"The Man With a Hoe"
Jeff
Edwin Markham wrote the poem "The Man with the Hoe" in 1898, which showed labor hardships of this time. His main inspiration was a French painting of the same name (in French, L'homme à la houe) by Jean-François Millet. Markham's poem was published and it became popular very soon. He began to give speeches all over the US to labor and radical groups.
“Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.”
One line of the poem describes the picture perfectly. “The emptiness of ages in his face” For most labor your face doesn’t matter; all that matters is how much work is done by the end of the day. Owners didn’t care who you were, just whether or not you could work for them. The line also makes me think that he is not just talking about this one worker but all the workers that have given there hard work for nothing. The next line “And on his back the burden of the world” is completely true. The workers of this time made America what it was then and only because of them we live in a world like this.
The poem then goes on saying that basically the people of the labor force have had their souls taken from them. Is this the way God envisioned his people on Earth, these people with no mind for themselves and no way of getting out of this situation?
“O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?”
The last stanza asks the question when change is coming. “When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world?” That was the question everyone in America was thinking as well, and during the next coming years things did start happening. Markham did not write anything as great as this poem but he joined the National Child Labor Committee.Matt
CRITICS:
Brother to the Ox: By William J. Lampton
"Your leaning on the hoe is rot;
You haven't got a hoe;
You've got a cultivator which
Has steam to make it go."
"The emptiness of ages that
He tells you he can see
Spread on your face is honest sweat
And soil of high degree."
The Man without the Hoe: By Charles Sheard
"Of him who, born and bred 'mid the lavishments of home,
Has thence, by some misfortune dire, been forced to roam,
Without the knowledge of a craft his daily bread to earn,
Without the cunning to direct, the vision to discern.
Of him who seeking honest toil, can no employment find,
In city full or country sparse, for dextrous hand or mind.
Who vaguely wanders up and down all through the livelong day,
Willing to heave or dig or till for low and modest pay."
The Public (magazine)
"But among the editorial critics here comes a genius to ask the readers of the New York World where the man with a hoe got his hoe and what he would do without it? The critic isn't joking, either. No wonder he sees no poetry in Markham's poem. Such a man couldn't see poetry in anything, unless it might be a five-dollar bill."
Edwin Markham's interview about his critics
"You say, Mr. Markham, that your Hoe-man has been largely made by his faithless lords and masters. Can we not consider him an undeveloped man moving upward in the grasp of evolution?"
Mr. Markham -- No, he is a degenerate. He is inferior to the unspoiled savage. The savage has a certain dignity and beauty in his form and movement. He moves with grace at times and speaks the language of a rude but lofty poetry. The Hoe-man, however, is only a dreadful hulk; clumsy, hideous, hopeless. There is no poetry in his speech, no vision in his mind. The lamp has almost gone out in his brain. God did not make him. God made man, but this "dread shape" is not a man. It is an Accusation.
"What could the lords and masters do to help restore this degraded laborer to his manhood?"
Mr. Markham -- Reverse the process by which he was degraded. Let the lords and masters get off his back, so that he may straighten up. Let the Hoe-man keep his hoe, but do not grind him down with trusts and combines and infamous monopolies. The present popular drift toward municipal and state ownership of public utilities is unquestionably a movement in the right direction. Perhaps men will try living by the Golden Rule some day; and then some form of cooperative industry will come into the world. When that day comes the bowed and stunted toiler will find his true freedom, his true dignity and joy. Then there will be no homeless workers; no long, brutalizing labor; the worker will have work and he will have rest. If men were wise enough and brotherly enough to organize industry on the fraternal principle labor would no longer be a drudgery -- it would be a joy, an inspiration, a redemption. In the great day of God that is coming we will not use men to make money; we will use money to make men.Shirtwaist Strike
Kevin
- On November 22, 1909, New York shirtwaist makers met with leaders of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union's Local 25.
- Clara Lemlich, a Jewish immigrant, delivered an impassioned speech in Yiddish, saying "I am a working girl, one of those who are on strike against intolerable conditions" to a crowd which consisted of mostly Jewish immigrants
- Approximately 20,000 shirtwaist makers -- manufacturers of popular ladies' blouses -- walked out of work the next day. They filled the sidewalks surrounding their workplaces and began what became a weeks-long picketing demonstration.
-The striking ladies attempted with the so-called "Uprising of the 20,000" to characterize themselves first and foremost as human beings worth humane treatment.
