In the Second Industrial Revolution, working class citizens were able to live comfortable lives with stability in the workplace without having to be in the middle class. Factories provided the working class with wages, housing, and work, allowing for pleasant lives. They were also given some degree of respectability and responsibility by being able to revolt or strike. Throughout the Second Industrial Revolution, although there were cycles of booms and busts, the economy was growing and expanding immensely. Also, the working class was composed of many immigrants, who were fulfilling their “American Dream” because many of them lived better lives in the United States, than in their native country. As a working class citizen in the Second Industrial
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As an immigrant, who speaks little English, the unskilled factory job allows for all basic necessities of life and even “pleasures” too. Although factory work may not have been providing extravagant lives for workers, it enabled people to live complete and simple lives, and it even fulfilled many people’s “American …show more content…
James Truslow Adams’ once described this ideal as, “It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are.” (Adams 1931, 214-215). Immigrants were not looking to become rich or very successful, but live better lives than those they could live in their home country. They could find the lifestyle that fits the “American Dream” in the working class, and did not need to be middle or upper class to achieve the status they were looking for. Some may say that as a working class citizen, it was not possible to fulfill the “American Dream” because the cycles of boom and bust caused inconsistency in wages and causes factory workers to cut jobs. But, with every bust there was a corresponding boom, and overall the country’s economy was growing.
As members of the lowest class, Factory workers had some degree of respectability and importance, unlike slaves or servants in the agrarian era. They had the ability to go on strike and affect the community. In the Strike of 1877, railroad workers refused to let trains out of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad until the officials stopped cutting wages, and the town supported these
As an immigrant, who speaks little English, the unskilled factory job allows for all basic necessities of life and even “pleasures” too. Although factory work may not have been providing extravagant lives for workers, it enabled people to live complete and simple lives, and it even fulfilled many people’s “American …show more content…
James Truslow Adams’ once described this ideal as, “It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are.” (Adams 1931, 214-215). Immigrants were not looking to become rich or very successful, but live better lives than those they could live in their home country. They could find the lifestyle that fits the “American Dream” in the working class, and did not need to be middle or upper class to achieve the status they were looking for. Some may say that as a working class citizen, it was not possible to fulfill the “American Dream” because the cycles of boom and bust caused inconsistency in wages and causes factory workers to cut jobs. But, with every bust there was a corresponding boom, and overall the country’s economy was growing.
As members of the lowest class, Factory workers had some degree of respectability and importance, unlike slaves or servants in the agrarian era. They had the ability to go on strike and affect the community. In the Strike of 1877, railroad workers refused to let trains out of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad until the officials stopped cutting wages, and the town supported these