Working-Class Solidarity; Rebuilding Youngstown Undoubtedly work and place influence its surroundings. Youngstown, Ohio is emphasized as one in particular. As a result “steelmaking fueled the area’s economy and defined its identity” (68). The city was represented in newspapers, art work, postcards, and many texts as both “impressive and attractive” (75), as well as “imposing, confusing, and uninviting” (86). Considering the conflicting representations, steelmaking “also suggest(s) a key element of conflict in the community” that it was so clearly creating an identity for (69). At the end of chapter two in, Steel Town U.S.A., the authors, Sherry Lee Linkon and John Russo, define the importance of steelmaking in Youngstown, Ohio “as an important element of community life, a source of identity and solidarity, an activity that brought pride and fulfillment to individuals and the community (129).” The author’s proclaim, “… steelwork as almost synonymous with Youngstown,” defining itself by organized labor and steelmaking” (68). Linkon and Russo, convey ideas about hard physical labor, with a glimpse of insight into the steelworkers anguish using words like virtue, pride and a sense of belonging, which for a typical situation would convey positive representations. Though most would think of these words, virtue, pride, and belonging as associations of working-class solidarity, clear identity and value, the author’s instead use these words to allow for the reader to better understand the misery that steelworkers faced. Making the connection between the workers lack of control to that of social conflict in their own community, the authors want the readers to understand both sides, allowing to bridge the gap of struggle by mending Youngstow... ... middle of paper ... ...ture, “we must first begin by understand[ing] the complex but deeply valued meaning of work and place that formed the backdrop against which deindustrialization was staged” (67). With Linkon and Russo’s emphasis on Youngstown’s representations of social and class conflict it becomes apparent that anyone who grew up in a town that based its identity on labor could relate. The problem is not in the past it is in the future. With a better understanding of the struggle of work and place, the youth of today can help mend Youngstown’s identity by building upon the gap on working class solidarity that was created not so long ago. The connection then would be “the struggle for meaning in Youngstown would not end with the closing of the mills” however it will end when the people no long believe in themselves” (130). That is when the connection is lost between work and place.
Sam Patch’s father, who was a drunkard, exhausted all his family fortune, and in 1807 the Patches moved to the mill village of Pawtucket. This was a climactic moment in their history because it marked their passage out of the family economy and into the labor market. This caused the Patches to be dependent on factory owners for a job. Factory spinners, including Sam Patch, were people with a lot of pride and dignity. Before 1820, most spinners in New England mills were emigrants from the factory towns of Lancashire England. They were veterans who knew that their skills were essential, and they commanded respect (Johnson 23). Industrialization brought with it urbanization or city growth but it had an unintended consequence of creating massive wealth gaps between the rich people and the working class people.
In the late nineteenth century, many European immigrants traveled to the United States in search of a better life and good fortune. The unskilled industries of the Eastern United States eagerly employed these men who were willing to work long hours for low wages just to earn their food and board. Among the most heavily recruiting industries were the railroads and the steel mills of Western Pennsylvania. Particularly in the steel mills, the working conditions for these immigrants were very dangerous. Many men lost their lives to these giant steel-making machines. The immigrants suffered the most and also worked the most hours for the least amount of money. Living conditions were also poor, and often these immigrants would barely have enough money and time to do anything but work, eat, and sleep. There was also a continuous struggle between the workers and the owners of the mills, the capitalists. The capitalists were a very small, elite group of rich men who held most of the wealth in their industries. Strikes broke out often, some ending in violence and death. Many workers had no political freedom or even a voice in the company that employed them. However, through all of these hardships, the immigrants continued their struggle for a better life.
In response to intervention, thousands of groups of people became defiant. Laborers living off the bare minimum often assembled into organized groups to enforce their demands upon the government, making a notable push for reform (D) while educated men such as Henry Demarest Lloyd promoted virtue, not land, as the ideal focus of government (B). Dissatisfaction continued within the middle class. As new industrial machines emerged, designed for mass product...
