The Forgotten Files

Share this post

Rigged Against the Workers (1883)

forgottenfiles.substack.com

Rigged Against the Workers (1883)

The Unequal Struggle of Labor and Monopoly

Peter Pappas
May 15, 2023
7
2
Share
Click image to enlarge

Print shows a jousting tournament between an oversized knight riding horse-shaped armor labeled “Monopoly” over a locomotive, with a long plume labeled “Arrogance.”

He’s carrying a shield labeled “Corruption of the Legislature” and a lance labeled “Subsidized Press”

The knight threatens a barefoot man labeled “Labor” riding an emaciated horse labeled “Poverty”, and weakly clinging to 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 flying monopoly banners that are labeled “Wall St., W.U.T. Co (Western Union Telegraph), and N.Y.C. RR”.”


During the Gilded Age, powerful capitalists, middle class managers, and industrial and agricultural labors confronted a new world of work and labor in the United States.

While a few benefited from the material gains of technological progress, many others found themselves trapped in cycles of poverty and hopelessness. Strikes, protests, and political warfare rocked American life as workers confronted the new industrial order.

With a surplus of cheap labor, management had the ability to replace striking workers with strikebreakers or scabs, who were unemployed persons desperate for jobs. Monopolists also held the political reigns of power at the local, state and national level.

The social and economic imbalance of the era was best summarized by Henry George who described the impact of capitalism and the resulting class divide in his book “Progress and Poverty” (1879)

The new forces [of progress] ... do not act upon the society from underneath ... but strike it at point intermediate between top and bottom. It was as though an immense wedge were being forced, not underneath society but through society. Those who are above the point of separation are elevated, but those who are below are crushed down.”


For another view of the class struggle of the era see:

Pyramid of Capitalist System (1911)

Peter Pappas
·
February 8, 2022
Pyramid of Capitalist System (1911)

The Pyramid of Capitalist System is a common name of a 1911 American cartoon caricature critical of capitalism, copied from a Russian flyer of c. 1901. The graphic focus is on social stratification by social class and economic inequality. It was published in the 1911 edition of Industrial Worker (The International Publishing Co., Clevelan…

Read full story

Title: The tournament of today - a set-to between labor and monopoly / F. Graetz.

Artist: Graetz, F. (Friedrich), approximately 1840-approximately 1913, artist

Journal: Puck, v. 13, no. 334, (1883 August 1), centerfold.

Created / Published: N.Y. : Published by Keppler & Schwarzmann

Date: 1883 August 1.

Library of Congress: LC-DIG-ppmsca-28412

7
2
Share
Previous
Next
2 Comments
Stephen Rutledge
May 15Liked by Peter Pappas

Thankfully, thing have changed in the USA.

Expand full comment
Reply
George Appletree
Writes The other side of the mirror
May 16Liked by Peter Pappas

The first image is Quixotic; I might deduct monopolists are taking windmills for giants

Expand full comment
Reply
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Peter Pappas
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing