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Hour 1

DBQ

The Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor, or AFL, were the first national labor movements. However, these two unions and other's accomplishments were limited. Between the years of 1875 and 1900 organized labor worked to improve the position of workers but achieved little success while factors such as immigrant labor, lack of government support, and ineffective strikes all hurt the labor movement.

Document A shows that that organized labor had little success in lowering working hours and raising wages. Over the span of sixteen years the average daily hours only decreased by about half an hour and the average daily wages only increased by a little more then three dollars. These small fluctuations probably were not even primarily due to the actions of the unions, but to other factors such as reform sentiment, changes in management philosophy, and changes in technology. This fact is illustrated in Document D as it depicts a machinist's testimony on the differences between conditions under machinery in 1883 and ten years before. The worker states that the technology had developed substantially making production cheaper and requiring fewer hands to perform the job.

Another reason that organized labor achieved little success during this period was the failure of strikes. Document B sheds some light on the frustration of ineffective strikes. It states "The strike is apparently hopeless, and must be regarded as nothing more then a rash and spiteful demonstration of resentment by men too ignorant or too reckless to understand their own interests."