Who Built America Chapter Eight (2) PDF

8 Immigration, Urban Life, and Social Reform in the Free-Labor North 1838-1860  The Transformation of the American Labor Nativist Attacks on Immigrants, African Force Americans, and Workers A...

8 Immigration, Urban Life, and Social Reform in the Free-Labor North 1838-1860  The Transformation of the American Labor Nativist Attacks on Immigrants, African Force Americans, and Workers A Changing World for Northern Working People Radical Reform The Shift Away from Agriculture Communal Experiments and Cooperative Immigrants Swell the Wage Labor Ranks Enterprises National Origins and American Jobs Movements for Land Reform African Americans in the Free-Labor North Women Reformers Seek Rights Wage-Earning Women Expand Their Sphere for Themselves But Not Their Rights Abolitionists Fight Slavery and Each Other The Abolition of Slavery and Party Politics Urban Mayhem and Middle-Class Reform Leisure Activities and Class Conflict Conclusion: The Free-Labor North Faces Urban Disorder and Family Crises an Uncertain Future Middle-Class Efforts at Moral Reform ARLY IN 18 49, two Irish travelers, Bridget Murphy and Patrick E Kennedy, landed in Boston Harbor after a storm-tossed Atlantic cross- ing. They had met on the ship bringing them to America, and they married a few months after their arrival. Both were fleeing the potato blight that had devastated Irish agriculture and had left millions of men, women, and children in a state of starvation. The young couple settled into a corrugated metal shack on Noddle's Island in Boston Harbor. They had few resources, Sunshine and Shadow bnt they were willing to work hard, which meant a good deal in a country Regular mid-nineteenth-century that was eager for labor. Patrick found a job as a cooper, crafting wooden _publications presented the East's industrializing cities - barrels and Conestoga wagon wheels. Like many newly arrived Irish women, New York, Philadelphia, and Bridget may have sewed or performed domestic work to help build a nest Baltimore - as fractured soci- egg. eties. According to articles, The Irish seeking refuge from the famine constituted the young nation's novels, and city guides, each was really two cities: one or- first large-scale wave of immigration, and the Boston Irish formed the first derly, prosperous, and bathed immigrant ghetto in the United States. They coped with overcrowded and in "sunlight" and the other dilapidated housing, epidemics of cholera and consnmption, inadequate menacing, poor, and steeped in "darkness" (or "gaslight"), In water supplies and abnndant raw sewage, and the suspicion and prejudice this frontispiece from the 1868 that New England's tnore prosperons Protestant majority heaped on impov- Sunshine and Shadow in New erished Catholic newcomers. York, the symbolic extremes of A decade after their arrival, Patrick's skill as a cooper sustained them day and night were represented by a Fifth Avenue mansion and economically, and Bridget was pregnant with their first child. Then catas- the Old Brewery, an infamous trophe struck. Shortly after his son P. J. was born in 1858, Patrick Kennedy, "thieves' den." Matthew Hale then in his early thirties, died, probably of cholera or consumption. In 1860, Smith, Sunshine and Shadow in New York (1868) -American Social a the widowed Bridget was eking out living for herself and P. J. by running a History Project. notions sho'p. 377 378 PART TWO: FREE LABOR AND SLAVERY, 1790-1850 Although P. J. Kennedy would eventually become the patriarch of a wealthy and powerful political clan that, two generations later, would pro- duce a president of the United States, his humble origins reflected the cir- cumstances of millions of immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century. Forming a massive movement from Western and Northern Europe, these immigrants were pushed out of their homelands by famine, political upheaval, and economic crisis. They were drawn to the United States by the availability of land, the promise of a better life, and the high demand for labor. That demand for labor was fueled by the growth of American cities, new technologies and western settlements, a boom in commerce and in- dustry, and rapid increases in agricultural production. Daniel Webster, the senator from Massachusetts) declared, "It is an extraordinary era in which we live, remarkable for scientific research into the heavens, the earth, and what is beneath the earth" and its application "to the pursuits of life." But the economic and technological transformations that Webster exulted required a radical reorganization of the relations between labor and capi- tal. A smaller and smaller percentage of people were able to rise from com- laborers to skilled artisans to 1naster crafts1ne11 or from agricultural 111011 workers to landowners. Instead, more and more American workers, whether hnmigrant or native-born, spent their lives earning a wage. The term free labor was used in this period to distinguish workers in the North from the brutalities of legalized slave labor in the South. Still, free laborers were no longer independent in the sense that Thomas Jefferson or even Alexander