Rylant juxtaposes Ginny’s poor family, living on a salary that can only be secured within the harsh, unrelenting working conditions of an industrial mill, against John’s family who is oblivious to the fear of poverty or hunger. In this juxtaposition, contemporary issues of economic privilege and workers rights influence the budding war-time romance of John and Ginny, and to us, the audience, peering in at them. By gradually magnifying John’s discomfort in entering Ginny’s “tattered neighborhood,” Rylant reveals the historical extraordinariness of wealth amidst squalor in the city of Pittsburgh. “Mills were fed coal and men so Pittsburgh might live,” and Ginny’s father gives his life to the mill so his family might live, albeit in the walls of this tiny rented apartment (Rylant 2). Both historically realistic and entirely fictitious, Rylant’s characters break the “single perspective” of history texts, fleshing out facts with their own stories, and marking our modern time with their experiences (Jacobs and Tunnell 117).
Despite being celebrated for its industrial achievements, the very foundation by which society was predicated on in the Gilded Age crumbled as labor unrest grew. This sense of discontent on the part of laborers is demonstrated through the Haymarket Affair of 1866. Among those tried for the crime was August Spies, who in his “Address of August Spies,” compromises his own life by persistently undermining the legitimacy of the State to emphasize the determination of the collective for which he views himself as a “representative.” In his attempt to illuminate the injustices of the State and foreshadow the unremitting turmoil that will emerge with his murder, Spies simultaneously showcases the divisions within society at the time. Consequently, because it is a product of its time period, the “Address of August Spies” can be used not only as a means of understanding the Haymarket Affair but the dynamics of society as a whole.
Chants Democratic, by Sean Wilentz examined the emergence of New York’s labor class during the Jacksonian era and in essence revealed Artisan Republicanism. Wilentz offered a unique perspective in his historical analysis of the social and political labor histories during 1788 through 1850. Wilentz stressed the importance of the republicanism ideology in the creation of a working class that was instrumental in a pre-industrial New York. The author stressed the significance in both the political histories and social histories of the early nineteenth century by incorporating political ideologies and labor union descriptions. He further integrated these insights by means of articulating the social working conditions and lives of small masters, journeymen, and artisans to show their respective importance to the creation of the working class scruples. Chants Democratic iterated not only on the formation of the labor class in America, but also illuminated the changes within this new social class by exploring how antebellum New York’s population began to live and think.
Bill Strickland spends his days helping people through Manchester Bidwell. He founded job training programs and also a community arts program to help and mentor young people. When Bill Strickland was younger he did not have the tools and everything he gives to the kids now for mentoring. Strickland’s life changed when he found pottery. It was something he was good at from the start. Bill grew up in Pittsburgh, and it was not the prettiest. People were losing their jobs and the town was falling apart. Strickland’s mother shaped him to be a successful man. She did not let him “fall into the ghettos trapdoor”. Strickland spends his life trying to fix the substandard neighborhood that he grew up in.
While this is a dramatized statement regarding the plight of the worker under the new machine driven industrial system, rhetoric such as this did represent the fears of the working class. Over time, as industrialization appeared more common, there emerged more heated debates between the working class and business owners. The struggle between the two opposing classes of labor was the embodiment of the argument for national identity, according to Trachtenberg. His attention to detail of the divide between the lower class workers and the rich upper crust industrialists, serves to illustrate the varying changes which occurred across the country.
Jim Daniels may not write poetry as eloquently as one would expect, but his style matches the subject matter he writes about perfectly. Indeed, it is this unrefined colloquial style, which allows Mr. Daniels to capture the essence of working class Detroit and relay it to the reader. His words may be somewhat coarse and he does not hesitate to use profanity, but one is still able to find beauty in his writing. The same can be said about the working class society, in which Jim Daniels was born and raised.
Paul Clemens answers the call to write at a young age as way to deal with his frustration, and contempt for suburban escapees. “Punching Out” defines the relationships among a community struggling to create a comfortable means of living; From the most resistant, sharp edges of the deindustrialization of America, and a lament for a working-class culture that once defined a prosperous America— that’s now crossing the threshold of economic despotism. Clemens observed the acquisition, dismemberment, and exit of the recently shut down Budd’s automotive manufacturing facility. The plant’s equipment from early June 2007 to late April 2008 was hauled as freight. Budd’s largest press line, was transported about 1,800 miles to a plant owned by Spanish auto supplier Gestamp in Mexico, where line workers earned some $290 a month to stamp out parts for Dodge manufacturers. Other presses migrated to Brazil, India, and China. “I felt as if I’d witnessed an execution,.”
