Social Justice, Labor, and Immigrant Life in Progressive-Era America

Ida B. Wells – “Our Country’s National Crime Is Lynching”

• Central Thesis
  • Lynching is not an impulsive or exceptional act; it is the calculated, systematic practice of “intelligent people” who invoke an “unwritten law” to justify extra-legal murder.
  • Wells labels lynching “the national crime,” indicting the entire United States, not just isolated mobs.

• The “Unwritten Law”
  • Operates outside formal courts: no sworn complaint, jury, defense, or right of appeal.
  • Newly added “statute” over the last decade:
  – Any Black man accused of insulting or assaulting a white woman is denied trial.
  – A white woman need not testify under oath or submit her claim to legal investigation.
  • Consequence: even Black men of excellent reputation are vulnerable if any white woman—regardless of motive or status—makes an accusation.

• Myth of Protecting White Womanhood
  • Lynchers justify violence as necessary to prevent “crimes against women.”
  • Rhetoric invokes imagery of isolated white families in “negro districts,” likened to being surrounded by wild beasts.
  • Wells dismantles this myth with statistics: fewer than \frac{1}{3} of lynching victims are even charged with assault on women; many charges are later proven false.
  • She highlights hypocrisy: sexual violence by white men against Black women rarely earns notice, let alone punishment.

• Public Spectacle & Participation
  • ~200 people (men and women) lynched annually, often in broad daylight.
  • Community complicity: “leading citizens” attend; newspapers print sensational headlines, offer rewards.
  • Railroads run excursion trains so spectators can witness burnings.
  • Souvenir culture: mobs cut off ears, toes, fingers; distribute flesh; photograph scenes.
  • Named atrocities: Texarkana & Paris, TX; Bardswell, KY; Newman, GA.
  – Paris: mayor gives schoolchildren a holiday; officers hand prisoner to mob.
  – Newman: victim tortured for confession, remains silent.

• Ideological & Moral Charges
  • Lynching tramples the legal presumption of innocence.
  • Children grow desensitized to cruelty—“hardened in crime.”
  • Wells draws parallels to the Spanish Inquisition and Medieval barbarism.
  • Calls on “the world” that passively condones lynching to recognize complicity.

• Broader Significance
  • Exposes intersection of race, gender, and power: white patriarchy weaponizes white women’s purity narratives.
  • Lays groundwork for later anti-lynching campaigns (e.g., NAACP, Dyer Bill).
  • Ethical imperative: demands federal intervention and cultural reckoning.

Interview of Joseph T. Finnerty – Brass Workers & Industrial Change (U.S. Senate Committee, c. 1880s)

• Background
  • Finnerty: 32-year-old brass worker, 14 years in trade.

• Wage Trends
  • 14 years ago: \$18–\$21 per week.
  • “Now”: \$12–\$18 (average \$15).
  • Finnerty personally earns \$20, above average.

• Division of Labor & Machinery
  • Past: one craftsman completed an entire “job” (e.g., chandelier, water-cock, steam valve).
  • Present:
  – Chandelier: broken into 8–12 distinct tasks (polisher, dipper, buffer, chaser, filer, etc.).
  – Brass cock: 4 machine operations (three lathes + polishing).
  – Workers specialize narrowly; seldom master full craft.

• Production & Value
  • Then: 1 man/week → 1 chandelier worth \$300 (solid bronze).
  • Now: 8–10 men/week + machines → 36 chandeliers @ \$100–\$150 each.
  – Conservative math: 36 \times \$125 \approx \$4{,}500 total ⇒ ≈ \$450 value per worker.
  • Raw materials: modern chandeliers are thin shells—≈ \frac{1}{4} of former bronze content (i.e., older pieces were 4\times heavier/denser).
  • Outcome: greater output, lower per-unit quality and durability.

• Social Relations in the Workplace
  • Earlier era: bosses, foremen, and workers “one family”; easy conversation.
  • Now: rigid hierarchy—workers avoid eye contact with bosses even off duty.

• Living Standards
  • Rent back to older levels; workers downsize from 4–5 rooms to 3.
  • Brass workers reside in tenements amid “cheapest element” of laboring class.
  • 14 years ago: skilled mechanic held elevated social status; now little distinction from common laborer.

• Savings & Mobility
  • Typical married brass worker cannot save; “if he can keep his family in food and clothes and pay rent he is doing wonders.”
  • Formerly: \$300–\$400 capital + tools sufficient to start shop; today: ≥ \$5{,}000 for machinery, national sales network, patents.
  • Large firms hold mini-monopolies (pumps, soda fountains, cheap chandeliers, etc.).
  • Aspiration to become independent manufacturer now “hopeless.”

