We want more school houses and less
jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and
less vice; more constant work and less crime; more leisure
and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact,
more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures,
to make manhood more noble, womanhood more beautiful and
childhood more happy and bright. These in brief are the
primary demands made by the Trade Unions in the name of
labor. These are the demands made by labor upon modern
society and in their consideration is involved the fate
of civilization.
Why, it may be asked, do students need to know about the history of union
membership? Because the free trade union movement is one
of the bulwarks of a democratic society and because some
of the fundamental economic and social reforms of the
past century—such as the banning of sweatshops and
child labor—can scarcely be fathomed without knowing
something of the saga of the labor movement. The labor
movement story is one of men and women, laws and campaigns,
ideas and conflict. This is the stuff of history.
Diane Ravitch and Chester E. Finn Jr. What Do Our 17-Year
Olds Know: A Report on the First National Assessment of
History and Literature. (NY: Harper & Row, Publishers,
1987), p. 69.
Motivation:
Looking at the two quotes, would you agree that Diane
Ravitch would have been a supporter of Samuel Gompers
had she lived in the late nineteenth century? Explain.
Essential Question:
To what extent have the conditions of American workers
improved over the past 100 years?
Background
After the Civil War, the United States witnessed an accelerating
movement of people westward, a rapidly increasing number
of immigrants, and the large growth of urban areas. Along
with these trends, the massive changes in how corporations
were organized and operated and the growth of the labor
movement during this period wrought significant changes
in American life. The right to organize, to bargain for
wages and working conditions, the equitable distribution
of wealth and power, and the role of government in ensuring
social justice are issues that remain sources of controversy
today.
Peter J. McGuire, a carpenter and the first general
secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters, and later
first secretary of the American Federation of Labor,
and Matthew Maguire, a machinist and secretary of the
New York Central Labor Union, are both credited with
being the first to propose the idea of a holiday honoring
American workers. But regardless of who originated the
idea, there is no doubt that on September 5, 1882, some
10,000 to 20,000 workers, at the risk of losing their
jobs, gathered in New York City and marched from City
Hall to Union Square in support of an eight-hour workday.
The idea quickly spread to many communities, and in
1887, Oregon became the first state to make Labor Day
an official holiday. And after having used federal troops
to suppress the Pullman strike, an anti-union U.S. President
Grover Cleveland sensed that he had to recognize the
contributions of workers and together with Congress,
enacted the first national Labor Day in 1894.
A historical essay on Labor Day with addtional resources
can be found in this issue of HISTORY NOW: /historynow/preview/06_2005/historian4.php
For more background on the first Labor Day, how it came
about and what it means, see: the U.S. Department of
Labor website: http://www.dol.gov/opa/aboutdol/laborday.htm
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