- Perspectives of the strike, from the strikers themselves to their employers to the press, varied from the inception of the demonstration in November 1909 to its end in February 1910.
A. Their employers struggled to accept and later reconcile the change. The New York Times quoted an unnamed manufacturer as saying "We cannot understand why so many people can be swayed to join in a strike that has no merit. Our employees were perfectly satisfied, and they made no demands. It is a foolish, hysterical strike, and not 5 per cent of the strikers know what they are striking for."
B. The press, too, at first had difficulty taking the striking ladies seriously. A New York Times article covering the meeting of heads of the shirtwaist factories featured the headline "Girl Strikers Dance as Employers Meet," comparing the serious meeting of the manufacturers to the dancing at strike headquarters.
C. Coverage did not remain so skeptical of the power of the strikers. Newspapers began to report on the actions of the wealthy advocates of woman's suffrage like Anne Morgan (daughter of banker J. P. Morgan) and Mrs. August Belmont, one of the richest women in the country, as well as women reformers like Florence Kelley.
D. When addressing the concerns of the shirtwaist makers, the Times treats manufacturers not as villains, but as holders of the key to the end of the demonstration.
- It was the female strikers' courage, confronting police arrest and beatings by hired thugs, that won the public's heart. Employers hired prostitutes to taunt picketers, knowing that working women feared falling into the brutalized life of the streets. Judges and police also preyed on the young women's fears through sexual harassment and severe prison sentences.
- Eventually, most employers eventually agreed to meet all but one of the strikers' demands. - Large-scale manufacturers, for the most part, refused to officially recognize the union.
- Interestingly enough, in the end, both parties felt they stood firm throughout the strike. The bigger factory heads held out long enough to maintain their stance against a closed union shop. The strikers, gaining on all other demands, also declared victory.
-The terms of the agreement in The Women's Garment Workers:
1. Fifty-two hours shall constitute a week of work.
2. Employers shall not discriminate in hiring or discharging employees or otherwise because of membership in a labor organization.
3. Employers shall furnish free of charge needles, thread, and all other appliances, provided the supplies so furnished are to be accounted for, or broken parts returned so far as reasonably possible.
4. During slack time or dull season work shall be divided equally among employees so far as is reasonably practicable.
5. At least four legal holidays in each year shall be allowed all workers, with daily or fixed wages, with full pay.
6. Wages and prices for work shall be arranged in each shop between the employer and his employees.
7. The striking employees are to return to work and are to be reinstated in their former places, so far as practicable, and at the earliest practicable moment; and if not practicable, are to be given places in the shops of other members of the association, equally attractive and remunerative; and until the strikers are given employment the members of the Associated Waist and Dress Manufacturers are not to give employment to others.
8. The Associated Waist and Dress Manufacturers will welcome communications at any time, from any source, as to alleged violations by any of its members of any of the foregoing provisions.and will welcome conference as to any differences.which may not be settled between the individual shop and its employees.
Triangle Fire
Jon
The tragedy which occurred in Lower Manhattan the afternoon of March 26, 1911 at the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. building not only affected those who were unfortunate enough to be working at the time, but it also had a major impact on an entire city and on families thousands of miles away in Europe. Throughout much of Europe, many families could only read newspaper accounts and eyewitness reports in hope of reading that their loved ones weren't among the 146 victims of the gruesome fire. For some, it would be weeks and even months before they would learn if their family member had made it out alive or not. All a family could do is hope and pray.
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/texts/newspaper/cst_032811.html </exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/texts/newspaper/cst_032811.html>
In one such account from the Chicago Sunday Tribune which headline read "Thrilling Incidents in Gotham Holocaust That Wiped Out One Hundred and Fifty Lives" several eyewitnesses to the scene tell in detail of what exactly occurred the day of the horrific fire. From police officers rushing up the stairs of the flaming building in an effort to bring some kind of order to the chaotic rush down the crowded stairwell and out the building to children jumping out of the upper floor windows into the arms of police and firemen waiting below, to a pair of lovers sharing their final kiss before plunging to their deaths on the concrete below. Undoubtedly, anyone who read these accounts in the newspapers did not do so without tears, especially those loved ones who read of this overseas. No words can describe what this must have been like for the families of the Triangle Shirtwaist workers to read the final moments of the ones they loved.
