Economic Inequality In Post-Civil War America

Patterns of Modernization In Tramps and Millionaires, Ginny Jones states that “Economic inequality was nothing new in post-Civil War America. Since colonial times the vast majority of property and saved wealth…had belonged to a relatively small elite.” This statement opens the topic of the labor movement in the late eighteenth century that lasted into the early nineteenth century. The labor movement was caused by a combination of corporate monopolization, poor worker conditions, and the extremes of wealth and poverty. These conditions led to laborers striking and fighting for better working conditions. In Reading the American Past, Michael Johnson opens N. F. Thompson’s testimony by stating, “Many employers vehemently opposed labor unions …show more content…
At work, laborers, young and old, dealt with dangerous conditions, often loosing fingers or limbs to the machines they ran. Stated in Reading the American Past by N. F. Thompson, working men at home assembled “smiling upon each other” and “going to their wretched homes to find some freedom in sleep from gnawing hunger”. This, as noted in all the resources listed, was not an uncommon occurrence for the laborer. During this era in the Unites States, the working class lived well below the poverty line, often dying of starvation or winter temperatures, because big business held the wealth of the nation.
The labor unions were created to prevent these extremes between the wealthy and the poverty. Standing “for right, for justice, for liberty”, per N. F. Thompson in Reading the American Past, the labor unions wanted to create a better life for the laborers. Their goals were to, per Phillip Foner in Voices of Freedom, create “higher wages and better leisure time”, along with the reestablishing of men’s rights. Obviously, their goals were correct, both morally and …show more content…
In Voices of Freedom, Andrew Carnegie states, “The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and the poor in harmonious relationship.” Both men believe that the extreme separation of the wealthy and poverty is necessary for the advancement of society. However, this is obviously wrong because the extreme segregation of wealthy and poverty is a contradiction of Liberty and all America stands for. As stated in Voices of Freedom by Henry George, “Where Liberty rises, there virtue grows, wealth increases, knowledge expands, invention multiplies human powers, and in strength and spirit the freer nation rises among her neighbors…” Therefore, such objections towards the labor union’s goals for laborers rights and better conditions are not