## Learning Outcomes

- Explain how industrialization changed the composition of the American workforce in **Period 6 (1865–1898)**
- Identify why employers relied on immigrants, women, and children as low-wage labor
- Recall major examples of child labor, including textile mills, coal breakers, and factories
- Compare the goals and membership of the **Knights of Labor** and the **American Federation of Labor**
- Analyze how labor conditions contributed to major strikes and federal intervention
- Evaluate how far Gilded Age governments regulated labor and child labor before 1900

## AP United States History Syllabus

For the AP United States History, you are expected to understand industrial labor in the Gilded Age, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know that rapid industrialization after the Civil War expanded the **industrial workforce**
- Identify the growing role of **immigrants, women, and children** in factories, mills, mines, and railroads
- Explain why **child labor** increased, including family poverty, employer demand for cheap labor, and weak regulation
- Understand major examples of harsh labor conditions, including long hours, low wages, and dangerous workplaces
- Distinguish between the broad reform goals of the **Knights of Labor** and the narrower skilled-worker focus of the **AFL**
- Recognise major labor conflicts such as the **Great Railroad Strike (1877)**, **Haymarket Affair (1886)**, **Homestead Strike (1892)**, and **Pullman Strike (1894)**
- Explain how state-level reform before 1900 was uneven and usually weaker than later Progressive Era reform
- Analyze how labor conditions reflected broader APUSH themes of **Work, Exchange, and Technology**, **Migration and Settlement**, and **Social Structures**

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. Why did industrial employers in the Gilded Age hire large numbers of children and women?
2. What kinds of jobs did child laborers do in coal mines, textile mills, and factories?
3. How did the **Knights of Labor** differ from the **American Federation of Labor**?
4. Why did harsh labor conditions lead to major strikes in the 1870s-1890s?
5. How far did governments protect workers and children before 1900?

## Introduction

Between **1865 and 1898**, the United States changed from a country still rooted in agriculture into a major industrial power. That change did not just create steel mills, railroads, and factories. It also created a much larger **industrial working class** made up of wage earners who depended on employers for survival. For APUSH, this matters because labor in the Gilded Age links economic growth to inequality, immigration, urban poverty, and reform.

A key feature of this new system was the heavy use of vulnerable workers: immigrants, women, and children. Industrial growth created jobs, but many of those jobs were dangerous, repetitive, and badly paid. The result was a workforce that helped make the American economy stronger while also exposing the harsh side of industrial capitalism.

> **Key Term: industrial workforce**
> The growing body of wage earners in factories, mills, mines, railroads, and other industrial jobs during the late 19th century.

### How industrialization changed the workforce

Before the Civil War, many Americans still worked mainly in agriculture or small-scale craft production. In the Gilded Age, that pattern shifted sharply. Large factories, steel plants, railroad companies, and mines needed a constant supply of labor. This meant more people worked for **wages** rather than as independent producers.

> **Key Term: wage labor**
> Work done in return for regular pay rather than for ownership of land, tools, or finished goods.

This shift mattered for two reasons.

First, wage workers were more dependent on employers than small farmers or artisans had been. If a crop failed, a farmer still had some control over land and production. A factory worker who lost a job usually lost the family income at once. That dependence made workers vulnerable to wage cuts, long hours, and unsafe conditions.

Second, industrial growth increased demand for workers faster than many employers could meet it from native-born adult men alone. Manufacturers therefore turned to groups that could be hired more cheaply: recent immigrants, women, and children.

Immigrants became especially important in northern cities. After **1880**, many newcomers came from southern and eastern Europe and often settled in urban neighborhoods near factories. Employers valued them because they were numerous, often poor, and eager for work. Many had little bargaining power, which helped keep wages low.

Women also entered the workforce in larger numbers, especially in textile and garment work. Employers often paid them less than men for similar labor. This was not because the work was easy. It was because employers assumed women had fewer options and because gender discrimination was built into the labor market.

Children were pulled into this same system. In poor families, especially immigrant and working-class households, a child’s wage could help pay rent or buy food. This was not a sign that families preferred child labor. It was usually a survival strategy in an economy with weak protections and no modern welfare system.

> **Key Term: laissez-faire**
> A belief that the government should interfere as little as possible in the economy, including business and labor conditions.

