American Labor Essay, Research Paper

Labor, Immigrants, and Urban Life

The late 1800 s was a time period filled with rapid growth of the industries and cities in America, and it led to more opportunities for jobs, education, and entertainment.

American farmers in the 19th-century experienced recurring periods of hardship. Several basic factors were involved — soil exhaustion, the hardships of nature, a decline in self-sufficiency, and the lack of adequate legislative protection and aid. Perhaps most important, however, was the farmers debts due to the railroads. The amount of land under cultivation grew rapidly throughout the second half of the century, as the railroads and the gradual displacement of the Plains Indians opened up new areas for western settlement. The farther west the settlers went, the more dependent they became on the railroads to move their goods to market. At the same time, farmers paid high costs for manufactured goods as a result of the protective tariffs that Congress, backed by Eastern industrial interests, had long supported. Over time, the Midwestern and Western farmer fell ever more deeply in debt to the banks that held their mortgages.

At the beginning, there really wasn t much done about this railroad situation except that a few states passed movements limiting railroad and warehouse fees. When the Farmer s Alliances came into existence, a huge regulation, if not a nationalization, of the railroads was called for. However, President Theodore Roosevelt, who allowed for the extension of government supervision over the railroads which prompted the passage of major regulatory bills, took the big initiative. One of the bills made published rates the lawful standard and shippers equally liable with railroads for rebates.