Freedom a History of US
U.S. History
History of freedom if United States
I'm Katie Couric. Come on a journey and travel through time. It's the story of freedom in America. It's a history of us. I knew how it would feel to be free and we sure could break all the change in me I wish I could say all the things and I should say say I'm loud saying clear for the whole time I wish I could share all the love that you might remove all the bars that keep us apart I always wish you couldn't know what it means to be me then you'd see and agree that every man should be free I wish major funding for this program was provided by. Because the freedom to think and innovate is part of the very fabric of this country. And the Charles H reson foundation. The kohlberg foundation additional funding was provided by the following. It's interesting that people once touched by freedom will not easily let it go. And once one group of oppressed Americans makes advances, there's always another group right behind it. In the half century after the Civil War, one group fighting oppression was American laborers.
It was a time when factory workers were often compared to slaves and the people who helped them to abolitionists. It was also the era of Susan B. Anthony, who dedicated her life to the fight for women's rights. For each of these movements, freedom didn't come easily, but gradually, with increased protections under the law, came new hope and respect that made being an American unique. 1876 was a big year in America. It was our Centennial for 100 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, America had survived and prospered and become even more free. And now the nation was ready to celebrate. At a huge national fair in Philadelphia. I had a hammer in the morning Appleton's journal may 20th, 1876. The Centennial exhibition is the grandest of its kind ever known. The people who swept through on its first day came from every section of the United States. All over the land. It was a celebration of technology and ingenuity and American freedom. But on July 4th, 1876, at a grand public reading of the Declaration of Independence, an uninvited guest came forward. She was a suffragette named Susan B. Anthony, and she brought with her a women's Declaration of Independence.
While the nation is buoyant with patriotism and all hearts are attuned to praise, it is with sorrow that we come to strike the one discordant note on this hundredth anniversary of our nation's birth. Yet we can not forget that while men of every race have the full rights of citizenship, all women still suffer the degradation of disenfranchisement. We ask of our rulers no special favors. We ask that civil and political rights be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever. Susan B. Anthony had spent much of her life fighting for women's freedom. Four years earlier, in Rochester, New York, she and 15 other women had convinced local officials to break the law and register them to vote. On election day, all 16 women cast their votes in the 1872 presidential election. Susan B. Anthony was elated. Well, I've gone and done it. Positively voted the Republican ticket straight this morning. I'm awful tired, but to splendid purpose. This man but 23 days later, a deputy Marshall knocked on Anthony's door with a federal warrant. Miss Anthony, I have come to arrest you. The government had decided to single out Susan B. Anthony for prosecution. She alone would represent all 16 women. The only chance women have for justice is to violate the law as I have done, and as I shall continue to do.
When the day of the trial came, the courtroom was packed, reporter sat with their pencil sharpened, but the judge ward hunt refused to allow Susan Anthony to speak. He said as a woman, she was incompetent to do so. Then at the end of the trial, he turned to the jury and did something no judge has a right to do. He told them how they must vote. Under the Fifteenth Amendment, miss Anthony was not protected in a right to vote. Therefore, I direct that you find a verdict of guilty. Not a single juror said a word. Susan B. Anthony was found guilty, even though no juror ever rendered a verdict. Gentlemen of the jury, you are dismissed. I came into this court to get justice. I have not only had no jury of my peers. I have had no jury at all. Susan B. Anthony made a great contribution to the expansion of freedom by identifying the lack of freedom of women. Men considered it natural for women to be subordinate to say, why did men not want to give up their power over women is the same answer as why slave owners didn't want to give up their power over slaves or factory owners didn't want to give up their power over workers. People who have power don't want to give it up.
That unfortunately is a seems like a universal law of history. The only way they give it up is when the people who lack power start demanding their rights, which is what women and many others were trying to do in this period. The late 19th century was an era of affluence. The writer Mark Twain called it the Gilded Age. It was an age of great tycoons who made their money building railroads, thrilling for oil, and in the new steel industry. Steel was transforming the American landscape. In New York City steel cables made possible an extraordinary new structure. The Brooklyn Bridge, and by the use of steel framing, the first skyscrapers were beginning to rise. It was an era of dreamers and builders and innovation. And America was fast becoming the world's leading industrial power. But there was another darker side to the Gilded Age, and that involved the workers who made all the innovation possible. Steelman routinely worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for little pay. It brutalizes you. You start in to be a man that you become more and more a machine. The drags you down mentally and morally. Just as it does for me.
