The Vote, Unions & the Farm

AMERICAN POLITICAL EXCEPTIONALISM IN THE 19TH CENTURY

LIBERTY IS EXPLOITATION

KNOW • LEARN WANT TOLEARN

TEACH THE OUTGROWTHS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY VOTE As the revolutionary fervor of the war for

independence cooled, the new American republic might easily have hardened into rule by an aristocracy. Instead, the electoral franchise expanded and the democratic creed transformed every aspect of American society.

Who Were Americans in the Antebellum period?

Unique, largely classless system Religious – owned a Bible & Shakespeare Land Hungry – Manifest Destiny – “Vote

Yourself a Farm” – Mexican-American War A Nation of Voters Literary focus was on nature & on self-

reliance

POLITICS, BARBEQUE, TENTS & SHAKESPEARE

ANTEBELLUM AMERICA

We define ourselves

                                                                                                                                                                            

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/TOUR/home.html

USE ART IN THE CLASSROOM

1820- NIAGARA

1889

SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM (SAAM)

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

EMERSON

• Individualism

• Self-Reliance

LYCEUMS – PHILOSOPHY WAS A POPULAR PASTTIME

• Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.

Henry David Thoreau

Walden Pond

“I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.”

Uncle Tom’s CabinHarriet Beecher Stowe, 1852

Uncle Tom's Cabin can be read as a point of arrival in a long American quest to evolve a morality out of the Puritan heritage, the words of the chartering documents of the Republic, the ethos of the Enlightenment, and the values of Transcendentalism.

See Reader’s Theatre

MEET My FRIENDS – CHARTISTSIN AMERICA

•THOMAS AINGE DEVYR •WILLIAM JAMES LINTON•DANIEL WEAVER

AND P.S. ANDREW CARNEGIE & ALLAN PINKERTON

MAKING THE CASE FOR CASE STUDIES, HISTORY THROUGH BIOGRAPHY

TAKE A LOOK AT THE CASE STUDIES IN KANSAS AND OF

LABORING CHILDREN

CHARTIST DREAMS

It was common for people who had battled for universal manhood suffrage and annual parliaments in Britain to hail the United States as the exemplar of their dreams. “Here,” proclaimed Irish-born John Binns from Philadelphia, “the people are sovereign.”

CHARTISTS

EXPELLED FROM BRITAIN FOR PRESENTING THE CHARTER – A PETITION TO REQUEST THE RIGHT TO VOTE FOR BRITISH WORKING MEN

Peterloo - Manchester1819 - St Peter's Fields, armed cavalry charged a peaceful crowd of around 60,000 people gathered to listen to anti-poverty and pro-democracy speakers. It is estimated that 18 were killed, and over 700 seriously injured.

SPORTS TO KEEP THE MASSES IN LINE

*Vote rose from 435,000 to 652,000 (1 in 7 men)*56 rotten boroughs removed •large industrial cities were given more MP's

But : *No secret ballot After 1832- numerous factory and mines acts TO PREVENT abuse of child and women labor

BRITISH REFORM ACT OF 1832

REFORM ACTs OF 1867 & 18841867 – wealthier urban workers could vote • Franchise increased to 2.5 million but there

were 30 million people in Britain. Poor still denied the vote

• 45 constituencies were moved to towns and cities from small rural/countryside areas

But : No women could vote & No secret ballot

1872 - Secret Ballot Act1884 - Third Reform Act increased the number of

working class men who could vote to 5 mil men

LABORERSDON’T GET THE RIGHT TO VOTE UNTIL AFTER WWI

THEY DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO STRIKE &

ORGANIZE UNTIL 20th century

WHAT MAKES AMERICA DIFFERENT?

THE VOTELegal unionsAND THE FARM

It is that simple and that complex. What changes as a result of the vote? Of the ability to form unions? OR farm?

There were nearly as many dreams as there were Chartists.

So the 19th century saw promise in America; its institutions promised themMuch, its vast public lands and rapidly emerging industries promises more.

