The negative effect brought political controversy resulting in riots, poor working conditions, child labor, death of workers, greed for the rich and immigrants also wanting to work and the positive effect was improving and developing the south. As industries, such as railroads and steel started to grow throughout the north, there was a greater need for workers. Not only did black people come from the south for these jobs, but Immigrants also started to come to the United States from other countries.
There's a specialist from your university waiting to help you with that essay.
Tell us what you need to have done now!
order now
Due to the growing population in the north, the factories were also over populated with workers including children. Whilst the factory population was growing, the factory owners were not concerned for their workers or the city’s welfare. Factories were unsanitary, noisy and smoky, due to these conditions around 35,000 workers died on the assembly line within a twenty year time period (Shultz, 2012). With such working conditions and economic growth, there was a major change within the politics where it became corrupt and greed became prominent.
Politicians focused more on businesses rather than the workers who actually contributed to business. If the businesses want to strive and be successful they could only rely on the politicians. These were the people in power to help them and they did so by offering ‘favors’ or ‘bribes’ to essentially to “turn the other cheek”. To receive such things like tax relief, land grants or other such favors, business owners would offer the politicians’ stock options or cash and this happened nationally and locally.
Essentially while the corruption is happening, there was no type of support and or backing from the government for the workers because they were not a priority to them. The workers had to continue working how the business owners want them to work. There was also an issue of how hard they had to work only to receive very little wages and very long hours to actually try and make a living. In each household not only did the parents work but the children often as young as six years old also had to work so that they could try to survive.
Some children worked in the factory with their parents or in the coal mines. ‘As the industrial workforce grew, tensions increased between labor and management. They disagreed over issues such as wages, length of the working day, and working conditions. Labor unions emerged to protect the rights of workers and to represent them in negotiations with management. Most employers vigorously opposed trade union activity, and struggles between workers and employers often became violent. ’ (http://www. countriesquest. om/north_america/usa/history/industrialization_and_urbanization/labor. htm) The labor union that emerged was the Knights of Labor; they focused on helping everyone in the lower working class like factory workers and farm helpers. They represented women and accepted African-American and immigrant workers. They hosted many successful protests and had more than 750,000 members between 1869 and 1886. However, the influence the Knights of Labor had faded away because the founder T Powderly did not believe in strikes as it would jeopardize how the public viewed them.
As a result when the Haymarket riot occurred it ended the knights of labor union. The other union that emerged was the American Federation of Labor and they became the leading labor organization. Industrialization and Urbanization was not as present in the south as it was in the north, this was for the shear fact that the south depended on slavery and the domination of plantation owners (Shultz, 2012). A man Henry Grady believed that the south should participate in industrializing like the north.
Due to the development of railroads, this led the South’s growth and created such industries like iron and cotton and textiles. Due to the reluctance to increase wages for the black population in the south, industries such as iron could not grow any further resulting in immigrants preferring to settle in the north rather that the south because of low wages. ‘Southern blacks (the vast majority of the nation’s African Americans) were consigned to inferior roles and segregated lives. Segregation laws, or Jim Crow laws as
