The History of Labor in the United States

  • 13th Amendment

    13th Amendment
    The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.
  • National Labor Union

    National Labor Union
    The National Labor Union is the first national labor federation in the United States.
  • Knights of Labor

    Knights of Labor
    Knights of Labor, was an American labor federation that was active in the late 19th century, especially the 1880s.
  • The First Labor Day

    The First Labor Day
    The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union.
  • Great Southwest Railroad Strike

    Great Southwest Railroad Strike
    The Great Southwest railroad strike of 1886 was a labor union strike involving more than 200,000 workers.
  • Samuel Gompers

    Samuel Gompers
    Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor and served as the organization's president from 1886 to 1894
  • AFL (American Federation of Labor)

    AFL (American Federation of Labor)
    The American Federation of Labor was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL–CIO.
  • Haymarket Riot

    Haymarket Riot
    The Haymarket affair was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
  • Homestead Strike

    Homestead Strike
    The Homestead strike, was an industrial lockout and strike that began on July 1, 1892, culminating in a battle in which strikers defeated private security agents on July 6, 1892.
  • Pullman Strike

    Pullman Strike
    The Pullman Strike was two interrelated strikes in 1894 that shaped national labor policy in the United States during a period of deep economic depression.
  • Shirtwaist Factory Fire

    Shirtwaist Factory Fire
    The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on Saturday, March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history.
  • Textile Workers Strike of 1934

    Textile Workers Strike of 1934
    The US Textile Workers' Strike of 1934 was the largest textile strike in the labor history of the United States at the time, involving 400,000 textile workers from New England, the Mid-Atlantic states and the U.S. Southern states, lasting twenty-two days.
  • Fair Labor Standards Act of 1935

    Fair Labor Standards Act of 1935
    The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1935 help with the creation the right to a minimum wage, overtime pay for working more than forty hours a week, and provisions related to child labor.
  • The Wagner Act

    The Wagner Act
    The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, is a foundational statute of United States labor law that guarantees the right of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and take collective action such as strikes.
  • 1930s General Motors Sit Down Strike

    1930s General Motors Sit Down Strike
  • Fair Labor Standards act of 1938

    Fair Labor Standards act of 1938
    The bill provided for a 40-cent-an-hour minimum wage, a 40-hour maximum workweek, and a minimum working age of 16 except in certain industries outside of mining and manufacturing.
  • Taft-Hartley

    Taft-Hartley
    The Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, better known as the Taft–Hartley Act, is a United States federal law that restricts the activities and power of labor unions.
  • Steel Strike of 1959

    Steel Strike of 1959
    The 1959 steel strike raised the year's total strike' idleness to 69 million man-days, second only to 1946 in the postwar period.