1/8/09 Sorry it's late...

1/8/09

-In 1911 most workers still had no real protection.

 

African American Labor & Community

-Remained predominantly rural and southern.

-Most were share croppers and tenant farmers.

-Blacks could be taken advantage of.

-Most sharecroppers were mired in poverty and debt.

-White landowners forced sharecroppers to accept artificially low prices for their crops and charged high prices for speed, tools, and groceries.

-Some African Americans migrated to the industrial areas of the south.

-Some went North and worked on fringe of economy (janitors, etc.)

-In South, blacks endured hardships like being marched to work and paid only once a month.

 

-Jim Crow Laws passed in every South Legislature in the 1890s. Legalized rigid segregation/separation of blacks and whites.

 

-North States didn’t have Jim Crow laws, but there was prejudice.

 

-Long established blacks found themselves rifted outta jobs by European immigrants which destroyed the black middle class in the North.

 

-North blacks were very resourceful.

-They built black churches and political organizations and businesses.

 

-Booker T. Washington argued that blacks should devote themselves to self-help and self-sufficiency as a first priority.

 

-Black Communities often were small and poor.

 

Workers and Conditions

-Most factory workers were in a fragile economic condition.

-Only hope was in organizing unions powerful enough to force employers to yield to demands.

-Knights of Labor Union failed.

-Federal and state governments shown themselves used military force to break strikes.

-Courts countlessly found unions in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

-The environment made major labor organizations more timid and conserved (American Federation of Labor)

-Prior to 1916 no fed laws protected the right of workers to organize to bargain with unions.

-The AFL put most of its efforts into organizing craft of skills.

-Employers negotiated contracts, or trade agreements, with craft unions that stipulated the wages of workers, the hours they could work & the rules.

-AFL withdrew from political activism.

-President = Samuel Compers (Limited Success)

-2 Million members, yet distanced itself from unskilled or semi skilled workers.

-AFL = very prejudice.

 

-AFL became unable to support semi-skilled and unskilled workers.

-These unions turned to other organizations.

-Most important was the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

 

-IWW rejected the principle of one big union.

-IWW refused to sign collective bargaining with employers.

-Too radical to hold a mass membership.

-They organized the poorest and most isolated workers.

 

-In 1914, many Americans resented low wages and poor working conditions. Neither government or employers offered workers a mechanism for airing and peacefully resolving grievances.

 

Joys of the City

-Industrial workers crowded dance halls, amusement and baseball parks, acting and movie theaters.

 

The New Woman

-Most of 19^th century, the diea of “separate spheres” set up the tone for relations between sexes.

-Victorianism -> men and women didn’t intrude in eachother’s spheres.

 

-Revolt came from middle class men and women.

 

-Young, single, working class were among most influential rebels. Women’s employment doubled between 1880 and 1900. From 1900->1920 it increased 50%.

-Women took new types of jobs.

 

-Premarital sex increased.

 

-Margaret Sanger spurred a movement toward sexual equality. She lectured about birth control. Emma Goldman labeled marriage a type of prostitution and called for “free love”

-FEMINISM

 

-The Mann Act of 1910 -> made transportation of women across state lines for immoral purposes a crime. Prevented prostitution.