I wouldn't mind it so much if it weren't for the long hours. 12 hours is too long. Miners had it even worse than the steel workers. They worked underground with explosives, but without safety regulations. In one year, 25,000 workers died on the job. Many more were injured. If a worker lost an arm in an accident, no one helped with doctors bills. If a worker complained, he was fired. Reformers like Ira steward began to speak about what was now called wage slavery. The laborer instinctively feels that something of slavery still remains, and that something of freedom is yet to come. In response, a new freedom movement arose. It was called the labor movement. And it raised some of the most contentious social questions of the age. Many people thought, yes, labor is a mistreated, but what is the answer to that? How do you liberate laborers? There were many, many answers to that. Some people said, let them go out west and get a farm. Some people said, let them form their own cooperatives and run factories by themselves. Socialists said, no, let the government run the economy, and it can guarantee equality. The labor question became the basic public issue of the late 19th and early 20th century. At the heart of the labor movement, were unions. Groups of workers who banded together to work for better conditions.
Most used peaceful methods to further their aims. But there were also labor leaders who were willing to use violence. One of them was a self proclaimed freedom fighter named August spies. On May 3rd, 1885, spies was in Chicago, supporting laborers at the McCormick harvester company, where 1400 workers were conducting a peaceful strike. As he spoke about their right to an 8 hour work day, police suddenly moved in and fired shots into the crowd, killing four workers. The following day speeds published a leaflet title, revenge, working men to arms. Speeds compared the struggle to the American Revolution. If you are men, if you are sons of those who shed their blood to free you, then you will rise and destroy the hideous monster. That seeks to destroy you. To arms. We call you to arms. August fees rallied more than 3000 workers that day. In response, a 180 policemen marched into the square and demanded that the group disperse. Then, out of nowhere, a bomb was thrown in the direction of the police. Killing an officer and 6 others, Barton simonson was an eyewitness in the crowd. After the bomb exploded, there was a pistol shooting.
The police were shooting at the crowd. I ran west on the sidewalk and then in the road. I have to jump over a man lying down. I wanted to help him, but the firing was so lively behind me that I just let go and ran. The violence at haymarket turned the nation against the freedom fighters. 8 of the rally organizers were charged with conspiracy to commit murder. All 8 were found guilty. And on November 11th, 1887, August spies and three others were hanged. Let the world know that in the state of Illinois, men were sentenced to death because they believed in a better future. Because they had not lost their faith in the ultimate victory of liberty. Just 8 years after the haymarket riot, the nation was hit by a terrible depression. In the first 9 months of 1893, more than 15,000 businesses failed. Farmers were in deep trouble, mines were shut down, and joblessness swept across the nation. Newspapers chronicled the awful conditions. In our land that offers welcome to all mankind. We see the growth of a horde of paupers, beggars, and tramps. And then along came Jacob coxi. One of the most extraordinary labor leaders of the Gilded Age.
He had an idea that had never been tested in America that the government should help its out of work citizens find jobs. We need legislation which furnishes employment to every man able and willing to work. Legislation which will emancipate our beloved country from financial bondage. In 1894, coxi assembled an army of unemployed men. They set out on a 400 mile freedom march from nasal in Ohio to the nation's capital to implore the government to intervene on behalf of the welfare of workers. Hundreds participated. Often walking to the cadence of their own marching band. That singing in the floor I'd sing in the evening all over this place that sing out that sing out I sing out love sweet my brothers and the sisters all over this land but as coxy's army moved steadily eastward from town to town, newspaper reports described the group as a bunch of ragged, hungry man. Out to terrorize the countryside. At The White House an extra guard was placed on duty and a nervous president Cleveland made it clear he would not meet with the protesters. Cox's army reached Washington D.C. on April 29th, 35 days after leaving Ohio. We have come here through toil and weary marches through storms and tempests and amid the trials of poverty and disaster to lay our grievances at the doors of the national legislature.
The army of men marched down Pennsylvania avenue to the steps of Congress. But before coxi could deliver his speech, national guardsmen moved in. Jacob coxi was arrested on the capitol steps and the protesters were dispersed. It was the sudden end of America's 1st March on Washington, and a glaring suppression of free speech. Freedom of speech is the safety valve of society. If it is obstructed, there will be an explosion somewhere. The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace. So long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few who make up the employing class have all the good things in life. Big Bill Haywood was the founding chairman of a giant union called the IWW. The industrial workers of the world. And in the opening years of the 20th century, it became a major force for freedom in America. The IWW were one of the most radical of the labor organizations in the early 20th century. One of their greatest contributions to the expansion of our liberties was what we call their free speech fights, many communities just wouldn't let them give public addresses. The idea that they were coming to a town, they try to get up in the public square and give a speech about their views.