Along with the written accounts which were hard enough to handle, there were many photographs taken at the scene of the fire as the event was occurring and shortly thereafter which without a doubt made the event that of a personal nature to everyone who saw them. http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0309/images/life/TriangleShirtwaist.jpg </exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0309/images/life/TriangleShirtwaist.jpg>
In this image police officer's on scene shortly after the fire had been extinguished look up at the damage as what appears to be four bodies lie in a heap at their feet. In another image, there is a large gaping hole where the pavement on the sidewalk along the building once was. It looked as if a piano had fallen from the ninth floor of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory and not what had actually happened. In actuality, the cement sidewalk had caved in due to the force of the bodies which had struck it as they fell to their deaths. As one eyewitness to the horrific ordeal put it "I learned a new sound--a more horrible sound than description can picture. It was the thud of a speeding, living body on a stone sidewalk. Thud—dead, thud—dead, thud—dead, thud—dead. Sixty-two thud—deads. I call them that, because the sound and the thought of death came to me each time, at the same instant. There was plenty of chance to watch them as they came down. The height was eighty feet." -William G. Shepherd. I personally could not imagine seeing such a thing and the only event which I can think of that is even close to as horrifying, is that of September 11, 2001. Undoubtedly, the all who heard of this tragedy could not help but feel personally affected by the event.Mike
Article:
New York Times, March 26, 1911 Death List Shows Few Identified
Thoughts & Comments
Within this article there are four sections, Identified Dead, Unidentified Dead, Report Missing, and Injured. Within each section there consist of a list of victims. It provides information such as ages, injuries and how bodies were found. Some of the ages are quite disturbing and go as low as the age of 15. A sixteen year has only lived a portion of her life and died working slave labor because of greedy factor owners and poor law enforcement. The same fifteen year old was found unidentified, all her clothing was burned off except her black stockings and black lace shoes. It must have been quite the horrific sight and smell to walk into this factory after the fire.
Excerpt from Article:
At five minutes to 9, four hours after the fire in the Triangle Waist Company factory was discovered, the first living person was found in the debris...with his body immersed almost to the neck in water, which was slowly rising in the basement. The flesh of the palms of his hands had been torn from the bones by his sliding down the steel cable in the elevator, and his knuckles and forearms were fill of glass splinters from beating his way through the glass door of the elevator shaft.
Thoughts & Comments:
Firstly, the fire at the Triangle factory must have been an immense because it had taken rescue workers 4 hours to even begin searching for bodies. They had found the first victim barely alive in the basement of the factory. This victim had worked on the 8th floor and the only way for him to survive was to break the glass door of the elevator, then hand by hand down to the basement using his bare hands on the cable wire. They found him with no flesh on the palms of his hands, just bone, and covered in shards of glass. On top all of this when he was brought to the hospital the doctors believed he might have a chance to live if pneumonia did not set it in. The blaze at this factory must have been so horrifying to make a person break through glass using his arms, and slide down the cable wire with his bare hands. Just to imagine the pain of broken glass up and down my arms and no flesh on my hands is unbelievable. Also it must have been quite a disturbing scene to find a man alive with these types of wounds.
Excerpt from Article:
It is not strange that in this most democratic of all countries in the world the employers can so easily use the arm of the law to protect themselves against any incoveniences which their work people may cause them, but the law is nowhere when the life and limb of the worker is to be protected.
Thoughts & Comments:
The Triangle Factory was infamously known as the prison because the discipline of the workers and their poor earnings. The fire protection of this place was also horrendous. If only the government had stepped in and set some regulations this incident could have been avoided. But instead we get crude factory owners and law enforcement willing to look away for some incentives. Unfortunately an incident like this is needed to open the eyes of the masses to bring awareness of the indignities of these work shops.Bread and Roses Strike
Jen
Immigrants in Lawrence, Massachusetts desired to achieve a standard of living equivalent to those of native born skilled workers. On January 12, 1912, 10,000 wool textile workers went on strike. The strike’s immediate cause was due to the pay cut by the American Woolen Company when the state law went into effect declaring an eight hour work day. The workers believed that the law wasn’t a good excuse to restrict wages because they believed that they deserved a living wag to support themselves. Since productivity increased through industrialization, they knew there were the profits and means to pay the workers a higher salary. By March, 30,000 workers were on strike. Even though the odds were against the workers in a mill town where the company controlled the newspapers, political authorities, and police, and the laborers were unskilled and easily replaceable, they were able to have their demands met.