Hamilton had intended when the nation was new. Free labor still included independent farmers, shopkeepers, and artisans but also growing numbers of people who contracted with employers to work for wages. In prosperous times, such as the late 1840s, jobs were relatively plen- tiful and wages were generally sufficient to support a family. But in periods of economic crisis, such ·as the depressions that hit in the 1830s and the 1850s, unemployment skyrocketed, wages plummeted, workers struggled to survive, and once-affluent businessmen went bankrupt. Some merchants, industrialists, professionals, and commercial farmers, however, were able to turn depressions to their advantage, buying land, labor, and goods at low prices, then consolidating their capital until good times returned. Such shrewd business deals spawned a widening gap between rich and poor in American society, a gap that was exacerbated by the massive influx of impoverished immigrants. Immigration transformed the meaning of race as well as class in the United States. Some native-born white Protestants viewed Irish Catholics in particular as racially inferior and religiously threatening. Lumping Irish Catholics together with African Americans at the bottom of the social hier- archy and suspicious of their loyalty to the Catholic Church and the Pope in CHAPTER 8: IMMIGRATION, URBAN LIFE, AND SOCIAL REFORM IN THE FREE-LABOR NORTH 379 Rome, they forged nativist societies to defend the white, Protestant world they valued. Some employers took similar measures. Relegated to the least skilled jobs and the least desirable neighborhoods, many Irish immigrants found themselves in fierce competition with African Americans. The growth of cities and industry, the periodic upheavals created by financial panics, and the development of immigrant and poor communities challenged old values and ways oflife. For many Americans, the transforma- tions of the 1830s and 1840s fostered a moral crisis. The North was charac- terized not only by changes in the relations between workers and employers, blacks and whites, and native-born and immigrant residents, but also by increases in poverty and crime; resistance to religious and familial author- ity; and the spread of prostitution, alcohol use, and disease. Many Americans, including some who were moved by the spiritual revivals of the Second Great Awakening and members of the growing middle class, believed that these social ills had to be addressed and joined charitable and missionary efforts. By the 1840s, smaller groups of Americans advocated more dramatic changes in society, such as land reform, utopian communities, racial equality, and the rights of workers and women. These n1ove1nents for social change brought ne\v groups of Americans into the public sphere and reshaped the meaning and structure of politics. The Transformation of the American Labor Force When prosperity returned in the early 1840s, technological advances in transportation, communication 1 and agriculture fueled the nation's rapid urban and indnstrial growth. Opportunities existed for people even of modest means to enjoy the fruits of this transformation, which created such midlevel occupations as insurance agents, railroad dispatchers, and telegra- phers. These were workers who were paid in wages or commissions, but they had hopes of rising to positions as managers or independent entrepre- neurs. While many farmers left agriculture for more stable wage labor, some w)10 remained benefited from the expansion of commerce and the growth in wholesale and retail establishments. Aside from two economic slnmps in the 1850s, commerce and industry expanded at an nnprecedented rate. As the northern United States became an increasingly market-oriented and industrial society, greater economic competition, urban growth, and westward migration transformed working people's lives. The influx of hun- dreds of thousands of immigrants from Ireland and Germany in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s offered a reliable and often cheap solution to the labor shortage created by urban and industrial demands. However, these im- migrant workers, as well as native-born white women and free African Americans, found their opportunities for work dictated by their ethnicity, race, and gender. And neither the wage-earning, free-labor North nor the 380 PART TWO: l1REE LABOR AND SLAVERY, 1790-1850 increasingly distinct slave-labor South conformed to the ideal of a nation of independent landowners. A Changing World for Northern Working People Technology led to impressive gains in productivity in both agriculture and industry. Com- pared to a worker in 1800, a worker in 1860 could produce twice as much wheat, twice as much pig iron, and more than four times as much cotton cloth. New power-driven machines - reapers, looms, sewing machines, lathes, and steam boilers - fueled this soaring productivity. Refinements in production processes contributed too, each worker now completing smaller and more simplified tasks. Combined with a growing population, increased productivity led to a staggering increase in national wealth. For instance, between 1840 and 1860 alone, the