Horace Greeley, The Junius Tracts on Labor & Capital:

American labor commands its own price…compact…is made Freely…the workers are held in respect…The political position Of labor here is all-powerful…As a nation of workers we demand From Government a security for the interests and rights of labor…The rights of labor…secured at the ballot box…The free American Laborer is the most powerful, and may well be the proudest of men. 1844

Advantages over European are manifest:But the position of labor in this country is, in a variety of important particulars, a new one in society. 1) It is free—with the EXCEPTION OF AFRICAN SLAVE LABOR.

This implies a practical be alternative to working on wages at the price fixed by the employer. In Europe…the laborer is compelled to work at the price in which he has no voice or he must starve… European labor is a state of slavery without hope.

Devyr expressed this belief when he was arraigned in Newcastle before “their masquerading lordships in their black gowns and white wigs.” One of them reproached Devyr and his Chartist associates for “committing not only a crime but a folly, in assuming that the mass could govern, instead of being governed.”

DEVYR, The Odd Book of the 19th Century

To which the irrepressible Devyr replied: “It is a glorious sunset streaming through that gothic window. Did your lordship ever hear of a great country lying away in the direction of that setting sun?

Did you hear that its people assume to govern themselves? Actually do the very thing that your lordship informs us cannot be done?”

DEVYR

ANTI-RENT

Serfdom existed in Dutch NY – a vestige of theSerfdom existed in Dutch NY – a vestige of the patroonpatroon system still in existence in mid-19th century system still in existence in mid-19th century

ANTI-WAGE SLAVERY

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lincolns/nation/vid_wages.html

DEVYR HATED ABOLITIONISTS.He worked with Fitzhugh against abolition because he believed freed slaves would compete with labor, driving downWages.

DEVYR JOINS HENRY GEORGE IN THE “VOTE YOURSELF A

FARM” MOVEMENT

REPUBLICAN LINCOLN INFURIATES DEVYR FOR STEALING THEIR PLATFORM IN 1860.

LINCOLN MAKES THE DREAM REAL IN THE HOMESTEAD ACT OF 1862

A FARM MEANS…• DIGNITY

• INDIVIDUALISM

• EGALITARIANISM = SHAKING HANDS

• CABALLERO (HORSEMAN) TRANSLATE TO “GENTLEMEN

• AMERICANS ARE CITIZENS, NOT SUBJECTS

AMERICA IN THE ROMANTIC AGE IS PRACTICAL AND

CELEBRATORY• Isn’t that logical?

• Free land

• Vote

• Wilderness

• Real Heroes

• With the dark cloud of chattel slavery

http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/homestead-act/

AMERICA – THE HOME TO INTERNATIONAL

REPUBLICANISM & DREAMS

Garibaldi

Kossuth

Shakers

Oneida – anti-slavery

WILLIAM LINTON

• COMES TO THE US VOLUNTARILY TO MAKE MONEY

• AND USE FREE SPEECH TO FURTHER THE CAUSE OF INTERNATIONAL REPULICANISM OF MAZZINI, KOSSUTH, ETC.

• INTERNATIONALLY KNOWN ARTISAN

ENGRAVER WITHOUT THE RIGHT TO VOTE

IN Britain

LINTON TO BEGIN A UTOPIAN REPUBLIC IN MONTANA

• Jay Gould’s gold scandal and loss of the Northern Pacific spells its end.

LINTON INTRODUCES AMERICA TO THE BRITISH:

• RHYTHM AND BEAUTY OF SLAVE SPIRITUALS

• And WALT Whitman

Whitman celebrated the freedom and dignity of the individual and sang the praises of democracy and the brotherhood of man. In 1855 Whitman published Leaves of Grass (Song of Myself) in which the author proclaims himself the symbolic representative of commonpeople.

WHITMAN

• I celebrate myself; / And what I assume you shall assume; / For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.—Leaves of Grass

I Hear America Singing By Walt Whitman

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—the hatter singing as he stands;

The wood-cutter’s song—the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning,

or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;The delicious singing of the mother—or of the young wife at work—

or of the girl sewing or washing—Each singing what belongs to her,

and to none else;The day what belongs to the day—at night, the party of young fellows,

robust, friendly,Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

THRILLED WITH THE OPPORTUNITY

• CHARTISTS TEACH AMERICANS TO ORGANIZE LABOR

• CONSTITUTIONAL, LEGAL

MEANS

• MUCH MORE PEACEFUL

THAN IN EUROPE

DANIEL WEAVER

• CHARTIST – ORGANIZES THE FIRST NATIONAL MINE WORKERS UNION IN ILLINOIS. (John Bates, another Chartist, led a local union in Pennsylvania.)

