By the late 1800s the United States’ industrial output and GDP was growing faster than that of any other country in the world. [What is GDP?]
At the center of the nation’s economic success was a dynamic and expansive industrial capitalism, one consequence of which was mass immigration. From 1865 to 1918, 27.5 million immigrants poured into the United States, many aspiring to the opportunities afforded by the nation’s economic successes.^1
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The late nineteenth century was a time when industrial capitalism was new, raw, and sometimes brutal. Between 1881 and 1900, 35,000 workers per year lost their lives in industrial and other accidents at work, and strikes were commonplace: no fewer than 100,000 workers went on strike each year. In 1892, for example, 1,298 strikes involving some 164,000 workers took place across the nation. Unions—which function to protect workers’ wages, hours of labor, and working conditions—were on the rise.^2
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