nation's agricultural output more than doubled in value, and that of its construction, mining, and manufacturing industries grew four times or more. New means of transportation also transformed the economic landscape (Map 8.1). As the canal era gave way to the railroad age, the region beyond the Appalachian Mountains was accessible to easterners and European immigrants as never before. Ten thousand miles of railroad track laid in the 1850s helped to link western farmers to older railroad lines-the New York Central, the Pennsylvania, and the Baltimore & Ohio-and to eastern markets. People and goods now moved at far lower cost, as freight rates dropped by about 95 percent between 1820 and 1860. And the speed of travel increased almost as dramatically. In 1817, the fastest freight shipments from New York to Cincinnati took almost two months. By the early 1850s, ship- ping freight by railroad between these two cities took only about a week. At the same time, technological advances allowed Americans to com- municate with each other ;more readily, even across great distances. During the 1840s, the telegraph made it possible for the first time to send informa- tion (including commodity prices and election results) instantaneously across the country. Cheap newspapers, made possible by the steam press, and itinerant lecturers traveling by railroad spread new ideas that sparked ongoing debates throughout the free states. The pleasures and dangers of city life were broadcast to small towns and farming communities. The ben- efits of frontier life; the possibilities for industrial jobs; the horrors of racial, sexual, and wage slavery; the threat of mass immigration; the saving grace of evangelical conversion or utopian lifestyles- all were proclaimed far and wide across the United States. The improvements in communication and transportation pulled local markets and scattered communities into regional and interregional net- works. As canals and then railroads replaced rivers as the primary link between regions in the 1840s and 1850s, the Northwest exchanged more goods and people with the Northeast than it did with the South. Particularly MAP 8.1 The Mobility of Goods and People, 1800-1857 TRAVEL TIMES FROM NEW YORK, 1800 Advances in technology made ~ 0 the movement of goods and people across the United States faster and more reli- able. In 1800, a traveler from New York City required a full week to reach western New York, an area that was still largely settled by American Jndians. By the late 1850s, western New York cities such as Buffalo served as hubs for the transhipment of goods and people between the eastern seaboard and the western frontier of white settlement. It took only one day to reach Buffalo from Chicago and an· other day to travel on to New York City. 0 150 300 Miles 0 150 300 Kilometers TRAVEL TIMES FROM NEW YORK, 1857 0. 0 150 300 Miles 0 150 300 Kilomeiers 382 PART TWO: FREE LABOR AND SLAVERY, 1790-1850 The Lackawanna Volley George lnness's panoramic painting, commissioned by the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad in 1855, placed the symbol of industrial- ization in a bucolic setting. The railroad's president paid Inness $75 to paint a scene showing three locomotives. The artist gave him only one train but obliged the president's zeal for advertising by painting three tracks leading into the new Scranton, Pennsylvania, round- house instead of the one that actually existed. George Inness, oil on canvas, 1855, 33 7/8X501/4 inches - Gift of Mrs. Huttleston Rogers, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. in cities, the general store gave way to specialty shops that offered wider selections of specific goods- hardware, dry goods, groceries, and so on. Owners, relying on state incorporation laws passed in the 1830s, n1oved from individual and family-based businesses to selling shares that combined the resources of a larger number of people while limiting each investor's lia- bility. Banks, although still risky ventures, increased in number to create the credit required by merchants who now traded large quantities of goods over long distances. A growing number of capitalists also turned from investing in trade to investing in factories to feed AmeriCans' voracious demand for manufactured goods. These economic and technological changes led as well to the emergence of a new category of professionals and managers, many of whom were will- ing to forgo the ownership of land or businesses for the relative security of a salary. The members of this group, who embraced the values and ideals of the emerging middle class, sought to stave off the risks associated with boom-and-bust cycles by investing their savings in new financial institu- tions such as state banks. At the same time, they bought a growing number of mass-produced consumer products-pianos, chairs) rugs) glass mirrors) silverware, and carriages-to show off their newfound wealth and status. Wageworkers also hoped to mute the effects of economic downturns. But during hard times, they had to rely primarily on good luck and exten- sive family and friendship networks. Both were risky supports in bad times. Moreover, workers who were