• Health Hazards
  • Polishing & molding release toxic fumes/particles.
  • Average molder life expectancy ≈ 35 years.
  • Out of every 40 molders, 30 resort to “beer or whisky” as quasi-medicinal relief.
  • Few old men in trade: < 12 survivors among 4{,}000 workers.
  • Finnerty intends to quit before age 45.

• Labor Organization
  • Brass Workers’ union exists; Finnerty is member.
  • Only strike: failed 8-hour-day action.
  • No control over apprentices; ratio ≈ 1 boy : 4 men.

• Ethical & Economic Implications
  • Mechanization boosts productivity but:
  – Depresses wages.
  – Erodes skill and craft pride.
  – Raises capital barrier to ownership, entrenching inequality.
  – Encourages hazardous speeds/conditions.
  • Illustrates broader Gilded Age themes: Taylorism, deskilling, class stratification, and nascent labor unrest.

“A Bintel Brief” – Jewish Daily Forward Advice Column (1906-1907)

• Column Context
  • Yiddish newspaper serving New York’s Jewish immigrants.
  • Editor Abraham Cahan answers letters; captures personal dilemmas about assimilation, family duty, work, and romance.
  • Provides communal guidance, moral instruction, and a public forum (“a bundle of letters”).

Letter 1 – Freethinker Marriage vs. Orthodox Parents

• Scenario
  • Russian revolutionary & freethinker (J.B.) wishes secular marriage with like-minded bride.
  • Bride’s Orthodox parents insist on religious ceremony + synagogue visit; threaten estrangement.
• Advice
  • Pragmatic accommodation: sometimes kindness toward aged parents outweighs ideological purity.
  • Maintain family bonds where possible; do the ceremony if harm is minimal.
• Broader Themes
  • Tension between modern secular identities and traditional religious obligations.
  • Immigrant negotiation of generational conflict.

Letter 2 – Fourteen-Year-Old Torn Between School & Family Support

• Facts
  • Family of 7; in U.S. 2 years.
  • Father earns only \$5 in bad week; frail health.
  • Mother pregnant, cares for 3 boarders, yet spends \$10 on daughter’s winter clothes.
• Girl’s Dilemma
  • Feels guilty studying while parents struggle; wants to quit school and work.
  • Writes without parents’ knowledge seeking counsel.
• Advice
  • Obey parents, continue education; long-term benefits will repay family more than immediate wages.
• Significance
  • Highlights immigrant emphasis on upward mobility through schooling.
  • Reveals economic precarity and gendered expectations of care/labor.

Letter 3 – Engagement to a “Greenhorn”

• Background
  • American-born, high-school-educated bookkeeper visits family’s Polish town.
  • Falls in love with respected local intellectual; becomes engaged.
  • Couple returns to U.S.; fiancé studies English eagerly.
• Social Pressure
  • American friends mock him as “greenhorn” (new, unsophisticated immigrant).
  • Writer’s affection wanes under peer influence; feels trapped, ashamed to confess doubts.
• Advice
  • Breaking engagement would be a “grave mistake.”
  • Reject superficial “greenhorn vs. American” binary.
  • Fiancé will learn language/history quickly and surpass shallow critics.
  • She should value his character, love, and potential; ignore scoffers.
• Underlying Issues
  • Assimilation stress, status anxiety, gender expectations.
  • The power of community opinion vs. personal commitment.

Comparative & Thematic Connections

• Race & Violence vs. Class & Labor vs. Immigrant Identity
  • Wells’s expose of lynching shows racialized extrajudicial terror—extreme denial of legal personhood.
  • Finnerty’s testimony illustrates economic exploitation, deskilled labor, and health hazards within industrial capitalism.
  • Bintel Brief letters reveal cultural/psychological negotiations of new Americans balancing Old World traditions with U.S. modernity.

• Common Threads
  • Power imbalances (white mobs over Black bodies; capital owners over wage workers; native-born peer judgment over newcomers).
  • Public opinion as disciplinary force: newspapers glamorize lynching; friends label “greenhorns”; employers wield hire/fire power.
  • The role of law—present, distorted, or absent: lynch mobs bypass it; labor law lacks protections; immigrant families consult informal advice columns.

• Ethical, Philosophical, Practical Implications
  • Wells demands moral courage and federal action against systemic violence.
  • Finnerty’s account raises questions about just distribution of productivity gains and workers’ health rights.
  • Bintel Brief underscores empathy, pragmatic compromise, and the pursuit of education as tools for social advancement.