The Gilded AgeThe Gilded Age

Gilded Age

Refers to the time following the Civil War

The age of the “new rich” due to industrialization and big business

Glittering with showy wealth, but corrupt to the core

Social Darwinism

The theory that stated the most competent people make it to the top, the weak fall

Labor Organizes

Workers organized to maintain control over their wages and working conditions

Knights of Labor - 1869

The first to last a long timeBegan as a union for tailors; later

accepted all workersPushed for an 8-hour work dayBy 1886 had 700,000 members

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

Led by Samuel GompersOrganized from skilled workersAdvocated using strikes to improve

wages and hoursUsed boycotts as a means of peaceful

protest

Haymarket Riots, Chicago, May 1886

Started with a strike at McCormick Harvester works for 8 hour day

7 police were killed by a bomb, 67 civilians injured

Police fired and killed 10 strikersResult- public against labor unions

Homestead (Pa.) Strike, 1892

A strike by steel workers over wagesSeveral people were killedHeld out for 9 months, but public

opinion went against the unionPeople soon quit the union, returned to

work, and steel worked were left unorganized for 40 years

Pullman Strike, 1894

American Railway Union was led by Eugene V. Debs

Union struck against the Pullman Sleeping Car works

Failed after the President issued an injunction – an order to end the strike

Injunctions then became a powerful tool for the corporations in opposing strikers