hit by economic recession could no longer hope to eke out survival by relying on goods produced in their local com- munities. A consumer society was emerging in which workers increasingly  CHAPTER 8; Ir.1MIGRATION, URBAN LIFE, AND SOCIAL REFORM IN THE FREE-LABOR NORTH 383 oumping Ground at the Foot of Beach Street According to a Harper's weekly editor, this engraving of people scavenging on garbage barges - searching for coal, rags, and other discarded items that might be used or sold to junk dealers - showed how some people in New York were forced to "live upon the refuse of respectable folk." Stanley Fox, Harper's Weekly, September 26, 1866 -American Social History Project. exchanged their wages for the goods they required in order to live. This entailed a further decline in the local self-sufficiency that had characterized rural areas and small towns until the early nineteenth century. The Shift Away from Agriculture Thronghout the nineteenth century, the absolute size of the nation's farm population continued to grow steadily, but the number of people working outside of agriculture grew consider- ably faster. Moreover, rural as well as urban workers were caught np in the new cash economy. By the 1840s and 1850s, steadily declining prices for manufactured goods allowed farmers to buy more and more items, includ- ing stoves, ldtchenware, and harnesses. To get the cash needed to purchase these goods, farm families devoted more of their time to producing mar- ketable crops that would command high prices in expanding urban mar- kets. As a result, farmers were soon bnying large quantities of food themselves. Ironically, then, the northern farmer, like the northern factory worker, was becoming more dependent on others for basic needs. Rural sell- ers had to fight to maintain their market position, and competition began to replace cooperation, pitting farmer against farmer. The New England Farmer warned The cultivator who does not keep pace with his neighbors as regards agricultural improvements and information will soon find himself the poorer in consequence of the prosperity that surrounds him.... He will be like a stunted oak in the forest, which is deprived of light and air, by its "towering neighbors." 384 PART Two: FREE LABOR AND SLAVERY, 1790-1850 Farmers were also competing with others far away. Improved trans- portation brought produce from the West into competition with crops grown on rocky and nearly exhausted New England soil. During 1840, only ten thousand bushels of grain and flour left Chicago for the East; twenty years later, over fifty million bushels followed that route. Much of this increased yield went to feed the people of New England and the Middle Atlantic states, but some went to feed the South, Ireland, and other parts of Europe. As the center of northern agriculture moved West, so too did the farm- ing population. By 1860, fully one-third of all those born in Connecticut and New Hampshire and four of every ten Vermonters had left their home states in search of a second chance, mostly out West. There were other attractions to western migration. Gold, discovered in California in i848, provided one powerful magnet. So did a boom in western construction and manufactur- ing, especially mining (lead, copper, iron) and smelting, lumbering, farm equipment, and food processing (milling, meatpacking, distilling, and brewing). The demand for labor thus drew indnstrial workers as well as farmers to the West. The surge in commerce and industry also swelled the nun1ber and size of cities (Map 8.2). In i790, the entire country claimed only twenty-four towns or cities, defined as locations with populations greater than 2,500, and there were none larger than 50,000. But by 1860, there were nearly four hundred towns and cities, and more than one-third of all northeasterners lived in them. In addition to the many small cities and towns, there were several major metropolises. In the East, New York City and Philadelphia became the dominant manufacturing cities in the nation. Located at key points along the now-bustling East-West trade routes, western urban cen- ters such as Rochester, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Chicago also boomed. Immigrants Swell the Wage Labor Ranks The greatest number of immigrants came to the United States between 1840 and 1859, when over four million arrived. By 1860, nearly one-third of adult white men in the free states were immigrants. A few were well-to-do merchants, manufacturers, and professionals or landowning farmers. A far larger number, many from impoverished rural areas, ended up working as unskilled or low-skilled laborers in industry, construction, or the maritime trades or as domestic servants or casual workers paid by the day (Figure 8.1, p. 386). Drought, famine, revolution, and political persecution in Europe all contributed to this massive wave of emigrants to the United States. England, for example, had worked for centuries to concentrate land, wealth, religious authority, and political power in the hands of Ireland's pro-English Protes- tant minority at the expense of the Catholic majority. In pursuit of increased revenue, the largely