American Industrial Workers In The Late 19th Century

During the 19th century, big business, along with greedy company owners made ruins of the American people and other small businesses for that matter. The typical American industrial worker in the late 1800’s didn't make nearly enough to support a wife and children. On average, industrial jobs would be making 1-3 dollars per week. This forced women and young children to be put to work, in order to survive. There were children that were pitted inside mines, factories, and mills, where often they would lose a limb, and not be compensated. On top of the tremendously low pay, there was an eight hour work day, without breaks. Thousands upon thousands of factory employees were killed over the years, due to atrocious working conditions. This led to the American people to become very suspicious of the big business and
There were four major riots that occurred over the time period of 40 years, which became to be dubbed as the “Gilded Age”. This official title provides a very ironic and sardonic tone, considering the serious social problems that were tied in with this time period. The two main concepts that impacted the American Industrial worker were immigration and labor unions. These two ideas are the epitome of what defined America in the late 19th century and how business regulations came about. As it is in present-day America, immigrants are still the cheapest form of labor that a business owner can work, illegally though. In the 1880’s, the primary source of immigration was from the German, Irish, and Mexican nations. Wealthy business owners were fully aware that immigrants would work for half the pay, unknowingly, so they were the first candidate for the job. Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, explores this topic as a family from Lithuania moves to America to discover the “American Dream” and make it big. Recapped, this immigrant family realizes that America is quite the opposite of all of