AP US History AMSCO Guided Notes
6.7: Labor in the Gilded Age
AMSCO Guided Notes
AP US History Guided Notes
AMSCO 6.7 - Labor in the Gilded Age
Learning Objectives
- Explain the socioeconomic continuities and changes associated with the growth of industrial capitalism from 1865 to 1898.
A. Challenges for Wage Earners
1. What were typical working conditions and wages for industrial workers in the late 19th century?
2. How did David Ricardo's 'iron law of wages' explain low industrial wages?
3. Why did working-class families depend on income from women and children?
4. How did factory work differ from pre-industrial artisan labor and what problems did this create?
5. How did industrial workers resist poor working conditions before joining unions?
B. The Struggles of Organized Labor
1. Industrial Warfare
1. What tactics did employers use to defeat unions and break strikes?
2. How did management use public opinion and government support to weaken the labor movement?
2. Tactics by Labor
1. What methods did workers use to confront management and achieve union recognition?
3. Great Railroad Strike of 1877
1. What caused the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and how did it escalate nationally?
2. How did President Hayes's use of federal troops in 1877 represent a significant shift in government response to labor disputes?
C. Attempts to Organize National Unions
1. National Labor Union
1. What were the goals and membership of the National Labor Union and what was its major achievement?
2. Why did the National Labor Union lose support after 1873?
2. Knights of Labor
1. How did the Knights of Labor differ from earlier unions in its membership and leadership under Terence Powderly?
2. What reforms did Powderly advocate and why could he not always control local units?
3. Haymarket Bombing
1. What happened at Haymarket Square in 1886 and how did this event affect public opinion toward unions?
2. Why did the Knights of Labor decline rapidly after the Haymarket incident despite its large membership?
4. American Federation of Labor
1. How did the AFL's approach to unionism differ from the Knights of Labor?
2. What strategy did Samuel Gompers use to build the AFL into the nation's largest labor organization by 1901?
D. Strikes and Strikebreaking in the 1890s
1. Homestead Strike
1. What triggered the Homestead Strike of 1892 and what tactics did Henry Clay Frick use to defeat it?
2. What were the consequences of the Homestead Strike for the union movement in the steel industry?
2. Pullman Strike
1. What caused the Pullman Strike and how did Eugene V. Debs escalate the conflict through the American Railroad Union?
2. How did President Cleveland and the federal court use legal and military power to break the Pullman Strike?
3. What was the significance of the In re Debs decision and how did it affect Debs's political views?
E. Conditions in 1900
1. What was the state of union membership and labor's power by 1900?
2. How did industrial growth during the Gilded Age concentrate in specific regions and what populations did it attract?
Key Terms
"iron law of wages"
wage earners
collective bargaining
craft unions
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
National Labor Union
Knights of Labor
Haymarket bombing
American Federation of Labor (AFL)
Samuel Gompers
Homestead Strike
Pullman Strike
Eugene V. Debs