Laissez-faire ideas made these patterns easier to sustain. If government should not interfere much, then low pay, long hours, and child labor could continue with limited restraint.

> **Test Tip:** In an SAQ or LEQ, do not just say "industrialization created jobs." Add who filled them: immigrants, women, and children. That turns a general statement into Period 6 analysis.

### Why child labor grew and what work children actually did

Child labor expanded because industrial capitalism rewarded cheap, flexible labor. Children could be paid less than adult men. They could also be assigned repetitive tasks that did not require advanced training. Employers saw them as economical. Families often saw their wages as necessary.

A useful statistic for APUSH is that the **1870 census** counted more than **750,000 workers under age 15**, and a common summary is that about **1 in 8 children** was employed. The real number was likely higher because many children working in agriculture or family settings were undercounted.

> **Key Term: child labor**
> The employment of children, often for low wages, long hours, and dangerous work, especially common in late 19th-century industry.

Children worked in several major industries:

- **Textile mills** — tending machines, replacing bobbins, cleaning around moving machinery
- **Coal mining** — especially as **breaker boys**, separating slate and waste from coal
- **Glass factories** — working near intense heat and moving materials
- **Garment workshops and sweatshops** — sewing, trimming, finishing clothing
- **Tobacco and cigar production** — repetitive hand tasks in processing
- Agriculture also used many children, though factory and mine labor often appears more directly in APUSH discussions of industrialization
  > **Key Term: breaker boys**
  > Boys employed in coal breakers to sort coal from rock and slate, usually in filthy and hazardous conditions.

Breaker boys are a strong example because they show exactly how industrial work could be both simple and dangerous. Boys sat or stood over moving coal, picking out debris by hand. The labor was dirty, exhausting, and risky. A child did not need much formal skill to do it, which is exactly why employers used boys. But that same fact also reveals exploitation: if a task can be done by a child for less pay, the employer saves money while the child bears the danger.

Textile mills offer another important example. Children were useful because they could move quickly between machines and work in narrow spaces. But this also put them near belts, gears, and spinning parts. If machinery was unguarded, injury could happen fast. Long hours made that worse. Some child workers put in **10-12 hour days**, often **six days a week**.

These conditions were not accidental. They were built into a system focused on output and low production costs. If electricity and machinery extended the workday and raised production, then employers had an incentive to keep machines running as long as possible. Child labor fit that system.

> **Key Term: sweatshop**
> A workplace marked by low pay, long hours, and unsafe or unhealthy conditions.

Not all child labor happened in giant factories. Some of it happened in smaller urban workshops that operated like sweatshops. These could be cramped, dim, and poorly ventilated, especially in garment work. Students sometimes imagine industrial labor only as large steel mills, but APUSH questions may expect a broader picture.

A common mistake is to treat child labor as only a Progressive Era issue. Reform became stronger later, but the growth of child labor belongs firmly to the **Gilded Age**.

> **Test Tip:** If a prompt asks how industrialization changed society, child labor is excellent evidence because it shows both economic growth and social cost at the same time.

### Labor unrest, unions, and the limits of reform

Harsh labor conditions led many workers to organize, but labor protest did not usually bring quick success. More often, it brought confrontation with employers, courts, police, militias, or federal troops.

The **Knights of Labor**, founded in **1869**, tried to organize a broad labor movement. They included skilled and unskilled workers and pushed for wide reforms: the **eight-hour workday**, better safety standards, equal pay ideas, and opposition to child labor. Their strength was breadth. They tried to challenge the labor system as a whole.

> **Key Term: Knights of Labor**
> A national labor organization founded in 1869 that organized skilled and unskilled workers and supported broad labor reform.

The **American Federation of Labor**, founded in **1886** and led by **Samuel Gompers**, took a narrower approach. It focused mainly on skilled workers and aimed at practical gains: higher wages, shorter hours, and improved conditions. It was less ambitious socially, but in some ways more durable.

> **Key Term: American Federation of Labor (AFL)**
> A labor federation founded in 1886 that focused mainly on skilled workers and sought practical workplace gains such as better wages and hours.

This distinction matters on the exam. The Knights attacked more of the whole labor system. The AFL concentrated more on "bread and butter" issues for its members.

