...Labor Unions — Are They Still Relevent Labor Unions were formed in the mid-19th century in response to the changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution. The labor unions were established to help workers with low pay, unsafe working conditions and long hours—to name a few. Their main goal was to ensure that all working people were treated justly in the work force. “Working people have a lot of concerns in this economy. They want decent pay. They want benefits. And of course they want job security. All the reasons why they need union representation” (Crane, 2012). Is that statement still true today? Do labor unions want the best for the working person or are unions another example of something good gone bad? Many people believe Labor Unions were essential in the 19th century but now with government oversight and business practices, unions are no longer required. Labor Unions Needed Agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions during the Industrial Revolution. As the revolution progressed, business moved from a mom-and-pop model to a machine-and-factory production model. Families quickly moved from the rural areas to the cities. They hoped to improve their standard of living. This meant ever member of the family had to work, regardless of sex or age. People worked for long hours for low wages, in dangerous and repetitive conditions, and with little-to-no job...
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...Social Injustice was rampant among chimney sweeps in 18th and 19th Century England... In the poem “The Chimney Sweeper” from “Songs of Innocence” This paper will evaluate and show the story and writing style dealing with social injustice. 1. Introduction a. The Chimney Sweeper 2. The Location and Era a. 18th and 19th Century England 3. Point of View a. Tom Dacre 4. Writing Style A. Lack of Rhyme 5. Conclusion William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper” from “Songs of Innocence” provides a view of extreme social injustice among children being used as chimney sweeps in 18th and 19th Century England. William Blake also in 1794 wrote “The Chimney Sweeper” in “Songs of Experience.” For this essay, the analysis will be of “The Chimney Sweeper” from “Songs of Innocence” written in 1789. This poem shows social injustice from the character’s eyes dealing with oppression, exploitations and death. The life that William Blake creates in “The Chimney Sweeper” is one of social and economic injustice, the use of child labor which leads to a society of that time being un-sympathetic to the needs of its children. Blake draws attention from the first stanza of the poem to a child that has already experienced the death of his mother and being sold into indentured servitude by the father before the child could even process the death and what is happening to them. At very early ages in 18th and 19th Century England extremely young children were being sold to clean...
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...During the 19th century, a young boy was born in the Taganrog Seaport. Anton Chekhov was the son of a Grocer and because of that, Anton was subjected to harsh labor and lived a mature life starting at an early age. Anton was the 3rd child out of 6 children, which consequently caused himself and his whole family to live a peasant lifestyle. Anton’s life did not get any easier as he grew older. Anton’s father business went bankrupt which made his father flee to Moscow, leaving Anton alone with his mother and sister. Anton’s mother tried to provide a sufficient life for Anton and his sister but evidently lost the house, causing her to flee to Moscow as well. All of these catastrophic events in Anton’s early life made him form into the intellectual, humble gentleman he was born to be. Anton studied medicine and later became a physician to support his family. Not only did Chekhov use his career as a physician to support his family, he also began writing short stories and plays. These short stories and the characters that portrayed his stories were a vital reflection from Anton’s early life. The characters in Chekhov’s selected short stories are an essential piece in comparing and contrasting the challenges that the characters encountered, the way they reflect positive values from his ‘Holy of Holies’ statement, and how these character’s allowed Chekhov to bring light on awareness/reform in Russian society. Children: Varka and Vanka During the 19th century, most of the children...
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...During the early 19th and late 20th century, the American dream was still a reality. We were fulfilling the concept of Manifest Destiny by traveling and awest. Business leaders such as Carnegie, Morgan, and Rockefeller continued to be an influence in our society. Although the industrial revolution was over there were opportunities for many immigrants. Likewise, the gold rush of 1849 had opened the idea of migration west of California followed by the building of the transcontinental railroad. Our local Stanford University arose when Leland Stanford Jr’s death devastated his family. New immigrants constantly came to the U.S. , (the Irish fleeing the potato famine and the Jews fleeing the pogroms of Eastern Europe) and the Gold Rush to California created growth of the West Coast. The automobile was beginning to replace the horse and carriage, and President Herbert Hoover, proclaimed “A chicken in every in every pot and a car in every garage”. With all of our challenges, there was always an American dream that kept us going....
