
The life of American workers in 1915 - sinak
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2016/article/the-life-of-american-workers-in-1915.htm
======
googletazer
"Workers in 1915 were sometimes required to work too much and other times too
little; factory-worker hours could be shortened from one day to the next,
leaving workers with a severely reduced paycheck. "

The life of your service workforce today with fluctuating, uncertain hours. I
don't completely agree with the economics behind fight for $15, but I salute
them that they found balls to organize and demand better working conditions
and wages.

~~~
danharaj
Now that we have the Internet it will be much harder to stamp out and erase
from history this nascent resurgence of labor politics.

~~~
astronautjones
yet, seemingly easier to convince the working class that labor politics are
bad for them

~~~
astronautjones
I lament that this seems true.

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jhallenworld
Well this was near the Yellow Journalism era, so it's fun to read some of the
papers from the time to see what life was like. Really we should find Hearst's
"New York Journal" or Pulitzer's "New York World", but they do not seem to be
on line.

But you can find some: Here is Pulitzer's the "The Evening World"
[http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/issues/191...](http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/issues/1915/)

And a bit from Hearst's "New York Evening Journal"
[https://archive.org/stream/newyorkeveningjo1219hear#page/n0/...](https://archive.org/stream/newyorkeveningjo1219hear#page/n0/mode/2up)

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godzillabrennus
Not to mention that federal taxes to run the federal government during this
period were largely dependent on alcohol sales. Prohibition only got passed
when an income tax passed. Suddenly the interests of the federal government
was in line with workers.

~~~
tosseraccount
_tariffs were the largest source of federal revenue from the 1790s to the eve
of World War I, until it was surpassed by income taxes._

source:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_history_of_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_history_of_the_United_States#Income_for_federal_government)

------
percept
Absent: "union"

~~~
diyorgasms
Yeah it's a shame that our government still doesn't acknowledge its role in
killings of labor organizers and union members.

Source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_deaths_in_Unite...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_deaths_in_United_States_labor_disputes)

~~~
jackhack
The feds even ordered troops to open fire and aircraft to drop bombs against
coal miners in West Virginia, to protect the companies' interests:
[http://www.wvculture.org/history/minewars.html](http://www.wvculture.org/history/minewars.html)

------
IndianAstronaut
Interesting to think that most job fields that exist today existed then. One
notable exception being computer programmers, probably the number one
occupation of HNers. Wonder what new job field will exist in 2115.

~~~
dredmorbius
There's been a tremendous change in the number of _recognised_ employment
cateogories over the past 150 years or so. The high-water point for distinct
employments came around 1920 in the US, at least according to Census
classifications.

What you'll see is a shift from farm and ag, and transport categories to first
manufacturing and _especially_ railroad categories, then management and
various professional classifications.

By 1920 _most_ major modern technologies existed, the major exceptions being
television (and all its associated work), computers, nuclear energy, and some
specific classifications of chemical work.

Many of today's jobs might best be considered "complexity management":
managing people or things, inspecting or certifying them, training and
teaching, sales and marketing (especially), government.

See:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3832wx/occupat...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3832wx/occupation_classifications_growth_and_change_over/)

------
ommunist
Fascinating reading. There were nor programmers, neither bots at that time.
Conveyor belt existed though ang Mr. Ford was making his black magic from
condensed sweat of American workers.

~~~
rmah
By 1915, multiple waves of automation had already put millions of people out
of work in industries as diverse as textiles to bookkeeping. But some other
jobs radically expanded and new jobs were invented.

The pace of advancement was, from our perspective, staggering. A few decades
before and after would radically transform daily life, not just bring a few
new toys.

~~~
dalke
In this day of internet and seemingly constant change, I think it's hard to
recognize that change is less drastic now than it was 100 years ago.

100 years ago, a 50 year old would have been born as the first transatlantic
cable was laid, and seen the general introduction of the telephone,
phonograph, movie projection, airplanes, filing systems (including punched
card machines for data), radio, electric lights (which made nightlife
possible), the first plastics, ironclad warships, the opening of the Suez and
Panama Canals, the first affordable car in the Model T, the explosion of
newspapers made possible by Linotype, etc.

~~~
gozur88
>In this day of internet and seemingly constant change, I think it's hard to
recognize that change is less drastic now than it was 100 years ago.

