Reconstruction, Expansion, and the Triumph of Industrial Capitalism 35connections so various ethnic groups came to be associated with certain fields;
the Irish, for instance, often worked as plumbers, carpenters or bricklayers,
while Germans were furniture makers, bakers, and of course brewers, and
English, Welsh, and Scotch immigrants were machinists and miners. Skilled
workers had more advantages than other laborers. Because they had a special-
ized craft, they were not easily replaced so could seek higher wages, and have
independence and control over their work conditions. Unskilled workers were
not so lucky. Immigrants from southern Europe—places like Sicily—and Asia
especially flooded into the United States and, along with Blacks, women, and
children made up the unskilled work force–workers who did not need much
training to do their jobs. Between 1850-1880, for example, the Chinese
population in the U.S. grew from 7500 to over 105,000 and consisted of
mostly men working dangerous railroad construction jobs in the West. All
groups were poor and took whatever jobs were available such as servants,
maids, farm labor, coal mining, and railroad work, and they had little, if any,
control over work conditions. More so, unemployment was a constant threat.
During an economic downturn in 1878, between 500,000 and 1 million work-
ers were jobless, while in the mid-1880s, about 2 million were out of work
[numbers which were roughly three times more, by percentage, than unem-
ployment in 2010]. While a skilled worker could get decent pay–a train
engineer or glass blower, for example, could make $800 a year–unskilled
workers did not even make poverty wages [estimated at $500 a year]. About
half of unskilled workers made less than poverty wages, and Blacks, Mexican-
Americans, Chinese, women and kids made the least.
Because wages were low, entire families had to work just to survive, and
so the number of women and children in the work force went up dramati-
cally in the late 1800s; by the end of the century perhaps 4 million women
[disproportionately Black and immigrant females] and 1.5 million children
were working. Many women worked “on the side” by taking in laundry,
doing housework, or taking in boarders, and about 15 percent of wage work-
ers were female [especially in textiles]. Women suffered low pay–a seamstress,
for instance, made about five dollars a week, much less than a male tailor–and
employers claimed they were just working for “pin money” so justified their
poverty wages. In down times, women got laid off first, even if they were
successful on the job. One female shoe seller in Iowa complained: “I don’t