Major strikes show how labor conflict worked:

- **Great Railroad Strike (1877)** — wage cuts triggered a major national strike; federal troops intervened
- **Haymarket Affair (1886)** — a labor protest linked to the eight-hour day turned violent after a bomb killed police; public opinion turned against radical labor activism
- **Homestead Strike (1892)** — steelworkers resisted wage cuts; violence with Pinkertons and later state militia helped crush the strike
- **Pullman Strike (1894)** — wage cuts and company-town conditions led to a huge rail boycott; federal power was used to break it

These events were not mainly child-labor campaigns, but they grew out of the same labor world: long hours, weak protections, low wages, and employer power.

Government usually sided with business. That pattern is essential. Federal troops broke the **Pullman Strike**, and in **In re Debs (1895)** the Supreme Court upheld federal action against the strike. In the same year, **U.S. v. E. C. Knight Co. (1895)** weakened antitrust enforcement against a monopoly. Together, these show a state more willing to restrain labor than big business.

Before **1900**, child-labor reform was mostly at the **state** level and was uneven. Some northern states moved earlier. **Pennsylvania** passed restrictions in the 1880s and created an **Office of Factory Inspection in 1889**. **Massachusetts** was also an earlier reform state. But laws were often weakly enforced. In parts of the South, reform lagged badly. **South Carolina** is a useful example of failed late-19th-century child-labor reform efforts.

This unevenness matters because it shows the limits of Gilded Age reform. Reform existed, but it was patchy, local, and often weaker than later Progressive Era measures such as the **Keating-Owen Act (1916)**.

So what is the big APUSH judgement? Industrial growth did rely heavily on low-wage labor from vulnerable groups. Children were not marginal to the story. They were part of how employers kept costs down. At the same time, this exploitation helped spark labor organization and laid groundwork for later reform.

### How to use this topic in essays

This subtopic works especially well in LEQ and DBQ essays because it can support several arguments at once.

If the prompt is about the effects of industrialization, use child labor and the industrial workforce as evidence that growth created both opportunity and exploitation. A strong paragraph might show a chain like this:

Industrial expansion increased factory demand for labor → employers recruited immigrants, women, and children because they could be paid less → families depended on wages to survive → long hours and unsafe conditions became common → labor unrest and union activity increased.

If the prompt is about continuity and change, you can argue:

- **Change:** the workforce became larger, more urban, and more diverse
- **Continuity:** workers still faced long hours, low wages, and weak legal protections

If the prompt is about politics and power, use this topic to show that government often favored business during the Gilded Age, even while some state-level reform began.

For complexity, avoid one-sided claims. Industrialization did create jobs and national growth. But those gains were built partly on exploitative labor systems, including child labor.

> **Test Tip:** In an LEQ, pair one broad claim with 2-3 sharp examples. For this topic, "industrialization expanded wage labor" is stronger when followed by "breaker boys in coal mines, child workers in textile mills, and the broad anti-child-labor goals of the Knights of Labor."

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- Rapid industrialization after **1865** created a much larger industrial workforce
- Wage labor made workers more dependent on employers than many earlier farmers and artisans had been
- Employers relied heavily on immigrants, women, and children as cheaper labor
- Child labor grew because poor families needed income and government regulation was weak
- Common child-labor jobs included work in textile mills, coal breakers, glass factories, and garment workshops
- **Breaker boys** in coal mining are a major example of dangerous child labor
- The **1870 census** counted more than **750,000 workers under age 15**
- The **Knights of Labor (1869)** supported broad labor reform and opposed child labor
- The **AFL (1886)** focused more narrowly on wages, hours, and conditions for mainly skilled workers
- Major labor conflicts included the **Great Railroad Strike**, **Haymarket**, **Homestead**, and **Pullman**
- Before 1900, labor and child-labor reform was mostly state-level, uneven, and often weakly enforced
- The Gilded Age government usually sided more with business than with labor

## Key Terms and Concepts

- industrial workforce
- wage labor
- laissez-faire
- child labor
- breaker boys
- sweatshop
- Knights of Labor
- American Federation of Labor (AFL)


Labor in the Gilded Age - Industrial workforce and child labor