The Gilded Age “American Workers and the Labor Movement in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Eric Arnesen

·  This essay is readily available on Questia or other search places.

·  I have copies

·  Please read closely

·  The following is just a suggestion to guide you—I stopped halfway through—by then you will probably need no help. Please annotate as you read.

Let’s look closely at the essay and try to get a handle on it.

1.  What was the ‘perfect storm’ or the conditions in the US after the US Civil War, during the Gilded Age, to bring about insurrections?

2.  Or, to put it another way . . .

3.  Why were there so many strikes and lockouts in the late 1880s? What was labor reacting to?

4.  How did status quo react? (The capitalists, the leaders of industry, the middle class WASPs, the churches, the schools) and the presses react? Why?

5.  How did labor ultimately in the US react? Why do you think this was different that in other industrialized nations? (Labor played a huge important part in Germany, Britain, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands, Poland, France . . .Japan (eventually)

6.  The historian Arnesen, an influential labor expert, discusses the diversity of the US labor force. Did this hinder or help labor? Why? Or Why not? You really need to know this.

7.  The Knights of Labor were formed to deal with the problems. Can you please list some of their characteristics, accomplishments, some of their challenges AND (quiz material) talk and list why they ultimately failed? Please be able to prioritize these reasons for this huge union’s failure.

8.  Please know about Haymarket, talk about Haymarket and the results of this fiasco. This is a small question with long answers. In order to answer you need to have an understanding of Anarchism. Please understand that the nation’s identity is still working this out . . . (IA topic—connect it to the Weather Underground of the 1960s-70s . . .)

9.  Please write the differences, the paths, the similarities and characteristics of both the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor below.

You need dates, places, ideologies, successes, lasting influence, leaders and acceptance by the US populace amongst this list.

Knight of Labor / Both / AFL

According to Arnesen and your own ideas, why did the status quo react to Haymarket and other protests this way?