The bosses of the 19th century had their own strategies for dealing with labor unions. The early unions were not focused in demands and had a varied membership with different priorities. Factory owners knew that if they could divide the workers against each other, they would stand a better chance of keeping wages low and hours long. They would favor one group over another--divide and conquer. They also used a technique called blacklisting. If a worker was blacklisted, no boss would hire him.
Between 1866 and 1869, workers either belonged to the National Labor Union or the Knights of Labor. In 1886 at a rally in Haymarket Square, Chicago, a bomb was thrown into the crowd, killing a police officer and injuring many. The unions were blamed. As a result, many Americans associated labor activity with anarchists and mob violence, and membership began to fall. Soon the Knights were almost nonexistent.
But labor leaders had learned some valuable lessons. Union organizer Samuel Gompers put those lessons into practice when he created the American Federation of Labor. He knew factories needed skilled workers, so he focused on bring skilled workers into one union--the American Federation of Labor--to focus on demands and working conditions that skilled workers needed.
A Terence Vincent Powderly portrait is surrounded by 32 smaller portraits of the leaders of the Knights of Labor and scenes of labor.
Dissatisfied workers organized into groups—labor unions—to demand better pay and working conditions from their employers. Earlier in the 1800s, skilled workers had formed unions to represent workers in certain crafts or trades, such as carpentry. These trade unions had little influence because each represented only one trade. By the mid-1800s labor leaders looked to expand their unions.
In 1869, garment cutters in Philadelphia founded the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor. Employers fired workers who joined labor organizations, so the Knights met secretly and used special handshakes to identify each other. Led by Terence V. Powderly, the Knights of Labor became a national labor organization in the 1880s. Unlike most unions, the Knights recruited people who had been kept out of trade unions, including women, African Americans, immigrants, and unskilled laborers. The Knights of Labor grew rapidly to more than 700,000 members by 1886. However, a wave of strikes turned public opinion against the union, and it lost members and power in the 1890s.
Women delegates to the 1886 convention of the Knights of Labor
Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, leads a protest at the Capitol on June 14, 1919.
In 1881 a group of national trade unions formed a federation that five years later became known as the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The AFL represented skilled workers in various crafts. The AFL was led by Samuel Gompers, the tough, practical-minded president of the Cigar Makers’ Union. The organization pressed for higher wages, shorter hours, better working conditions, and the right to bargain collectively with employers. In collective bargaining, unions represent workers in bargaining with management. Although violent strikes turned public feeling against workers and unions in the late 1880s, the AFL survived and grew. By 1904 the AFL claimed more than 1.6 million members.
Mary Harris Jones (aka "Mother Jones") at the White House on September 26, 1924
Many unions would not admit women workers, so some women formed their own unions. Mary Harris Jones, better known as Mother Jones, spent 50 years fighting for workers’ rights. In 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory, a crowded sweatshop in New York City. The workers, mostly young immigrant women, could not escape from the building because the company had locked the doors to prevent employees from leaving early. Nearly 150 workers died in the fire. The disaster led the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) to push for a safer working environment.
An illustration depicts the Haymarket Riot on May 4, 1886, in Chicago. At the riot, which began as a strike rally, an unknown person threw a dynamite bomb that killed eight police officers and a number of civilians.
Economic depressions in the 1870s and the 1890s led companies to fire workers and lower wages. Unions responded with large strikes that sometimes caused violence. An economic depression hit the nation following a financial panic in 1873. To cut costs, companies forced their workers to take pay cuts. In July 1877, angry strikers burned rail yards, ripped up track, and destroyed railroad property. The companies hired strikebreakers to replace the striking workers, and federal troops restored order.
Anti-labor feeling grew stronger after a bloody clash between police and strikers in Chicago’s Haymarket Square in May 1886. Striking workers from the McCormick Harvester Company gathered to protest the killings of four strikers the previous day. When police ordered the crowd to break up, an unidentified person threw a bomb that killed a police officer. Several more were killed in a riot that followed. Following the Haymarket Riot, many Americans associated the labor movement with terrorism and disorder.
In 1892, workers went on strike at Andrew Carnegie’s steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania. Plant managers had cut workers’ wages, hoping to weaken the steelworkers’ union. When the union called a strike, Homestead managers hired nonunion workers and brought in 300 armed guards to protect them. A nasty battle left at least 10 people dead. Pennsylvania’s governor sent the state’s militia to Homestead to restore order. The plant reopened with non-union workers, protected by the troops. After the failure of the Homestead Strike, the steelworkers’ union dwindled.
The employees of George Pullman’s railway-car plant near Chicago went on strike in May 1894, when the company cut wages. Pullman responded by closing the plant. One month later, workers in the American Railway Union supported the strikers by refusing to handle Pullman cars, paralyzing rail traffic. Pullman and the railroad owners fought back. They persuaded U.S. Attorney General Richard Olney to obtain an injunction, or court order, to stop the union from “obstructing the railways and holding up the mails.” The workers and their leader, Eugene V. Debs, refused to end the strike. Debs was sent to jail. President Cleveland sent federal troops to Chicago, and soon the strike was over. The failure of the Pullman Strike dealt another blow to the union movement. Despite these setbacks, workers continued to organize to work for better wages and working conditions.
