The period of 1870-1910 was an era of vigorous economic growth in the United States. Steel, oil, and railroad industries, among others, had rapidly expanded and generated huge profits, which consequently increased the gross domestic product of the nation. The multitudes of immigrants were considered a ready source of cheap labor that stimulated industrialization. On the one hand, a wider economic aisle emerged, which was, however, accompanied by the growing problems of workers and the labor force, which manifested in the form of strikes and other protests. This presented a paradox where labor protests escalated despite economic prosperity. The protests were fueled by extreme inequalities in wealth and unfair distribution of gains, hazardous working conditions and exploitation of workers, and suppression of labor rights and disenfranchisement of the working class from political power. Despite the period of 1870 to 1910 being generally prosperous for the United States, labor protests developed due to the stark wealth disparities, harsh working conditions,suppression of labor rights, and the emergence of labor unions as vehicles for collective action.
Despite rising aggregate output and incomes nationally, the gains were distributed extremely unequally, with capitalists and industrial titans accumulating massive fortunes. At the same time, ordinary workers faced declining real wages and deepening poverty. Capitalist robber barons and industrial titans largely captured all the economic gains, while ordinary workers faced stagnant or declining real wages and income inequality. The contradictory state of the economy, with wealth accumulation for the big corporations combined with little or no benefit to the labor class, ignited the flames of working-class radicalism and protests.
Despite substantial economic growth lifting G.D.P. and generating vast fortunes for men like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and JP Morgan, working-class Americans saw surprisingly negligible gains compared to skyrocketing productivity. Consequently, labor agitation grew dramatically during this ‘Gilded Age.’ Real average annual earnings for non-farm workers rose only $29 from 1870 to 1910 – from $380 to $409. This represented a tiny pay boost for over four decades of soaring national economic output. Profits were usually invested back into capital or taken as profits by entrepreneurs and business people instead of being distributed to workers as higher wages. The rich amassed a tremendous amount of wealth in a short period, while ordinary workers had to live in tenement houses and work without workplace protections. Such a paradox of overall national wealth accumulating alongside deep labor exploitation became the source of the left-oriented labor protests and the struggle for wealth redistribution.
The workers started losing all motivation to work for long hours in dangerous places while people became richer through their sweat and labor. Despite the fact that most unions were not seeing much benefit from economic growth, labor unions such as the Knights of Labor and I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World) often advocated more radical policies demanding higher pay, better working conditions, shorter hours, and the creation of social welfare programs. Due to the fact that real wages for workers failed to catch up with the great industrial expansion and productivity growth, the labor movement challenged this trend. It demanded a fair portion of the newly created wealth from the economy. Workers, in effect, rebelled against a state of affairs in which an economy was healthy nationally, while industry earnings set record highs, yet wages lagged.
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In contrast to the growing economy, workers were still forced to endure harsh and life-threatening conditions at work. The construction of railways, steel mills, oil refineries, and factories was contingent on the use of immigrant and child laborers who were working for many hours under unstable conditions. As the economy’s top-line indicators, such as aggregate output and profits, reached new highs year after year, there occurred a dramatic decline in the working standards and safety conditions for ordinary workers. On average, thirty-five thousand workers died annually in accidents in this period, and over a million became injured as well. In 1907 alone, with no modern safety regulations, machinery accidents fatally injured more than 500 people weekly. Company doctors and lawyers made agreements to stop disabled workers from getting disability pensions or compens
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