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...The opening phrase on ‘Labor’ in history.com reads like this : “The labor movement in the United States grew out of the need to protect the common interest of workers. For those in the industrial sector, organized labor unions fought for better wages, reasonable hours and safer working conditions. The labor movement led efforts to stop child labor, give health benefits and provide aid to workers who were injured or retired.” The factors that led to the rise of labor unions: An in depth analysis of the factors that led to the rise of labor unions in the United States only reveals that the basic need and the primary objective of the workering people was to secure economic and legal protection from their exploiting employers. The origins of the...
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...19th Century Crime and Punishment From 1880 to 1895, the number of offenders in a state prison jumped from 30,659 to a whopping 54,244. In just 15 years, there were 23,585 more offenders. During the 19th century, there were many different crimes committed for different reasons. With those different crimes, jails were overcrowded and punishments were needing to be reconsidered and changed to fit the modernizing time. In order to understand crime and punishment in the 19th century one should analyze the newer crimes, a rough economy, law enforcement, and mental health. One element that affected crime and punishment were the different crimes being committed. In Mark J. Collins analysis, “A Daily Life in the 1800’s United States”, he describes...
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...During the early 19th century, there was a dramatic increase in the population of many east coast cities, as a result of immigration. As more immigrants arrived, there was more competition for low paying jobs. Often, children were removed from their families because their parents were unfit to support them. The number of homeless children exponentially increased. During the mid-19th century, the Children’s Aid Society was founded to provide support for impoverished children. It sent orphaned children to desirable homes in the mid-west which was known to be the emergence of the Orphan Train Movement. Unfortunately, the goal to help all homeless children find respectable homes was not achieved. Rescued children became victims of exploitation...
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...mitigated by modern medicine. Famine is also common with uncertain food supplies and poor diet, making people more susceptible to diseases. Poor hygiene, no clean water or sewage disposal also contribute. Fertility is high since there is no or little family planning (contraception) as parents have as many children as possible because few survive to become adults. Fertility is also encouraged by the dominant socioeconomic structure in rural societies with many children needed to work the land with religious beliefs and cultural traditions also inciting large families. Birth and death rates fluctuate with the ebb and flows of events such as wars, epidemics or droughts. This situation characterized Europe up to the 19th century and developing countries up to the early 20th century. •Phase II. This phase marked the beginning of the demographic transition (early expanding) with a rapid drop in death rates while birth rates remained high. The main drivers behind the drop in death rates were related to improved medicine, sanitation and waters supply. Improvements in...
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...“I am in this cause with my whole heart and soul. I believe that the Progressive movement is making life a little easier for all our people; a movement to try to take the burdens off the men and especially the women and children of this country. I am absorbed in the success of that movement.” – Theodore Roosevelt Progressivism reached its peak in the United States during the late 19th century, in which it was a reform movement that many took part in to make the country excel in all areas of society including: politically, socially, and economically. Progressives wanted to eliminate waste and corruption, supported improved child labor laws, minimum wage legislation, graduated income tax, and equality for all citizens. With this, progressivism...
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...The late 18th century to the early 19th century was a time for rapid change and growth for the United States. There was widespread political reform, women's rights movement, prohibition, and more. This gave this time period the name the progressive era. The advancements in education, technology, and political reforms were the results of many supporters of the progressive movement. However Woodrow Wilson had the most significant impact on the United States during this time period. Woodrow Wilson is the most important individual from the progressive era because of the political reform during his presidency, foreign policy during World War 1, and his effort to improve working conditions. Woodrow Wilson was the 28th president of the United States serving from 1913 to 1921. Wilson was born in Virginia on December 18th, 1856 and attended Princeton University earning a Ph. D in political science and later becoming the president of Princeton. In 1911 Wilson was elected governor of New Jersey and began a presidential campaign in 1912. In 1913 he was elected president and brought back the State of The Union speech which had not been used...