Protestant landlord class steadily squeezed the  CHAPTER 8; IMMIGRATION, URBAN LIFE, AND SOCIAL REFORM IN THE FREE-LABOR NORTH 385 MAP s.2 The Nation's Major (:ities in 1840 In 1840, the eastern seaboard was still the site of the nation's largest cities, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. New urban areas were developing, however, to the west and south. These in· duded industrial centers such as Rochester, Pittsburgh, Lowell Cincinnati, and Richmond and Salem regional centers such as Peters· Lynn burg, Virginia; St. Louis, /"""="' I PCONOILE ALL OPINWNS, blacks and whites, working-class and middle-class activists, and native-born LET US ENDEAVOUR TO tlNl'l'B ALL llEAllTS. and immigrant Americans. Most be- lieved, as labor journalist William Yonng proclaimed in 1845, that God intended that humanity "should be bound to- gether by nature's golden chain... into one har1nonious whole-no slaves- no servants-no masters-no op- pressed and no oppressors-but in the language of Christ- 'For one is your n1aster) and all ye are brethren."' EDITED n'Y Communal Experiments and Coopera- ROBERT OWEN AND ROBERT DALE OWEN. tive Enterprises One of the most radical movements of the nineteenth century involved establishing entirely l'RlNTED AND PUBLISHED BY ,J. EAffONSQ:r-,T, 15,. CI-IICIIESTER !'LACE, ORA Y'S INN ROAD. new communities based on collective STRANGE, PATERNOSTER ROVV. PtmIUSS, OI,D COMPTON S1'REE1~ AND MAY BE HAD OF ALL B001(8El~TJB1{S. ownership of property and infused with the spirit of cooperation instead of com- petition. European immigrants had first "The Change from Error erected such utopian societies in North America in the eighteenth century. and Misery, to Truth and The largest of these was created by a religious movement called the Happiness" Shakers. By the 1830s, several Shaker communities in New York and Massa- Robert Owen and the design of his New Harmony utopian chusetts housed more than 6,ooo members. community in Indiana appeared Other founders of utopian communities drew their ideas from more on the title page of The Crisis, secular sources. In the 1820s, the Irish-born industrialist Robert Owen written by Owen and his son in 1833. Robert Owen and Robert Dale applied ideas that he had developed about social reform in Scotland to com- Owen, The Crisis, or the Change munities in the United States. In Owen's New Harmony, Indiana, commu- from Error and Misery, to Truth and nity, there would be "no personal inequality, or gradation of rank and Happiness (1833) - Rare Books and station; all will be equal in their condition." Manuscripts Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and In the late 1830s and 1840s, utopian communities multiplied. Some, Tilden Foundations. such as Brook Farm in Massachusetts, founded in 1841, expressed Christian disenchantment with commercializing and industrializing America. More, however, followed the lead of Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, and other European socialists and sought economic equality among their residents. 412 PART TWO: FREE LABOR AND SI.AVERY, 1790-1850 Whether religious or secular, most of the communities that were founded in this period were closely tied to other social movements, especially peace, abolition, and woman's rights movements. The most famous) and controver- sial, of these nineteenth-century utopian societies was founded at Oneida, New York, by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848. Following the same economic plan as New Harmony and Brook Farm, women and men at Oneida shared labor and were paid equal wages for equal work. But Noyes also advocated sexual reform. Oneida residents practiced some- Nashoba, April 19, 1828 thing called "complex marriage;' in which women and men could divorce Influenced by Robert Owen and New Harmony, Frances Wright and remarry, children were raised communally, and reproduction was established an interracial planned. The system of sex and marriage, which was intended to free utopian community, Nashoba, women from the burdens of male domination and frequent childbearing, near Memphis, Tennessee. Its was highly regulated. The community had to approve marital unions, for white and black residents {in- cluding slaves purchased by example, and men were required to control their sexual urges. Women, Wright) worked and lived to- however, gained little authority over their work or their sexnal relations and gether. Believing that racism lost authority over their children. Still, Oneida thrived for four decades could be defeated only by the "amalgamation of the races," despite the popular outrage provoked by the community's sexual practices. Wright permitted interracial The greatest obstacle to the dozens of utopian communities that sexual relationships in the emerged in the 1830s and 1840s was economic failure, not public outrage. Nashoba community. Even abolitionists condemned the Most began with only limited financial resources, which made it difficult to experiment. This is a sketch by match the enticements offered by the competitive world outside. Moreover, Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, a even modest economic-setbacks could spell disaster for communities that French artist-naturalist who were already operating close to the margin. Critics cited failed communities spent ten years at New Har- mony.Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, as proof that the whole experiment was futile. Yet many utopian residents April 19, 1828, pencil drawing- f'jo. _ felt differently. Mary Paul, a former Lowell textile worker who lived in a 43122, Mus€e d'Histoire Naturelle utopian community in Red Bank, New Jersey, in 1853-1854, wrote her father du Havre. about the benefits of her new life. In just one year, Paul reported, I have "already seen enough to convince me that [this] is the true life. And although all the attempts that have ever yet been made towards it [a society built on Fourier's principles] have been failures... my faith in the principle is as strong as ever, stronger if possible." Movements for Land Reform Land reform offered another means of improving the plight of working-class Americans. The promise of abundant land had lured millions across the Atlantic. It still beckoned in the 1840s and 1850s. The federal government owned huge tracts of unimproved soil in the West, but most was given in subsidy to private railroad companies or sold in  CHAPTER 8: IMMIGRATION, URBAN LIFE, AND SOCIAL REFORM IN THE FREE-LABOR NORTH 413 ''The Money-power Must Be Superseded by the Man"power": Workers' Cooperatives In 1845, the Boston ,.. Here, as [in Europe], the soil, motive power, and machinery are Mechanics' and Labor- monopolized by the idle few; all thesources of wealth, all the ins\ru- ers' Association founded mentalities of life, and even the right and privilege of industry are a cooperative society. A taken away from the people. Monopoly has laid its ruthless hands upon committee of that as- labor itself, and forced the sale of the muscles and skill of the toilillg sociation drafted the many, and under the specious name 'wages' is robbing them of the statement excerpted here fruits of their industry.... to explain the purpose The remedy lies in a radical change of principle and policy. Our and methods of coopera- isolated position and interests, and our antisocial habits, must be ab_an- tion. doned. The Money-power must be superseded by the Man-power. Uni- versal Monopoly must give place to Societary ownership, occupancy, and use.... The direction and profits of industry must be keptin the hands of the producers. Laborers must own their own shops and facto-. ries, work their own stock, sell their own merchandise, and enjoy the fruits of their own toil. Our Lowells must be owned by the artis_ans who. build them, and [by] the operatives who run the machinery and do_ all the work. And the dividend, instead of being given to the idle parasites 1· of a distant city, should be shared among those who perform the labor. Our Lynns must give the fortunes made by the [ sho.e] dealer and employer, to those who use the awl and use the material. TheAwl, January 18, 1845. large tracts on the open market. Big land companies, banks, and wealthy individual speculators bought up enormous quantities of public land. By 1860, speculators owned over twenty million acres in Illinois and Iowa alone-nearly a quarter of the land in those states. They then jacked up prices and resold the land in smaller plots to homesteaders. Those who could not afford land on these terms became laborers or tenants of large landowners. Those who did buy their own farms frequently went into debt to do so. Later, unable to meet their payments, many lost both their home- steads and their life savings. Reformers protested these government land policies, demanding that public lands be distributed to the needy, which would slow the growth of wage labor and tenancy. The most energetic land reformer in the 1830s and 1840s was George Henry Evans, a Welsh-born printer and a leader of the Workingmen's Party. Evans insisted, "If any man has a right... to live, he has a right to land enough for his subsistence. Deprive anyone of these rights, and you place him at the mercy of those who possess them:' Public 414 PART TWO: FREE LABOR AND SJ.AVERY, 1790-1850 land must be made available free of charge to those who would actually settle and till it. The National Trades Union, which was organized as a labor union in 1834, also linked "the interests and independence of the laboring class" to the land question. Its members believed that if"public lands were left open to actual settlers;' surplus workers would be "drained off" from the cities into agriculture, relieving unemployment and job competition. The Massachu- setts labor newspaper Voice of Industry, warmly endorsed demands for "free soil;' as did Lynn's shoe workers. As one shoemaker demanded, "Where shall we go but on to the land? Deprive us of this and you reduce us to the con- dition of the serfs of Europe." Many German immigrants agreed, hoping that wider access to land would lessen job competition and thus under- mine nativism. Women Reformers Seek Rights for Themselves Women were active in many of the reform and radical movements of the 1830s and 1840s. In this period, most women lacked the right to keep their wages, retain custody