Human beings can always rely on one constant in the shifting and often dangerous world around them: the consistency of change. Over thousands of years our race has evolved, shifting from uneducated hunters and gathers into basic city dwellers and finally, in the last couple of centuries, into the first “modern” humans. This final step has been by far the most challenging as people were forced to persevere through the most challenging of circumstances as Europe and America underwent their Industrial Revolutions. During this time period the population of cities exponentially increased, and more and more workers poured into these urban centers in search of a better life. Trade increased, as did the efficiency and technology of industry as a whole. Yet despite this overall advance of society, this time period was one full of both hardship and suffering for many of the poor as the first of these major cities were corrupted with gluttony and hunger. Disease also became a major concern, as the vast increase in population brought to light the lack of housing and sanitation needed to support the amount of people that were now living inside of the city limits. Even with the constant struggle that came with living in such a dense urban center, the sense of pride that gave people the endurance to continue is perfectly illustrated in Carl Sandburg’s “Chicago.” That sense of community despite the negative influences of the world around them can also be seen in modern times with the shipbreakers in India, who live in similar circumstances as the factory workers in nineteenth and twentieth century America. As the same issues of health and safety are called into question, we must ask ourselves a simple question: do we have the right to step in and...
American dream documents the six-month strike against Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota, in 1985 to 1986. This dispute, although unsuccessful, was historic to the labour movement as it represents the struggles that many working men and women face, often without protest. Within this essay, I utilize American Dream to recount aspects of the Hormel strike to analyze the relationship between the Local Union P-9 and its parent union United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. I also asses Local P-9’s strategies and the use of the term morality within the film.
“Chicago,” by Carl Sandburg wrote a poem that the great city of Chicago that embraces everything that the city has to offer, from hog butchers to railroads, from construction sites to prostitutes. The poem paints a portrait of a vibrant, cunning, wicked, joyful, laughing place. The speaker begins the poem by telling the reader about all of the negative aspects of the city of Chicago but ends in the exact opposite stance. The poet feels that Chicago will face the future ready to fight and win. Sandburg can show how Chicago holds many of the same qualities as an immature young man: both are vibrant and active, but both also have many flaws. Sandburg also celebrates the many types of workers that helped the city grow, from the hog butchers that feed the populace to the people that build the
In preparation for this reflection paper, I read the texts, reflected on my life experiences, and then identified the following key theme. David Shipler’s “The Working Poor,” The fact that people in the social welfare system do work at menial jobs and not necessarily because they are required by welfare to do so, shows that most people do want to contribute and be a part of working society. While reading the about the families in New Hampshire, I was reminded of the classism that occurred between the two worlds of rich and poor. In stark contrast to rural New Hampshire, southern New Hampshire where I grew up is an hour outside of Boston, the area I lived in was filled with pilots and executives. Besides being rich everyone had the expectation that their child would go to college. My town looked like a Norman Rockwell painting and for its size boasted two country clubs. Upon turning sixteen teenagers would receive the newest sports car. This in contrast to the rural New Hampshire people in Shipler’s book, who are a captive audience to the mill’s opening and closing or downsizing and ultimately the victims to the corporate bottom line. Likewise what struck me was how people in my town used to refer to the northerners, making fun of them (and this was the adults), Now, I can see that a firm link between making money and being good was established for me growing up where I did and with the class of people I associated with. Furthermore, when I read “Glass Castles” by Jeannette Walls, the family had moved to Welch one boy in particular was determined to put Jeannette and her siblings in their place by shouting “ Garbage! You live in garbage ‘cause you are garbage!” How does this relate to “The Working Poo...
Within the first stanza of Browning’s “The Cry of the Children,” appeals to the reader’s emotions by the great emphasis placed on the children’s attitudes toward working in coal mines and manufactories. The