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V. SOCIAL WELL-BEING

A. Improvement of Conditions during the Nineteenth Century, 18851

The general industrial and social advance achieved in the United States during the first three quarters of the nineteenth century, in which the laboring class shared, is here set forth. While it may be acknowledged that the average worker to-day enjoys more comforts and has a higher standard of living than his grandfather or great-grandfather was able to command, this does not determine the question as to whether labor has shared equally with capital in the general advance.

During the early years of the century, then, we find little mechanical skill, and crude and imperfect machines. Muscle was essential to the workman, and what he accomplished was secured by purely manual, frequently monotonous and irksome labor, resulting in a product generally substantial, but often clumsy, and exhibiting, as a rule, little economy in the use of material or science in the adjustment of its parts. If the absence of machinery was a blessing to the laborer, then in that respect the early American artisan was in an ideal state.

HOURS OF LABOR

The hours of labor in nearly all industries were measured by the sun, from sunrise to sunset constituting the working day. Not until 1824 was the subject of shorter hours agitated, and not until 1840 were shorter hours adopted to any extent; it was several years after that date before ten hours became the rule in the mechanic trades, while in the textile industries the ten hour system is a modern innovation, as yet adopted only in Massachusetts, so far as America is concerned.

HOUSEHOLD COMFORTS POSSESSED BY THE LABORER

Laborers at the beginning of the century had few of the comforts and conveniences now common in the poorest families. China, glassware, and carpets, to say nothing of the numberless contrivances now in use for facilitating household labor, were then practically out of reach. Dwellings were warmed by open fires of wood, while churches were not warmed at all. The iron cook stove for economically and efficiently aiding the culinary operations of the family had not yet appeared. Anthracite coal, though for fifteen years in use on black

1 History of Wages and Prices in Massachusetts: 1752-1883. Sixteenth Annual Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, Parts III and IV (Boston, 1885), 10-15.

smiths' forges in the coal region, was unavailable for household purposes, and in 1806 the first freightage of a few hundred bushels was brought down to Philadelphia, and there used experimentally with indifferent success.

The artisan's food was simple, often coarse, and in fact confined to the bare necessities of life. The wide range of products which now enrich the workingman's table, brought to him from all the markets of the world by the modern system of rapid transportation, were many of them unknown, or if known were expensive luxuries only obtainable by the favored few.

"Among the fruits and vegetables of which no one had then even heard, are cantaloupes, many varieties of peaches and pears, tomatoes and rhubarb, sweet corn, the cauliflower, the egg plant, head lettuce, and okra.

"If the food of an artisan would now be thought coarse, his clothes would be thought abominable. A pair of yellow buckskin or leathern breeches, a checked shirt, a red flannel jacket, a rusty felt hat cocked up at the corners, shoes of neat's skin set off with huge buckles of brass, and a leathern apron, comprised his scanty wardrobe." 1

The wealthy and more genteel wore silks, velvets and broadcloth of foreign manufacture, but the laboring classes were confined to coarse fabrics of home production.

EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL ADVANTAGES

At the beginning of the century the educational advantages surrounding the workingman were few. Although common schools were early established in Massachusetts, yet judged by modern standards. they were poor indeed. Hard by the church stood the school, but hard by the school on every village green stood, through all the early years, the gallows, stocks, and whipping post, and within, the rooms were bare and unattractive, and unprovided with apparatus for aiding the teacher's work. In school government the rod played an important part. . . .

The opportunities for social enjoyment were no broader. An extensive inquiry into the social life of workingmen at the present day, undertaken by the Bureau in 1879,2 showed the existence in Massachusetts of large numbers of social, farmers', and mechanics' clubs;

1 McMaster.

A History of the People of the United States. Vol. 1, p. 97.

2 See Eleventh Annual Report, pp. 239-293.

base ball, rowing, and sailing clubs; secret societies offering social opportunities to members; literary and debating societies; musical societies; halls for dancing, billiard rooms, and bowling alleys, and other avenues of enjoyment practically open to all and utilized by a considerable number. A similar inquiry at any time during the first quarter of the century would have disclosed few such social institutions. The industrial population was too much diffused, the character of the labor too severe, and the hours of labor too long to permit of their existence.

It is frequently said that there were fewer class distinctions and greater social equality in early New England life than now. This is undoubtedly true if by social equality is meant equality of condition. But the same causes that have operated to separate society into classes have, as we shall show, placed at the command of the manual workman opportunities for mental growth and social enjoyment unknown to the most favored in the early days. These opportunities have become his permanent possession. They constitute his environment. In modern society not only are all classes united by ties which cannot be broken except through revolution, and each class dependent upon every other to a degree never before known, but the social privileges of the present are open to the many and can no longer be monopolized by the few.

MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION.

FACILITIES POSSESSED BY THE

WORKINGMAN FOR CHANGING HIS LOCATION

Transportation upon water was confined to sailing vessels, and upon land to wagons. The roads were very poor, although after 1800 the construction of turnpikes improved the means of communication between the larger towns. These were introduced by corporations, at first operated as toll roads, and finally assumed by the towns.

Canals, primitive in construction and crudely operated, were coming to be relied upon as avenues of internal commerce. These afterward reached a high point of development until superseded by the railway. Neither upon sea nor land in 1800 was steam employed in transportation. . .

The postal service was insufficient and far from rapid, while the rates were extremely high. Nine different rates were established in 1792, varying from six cents for thirty miles to twenty-five for four hundred and fifty miles and over, and this schedule continued in force for many years. Missives were as frequently sent by private

carriers as otherwise and sometimes weeks would elapse in the transit between places no farther apart than Boston and Philadelphia. On the average each person in the country, for the period of five years ending with 1799, sent but 16 missives by the mails, while for the single year 1875 the average was 23 per person, or at the rate of 117 for five years, and the use of the mails has since increased, and is increasing. Nothing could better show the change in public importance of the mail service than the enormous increase here indicated.

The railroad, telegraph, and telephone are all comparatively modern inventions. By means of steam and electricity London, Liverpool, and San Francisco are to-day nearer Boston for all practical business purposes than were New York or Philadelphia at any time prior to 1820.

The comparative isolation of business centres and the lack of facilities for rapid communication between them materially affected the condition of the wage laborer. The risks of business were greater, and no industry could be considered permanent when it was impossible to forecast the state of the market; for instance, the manufacturer in Massachusetts was for weeks ignorant of affairs in centres of distribution like Philadelphia which might materially affect the price of his product. All commerce and manufacturing were then of the nature of a venture, and the labor dependent upon industrial operations thus limited remained more or less uncertain of employment.

The same conditions which prevented the free and rapid exchange of products, raised the price and limited the variety of articles for household consumption, except such supplies as eggs, corn and rye meal, etc., which could be easily and cheaply procured on the farms near the consumer; and, beyond all, the laborer could not easily change his environment. Once located it was difficult for him to remove to other industrial neighborhoods, and this frequently operated to his disadvantage by limiting his employment and reducing his wage.

WAGES, AND THE PURCHASING POWER OF MONEY

A system of barter was common in business transactions. Money was scarce and wages were frequently paid in groceries or clothing, or in orders for such commodities, the orders passing from hand to hand as currency. Of actual money the workingmen had little, and, when cash became absolutely necessary, they were often obliged to change store orders therefor at considerable discount.

Employers kept stores of groceries, clothing, boots and shoes,

hats, and particularly liquors and tobacco, and it is evident from the inspection of old account books that a liberal share of the wages of labor was paid in rum and gin.

B. Condition of Workers, 19021

In the Fall of 1992 Mr. A. Mosely, a British manufacturer, brought a group of twenty-three English workingmen, chosen by the leading unions of England, to this country to investigate conditions of industry. On their return home, each delegate made a report, which were published in book form. The following extract is taken from the preface by Mr. Mosely.

My personal conclusion is that the true-born American is a better educated, better housed, better fed, better clothed, and more energetic man than his British brother, and infinitely more sober; as a natural consequence, he is more capable of using his brains as well as his hands. Many of the men, however, holding leading positions are either English or Scotch, and the American himself is justly proud of his British descent.

One of the principal reasons why the American workman is better than the Britisher is that he has received a sounder and better education, whereby he has been more thoroughly fitted for the struggles of after life; . . .

In my previous trips to America I had been forcibly struck by the up-to-date methods of production there, both from a business standpoint and as regards the equipment of their workshops. The manufacturers there do not hesitate to put in the very latest machinery at whatever cost, and from time to time to sacrifice large sums by scrapping the old whenever improvements are brought out. One man in charge of a large department said to me: “One of the reasons of our success is the readiness of all our men to drop existing modes of production as soon as it is demonstrated that there is something better." Labour-saving machinery is widely used everywhere and is encouraged by the unions and welcomed by the men, because experience has shown them that in reality machinery is their best friend. It saves the workman enormous manual exertion, raises his wages, tends towards a higher standard of life, and, further, rather creates work than reduces the number of hands employed.

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My own observations lead me to believe that the average American manufacturer runs his machinery at a much higher speed than is

1 Mosely Industrial Commission to the United States of America, Oct.-Dec., 1902. Reports of the Delegates (London, 1903), 6–9, passim.

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