In the past 19th Century decades, there were successive developments in the service sector which stimulated the need for increased workforce in the job market. One of the significant developments that characterized increased productivity and expansion of industries in the 19th Century was the formation of corporations and abandonment of other forms of businesses such as partnerships. Formation of these cooperatives impacted both positively and negatively on the working environment (Goldfield, Abbott & Anderson, 2017). The following are some of the ways in which workers were negatively affected in the 19th Century and how they attempted to improve their welfare.
Those who worked with their “hands instead of their brains” often faced challenges in the working environment. Suffering of workers increased as a result of working for long hours in the manufacturing and processing industries. As more unskilled laborers were recruited to work using their hands amid increasing demand for increased production, employers were forced to extend their working hours in order to meet the production and profit targets of their companies (Goldfield, Abbott & Anderson, 2017). Factory workers worked for 10 hours each day for six days in a week. In the steel manufacturing factories, they worked for 12 hours per day as the mills operated around the clock. Workers changed shifts once every two weeks and the group that took “long turn” had to stay on the job for 24 hours, making them extremely tired and unable to attend to most of their family needs (Goldfield, Abbott & Anderson, 2017).
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The living conditions were also pathetic. Employers demanded that workers stay close to the factories so as to reduce time spent on travelling to and from the working place. According to Goldfield, Abbott & Anderson (2017), the environment around most of those factories were almost as unwholesome as the conditions inside. For instance, the industrial wastes fouled rivers and streams around many plants (Goldfield, Abbott & Anderson, 2017).
Despite increased productivity in the factories, workers were paid low wages. This situation was even worse for women compared to men. For instance a typical factory worker in 1896 earned $4 per week for the same amount of work for which a male laborer was paid $16. Even though it was assumed that men were the sole breadwinners in their families and women often worked for “dress or pleasure”, this was not true especially among married women who needed to supplement family needs (Goldfield, Abbott & Anderson, 2017). As a result the challenge of low wages became a major concern among employers, provoking them to find a way of agitating for their rights. Among their demands was the need to end child labor which was gradually taking rook in most factories.
In response to the challenges that the workers faced in their working conditions, they started forming groups that agitated for their rights. The first phase of workers’ agitation for fairness was characterized by reversing the working system into an old one that had close community ties. For instance, women came up with groups and newspapers meant to create a sense of their own community. As time went by, workers started demanding for more wages as they organized themselves into groups. Eventually the young women who had constituted the initial workforce were replaced with immigrants who were more willing to work under adverse conditions at low wages (Goldfield, Abbott & Anderson, 2017).
In conclusion, the past decades of the 19th century was characterized by rapid developments in the manufacturing industry leading to the need for increased workforce. On the other hand, owners of factories needed to make more profits. This led to increased working hours in poor conditions and at low wages. These conditions were too adverse that they made workers to start demanding for their rights, a phenomenon that saw more immigrants take up positions that had earlier belonged to local workers.
Reference
Goldfield, D., Abbott, C., and Anderson, V. D. (2017). American Journey, The, Volume 2: A History of the United States, Volume 2 (Since 1865), 8th Edition . [Bookshelf Online]. Retrieved from https://bookshelf.vitalsource.com/#/books/9780134103365/
