Lola Alena Helms Dr. David Zonderman HI 549 Weekly Response #10: Context Before the Haymarket Riot The atmosphere of Chicago at the time of the Haymarket was rife with tension, anger, and grief. The American Civil War had a profound impact on the working class left behind to run factories during the war. Those men employed in factories tended to work short-handed and with shant earnings. Once the war was over, business owners often did not improve worker wages (p. 19). Before the American Civil War, families of low income lived alongside those of higher income, and found unity and co-working together. Afterward, the wealthy moved uptown while the poor lived in shanties near sewers (p. 35). Newly arrived immigrants from Western Europe had little purchasing power and could…show more content… A variety of goods were produced, though the greatest industry in Chicago was its slaughter and packing industry (p. 28). Chicago was not without job availability–but the blue-collar jobs themselves paid poorly and lasted too many hours. The working class began to see their work as a form of economic slavery (18-19). After witnessing the liberation of African American enslaved people in the South, the working class of Chicago believed it was their right to demand better working conditions and earnings–so that they could have a better quality of life (p.24). The exploitation by Chicagoan businessmen stood against freedom and other republican values. In the years to come, working-class Chicagoans believed that if the city, state, and national governments would not support them in their plight, they would take matters into their own hands, backed by precedent (p. 33). Not only did the American Civil War shape the desires of the working class, so did the death of President Abraham Lincoln–a former rail-splitter. Lincoln’s death aggrieved the working class, as they saw him as ‘one of them’
