A People's History of the United States

This chapter starts in the first half of the 19th century and explores the history of the labor movement until the Compromise of 1877. As Zinn says, “in the schoolbooks, those years are filled with the controversy over slavery, but on the eve of the Civil War it was money and profit, not the movement against slavery, that was uppermost in the priorities of the men who ran the country” (220). By implication, these struggles over labor, work, and inequality likewise consumed the interests of many working-class peoples. The 1830s and 1840s in particular were turbulent times in most American cities. Across the North, trade unions formed uniting workers in a common cause. Labor organization led to numerous strikes and riots in cities like Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. In 1849, a mob of Irish immigrants attacked the Astor Place Opera House and burned it down. In response, the New York State militia deployed and as many as 200 were killed (227). Other agitation was not so dramatic; in New Hampshire, 500 workers struck to protest a plan to cut down an old elm tree. In 1835, 20 mills across the North went on strike to cut working hours from 13.5 hours to 11. The strike lasted six weeks and, despite the use of strikebreakers, succeeded in obtaining a reduction to 12-hour days every day except Saturday, which was nine hours, and Sunday which was a day of rest (230).

These gains in the labor movement were halted during the Civil War. Across both the North and South, the crisis of the war robbed the labor movement of popular support and legitimacy. It also strengthened the militias and strike-breaking groups, which could force an end to agitation. Striking and worker agitation did not completely end during the war, but its activities were greatly curtailed (234-35). Making matters worse, wartime economic controls limited and structured workers’ pay, while rampant lending and high inflation increased the cost of common items by between 40% and 100%. Conscription and the threat thereof also radically altered the labor market to the detriment of workers. In the North, conscripted men had three choices. First, they could comply with the order and report to their unit. Second, they could pay a $300 fine or hire a substitute to stand in, typically something only the wealthiest could afford. Or third, if they worked in a war-related industry their employer could have them exempted from service. For the wealthy, the financial penalty was an attractive way out of service. For those who were impoverished, the competition for work at an exempt firm was intense (235). Combined with the threat of strikebreaking, agitation during the war became incredibly difficult.

After the war ended, the labor movement attempted to resume its efforts to obtain better pay and better conditions. But the lessons learned during the war, combined with a prolonged depression in the 1870s, made it difficult for workers to organize and strike. In 1877, the great railroad strikes led to over 100,000 workers protesting bad pay and dangerous conditions. Half of the nation’s 75,000 miles of track were paralyzed. Zinn suggests that the lessons of these strikes were incorporated by later unions. However, the strikes that year were met by violence and subversion by political and business leaders. By the time the strikes ended, over 100 workers were dead, thousands were in jail, and what few concessions were won slowly melted in the subsequent years. Zinn suggests that “in 1877, the same year Black people learned they did not have enough strength to make real the promise of equality in the Civil War, working people learned they were not united enough…to defeat the combination of private capital and government power” (251). 

Between 1877 and 1900, a defining change in American life was the introduction of new machines. Human craftsmanship and energy were subsumed as people were turned into virtual machines in vast factories. Companies introduced goods at a volume and price unthinkable before the Civil War. Refrigerated train cars brought ice and fresh meat around the country, and electricity was prevalent in many cities. But beneath this apparent progress, a small number of businessmen profited while most Americans struggled for even their meager share of prosperity (255). These elites worked to cement their power and spread an ideology of free-market solutions to American politics. In 1887, a major drought in Texas crushed farmers. But President Grover Cleveland vetoed aid saying, “Federal aid…encourages the expectation of paternal care… and weakens the sturdiness of our national character” (259). In 1890, consumers won a rare legislative victory when the Sherman Anti-Trust Act threatened to break up monopolistic businesses. But the Supreme court spent the remainder of the decade limiting or removing many of the act’s provisions. Traveling speakers, such as Richard Cornwell, founder of Temple University, told crowds across America that they had a duty to get rich and that businessmen were the smartest, most honorable, noblest men in America. They cited the philanthropy and generosity of men like Andrew Carnegie, who built theaters and libraries across the country (263).

This ideology helped to bind the growing middle class, many of whom were the sons and daughters of immigrants and exploited peoples, to the elites. New waves of immigrants joined the Irish, Black Americans, and Native Americans on the losing end of the struggle for rights and a fair share. In 1892, at a Carnegie steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania, three thousand workers agreed to strike for better conditions. They picketed a ten-mile stretch of the river heading to Pittsburg. Overnight, hundreds of Pinkerton guards tried to occupy the town. For days following, the city was gripped by violence until the militia was deployed, which possessed several recently acquired Gatling guns. By the time the dust settled, dozens were dead and hundreds were arrested to no gain for the workers (277). Class tensions threatened to erupt in post-Civil War America. Repeatedly, American elites turned not to accommodation but to violence, political isolation, and an ideology of free enterprise that served only to benefit them. The governments in Washington and the state capitals were complicit in this attempt to preserve the class status quo (295).

The antidote to the growing class struggle in the United States seemed to be another war. After all, it had worked in 1848 and 1860 to tap down popular sentiment. Another war in the late 1890s seemed to offer a chance to demand that Americans rally to the flag and set aside differences like economic inequality for the sake of the war effort. The lingering effects of Manifest Destiny also seemed to justify a war on economic grounds, as one senator wrote in 1897, “American factories are making more than the American people can use; American soil is producing more than they can consume. Fate has written our policy for us” (299). Spanish colonies in the Caribbean and Pacific appeared to be those outlets. And then in February 1898 the U.S.S. Maine exploded in Havana harbor. More than 250 sailors were killed and newspapers across the US quickly blamed a Spanish mine.

Businessmen appealed to the government and demanded that the administration resolve the “Cuba question” more permanently (305). American trade unions opposed the war on moral grounds. In May 1898, the Socialist Labor Party organized an anti-war parade. Officials ended the demonstration before it had a chance to begin. The war for Cuba itself lasted only three short months, and many considered it a rousing and inspiring success. After the Spanish were defeated, American companies began to dismember the Cuban economy. United Fruit purchased 1.9 million acres of Cuban farmland at significantly discounted prices. By 1901, an estimated 80% of Cuba’s mineral reserves had been acquired by American companies (310). The war in the Philippines felt disconnected from the war in Cuba. And unlike in Cuba, Filipino guerillas waged an intense campaign to evict American forces. Here, the American empire was not extended by finance but by violence. Hundreds of thousands died of various causes during the war, and US occupation forces employed the most modern weapons of war (316). America’s growing economic and military power had the potential to remake the world as the war against Spain demonstrated. But it was too often put into the service of the profit of a select few.