Industrial Workers In The Late 1800s

During the late 1800s the differences between the wealthy industrialists and the average American worker were enormous. While successful businessman like Andrew Carnegie made millions, some factory workers made as little as six dollars a week. Poor families were living in filthy, overcrowded tenements and struggled to make a living because of unfair wages. This was a major problem in the late 1800’s and it is illustrated well by the political cartoon “The Protectors of Our Industries” by Bernhard Gillam. Industrial workers were treated very poorly by the large corporations that they were working for. Gilliam’s cartoon shows how the business practices of robber barons such as Jay Gould were dishonest and how they took advantage of the industrial worker. The cartoon depicts multiple wealthy industrialists including Cornelius Vanderbilt, Russell Sage, Jay Gould and Cyrus Field. They are sitting on a raft with their large bags of money, which represent their millions of dollars. Many oppressed industrial workers are holding up the raft. These workers are only getting paid

Many industrial workers were immigrants living in poverty. They were forced to work very long hours for very little money. As shown in the cartoon, paper workers earned the highest, making only 16 dollars a week. Even though wealthy industrialists made millions, the workers were still paid very unfairly. It was also very hard for workers to improve their pay and working conditions. Strikes did not happen very often because they usually hurt the workers even more. When employees tried to strike the employees would often use “lockouts” to stop them. They would lock the workers out of the building and they would be stuck without pay. The practices of the robber barons shown in the cartoon had negative impacts on the factory workers and greatly affected their