over their children, or protect their bodies from assault. Free black and immigrant women were especially limited in their occupational options, yet many had to support their families and face harassment and assaults by white employers. Although few of these women joined the formal women's rights movement in this period, many recognized the need for wider oppor- tunities and collective action. In 1825, New York seamstresses had organized the first all-women's strike in the United States. By 1831, striking tailoress Sarah Monroe claimed, "It needs no small courage from us... to come before the public in the defence of our own rights, but... if it is unfashionable for the men to bear oppression in silence, ,why is it not also become unfashionable with the women?" Lowell mill girls organized themselves for better wages and work- ing conditions throughout the 1830s and 1840s (see chapter 7). In 1845, members of the Ladies Industrial Association in New York City who sought similar goals declared, "The boon we ask is founded upon RIGHT alone." For these women, the most important issues involved rights to good jobs and fair wages. Middle-class women did not expect to work for wages, and they gener- ally viewed their lives as superior to those of the poor and working class. Few recognized or supported these women's claims for rights of their own. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the founders of the women's rights move- ment in the United States, did claim that the condition of Irish women in her hometown of Seneca Falls, New York, helped to inspire her interest in the cause. Yet she viewed her Irish neighbors as passive victims of male domination, expressing both concern and condescension for their plight:  CHAPTER 8: Il\111\ilIGRATION, URBAN I.lFE, AND SOCIAL REFORM IN THE FREE-LABOR NORTH 415 "The Amazonian Convention" The proceedings of a women's rights meeting were disrupted by hecklers in an 1859 cartoon published in Harper's Weekly. J. M'Nevin, Harper's Weekly, June 11, 1859 -American Social History Project. Alas! Alas! who can measure the 1nountains of sorrow and suffer- ing endured in unwelcome motherhood in the abodes of igno- rance, poverty, and vice, Vlrhere terror-stricken women and children are the victims of strong men frenzied with passion and intoxicat- ing drink? Most woman's rights advocates in the 1840s and 1850s were prompted to analyze the position of women in society because of their involvement in other social causes, most notably the abolition of slavery. As abolitionist Angelina Grimke noted, "The investigation of the rights of the slave has led me to a better understanding of my own." It was members of the Society of Friends, known as Quakers, who provided the core of the movement for women's rights in the mid-nineteenth century. Led by Lucretia Mott of Philadelphia, Mary Ann McClintock of Waterloo, New York, and Amy Post of Rochester, these women clai1ned a decade of experience as advocates of abolition, Indian rights, land reform, and other causes. The campaign for equality of the sexes was important as part of this larger effort to achieve racial and economic justice. Four Quaker activists joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton in organizing the first women's rights convention in the United States, held in July 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York. Attended by some 200 to 300 people, the convention celebrated the achievements of women past and present but noted the many burdens placed on them on account of their sex. One hundred participants signed a manifesto modeled on the Declaration of Independence, declaring "all men and women are created equal." Demands for greater social and 416 PART TWO: FREE LABOR AND SLAVERY, 1790-1850 "Repeated Injuries and Usurpations":The Seneca Falls Convention The resolutions pass~d.at The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpa- the firot women's rights tions on the part of rnan toward woman, having in direct object the conVention, a't Seneca establishment of a absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let fattsb{ Falls in 1848, parts of submitted to a candid world: whi(h are presented here, He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable rightto the demanded that women elective franchise. be given their full politi- He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of whic;h. cal.and civil rights as she had no voice. citiz;ens of the United He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead. States. He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.... In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obe- dience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master-the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement. ' He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remu- neration. He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and disti.nction which he considers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theol- ogy, medicine, or law, she is not known. He has created a false public sentiment by giving to the world a ferent code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinc1u~~i:k