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Waltham-Lowell System
Loval hoped his innovational program would prove an alternative to the system of child labor that had long been in use in Britain and also prevailed in New England textile mills. The Lowell System, brought farm girls and young women who came to work at the textile factory were housed in supervised dormitories or boardinghouses and were provided with educational and cultural opportunities. -
National Trades' Union
In an attempt to raise wages, restrict hours, and reduce competition from unskilled workers, skilled journeymen formed the nation's first labor unions. In 1834 journeymen established the National Trades' Union, the first organization of American wage earners on a national scale. This set a precedent to pave way for large labor unions in the future. -
Samuel Slater
Samuel Slater has been called the "father of the American factory system." He was born in Derbyshire, England on June 9, 1768. The son of a yeoman farmer, Slater went to work at an early age as an apprentice for the owner of a cotton mill. Eventually rising to the position of superintendent, he became intimately familiar with the mill machines designed by Richard Arkwright. -
First Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, improved efficiency of water power, the increasing use of steam power, the development of machine tools and the rise of the factory system. -
Cyrus Hall McCormick
Cyrus Hall McCormick was an American inventor and businessperson, the founder of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, which later became part of the International Harvester Company in 1902. 'Inventor' of the mechanical grain reaper. -
Gustavus Swift
Gustavus Franklin Swift (June 24, 1839 – March 29, 1903) was an American business executive. He founded a meat-packing empire in the Midwest during the late 19th century, over which he presided until his death. He is credited with the development of the first practical ice-cooled railroad car, which allowed his company to ship dressed meats to all parts of the country and abroad, ushering in the "era of cheap beef." -
Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers was an early labor leader, first in his own union and later as president of the American Federation of Labor. As its president nearly continuously between 1886 and 1924, Gompers led the labor movement in achieving solid gains for workers. He maintained a focused view of trade unionism, believing that unions should concentrate on better collective bargaining agreements and legislation affecting labor, while avoiding broad social issues. -
Great Railroad Strike of 1877
The Great Railroad Strike of 1867 began on July 14th after the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad cut wages for the third time in a year. It was eventually put to down by the military because it interfered with mail which is a federal offence. 100 people died. -
The Granger Laws
The first effective public call for railroad regulation came in the midwestern states of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, in the late 1860's. Among those who most prominently pushed for regulation were the Grangers, who represented farm interests that suffered under discriminatory rate practices. The Grangers were established in 1867. -
Bland-Allison Act of 1878
In 1873, Congress had de-monetized silver, thus tying the nation's monetary system firmly to the gold standard. The Bland-Allison Act was labeled the "Crime of '73" by western mining interests and debtors who wanted silver in circulation. A further conservative victory was achieved in 1875 in the passage of the Specie Resumption Act, which was designed to make all currency in circulation, including the greenbacks, backed by gold. -
Eugene V Debs
Labor organizer and socialist leader Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) began his rise to prominence in Indiana’s Terre Haute lodge of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. He entered politics as a Democratic City Clerk in 1879, and in 1885 he was elected to the Indiana State Assembly with broad support from Terre Haute’s workers and businessmen. waged a strike against the Pullman Company of Chicago in 1894. -
Exodusters
Exodusters was a name given to African Americans who migrated from states along the Mississippi River to Kansas in the late nineteenth century, as part of the Exoduster Movement or Exodus of 1879. It was the first general migration of blacks following the Civil War. -
Knights of Labor
The Knights of Labor began as a secret society of tailors in Philadelphia in 1869. The organization grew slowly during the hard years of the 1870s, but worker militancy rose toward the end of the decade, especially after the great railroad strike of 1877, and the Knights’ membership rose with it. Grand Master Workman Terence V. Powderly took office in 1879, and under his leadership the Knights flourished; by 1886 the group had 700,000 members. -
Florence Kelley
Florence Kelley was a social reformer and political activist who championed government regulation to protect working women and children. She was Quaker.Kelley was born into a Pennsylvania Quaker and Unitarian family with a strong commitment to abolitionist and women's rights activism. Participated in Hull settlement in 1887. -
The Haymarket bombing
At Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, a bomb is thrown at a squad of policemen attempting to break up a labor rally. The police responded with wild gunfire, killing several people in the crowd and injuring dozens more.The demonstration, which drew some 1,500 Chicago workers, was organized by German-born labor radicals. -
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in December 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers of the Cigar Makers' International Union was elected president of the Federation at its founding convention and was reelected every year except one until his death in 1924. -
Sherman Anti-Trust Act