The strike was given the title “Bread and Roses” by historians due to the following poem that was published before the strike, and was actually meant for other workers, but that the people of Lowell used. The slogan describes the goals of the strikers very well, because not only did they want material security, but they also wanted a less tangible type of security-that of equality to the native skilled workers and to be treated as just as valued members in society. They wanted to have a job that wouldn’t take up all their time and energy so they could see their families and enjoy their lives.
Bread and Roses
By James Oppenheim
In a parade of the strikers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, some young girls carried a banner inscribed, "We want Bread, and Roses too!"
As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead,
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is for bread we fight for—but we fight for roses, too!
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler—ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!
Proclamation of the Striking Textile Workers of LawrenceThe militant writing of the document shows that it wasn’t written with the help of those from the American Federation of Labor because it was a more conservative organization that spoke for only the “respectable” skilled workers. The workers from the more radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) came from the West to help the strikers.
The strikers said they were fighting against “wage slavery.” The proclamation was meant in justice to give the causes of the strike to their fellow workers. They stated that as members and producers in society, they had the right to “homes and not shacks,” clean food, “clothes suited to the weather and not shoddy garments,” and that they needed the union to help preserve their safety and happiness. They said that when you are reduced to “a state of beggary,” it is the workers’ duty to “resist such tactics and provide new guards for their future security,” even though the tradition was that workers would rather suffer than try to change their conditions. The proclamation stated that mill owners had “an absolute tyranny over these textile workers” because they refused to meet strikers committees, that wages are so low that mothers and children have to join their fathers in factories and “homes are homes no longer,” and there is a disproportionate death rate among infants in Lawrence due to hunger. They also sited the corrupt justice system, which refused to release two of the leaders of the strike on bail, but they released a prisoner charged with conspiracy and planting dynamite on $1,000 bail. They also said the police clubbed strikers, dragged children from their moms, clubbed pregnant women, threw kids in waiting patrol wagons “like rubbish,” and even bayoneted a young boy. The last sentence shows the diversity and commitment of the strikers: “all nations of the world are represented in this fight of the workers for more bread,” and they “cast aside all racial and religious prejudice for the common good.”
Statement of Miss Josephine Liss
She went to Washington D.C. to testify in front of the House Committee on Rules to determine the accuracy of the Striker Committee’s description of the situation in Lawrence.
She was 21 at the time and worked American Woolen Company for 8 years, earning seven dollars a week mending, weaving, and doing piecework, even though she made $10-$12 a week working in Watertown doing the same work when it was slow in Lawrence. The mill owners held back the pay sometimes, the kids didn’t have money for warm clothing in the winter, and the people rarely have money for meat, and mostly ate bread, syrup, molasses, beans, or soup bone soup. When she was nine she had to baby-sit her five younger siblings while her parents went to work. When the strike was going on, she went out for a walk and a soldier told her to turn around for no reason. She refused, and when the soldier grabbed her and swore at her she hit him with a muff and was sent to court for “assaulting a soldier.” She was in jail and had to pay a $2.00 bail. While she stepped outside for some fresh air at a Polish meeting, a police officer told her to go back inside. She told him that they were private steps and she had the right to stand on them. The police officer then told her to translate to the others that they had to stay out of the streets. Josephine told the others to stand on the curb or next to the building and not on the sidewalk. When one man stepped onto the sidewalk, a police officer pushed him and arrested him. When this happened the others came from the hall, 20 police officers arrived and began clubbing the crowd, hit two men on the head and made them bleed, and through a 45 year old woman in the mud. This account is interesting because it shows what how hard it was to live and work at the time in Lawrence under such awful conditions.
Cait
Special to The New York Times
LAWRENCE, Mass., Jan. 29.--Troop trains and special trolley cars loaded with soldiers began pouring into the city late to-night; Col. Sweetser, commanding the military force, issued a proclamation virtually establishing martial law in this city, and it became evident that the authorities of the Commonwealth had determined to crush the spirit of anarchy which has outgrown ordinary repressive measures. http://blackboard.assumption.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_1063_1
I can’t imagine troop trains pouring into Lawrence. The industrial infrastructure must have been spacious to allow for the trolley cable. Also, there was nothing close to Lawrence besides Lowell that had true economic power, and I can’t picture anywhere else a trolley would take you.
