Capital and Labor Notes

The American Yawp

Preface

  • History is an ongoing conversation about the past, involving asking questions, weighing evidence, and interpreting sources.
  • Every generation writes its own history, and old conclusions are re-evaluated with new evidence and perspectives.
  • Studying history cultivates essential skills like reading, thinking, and communication.
  • Understanding history helps us understand ourselves and the present.
  • Historical interpretation requires method, rigor, and perspective, and not all arguments about the past are equally valid.
  • This textbook aims to provide a coherent narrative of American history by incorporating transnational perspectives, diverse voices, narratives of resistance, and cultural creation.
  • The American Yawp is a collaboratively built, open American history textbook designed for general readers and college-level history courses, made freely accessible online.

Capital and Labor

  • Introduction

    • The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 marked the beginning of significant labor conflict in the United States.
    • Rail lines cut workers' wages during economic stagnation, leading to strikes from Baltimore to St. Louis.
    • Business leaders and political officials used state militias and federal troops to suppress the strikes, resulting in violence and deaths.
    • The strike convinced laborers of the need for institutionalized unions and businesses of the need for greater political influence.

  • The March of Capital

    • Industrialization led to a perception of powerlessness among workers as skills became less important and companies grew in size.
    • Technological innovations and national investments reduced production and distribution costs.
    • New administrative frameworks and national credit agencies supported the growth of vast firms.
    • Corporate leaders adopted scientific management, or Taylorism, to increase efficiency by subdividing tasks.
    • Mass production techniques, like the assembly line, increased efficiency and production levels.
    • Firms realized economies of scale, where each additional product cost relatively little to produce.
    • Retailers and advertisers sustained markets, and corporate bureaucracies managed large firms.
    • Corporations became a legal mechanism for enterprises to marshal capital while limiting shareholder liability.
    • Companies formed pools, trusts, and entered price-fixing agreements to avoid competition, eventually merging into consolidations.
    • A wave of mergers between 1895 and 1904 resulted in newly consolidated firms dominating their markets.
    • In 1901, J. P. Morgan formed United States Steel, the world's first billion-dollar company, controlling the steel market.

  • The Rise of Inequality

    • Industrial capitalism led to significant advances in efficiency and productivity but also created low-paid, unskilled jobs with dangerous conditions.
    • The extreme wealth of industrial leaders alongside the poverty of the urban and rural poor shocked Americans.
    • Robber barons, such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, J. D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J. P. Morgan, accumulated vast fortunes.
    • In 1890, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans owned one fourth of the nation's assets, and by 1900, the richest 10 percent controlled about 90 percent of the nation’s wealth
    • Social Darwinism, popularized by Herbert Spencer, applied Darwin's theories to society, arguing that the fittest would succeed economically, while welfare would lead to social degeneration.
    • Wealthy Americans and their defenders embraced social Darwinism to justify inequalities and minimize government interference in the economy.

  • The Labor Movement

    • American workers faced difficult jobs, long hours, and low pay, leading to the rise of the American labor movement.
    • The failure of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 convinced workers of the need to organize.
    • The Knights of Labor united skilled and unskilled workers and welcomed women but focused on practical gains through local unions.
    • Strikes, such as the one against Jay Gould's rail lines in 1886, were suppressed by strikebreakers and state militias.
    • The campaign for an eight-hour day culminated in a national strike on May 1, 1886, with violence erupting in Chicago's Haymarket Square.
    • The Haymarket Riot led to outrage and associated unionism with radicalism, undermining the Knights of Labor.
    • The American Federation of Labor (AFL) emerged as a conservative alternative, advocating practical gains through a conservative approach.
    • Strikes continued, including the Homestead Strike in 1892 and the Pullman Strike in 1894, but were often suppressed by state militias and federal troops.
    • The Pullman Strike led to the arrest and imprisonment of Eugene Debs, further radicalizing him.

  • The Populist Movement

    • Farmers were hit hard by industrialization, with expanding markets and technological improvements decreasing commodity prices.
    • Commercialization of agriculture put farmers in the hands of bankers and railroads, leading to debt and land loss.
    • Farmers organized through the Farmers' Alliance and later the Populist Party to challenge the political and economic systems.
    • The Farmers' Alliance formed cooperatives to negotiate higher prices for crops and lower prices for goods.
    • The Populist Party nominated James B. Weaver as their presidential candidate in 1892 and adopted the Omaha Platform, advocating for federal power expansion.
    • The Omaha Platform proposed nationalizing railroads and telegraph systems, establishing postal savings banks, and creating subtreasuries for government loans to farmers.
    • It also advocated for inflationary monetary policy by monetizing silver, direct election of senators, a secret ballot, and a graduated income tax.
    • The Populists faced obstacles, especially in the South, due to racial attitudes and electoral fraud.

  • William Jennings Bryan and the Politics of Gold

    • William Jennings Bryan was a skilled orator, congressman, presidential candidate, and U.S. secretary of state.
    • He gained national renown for his attack on the gold standard and promotion of free silver.
    • Bryan promoted bimetallism to alleviate farmers' debts, while Republicans championed the gold standard.
    • He delivered the