Wage-labor emerged as the primary characterization of the working class during the Industrial Age, a development most lower class workers were wholly unsatisfied with. Economic need, for one, is an obvious explanation as to this fact. But the divide between labor and capital was also a cultural manifestation, a question of what America truly was. Labor unions and movements aimed to counter the individualistic business interpretation of the American Dream by advocating their own place in those very ideals that led to the nation’s creation.
The forces of labor, though, were disorganized. Biases founded upon religious, linguistic, sexual, and ethnic differences permeated American society. Labor movements generally preached Protestant evangelism, thus alienating unskilled immigrant Catholic workers. These incoming workers in turn looked down upon blacks, Asians, and other racial minorities, relegating them to positions even further down the socioeconomic urban hierarchy. In all instances women were discriminated against, provided with lower wages than their male counterparts. Unions argued that women, by accepting lower wages from employers, were hindering the fight against fixed wages for fluctuating working hours, and were thus detrimental to the overall labor cause.
Tompkins Square Riot, 1874
The disunity of labor impeded effective unionization. Throughout the Gilded Age, no union, not even the prominent Knights of Labor, garnered support from even a third of any specific labor division. Even in instances of unionization, unions could not achieve the necessary platform to protest the wage system itself; only deviations from the system in the form of higher pay or shorter work days was possible. As such, unions actually came to accept the fundamental system of wages. In doing so, they gave off a contradictory implication: that unions were willing to accept the new wage system for some place in the social order of American society. This place, though, cannot be defined or quantified, for the reasons of labor division mentioned previously.
I think that, in spite of its credible goals and values, the labor movement fell short of toppling capitalistic enterprise mainly because of its integral dysfunction. Most capitalists had already risen to the one percent in America; they were also homogenous, in being entirely white males, and usually some sect of Protestantism. They had power and influence within their domain, and that power could not be toppled without a certain fervor and passion for union cooperation that did not materialize. The meaning of America thus changed: ideals of individualistic corporatism overtook the traditional American Dream, which stressed the common man’s prowess in the world. Those who had risen from commonality and come to dominate it now defined America. There is definitely an economic link here to the modern America I will look to explore.
An American Inquiry 
