Working Class Dbq

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Pages: 3

Life for the working class in the late nineteenth century early twentieth century was physically and mentally brutal. With extremely low wages and hardly any chance of improving their pay, financial security was nonexistent for the working class. They also had to deal with horrible working conditions that lead to poor health and sickness. To make matters worse, there was high risks of being injured or even killed on the job and money for recovery came out of their own pocket. As a nineteenth century working class citizen, just trying to make a decent living for yourself and a family was extremely difficult, and chance of improving their lives looked slim. One of the main problems the working class faced was that the average worker was only getting payed about $1.50 for a ten to twelve hour day, six to seven days a week. A team of two people making cigars could only make about three thousand cigars a week for around $11.25 a week, or around $33.75 a month (Doc F1). This was not nearly enough to have a comfortable life. Where the problem came in was that they were paying around $10 for rent and $20 for food (doc G4). Along with their other expenses many working class citizens went into …show more content…
Strikes were a common method of the working class in an attempt to improve their lives. However, the company was in charge of whether they would accommodate the requests of their works, and if they did not want to accept the requests, they did not hesitate to say no. After all, there were many immigrants who were seeking jobs, and gladly would take the low wages since it was better than what they came from (Video-AC). Many strikes would even resort to violence and destruction to force companies to accept what the workers want (Doc D). However, very few actually accumulated to anything and the workers were forced back to work if they wanted to keep their