Our PowerPoint over Problems and Solutions in Business during the late 1800's and early 1900's!

1. EQ: How were workers treated unfairly by
employers during late 1800s and the
early 1900s?

2. With the development of new inventions and
the rise of corporations, life for the average
American worker began to change.
While small businesses continued to exist,
more and more people were being employed
in industrial jobs like by factories and mines.

3. Problem: Immigrant Labor
Many new industrial jobs were
filled by immigrants.
Immigrants were often not only accustomed to a lower
standard of living, but also desperate for work.

4. The immigrants would often be willing to take jobs that paid low
wages and required long hours that native-born Americans would not.

5. Some people, desperate for employment, worked in sweatshops.
Sweatshops are small factories often found in
buildings that have dangerous or unhealthy
(unsanitary) working conditions.
Employees usually work excessively long hours for low wages.

6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuuUms7ckH8&feature=player_detailpage&list=PLC1CD6FD037741AB6
One such sweatshop was the Triangle Shirtwaist Company located in
New York City. On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the factory and
took the lives of 146 immigrant women, some as young as 15 years old.
Shi
The owners had often locked the exits claiming that
employees stole from the factory.
The 9th Floor
Immigrant Women
Shirtwaist Employees

7. 1870
 750,000 children
under the age of 15
working in mines and
factories.
 This did not include
children who worked
for their families in
businesses or on
farms.
1911
 More than two million
American children
under the age of 16
were working
 Many worked 12 hours
or more a day, six days
a week, without going
to school.

8. Children
Working

9. Cannery: "...children as young as six employed as
headers and cleaners (of shrimp and fish)... stand for
shifts of 12 hours and longer in open sheds... hands
immersed in cold water..."

10. Problem: Women Working
o Women worked long
hours.
o Women made low
wages
o Women worked in
unsafe unsanitary
conditions

11. Problem: Women Working
o Women usually
earned about half as
much money as men.
o One woman wrote:
“It took me months and
months to save up
money to buy a dress or
a pair of shoes.”

12. IMMIGRANT LABOR CHILDREN WORKING
 Worked long hours
 Made low wages
 Worked in unsafe
and/or unsanitary
conditions
 Worked long hours
 Made low wages
 Worked in unsafe
and/or unsanitary
conditions
 Could not attend
school
Women Working
o Worked long hours
o Made low wages
o Worked in unsafe and/or unsanitary conditions
o Usually earned about half as much as men
Let’s
Review

13. EQ: What is a labor union and how
did they attempt to fix the problems
caused by the rise of big businesses?

14. Employees organized labor unions in an effort to:
1. get safer working conditions
2. have shorter work weeks with
fewer hours
3. get higher wages (money)
Most business fought these unions and
would fire employees who joined one.

15. Labor Unions Continued:
Mary Harris Jones, called “Mother” Jones by many, was
one of the most famous labor union workers.
In 1900 when coal miners in Pennsylvania called a strike,
“Mother” Jones gathered together a group of women to
turn away strikebreakers.
In a strike, workers refuse to work to try to force business
owners to meet their demands.
In 1903 “Mother” Jones led a group of
children to protest child labor in mines.
As a result, Pennsylvania passed a law
in 1905 forbidding children under the
age of 14 from working.

16. In 1886 Samuel Gompers formed the
American Federation of Labor, or AFL.
The AFL is an organization that helped get laws
passed to:
1. end child labor,
2. shortened working hours
3. and required employers to pay workers for
injuries they sustained while working