That's freedom of speech, whether you like it or not. But local towns, mayors, officials would say, no, no, no. We have to approve speeches that are given beforehand. We won't give you a permit to give a speech unless I like your speech. Well, obviously that's not freedom of speech. And IWW members were jailed, were thrown out of towns where treated very roughly, but their insistence on the right to speak, regardless of whether you like their views or not, really help to make freedom of speech, a major public issue in the early 20th century. And the factory town of Lawrence, Massachusetts, the IWW was pushing for shorter working hours, better pay, and safer conditions for the mill workers. The state legislature had passed a loss saying that women and children couldn't work more than 54 hours a week. But even though their profits were at record levels, the owners of the textile mills and Lawrence didn't want to accept that. Women and children had long been working 56 hours. The owners sped up their machinery so workers would produce as much in 54 hours as they had in 56. They had to work faster to keep up. Then they took two hours pay out of each wage envelope. To pay for 54 hours worth of wages of 56 would be equivalent to an increase in wages, and that the mills can not afford to pay.
It was January of 1912 and bitterly cold, and when they got their envelopes with less money than the week before, some women left their looms. Before long, 25,000 mill workers had walked off the job. The mayor said, we will either break the strike or break the striker's heads. The stockholders of the mill were even less sympathetic. The way to settle this strike is to shoot down 40 or 50 of them. On the 43rd day of the strike, 40 children and their parents were gathered at the Lawrence train station. The children had been invited to leave town. Sympathetic families in Philadelphia had offered to take them into their homes until the strike was over. But before the train arrived, the Lawrence police showed up and began clubbing women and children. It led to a congressional investigation, and the public began to learn of the inhumanity of the mills. By the end of the hearings, the mill owners agreed to raise wages, pay overtime, and rehire the strikers. Many said it was the IWW's finest moment. Lucy Parsons was a spokesperson for the union. Our movement has but one infallible, unchangeable matter. Freedom. Freedom to discover any truth, freedom to develop, freedom to live naturally and fully. Samuel goppers was unlike any other union leader of the entire era. At a time when most labor leaders were viewed as radicals, Sam gompers, was a statesman.
He struggled all his life to convince the nation that American workers needed not only better wages and working conditions, but shorter hours that would allow them more time for their lives outside their jobs. He called it their right to personal freedom. The long hour men go home, throw themselves on a miserable apology for a bed and dream of work. They eat to work, sleep to work, and dream to work instead of working to live. The man who goes home early as time to see his children to eat his supper to read the newspaper. That reading the newspaper creates a desire to be alone for half an hour, and that stops desire for an extra room. Just a little extra room. That extra room is a milestone in the record of social progress. It means a carpet on the floor, a chair, an easy chair, a picture on the wall, a piano, let the people demand an extra room with all that goes with it, and they will get wages enough to buy it. Time is the most valuable thing on earth. Time to think time to act. Time to extend our fraternal relations, time to become better men, time to become better women, time to become better and more independent citizens.
Sam doppers help form and then became president of an enormous union called the American federation of labor. The AF of L I proposed to keep the union free from alliance with any political party. Doppers was a practical man. He stayed out of politics because he thought it would divide the workers. And although he was criticized for excluding unskilled laborers and focusing his efforts only on skilled professionals, copper said he had only one goal to improve working conditions in America, but he knew lagged far behind almost every other industrial nation. Look at the killings in the mills and the factories in the mines and in the shops. It is an awful price we pay for our prosperity in our progress. For 38 years, Sam goppers worked for the workers, supported their strikes and transformed the AF of L into a major force in the industrial world. I am not one to generally encourage strikes, but show me the country in which there are no strikes, and I will show you that country in which there is no liberty. On March 14th, 1913, partially in response to Samuel gompers, the federal government established the Department of Labor. A new cabinet level office that would fight for workers rights.
The State Department would later call Sam gompers the most underappreciated statesman in the history of the whole country. A man who helped bring liberty to the working class of America. And I got a bill and I got a song to sing all over this land it's ever just it's about a dream it's all about love between the brothers and the sisters all over this land it's a hammer I just it's the best it's all about love between my brothers and the sisters. Without determined fair minded labor leaders, America might have developed into a very different country. Not only do they fight to improve working conditions, they help stretch the boundaries of American freedom to include workers and children and women too. I'm Katie Couric, join me again for freedom. A history of us. Travel down the road to freedom at PBS online, go back in time through interactive webisodes. President says that we are defending freedom in Vietnam.
Explore thousands of pictures and documents, meet history's movers and shakers. Militant, not the meek. The prison system will tumble to the ground. Find the resources you need to learn more and teach others at PBS dot org. Next on freedom a history of us, Americans dare to speak out against child labor. I have watched children all day long tending the dangerous machinery, and then when they are no more used to the master, thrown out to die. Warren against disturbing the balance of nature. Any fool can destroy trees. They can not run away. And investigate corporate corruption. Business played in this way is fit only for tricksters. Reformers shed light on social injustice, yearning to breathe free. I could be like a bird in the sky. How sweet it would be if I could fly all right so to the sun and look down at the sea and I'd say 'cause I know