of the conquered south; however, the union’s Reconstruction reform failed to provide African Americans with adequate legal action or material support in the form of suffrage to receive true equality. This resulted in a brutally unfair system of sharecropping and credit that trapped both African Americans and poor Whites alike into a vicious cycle of debt that prevented many Americans from entering into any type of free enterprise; consequently, this system of sharecropping would create a trend of worker mistreatment in the United States that would eventually feed the corporate need for cheap labor.

Prior to the Wade Davis Bill, Northern Republicans had taken advantage of the southern absence from congress during Reconstruction to pass an economic legislation that would promote industrialist ideals from the north; furthermore, this was an attempt to defy the Southern Democratic Party, in order to remake the south in a northern, industrialized image. These economic legislations gave birth to many opportunities for Yankee industrialists to enter into big business, taking advantage of new technologies that were being developed in both Europe and the United States. Companies such as General Electric, Du Pont, and Eastman Kodak were investing millions of dollars into research and development in order to compete with foreign technology.  An American inventor named William Kelly developed a process to mass produce steel from pig iron, and this process was perfected and patented by an Englishman named Henry Bessemer. This new technique, known as the Bessemer process, effectively turbocharged the steel industry, making a path for many elite businessmen to emerge to economic power. Accelerated steel production gave birth to the American railway system; however, these advances would give birth to a labor crisis involving both immigrants and natively born American citizens.

By the turn of the century, many Americans were apprehensive towards the glaring aspects of Capitalism that had taken over the United States; furthermore, many industrialists, such as Andrew Carnegie, had established various monopolies over the American economy in the form of trusts.  Factors arising from such monopolies, such as artificially high prices, and an unstable agricultural economy, allowed rich industrialists to grow in power and wealth at an accelerated rate. Many immigrants entered the United States looking for a chance to pursue wealth and prosperity; however, they were subjected to unspeakable working conditions to ensure the growth of the American economy. Many children were subjected to 10 hour workdays in factories, while adult workers, migrant and domestic alike, were practically enslaved for very little pay and poor living conditions. The accident rate for Americans in the workplace was higher than any other industrialized country in the world, and many workers were subjected to occupational hazards such as lead and phosphorous with little or no concern from their employers.