• ALL key players in the inception of union were British-born and Chartist. Organizers had no American precedents. Early efforts of 1830s/40s no longer applicable due to new industrial systems and wider range of competituion resulting from better transportation.

Weaver uses Press

• The Weekly Miner

• Includes all groups (various nationalities, etc.) Sets precedent for future national labor organizations.

Civil War

• Aided Labor – Put new value on coal for wartime purposes– Put new value on labor because it was being

drawn off for soldiers and not replenished from Europe.

– LABOR NEGOTIATION MOST SUCCESSFUL DURING AND IMMEDIATELY AFTER WAR

BRITISH CHARTISTS

• LEFT A COUNTRY IN WHICH THEY COULD NOT VOTE BUT IN WHICH THEIR GOVERNMENT HAD BEGUN TO ENACT SOME SAFETY LEGISLATION.

• American minders, despite their greater freedom from bond systems and their ability to vote had been unable to attain ANY protection

OTHER AMERICAN DISADVANTAGES

• Had the vote but no sense of NOBLESSE OBLIGE. Much of the safety and social legislation in Britain came from TORIES.

• However, American working class movements was more rapid and thorough in US because of the vote

Furman Owens, 12 years old. Can't read. Doesn't know his A,B,C's. Said, "Yes I want to learn but can't when I work all the time." Been in

the mills 4 years, 3 years in the Olympia Mill.

All photos & information courtesy of the History Place,Photos of Lewis Hine, 1908-12

One of the spinners in Whitnel Cotton Mill. She was 51 inches high. Has been in the mill one year. Sometimes works at night. Runs 4 sides

- 48 cents a day. When asked how old she was, she hesitated, then said, "I don't remember," then added confidentially, "I'm not old enough

to work, but do just the same.

Harley Bruce, a young coupling-boy at Indian Mine. He appears to be 12 or 14 years old and says he has been working there about a year. It

is hard work and dangerous

Young cigar makers in Engelhardt & Co. Three boys looked under 14. Labor leaders told me in busy times many small boys and girls were

employed. Youngsters all smoke.

1830s - many US states enforced laws to restrict the employment of young children in industries. But this had no effect on the rural communities.

Employers paid families with overpriced goods of the company, and allocate them houses in the company owned villages. For these amenities, the entire family would work for more than 72 hours a week, with men for heavy, women and children for lighter works.

Federal Laws against Child Labor

• State became stringent and regulated work conditions, limited the child labor. But these laws were not applicable to immigrants.

• Laws in America were always ignored, until 1904, when the National Child labor committee was formed by concerned people. This committee was chartered by Congress in 1907. When these people visited industries to inspect if they violated laws, young children were rushed out of their sight. Often the owners said that these children had come to the factory or mill for paying a visit to their mothers, or were helping their mothers.

After many attempts, many states passed stringent laws, and banned child labor. In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, also known as Federal Wage and Hour Law. This became constitutional in 1941 after a declaration by the US Supreme Court.

• No child would work more than 40 hours a week•minimum wage - 40 cents per hour•Minors below 16 not to work in hazardous industries•No age restrictions for children working in non-hazardous •Children were to work only outside their school hours and during vacations, but only for limited hours.

France

• MONARCHY

• REVOLUTION

• EMPIRE

• WAR

• MONARCHY

• REVOLUTION

• EMPIRE

GERMANIC LANDS

• EMPIRE

• WAR

• REVOLUTION

• EMPIRE

• REVOLUTION (1848)

• MONARCHY

• EMPIRE

ITALY

• GARIBALDI’S LOVE FOR U.S.

• EMPIRE

• WAR

• REVOLUTION

• MONARCHY

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD&

FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW

• “RAN AWAY”

• Slave and Slave owner’s perception on Slavery