The beginnings of the American Labor Movement started with the Industrial Revolution. Textile mills were the first factories built in the United States. Once factory systems began to grow, a demand for workers increased. They hired large amounts of young women and children who were expected to do the same work as men for fewer wage. New immigrants were also employed and called "free workers" because they were unskilled. These immigrants poured into cities, desperate

Gompers believed that everyone should receive equal pay for equal work, and that everyone¡¦s rights should be protected. He also thought the unions should be primarily concerned with the day-to-day welfare of the members and should not become involved with politics. He also thought that socialism would not succeed in the United States. "Bread and butter" unionism was the term given to his philosophies that higher wages and fewer working hours could achieve the goal of a better life for the working people.

The founders were quoted as saying, "the various trades have been affected by the introduction of machinery, the subdivision of labor, the use of women¡¦s and children¡¦s labor and the lack of an apprentice system so that the skilled trades were rapidly sinking to the level of pauper labor. To protect the skilled labor of America from being reduced to beggary and to sustain the standard of American workmanship and skill, the trade unions of America have been established." (AFL-CIO American Federationalist, 1) The AF of L was a conglomeration of twenty-five unions that included three hundred thousand workers working for increasing wages, reducing hours, and improving working conditions. (AFL-CIO American Federationalist, 2)

Child labor in the factories was not only common, but also necessary for a family¡¦s income. Children as young as five or six manned machines or did jobs such as sweeping floors to earn money. It was dangerous, and the large, heavy machinery often hurt them. No laws prevented the factories from using these children, so they continued to do so. (AACTchrNET, 1)

Factory conditions still had not improved. The Progressives and the AFL pressured state governments for laws to protect wage earners. Almost all the fifty states passed laws to forbid the hiring of children less than fourteen years of age. Thirty-seven states forbade children under sixteen to work between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. nineteen states established the eight-hour day for children under sixteen in factories and stores. Women were also in need of protection for their jobs. Forty-one states wrote new or improved laws to protect women workers, limiting the workday to nine hours or the week to fifty-four hours. (3)

Laborer¡¦s goals and the unwillingness of capital to grant them resulted in many violent labor conflicts and strikes. The first of these occurred with the Great Rail Strike of 1877. Rail workers all over the United States went on strike due to a ten percent pay reduction. Rioting and destruction of several cities surfaced with the efforts to stop the strike. Federal troops had to be sent in at several locations to end the strike such as Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Buffalo, New York; and San Francisco, California. (Department of Humanities, 2)

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