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| Labor in the Age of Industrialization |
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Digital History ID 3185
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Labor conflict was never more contentious or violent in the
United States than during the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, when bloody confrontations wracked the railroad, steel,
and mining industries. During the early 1880s, there were about
500 strikes a year involving about 150,000 workers. By the 1890,
the number had climbed to a thousand a year involving 700,000
workers a year, and by the early 1900s, the number of strikes
had climbed to 4,000 annually. Some 500 times government sent
in militias or federal troops to put down labor strikes. While
most labor clashes took place in the mines and mills of the east
and Midwest, bloody incidents involving private police forces,
state militias, and federal troops also took place on the New
Orleans and San Francisco waterfronts and in the mining districts
of Colorado and Idaho.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
labor struggles were more acute in the United States than in
many European countries. Today, in contrast, labor relations
in the United States are more cooperative and less conflict-ridden
than elsewhere. The story of how the United States forged an
enduring and workable system of collective bargaining after more
than half a century of bitter struggles is one of the most important
themes in modern American history.
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