page_title: History of the United States
section_title: Unions and strikes
hierarchical_section_title: History of the United States / Growth and industrialization / Gilded Age / Unions and strikes
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Die Mulberry Street im italienischen Stadtviertel von New York City um 1900 English: Mulberry Street NYC ca.1900. edit of en:Image:Mulberry Street NYC c1900 LOC 3g04637u.jpg by me user debivort. 1px median filtered, and then downsampled. Español: Vista de la Calle Mulberry, en la Pequeña Italia en Nueva York, hacia 1900. Français&#160;: Une vue de Mulberry Street, dans Little Italy à New York, vers 1900. Italiano: Una vista di Mulberry Street, nel quartiere italiano di New York (Little Italy), circa 1900. 日本語: ニューヨーク・マンハッタンのロウアー・イースト・サイドにある、マルベリー・ストリートの1900年ごろ。元画像en:Image:Mulberry Street NYC c1900 LOC 3g04637u.jpgを利用者「debivort」が1pxの中央値をフィルターにかけ、その後ダウンサンプルすることにより編集。 Tiếng Việt: Phố Mulberry, Thành phố New York khoảng năm 1900. Polski: Mulberry Street we włoskiej enklawie na Manhattanie w Nowym Jorku, około 1900 r. Русский: Малберри-стрит, 1900-е. 中文（简体）‎: 纽约墨贝里街，拍摄于约1900年
context_page_description: The prehistory of the United States started with the arrival of Native Americans before 15,000 BC. Numerous indigenous cultures formed, and many disappeared before 1500. The arrival of Christopher Columbus in the year 1492 started the European colonization of the Americas. Most colonies were formed after 1600, and the early records and writings of John Winthrop make the United States the first nation whose most distant origins are fully recorded. By the 1760s, the thirteen British colonies contained 2.5 million people along the Atlantic Coast east of the Appalachian Mountains. After defeating France, the British government imposed a series of taxes, including the Stamp Act of 1765, rejecting the colonists' constitutional argument that new taxes needed their approval. Resistance to these taxes, especially the Boston Tea Party in 1773, led to Parliament issuing punitive laws designed to end self-government in Massachusetts. Armed conflict began in 1775. In 1776, in Philadelphia, the Second Continental Congress declared the independence of the colonies as the United States.
context_section_description: Skilled workers banded together to control their crafts and raise wages by forming labor unions in industrial areas of the Northeast. Before the 1930s few factory workers joined the unions in the labor movement. Samuel Gompers led the American Federation of Labor (1886–1924), coordinating multiple unions. Industrial growth was rapid, led by John D. Rockefeller in oil and Andrew Carnegie in steel; both became leaders of philanthropy (Gospel of Wealth), giving away their fortunes to create the modern system of hospitals, universities, libraries, and foundations.
  The Panic of 1893 broke out and was a severe nationwide depression impacting farmers, workers, and businessmen who saw prices, wages, and profits fall. Many railroads went bankrupt. The resultant political reaction fell on the Democratic Party, whose leader President Grover Cleveland shouldered much of the blame. Labor unrest involved numerous strikes, most notably the violent Pullman Strike of 1894, which was shut down by federal troops under Cleveland's orders. The Populist Party gained strength among cotton and wheat farmers, as well as coal miners, but was overtaken by the even more popular Free Silver movement, which demanded using silver to enlarge the money supply, leading to inflation that the silverites promised would end the depression.
  The financial, railroad, and business communities fought back hard, arguing that only the gold standard would save the economy. In the most intense election in the nation's history, conservative Republican William McKinley defeated silverite William Jennings Bryan, who ran on the Democratic, Populist, and Silver Republican tickets. Bryan swept the South and West, but McKinley ran up landslides among the middle class, industrial workers, cities, and among upscale farmers in the Midwest.
  Prosperity returned under McKinley, the gold standard was enacted, and the tariff was raised. By 1900 the U.S. had the strongest economy on the globe. Apart from two short recessions (in 1907 and 1920) the overall economy remained prosperous and growing until 1929. Republicans, citing McKinley's policies, took the credit.
caption: Mulberry Street, along which Manhattan's Little Italy is centered. Lower East Side, circa 1900. Almost 97% of residents of the 10 largest American cities of 1900 were non-Hispanic whites.[126]
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