1. DUE: Sunday, February 6 @ 11:59PM
You will turn in and discuss an ACAPS handout critique from the PRIMARY DOCUMENTS section of the Textbook. Be sure you are using information from the READER!
Pick any document from Chapter 16, “Capital and Labor”
Answer as completely as possible each of the questions in the ACAPS handout and submit as an attachment.
I will the following rubric:
ACAPS
· Please title and turn in your assignments as a SINGLE document labeled: Last-Name-ACAPS4
· (Do NOT put your assignment in the text box!!!!!!)
· CLICK on the name of the assignment above and scroll to ATTACH FILE, then locate and upload your document.
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The American Yawp Reader
16. Capital and Labor
Friedrich Graetz, “The Tournament of Today – A Set-To Between Labor and Monopoly.” August 1, 1883. Library of Congress
(LC-DIG-ppmsca-28412).
Introduction
Documents
Media
Introduction
Industrialization remade the United States. At the turn of the twentieth century, powerful capital-
ists, middle class managers, and industrial and agricultural labors confronted a new world of work
and labor in the United States. While many bene�ted from the material gains of technological
progress, others found themselves trapped in cycles of poverty and hopelessness and strikes, protests,
and political warfare rocked American life as workers adjusted themselves to a new industrial order.
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The following sources explore the mindsets of American suddenly confronted with a new world of
concentrated capital and industrial labor.
Documents
1. William Graham Sumner on Social Darwinism (ca.1880s)
William Graham Sumner, a sociologist at Yale University, penned several pieces associated with
the philosophy of Social Darwinism. In the following, Sumner explains his vision of nature and
liberty in a just society.
2. Henry George, Progress and Poverty, Selections (1879)
In 1879, the economist Henry George penned a massive bestseller exploring the contradictory
rise of both rapid economic growth and crippling poverty.
3. Andrew Carnegie’s Gospel of Wealth (1889)
Andrew Carnegie, the American steel titan, explains his vision for the proper role of wealth in
American society.
4. Grover Cleveland’s Veto of the Texas Seed Bill (1887)
Amid a crushing drought that devastated many Texas farmers, Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill
designed to help farmers recover by supplying them with seed. In his veto message, Cleveland
explained his vision of proper government.
5. The “Omaha Platform” of the People’s Party (1892)
In 1892, the People’s, or Populist, Party crafted a platform that indicted the corruptions of the
Gilded Age and promised government policies to aid “the people.”
Grover Cleveland’s Veto of the Texas Seed Bill (February 16, 1887)
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6. Dispatch from a Mississippi Colored Farmers’ Alliance (1889)
The Colored Farmers’ Alliance, an African American alternative to the whites-only Southern
Farmers’ Alliance, organized as many as a million Black southerners against the injustices of the
predominately cotton-based, southern agricultural economy. Black Populists, however, were al-
ways more vulnerable to the violence of white southern conservatives than their white counter-
parts. Here, the publication The Forum publishes an account of violence against Black Populists
in Mississippi.
7. Lucy Parsons on Women and Revolutionary Socialism (1905)
Lucy Parsons was born into slavery in Texas, married a white radical, Albert Parsons, and moved
to Chicago where they both worked on behalf of radical causes. After Albert Parsons was exe-
cuted for conspiracy in the aftermath of the Haymarket bombing, Lucy Parsons emerged as a
major American radical and vocal advocate of anarchism. In 1905, she spoke before the found-
ing convention of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
Media
“The Tournament of Today” (1883)
Dispatch from a Mississippi Colored Farmers’ Alliance (1889)
The Tournament of Today – A Set-To Between Labor and Monopoly
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Friedrich Graetz, “The Tournament of Today – A Set-To Between Labor and Monopoly.” August 1, 1883. Via Library of
Congress (LC-DIG-ppmsca-28412).
“Print shows a jousting tournament between an oversized knight riding horse-shaped armor labeled
“Monopoly” over a locomotive, with a long plume labeled “Arrogance”, and carrying a shield labeled
“Corruption of the Legislature” and a lance labeled “Subsidized Press”, and a barefoot man labeled
“Labor” riding an emaciated horse labeled “Poverty”, and carrying a sledgehammer labeled “Strike”.
On the left is seating “Reserved for Capitalists” where Cyrus W. Field, William H. Vanderbilt, John
Roach, Jay Gould, and Russell Sage are sitting. On the right, behind the labor section, are telegraph
lines �ying monopoly banners that are labeled “Wall St., W.U.T. Co., [and] N.Y.C. RR”.”
The Tournament of Today – A Set-To Between Labor and Monopoly
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← Frederick Douglass on Remembering the Civil War, 1877
William Graham Sumner on Social Darwinism (ca.1880s) →
Lawrence Textile Strike (1912)
Lawrence Textile Strike, 1912. Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-23725.
In 1912, The International Workers of the World (the IWW, or the “Wobblies”) organized textile
workers in Lawrence and Lowell, Massachusetts. This photo shows strikers, carrying American �ags,
confronting strikebreakers and militia bayonets.
