The American Industrial Worker
The American Industrial worker has faced many challenges throughout history. During the time period of 1865-1914 there were many conflicts and changes that directly affected the average American working in Industry. Some effects were positive and uplifting, others negative and punishing to both the workers morals and bodies. Three things imparticular had an extremely large impact on the American industrial worker in that time period; technology, labor unions and immigration. Technology was advancing steadily and new inventions were being introduced to industry at a rapid pace. New materials and productive processes would lead to a new breed of machines used for manufacturing, to be operated by the American worker. Technological changes would be an issue that the workers and employers would have very different points of views on. The bosses and manufacturers claimed that the new machines were beneficial to the worker. They boasted that salaries had been raised and the machine was "doing nearly everything which requires great strength; the workman instead of bringing his muscles into play, has become the inspector" ( Kennedy 82 ). Since machines made the jobs so much easier, bosses could hire unskilled labor to perform them. E
Working conditions were highly dangerous and unsanitary, wages were barely enough to live off, and there was little or no job security. "Despite the creation of new labor unions, despite a wave of strikes and protests, workers in the late nineteenth century failed on the whole to create successful organizations or to protect their interests in the way the large corporations managed to do so. This ended any plans to organize and join together. Clouds of dust fill the breakers and are inhaled by the boys, laying the foundations for asthma and miners consumption" Cleary this kind of work was torture for boys ages ten to twelve years old, working for only fifty or sixty cents a day. For example, the life of a tailor would be reinvented when the sewing machine was introduced, and could stitch faster and better than any human's hands. There was no choice, it was either conform or perish, and hence immigration resulted in a lower overall quality of life the American worker. The book in particular sheds light on the disturbing truth on the life of a young boys life working in the coalmines, as a breaker boy. The new immigrants were willing to accept any job, at low wages, and would tolerate worse conditions. If you only listened to what the manufacturers and bosses had to say, one might think that technology during this period was a blessing to the worker. Sometimes there is a worse accident: a terrified shriek is heard, and a boy is mangled and torn in the machinery. The flood of immigrants, forced native workers to accept the lower wages and sercum to the bosses, in order to land a job to feed their families. The tailors in return were not rewarded with higher wages, instead were left with the loss of the cost of the machine. Most were uneducated and had little or no choice but to take any work they could find, despite its downfalls. Occasionally their tactics would wind up hurting more than helping.
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