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...Reformation The United States went through a very important time period of industrialization, in the 19th century many rural societies in America became industrial. While industrialization brought about an increased volume of variety in manufactured goods and improved standard of living. Most workers in this time period went through grim employment, and horrible living conditions for the poor and working classes. At the same time this time, an age known as the Gilded Age, was an era of rapid growth, especially in the North and West America. In addition to Gilded Age, came a movement named the Progressive Movement. The Progressive movement's main goal was to wipe out corruption in government. At this very key time in history, there were many...
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...country’s economy. This raises the very pertinent question of whether sweatshops are actually helpful or harmful. This essay attempts to showcase an informed and logical argument supporting sweatshops. The US General Accounting Office (GAO) defines "sweatshop" as an "employer that violates more than one federal or state labor law governing minimum wage and overtime, child labor, industrial homework, occupational safety and health, workers’ compensation, or industry regulation." Accepted by many as the industry standard, it is important to remember that this definition only provides a precise, legal interpretation of the term and that sweatshops can exist in many forms. The existence of a sweatshop does not lie in the working conditions per se, but rather in the relation of employer to employee. In the words of historian Leon Stein, "The sweatshop is a state of mind as well as a physical fact… The sweatshop, whether in a modern factory building or a dark slum cellar, exists where the employer controls the working conditions and the worker cannot protest." WHAT CONSTITUTES A SWEATSHOP? The emergence of sweatshops has roughly been estimated to the late 19th century in the United States and Western Europe (mostly England and France). Following the industrial revolution people from rural areas and immigrants alike began to flock to cities in search of employment, creating an excess of labour. Some believe that the mass influx of people and their desperate desire to get any job they...
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...ANNOTATED SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR HISTORICAL INTERPRETATIONS OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN BRITAIN Gerard M Koot History Department University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Allen, Robert C., The British Industrial Revolution in a Global Perspective, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. viii, 331. Allen’s book is an excellent example of the persuasiveness of the new economic history. It is solidly rooted in statistical data and uses sophisticated methods of economic analysis but its analysis is presented in plain English. He argues that the first industrial revolution occurred in northwestern Europe because its high wages during the early modern period encouraged technological innovation. Although high wages were initially a consequence of the demographic disaster of the Black Death, they were reinforced during the early modern period by the economic success of the region around the North Sea, first, in European trade and manufacturing, especially in wresting the textile industry from the Italians, and then in world trade. According to Allen, the first industrial revolution took place in Britain instead of the Low Countries primarily because of Britain’s abundant and cheap coal resources, combined with the central government’s ability to use mercantilist policies and naval power to reap the greatest benefits from an expanding European and world trade. Once it had taken the lead from the Dutch, and defeated the French, Britain used its comparative advantage...
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...were plenty of cheap labors from slaves. Before one would know it, the United States became the greatest industrial nations, because cities began to grow rapidly. The two key factors that helped the industrial growth were Business and Immigrants because of technology and jobs. The first key factor was the big business that helped industrial growth in America. The...
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...The Industrial revolution had the long term effect of greatly improving the living standards for common people in Britain. There is however a constant debate on whether or not the British living standards rose during the early part of the Industrial Revolution (1770-1850). The optimists generally believed that the industrialization brought higher wages, and a better standard of living. T.S. Ashton suggested that for the majority of the population, the gain in real wages was substantial, and outweighed the negative effects brought by industrialization. Pessimists argue that the quality of life for workers deteriorated greatly between 1780 and 1850, with very limited improvements for some skilled sectors before the 1870’s. This purpose of this paper is to analyze the debate from an economic and social perspective. We will examine both arguments and prove that although there was a rise in real wages, that rise was not as high as many optimists believe, and that the rise in real wages did not mean that the living standards of the average citizen were necessarily improved. This paper will substantiate that the benefits resulting from the rise in real wages, did not outweigh the costs that followed. We will examine how pollution, poor working conditions, and an overall lack of basic human rights and equality, plagued the British population and did not initially raise the living standards of the average person in Britain. The majority of debates between pessimists and optimists...
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