Much of today's change is cosmetic, or a matter of added convenience. Flight,
electronics, vaccines, antibiotics... those kind of changes affect how you
really live.

People in the early 20th century imagined we'd have rocket ships, ray guns,
600 year lifespans, and robot servants by now because they were projecting
forward based on the speed of change in their own time. Near as I can figure
the pace of technological development really slowed down in the 1970s and has
continued slowing.

Whether this is because something fundamental has created stagnation or, as
Tyler Cowen proposed, we've eaten all the low hanging fruit, I couldn't say.

~~~
dredmorbius
A slight quibble: not all the change is simply cosmetic. The _ways in which we
interact_ with things can change _quite_ markedly. If you're deep in the guts
of technology, _any_ technology, this is quite apparent. I've heard the
comment made by programmers, Web designers, auto mechanics, doctors,
carpenters, and more.

But the _impacts_ of those changes ... not so much. The whole concept of
impact measurement is its own ball of waxworms, but there are some areas we
can look at. Medicine, for example, improved life expectancy twice as much
from 1900-1950 as from 1950 to today. The low-hanging fruit _really_ mattered.
Air travel today is _slower_ than in 1970s, when ground and airport delays are
considered. A multi-millionfold increase in compute power has extended long-
range weather prediction from five days to ... seven. (Though the minute-by-
minute near-term forecasts can be uncannily accurate.)

In researching material (something I do a lot of these days), there are the
benefits of online access, but I'm ultimately blocked by the rate at which I
myself can read _and understand_ new information.

(And not get distracted replying to comments on HN.)

------
thatfrenchguy
"Over the next two decades, however, streetcar lines either were bought up and
then closed down by automobile companies or simply went bankrupt."

Ah, America.

~~~
bluedino
Remember that in 1915 there were only 100 million people in the US. There are
a little over 300 million now. Picture how big the US is, almost 4,000,000
square miles. A country like England has 50 million people in just 50,000 sq
miles.

Sure, there were a few rail lines running across the country, but building the
nations highway system, plus the luxury of the general population to own cars
really allowed people to travel the country for business and pleasure. Without
the automobile the country wouldn't have been as well connected and arguably
wouldn't have became what it did.

~~~
Retric
Alaska and DC have similar population sizes even though Alasca has 10,000
times the land area. Hell more people live in DC than Wyoming. However,
Alaska's area is irrelevant when talking about DC.

Nobody wants to build street lights or a subway station in the middle of an
Iowa corn field, but reasonable infrastructure where people actually live is
important.

PS: America seems to have forgotten that infrastructure drives economic
development. From dirt roads to high speed internet society's live and die
based on past investments not what happens to rich or powerful people.

~~~
gozur88
>Nobody wants to build street lights or a subway station in the middle of an
Iowa corn field, but reasonable infrastructure where people actually live is
important.

Should people who live in that corn field pay for a rail system in DC?

>PS: America seems to have forgotten that infrastructure drives economic
development. From dirt roads to high speed internet society's live and die
based on past investments not what happens to rich or powerful people.

Infrastructure that make sense enables economic development. But not all
infrastructure makes economic sense. Sure, you can stimulate economic growth
in a place by pouring a bunch of money into it. But how much growth did you
suppress in other places by taking money out?

~~~
Retric
People in city's subsidize corn fields not the other way around. If you look
at net tax flows rural areas get a ridiculously huge subsidy's. Things like
the ever popular completely unneeded military bases. Or SS disability checks
because someone has no job skills and can find a friendly doctor.

Or how about: _Between 1995 and 2011, the federal government paid $172.3
billion in commodity subsidies, $46.6 billion in crop insurance subsidies, $37
billion in conservation subsidies and $21.4 billion in disaster subsidies._

Compare with the much hated bank/auto bailout which cost a net $21bn.

Really, rural areas should love for city's to become more efficient so they
can leach even more money from them.

~~~
gozur88
In my perfect world it wouldn't matter to the Iowans whether or not the cities
grew because they wouldn't get any subsidies for their crops, which you really
can't justify except by saying farm states have out-sized power in our
political process.

By the same token, regional and city-wide projects should built by the people
who are going to benefit. There's no reason I should have had to pay for
Boston's Big Dig, for example.

~~~
Retric
There are shared costs such as the US military making nationwide economic
gains useful to everyone. Put another way Iowa would need to pay significantly
more in defense if it was not part of a larger and more prosperous country.

