The Industrial Revolution was one of the largest and most rapid changes in American society, industry, technology, and lifestyle. Though this period brought the nation forward as a whole, working conditions and life quality were very poor for the lower and middle class. The working class found themselves without any power or influence in politics and business. Corruption and social barriers infiltrated every industry in the United States, and the upper class did their best to cover up this atrocity. The industrial revolution stripped away the health, power, rights, and well-being America’s lower class, but was covered by a thin gild of advancement and modernization. America’s Industrial Revolutions brought new technology, new industrial methods,
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Finding a job in this era was quite a challenge in and of itself. As one immigrant on the hunt for work described, “There was a crowd of about 200 men waiting for a job… twenty three were taken” (Antanas Kaztauskis, "From Lithuania to the Chicago Stockyards," Digital History. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2015. 5). This shows how few people were able to even get a job at the time. Then, the people that did secure employment put their health and even lives at risk every day by showing up at work. The textbook, A People and A Nation, states that roughly 25,000 people died and over 1,000,000 were injured in industrial disasters in 1913 alone. One article summarizes the conditions, “Temperatures around the furnaces and the molten ingots were often high enough to be hazardous, accidents were frequent and brutal… plant managers did little to protect workers because a large labor pool promised a quick replacement for any worker who fell, became injured, or died” (Marshall, “Second Industrial Revolution”). Also, possibly the most well known industrial accident in US History occurred during this era. “A fire at New York City’s Triangle Shirtwaist Company in 1911 killed 146 workers, most of them teenage immigrant women trapped in locked workrooms” (Mary Beth Norton, A People and a Nation: A History of the United States. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2012. Print.). Also, the workers in this era were expected to work extremely long hours, and were paid very little. One worker, who “got $5 a week” (Kaztauskis, "From Lithuania to the Chicago Stockyards," 7), describes his working hours, “We worked that first day from six in the morning till seven at night. The next day we worked from six in the morning till eight at night” (Kaztauskis, "From Lithuania to the Chicago Stockyards," 6). These hours and wages were completely unjust. The entire nation sympathized with
Finding a job in this era was quite a challenge in and of itself. As one immigrant on the hunt for work described, “There was a crowd of about 200 men waiting for a job… twenty three were taken” (Antanas Kaztauskis, "From Lithuania to the Chicago Stockyards," Digital History. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2015. 5). This shows how few people were able to even get a job at the time. Then, the people that did secure employment put their health and even lives at risk every day by showing up at work. The textbook, A People and A Nation, states that roughly 25,000 people died and over 1,000,000 were injured in industrial disasters in 1913 alone. One article summarizes the conditions, “Temperatures around the furnaces and the molten ingots were often high enough to be hazardous, accidents were frequent and brutal… plant managers did little to protect workers because a large labor pool promised a quick replacement for any worker who fell, became injured, or died” (Marshall, “Second Industrial Revolution”). Also, possibly the most well known industrial accident in US History occurred during this era. “A fire at New York City’s Triangle Shirtwaist Company in 1911 killed 146 workers, most of them teenage immigrant women trapped in locked workrooms” (Mary Beth Norton, A People and a Nation: A History of the United States. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2012. Print.). Also, the workers in this era were expected to work extremely long hours, and were paid very little. One worker, who “got $5 a week” (Kaztauskis, "From Lithuania to the Chicago Stockyards," 7), describes his working hours, “We worked that first day from six in the morning till seven at night. The next day we worked from six in the morning till eight at night” (Kaztauskis, "From Lithuania to the Chicago Stockyards," 6). These hours and wages were completely unjust. The entire nation sympathized with