The Power of Words: Writers and Publishers

• Overview: The Power of Words: Writers and Publishers
• Chapter One: Spoken Into Existence: From Settlement to Independence
• Chapter Two: Writers and Publishers of the New Republic
• Chapter Three: Pennsylvania 1820-1865: Expansion and Reforms
• Chapter Four: Making Sense of the Industrial World
• Chapter Five: Voices of the Commonwealth: Pennsylvania Writers in the Twentieth Century

This broad introduction to the history of the written and printed word in Pennsylvania history includes a rich collection of documents that capture events as they were lived and ideas as they were taking shape.

Chapter Four: Making Sense of the Industrial 

The rapid industrialization of the United States after the Civil War resulted in a myriad of social and economic challenges to the nation. The burgeoning work force, fueled by a steady stream of immigrants, sought fair wages and safe working conditions, as they toiled in American mines and mills. Many men sustained serious injuries or lost their lives in these hazardous arenas. Workers struggled to unionize in an attempt to address their problems but their efforts met with strong opposition from employers and little support from the federal and state governments.

The one city that typified this tragic situation was Pittsburgh, the quintessential steel mill town. Workers there were injured and died by the thousands with little or no compensation for their injuries or losses to their families. Often injuries went undocumented because workers were unable to seek medical attention.

During the Progressive Era, working conditions in American factories became public knowledge, in part due to the work of reformers such as Crystal Eastman and Lewis Hine. Hine's photographs provided stark images of the dangers faced by American steel workers each day. In 1907 the Russell Sage Foundation sent many investigators, among them Crystal Eastman, to research the social and industrial conditions that existed in Pittsburgh. Their work, known as The Pittsburgh Survey, provided a valuable account of the dangers faced by the Pittsburgh labor force. Eastman's survey addressed several industries, including railroads, coal mining, and steel, and exposed not only the dangers of the workplace, but also the substandard housing conditions of Pittsburgh's working class.

Eastman's work inspired a new attitude about worker's compensation laws, and several state legislatures began to require employers to accept responsibility for workplace accidents unless they could prove worker negligence. This shift in employer responsibility was amplified by the horrific fire on March 25, 1911, at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York, where 146 employees perished. By 1915 the Pennsylvania legislature passed its own Worker's Compensation Act.

The Pittsburgh Survey served as a model of research for reform and led to over 2,500 additional surveys throughout the United States. However, worker compensation laws did not exist in all states until 1947.

For additional information, see the Work Accidents and the Law  Historical Marker Page  

Alarmed by the wave of strikes that rocked the nation in 1919, U.S. Attorney...
Credit: Courtesy of the National Archives, Dept. of Justice.