Soldiers Forcing Strikers Back off the Duck Bridge
I find this interesting because this bridge connects mills to the train tracks, and from the angle the picture is taken from it appears the men are trying to cross over the bridge towards the train side. I don’t understand why the soldiers are using force when the strikers clearly are not armed.
Massachusetts militiamen with fixed bayonets surround a parade of peaceful strikers
The irony in this picture is that the military is pointing fixed bayonets at its own flag. Again, the citizen strikers are being peaceful and keeping a respectful yet organized distance, making me question the need for the military force.The idea of bread and roses is part of a historical tradition that many believe began with the Lawrence textile strike of 1912. Historians, and other scholars, have remembered the Lawrence strike as the "Bread and Roses Strike." The strike eventually came to serve as the model of the "Fight for Bread and Roses." "Bread and Roses" has served as a slogan for many labor struggles in the United States in the twentieth century, representing different things at different historical moments. For the most part, "bread" has represented a living wage. "Roses," in turn, referred to workers' desire for dignity of life and respectful treatment. http://blackboard.assumption.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_1063_1
I grew up in Methuen, the town next to Lawrence, and went to high school in Lawrence, but the most class time ever spent on the Bread and Roses strike was reading a paragraph in my history book sophomore year. When I was really little I toured a factory with my Girl Scout troop, and the part I remember from the day was thinking the strike was for food. It is interesting to learn what ‘Bread and Roses’ actually represents. It makes sense to me, as Lawrence has always been home to immigrants hoping to get a step up. I have always been taught to believe that the factory era was Lawrence’s golden era, but this shows the history I have been taught has
Dramas of Haymarket
Rob
During the Haymarket trial, many of the people involved (jurors, police, judge, and defendants) in it were immigrants for came from other cities. No one at this time was a true Chicagoan.
There was a high unemployment rate because The Panic of 1873. This lead to mobs and the people who still had jobs suffered from pay and hour cuts. Chicago got placed in tough situations. For instance the national railroad went on strike during the summer of 1877. It hit Chicago in July of 1877 where trains were actually damaged or destroyed. The strike affected the nation and caused many disruptions in other buisnesses and even wihin the government.
Albert parsons was part of the Haymarket trials. He was convicted and hanged for being part of the "conspiracy that caused the bomb".
"The bomb-talking that had suffused anarchist rhetoric had moved to bomb-throwing. In her 1884 "Word to Tramps," Lucy Parsons had urged the desperate not to suffer and die alone but to visit dynamite in the midst of their oppressors. "Then let your tragedy be enacted here," she told them. "Thus send forth your petition and let them read it by the red blare of destruction." The petition had been sent forth, but the tragedy had only just begun."
Smith's look at the Haymarket riots gives the reader a good look at the thoughts and motivations of the time. He gives specifics that would be overlooked without his commentary. Smith adds helpful details that benefit the reader.John
On May, 4 1886 the Haymarket bombing took place. On this night a few thousand people assembled in the Haymarket area of Chicago, which was south of the Chicago River and close to city hall. The rally took place because the day before two workers had been killed by police. This happened after police broke up a dispute between locked out union member and the replacement workers. Towards the end of the protest rally over 100 police came and tried to break it up. When this happened one of the protesters threw a stick of dynamite at the officers and killed 6 policemen. Because of this action police arrested dozens of political radicals, which were the labor protesters. They were then were put on trial.
Eight of the men put on trial were convicted of murder. Four were executed on November 11, 1887. The trial of these men was such a big deal because it shows the justice system having one of its biggest failures in history. Only one man was guilty of throwing the stick of dynamite and many more then that got arrested. They didn’t get convicted by evidence and their guilt, but by the jury and judges prejudice views.
During the time of the Haymarket Drama there was a huge class struggle throughout the United States. At this time the United States was the worlds leading industrial nation. This caused a great conflict between Labor and Capital. The struggle became real prominent in the later 1800’s and was seen greatly in Chicago because it was one of the countries largest industrial centers. The conflict arouse between the two because of the increased use of technology, and division of the manufacturing process into discrete parts that required limited skills and training. The Laborer was a lot less valuable to the industrial process because of this. This drove down wages and the need for skilled workers. If somebody wasn’t happy with a wage another laborer could be found for the same money that were just as good at the same job. This made the laborers unhappy and made them protest, which caused conflict between the labor and capital.
