Labor in the BIg City | Teen Ink

Labor in the BIg City

June 18, 2013
By Confused_scheherazade ELITE, Brooklyn, New York, New York
Confused_scheherazade ELITE, Brooklyn, New York, New York
132 articles 0 photos 24 comments

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Along with the advanced development of industrial technology and mass urban movements, urbanization brought a variety of social, economic, and political consequences that highlighted the disparities between the poor and rich, ethnicities, and minorities. One such example was exhibited in the habitant of classes in the city, clearly divided between the lower-class workers who often lived in cheap, ethnic apartments, the comfortable middle-class who could afford sanitation and furniture, and the rich who lived in mansions and luxury. Also, the available to each of the urban castes varied upon economic/ethnic status, as many immigrants, usually Irish or German, and poor freed African Americans competed for the lowest-income positions as day-workers and domestic help. Urbanization led to a series of changes to Industrial America, as seen in the rise of Ethnic groups in major cities, the augmentation of slums and epidemics, and the increasing crime rate percentage that plagued and supported hostility of prosperous classes. Instability fueled by the decreasing employment availabilities and decline of the Artisan power prompted the activism of the working class. Industrial urbanization led to the reliance of mass cheap labor and machines, which led to the inadequate unemployment of many poor class workers, minorities and born-American, who rallied in Unions to help shift Urban politics and bring more worker active awareness toward universal manhood suffrage and rights. Furthermore, as to the aptitude of the political machine, which was a political and administrative organization, which used political enticements, such as political positions and social favors, in exchange for votes. In theory, this urban political system was idealized to serve the working-class constituency, yet had a more corrupt nature in reality favored of the interests of the organization itself was placed over those of the city to which it was supposed to benefit. The Political Machine did not have the moral or political strength to enrich the stricken economy post- market revolution, producing only superficial improvements for those who supported the Machine and it bosses.


The author's comments:
H.W. # 34:“Labor in the big city” Read pages 354-365 (to “Social...”) To what extent was early 19th century labor unrest a response to urbanization? Was the political machine a step forward for workers?

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