Approved July 2, 1890, The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was the first Federal act that outlawed monopolistic business practices. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 was the first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts.The Sherman Antitrust Act was the first measure enacted by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts (or monopolies of any type). Although several states had previously enacted similar laws, they were limited to intrastate commerce. -
Coxey's Army
Coxey’s Army, a group of unemployed who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. It was the only one of several groups that had set out for the U.S. capital to actually reach its destination. Led by Jacob S. Coxey, a businessman, it left Massillon, Ohio, on March 25, 1894, with about 100 men and arrived in Washington on May 1 with about 500. -
Anthracite Coal Mine Strike
Ended on Roosevelts term. Was first negotiated strike. the United Mine Workers went on strike. The union demanded 3 things before they went back to work. 10% wage increase 8 hr. work day instead of 10 and they wanted to be recognized and they wanted every coal miner to be a part of their union. Roosevelt took their demands into consideration -
Lochner v. New York
landmark US labor law case in the US Supreme Court, holding that limits to working time violated the Fourteenth Amendment.. Declared unconstitutional a New York act limiting the working hours of bakers due to a denial of the 14th Amendment rights. -
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City burned, killing 145 workers. Resulted in new safety legislation for building codes. The company's owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, who survived the fire by fleeing to the building's roof when the fire began, were indicted on charges of first- and second-degree manslaughter in mid-April. -
International Seamen's Union
Trade unions like the ISU provided much of the impetus for the bill, further promoted by the increasing international tensions in the years preceding World War I. The bill was first proposed in 1913, but became law after the beginning of hostilities in Europe, though before the United States joined the conflict. The sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912 raised the issue of safety at sea as a political issue as well. -
Coronado Coal Company v. United Mine Workers
Coronado Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers of America refers here to two separate cases heard by the U.S. Supreme Court during the tenure of Chief Justice William Howard Taft. Both arose from Arkansas’s Sebastian County Union War of 1914 and featured the same parties: the Coronado Coal Company and District No. 21, a local Arkansas branch of the United Mine Workers of America. -
Clayton Antitrust Act
The Clayton Antitrust Act is an amendment passed by U.S. Congress in 1914 that provides further clarification and substance to the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 on topics such as price discrimination, price fixing and unfair business practices. The Acts are enforced by the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. -
Workingman's Compensation Act
The WCA is formally known as the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA), and it provides financial assistance to federal employees who have been injured at work. It also gives injured workers access to medical services and rehabilitation, if needed, as well as providing help to their families. -
Adamson Act
The Adamson Act was a United States federal law passed in 1916 that established an eight-hour workday, with additional pay for overtime work, for interstate railroad workers.The terms that were embodied in the act were negotiated by a committee of the four railroad labor brotherhoods of engineers, firemen, brakemen and conductors, chaired by Austin B. Garretson -
Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923)
In Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923), the Supreme Court ruled that a minimum wage law for women violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment because it abridged a citizen's right to freely contract labor. In 1918, the District of Columbia passed a law setting a minimum wage for women and children laborers. -
New Deal
By 1932, one of the bleakest years of the Great Depression, at least one-quarter of the American workforce was unemployed. When President Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933, he acted swiftly to try and stabilize the economy and provide jobs and relief to those who were suffering, I mean, what a beast!. -
Congress of Industrial Organizations
One of the great conflicts within the labor movement existed between the craft unions and the industrial unions. When the American Federation of Labor indicated reluctance to organize unskilled workers, John L. Lewis created the Committee for Industrial Organization within the AFL in 1935. In following year, unwilling to accommodate the CIO`s demands, the AFL expelled the members of the CIO, who organized themselves into the Congress of Industrial Organizations two years later. -
The Wagner Act
Also known as the Wagner Act, this bill was signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt on July 5, 1935. It established the National Labor Relations Board and addressed relations between unions and employers in the private sector. -
Taft-Hartley act
a United States federal law that restricts the activities and power of labor unions. The act, still effective, was sponsored by Senator Robert A. Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr., and became law by overcoming U.S. President Harry S. Truman's veto on June 23, 1947; labor leaders called it the "slave-labor bill" while President Truman argued that it was a "dangerous intrusion on free speech," -
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
U.S. exports to Canada and Mexico support more than three million American jobs and U.S. trade with NAFTA partners has unlocked opportunity for millions of Americans by supporting Made-in-America jobs and exports. entered into force in January 1994.