A People’s History of the United States: Chapter 10 Summary & Analysis

In 1839, in the Hudson River Valley, a group of land tenants organized themselves and refused to pay rent. For generations, the Hudson Valley land had been owned by the same family, which made a huge income by renting out property to small farmers, or tenants. But following the national recession of 1837, many tenants found themselves unable to pay. Thousands of tenants joined together to protest the landlord system. In the end, the government sent troops, who threw more than three hundred tenants in prison. Thus, “the power of the law crushed the Anti-Rent movement.”

Around the same time, there was a minor stir in Rhode Island, known as Dorr’s Rebellion. In 1841, Thomas Dorr, a lawyer, mobilized working-class people to demonstrate for electoral reform, since, at the time, Rhode Island was the only state that didn’t grant universal suffrage for its white male residents. Dorr penned his own constitution, abolishing laws that required voters to own property. Dorr’s supporters unofficially voted for the constitution, and in 1842, Dorr led an attack on the state arsenal, hoping to arm his constituents and, it seems, found his own government. Dorr was arrested, charged with treason, and sentenced to jail time. Even after being imprisoned, he remained a martyr for many Americans who lacked property or power.

One rarely hears about Dorr or the Anti-Rent movement in American history textbooks—in fact, one rarely hears about any kind of class struggle. Many textbooks characterize Andrew Jackson as a “man of the people,” and yet the same textbooks spend little to no time talking about the “people” on whose behalf Jackson claimed to speak. Jackson may not have been a man of the people, but he was the first President to “master the liberal rhetoric” of speaking for the common man. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, presidents followed Jackson’s example by appealing to ordinary voters while continuing to protect the upper classes.

Jackson’s demagoguery emerged at a time when the “common man” was becoming increasingly powerful. The 19th century was the age of the train, the canal, and the telegraph. Ordinary people had new opportunities to travel and organize themselves. The 19th century was also an era of “booms and slumps,” when the economy grew at an unstable rate, so that working-class people were often unemployed. Wealthy industrialists, therefore, needed to be careful to keep the working classes submissive, while enlisting the government to protect business.

It’s unclear how widespread populist movements were in the early 19th century. However, it is clear that the early 1800s were the era when Americans first formed trade unions as a defense against exploitation. Workers ran candidates in elections, but many seemed to think that rioting and demonstrating were more reliable means of getting what they wanted. In Philadelphia in 1835, trade unions organized factory strikes in support of a ten-hour workday (at the time, much less than the average work day). Workers intimidated those who refused to strike, often targeting poor Irish immigrants.

In 1857, the labor movement was more widespread than ever. Women went on strike by themselves for the first time in years, and in New York and New Jersey, tens of thousands marched in support of higher wages and shorter hours. In 1860, the powerful shoe unions of New England went on strike, effectively ending the distribution of new shoes in the North. Strikes continued during the Civil War, when the price of food rose considerably. By 1864, about 200,000 workers belonged to a trade union. Many union workers opposed the Civil War, and went on strike to protest it—they couldn’t see the purpose of fighting for black slaves when they themselves worked in slave-like conditions. The federal government regularly sent troops to break strikes and attack war protesters. In 1863, the Union army broke up a massive riot in New York City, leaving about four hundred people dead.

Around the time of the Civil War, the government took series of measures to strengthen business interests. In 1861 Congress instituted a high tariff that allowed businesses to raise prices. The next year, it passed the Homestead Act, allowing anyone to purchase a homestead for a mere dollar per acre, provided that they cultivated the land for five years. While such an act might seem generous, one should keep in mind that, around the same time, Congress gave railroad companies control of more than one hundred million acres, free of charge.

The 19th century, Zinn says, was a time when “the law did not even pretend to protect working people—as it would in the next century.” When there were accidents at a factory, workers weren’t compensated for their suffering, and they had no way of suing their employers. Nevertheless, trade unions continued to fight for worker’s rights. In 1872, union strikers in New York succeeded in winning an eight-hour day. Other union strikes in the 1870s won with limited successes. Most unions of the late 19th century did not admit black people. However, some unions, such as the National Labor Union, gradually opened its doors to black and female members. Unions also began to tackle more ambitious reforms—for example, demanding the issuing of paper money, rather than scrip that could only be redeemed at a company-owned store.

In 1873, the U.S. entered another recession. While some workers tried to migrate to South America or Europe, many workers who’d previously avoided unions now joined them. 1877 was the year of the Railroad Strike, still one of the most important strikes in American history. The strike began when railroad companies cut wages; in response, railway workers in Ohio and West Virginia went on strike, refusing to allow any trains to pass through. The governor of West Virginia asked Rutherford Hayes to send troops and, after the number of strikers entered the thousands, Hayes responded, temporarily restoring business in West Virginia.

In spite of the troops in West Virginia, the railway strike spread to other cities, including Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. In Chicago, workers demonstrated to demand the nationalization of the railroads. Police officers attacked the crowds, killing three people. A similar pattern held in other American cities: workers demonstrated, and police or the military stepped in to “restore order.” In the end, the railroads made some concessions to the workers, but also strengthened their police force. By and large, the working classes’ attempts to go on strike against the railroads had failed: they were “not united enough, not powerful enough … but there was more to come.”