History 261 Discussion 4A: Documents on the "Labor Question"

 

**Read chapters 6-7 of the Foner book to provide historical context for these documents illustrating Gilded Age and Progressive Era debates about business and labor, wealth and inequality, "wage slavery" vs. "liberty of contract," the relationship between political freedom and economic freedom, efforts to reform the situations of women and workers and immigrants, Social Darwinism vs. the Social Gospel.

 

**Albert Parsons, "Demand for Eight Hour Day" (1879)

 

**William Graham Sumner, "What Social Classes Owe to Each Other" (1883)

 

**Andrew Carnegie, "The Gospel of Wealth" (1889)

 

**"A Workingman's Prayer for the Masses" (1894)

 

**Jacob Riis, "How the Other Half Lives" (1890) [read the 4 links below]

           **"Introduction"

           **Chapter III: "The Mixed Crowd"

           **Chapter XIII: "The Color Line in New York"

           **Chapter XX: "The Working Girls of New York"

 

**Carrie Chapman Catt, "Women's Suffrage and the Ignorant Foreign Vote" (1894)

 

**Florence Kelly, "Women, Labor, and the Power of the Ballot" (1898)

 

**Mary van Kleeck, "Working Hours of Women in Factories" (1906)

 

**Walter Rauschenbusch, "The Social Gospel" (1908)

 

**Frederick Winslow Taylor, "Principles of Scientific Management" (1911)