between 1880 and 1900, numbers of employed women soared; shifted from working in domestic services (maids, cooks, laundresses) to textile manufacturing or food processing; new inventions such as typewriter, cash register and adding machine allowed women to partake in clerical jobs (despite low wages, enjoyed working conditions)
number of children (<16) in wage work tripled from 1870 to 1900; employed in textile and shoe factories; especially poor conditions in Southern textile mills; low wages; several states passed min age and max hour laws but large companies could ignore because didn't apply to interstate commerce; state laws and compoulsory attendance laws began to reduce, but many still needed money for families and worked at street trades
Amer Federation of Labor, founded 1886, national craft unions, 140,000 workers, led by Samuel Gompers, higher wages, shorter hours, right to bargain collectively, accept industrial system and work to improve internal conditions, avoid party politics (support labor's friends, oppose its enemies regardless of party, Gompers's ideal), peak at 2.5 mil 1917,represent 11 national unions and 27,000 local unions avoid anarchist ideals, mostly skilled workers, immigrants/women/Afr Amer excluded, first union to recognize/encourage strikes as labor's most effective weapon, involved in Pullman strike and Homestead strike and union decline and public opinion against it, collect dues to aid members during strikes