Hispanic Americans predominantly worked in the farming industry within California, but were only employed seasonally during harvests. Therefore, average wage was only $1,378, which meant they usually lived low quality rented accommodation. One of the main reasons for Chicanos poverty was farming unions had no legal protection consequently it was hard to fight against the injustice. However, influential individuals such as, César Chávez the leader of the Community Service Organisation, National Farm Workers Association and later the United Farmers Workers was key is bringing about a change of Hispanic Americans status. The turning point came when the newly formed United Farm Workers launched its first big campaign in 1965 taking strike action involving over 10,000 farm workers.
They had jobs such as railroad track layers, brick layers, grave diggers; fruit, vegetable and cotton pickers, doormen, elevator operators.Almost 1 million black farm workers lost their jobs, many moved to the cities where they shared similar experiences with the immigrants; low paid jobs and poor housing conditions.In the northern states, decent jobs went to the white population and discrimination was just as common in the north as it was in the South and many black families lived in ghettoes in the cities in very poor conditions. On the other hand one reason that black Americans did benefit as before the war less than 2% of the population in the southern states could vote but by 1945 around 15% of black Americans in the southern states had been registered to vote. Another reason that the black Americans did not share in the economic boom was that the living situations for them was appalling. 40% of housing available to black Americans in Washington DC was found to be sub standard where as only 12% of white housing fell into this category however as a result of boom the amount of unemployed black Americans fell. It fell from 937,000 to 151,000.
Farming around the thirty year period of 1870 to 1900 was not a fair or successful one. One demographic that suffered immensely was the black population. Fresh out of the civil war, African Americans tried to acquire land, but had a difficult time paying off loans, which had high interest rates and took property as collateral. Black land owners were then forced to take out more loans, which thrust them into a spiraling debt (Document B). As seen in “The Farmers’ Grievances”, a skillful farmer, compared to his physicist or tailor counterparts would never terminate his financial troubles; and in contrast to other professions, advancements and pioneering in the farming field only dug the financial pit deeper (Document A).
Introduction National Cranberry Cooperative (NCC) is one of the largest cooperatives formed and owned by cranberry growers to process and market their berries. During the harvest season it has been experiencing problems of employee overtime costs, waiting time for trucks to unload the fruit, and half of the berries graded top quality are actually not top quality. Hugo Schaeffer, VP of operations, realizes the need for a change in the operations strategy to improve efficiency and reduce costs. Background The receiving plant’s (RP1) main problem is the trucks waiting time to unload the cranberries. This causes a high cost to the growers even after employing additional over time workers.
The push factors of their homeland- no arable land for crops, contaminated water, and no money- caused the farmers and their families to leave .Then California’s pull factors, such as harvest labor job opportunities, attracted these refugees of depression. All of these families that come from the same region and are migrating to California are an example of a chain migration. Also, since it stayed in the United States, it could be known as an internal migration. Inter- regional could also be another name for this migration because the farmers migrated from one region to a different region but remained in the United States. However, due to such massive migration of people to California, there was a huge decline in employment rates, shortage in work, and low wages.
Other Points * Money was used to fund military and 60% of tax was used for it * Conscription took place ..this was when Italian men were force to be part the army (not even to die for Italy but for France) * 1000 soldiers out of 27,000 came back from Russia * Vaccination for small pox and there was street lights The peasants * Made up between 80 and 90 % of Italians in the early 19th century continued to live a poor life * There was no improvement in the way they lived DISAVANTAGE AVANTAGE Occupations * Most peasants lived in the dark, damp poorly furnished cottages shared with their live stock for warmth at night. * Instead of starvation, men left forms went to the hills and became bandits * Young women moved to town to work, most found diseases such as typhoid, cholera etc from overcrowding 80 people in a house, no sewage system and no clean water * Many women abandoned babies to keep work. * Abandoned them at a founding hospital ( an infant abandoned by its mother and cared by others) Urban Groups * Substantial benefits 10% or increase who lived in town , lawyers, bankers, doctors and government officials were well off * New local government set up along French lines * Industry was encouraged France buy cheaper goods from Italy * Young men gained experiences of politics and government in there parliaments * Italian absorbed French ideals of liberty equality and fraternity * Code napoleon was set up to everyone they were laws The Church * Roman Catholic Church suffered severely. Its power greatly reduced. Two popes were imprisoned in France .
Millions of acres of farmland became useless and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes and migrated to California and to other states. Owning no land, many migrant workers traveled from farm to farm to pick fruit and other crops at starvation wages (Hornbeck, pg16-18). During The Early European and American Exploration of the Great Plains, the region in which the Dust Bowl occurred was thought unsuitable for European-style agricultural endeavors were primarily cattle ranching with some cultivation, however a series of harsh winters beginning in 1886, followed by a short drought in 1890 which led to an expansion of land under cultivation (Egan pg20-22). It was an important determinant of The Great Depression because throughout the 1930’s more than a million acres of land were affected by The Dust Bowl, thousands of farmers lost their livelihood, property, and mass migration patterns began to emerge, farmers left rural American in search of work in urban areas (Haberler, pg 70-72), During The Great Depression, severe drought conditions prevailed much of The United States plains soil turned to dust and large dark clouds could be seen across the horizon in Texas. Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico.
Too add the lines for the tickets, physical and the get on to the ship to America were very long. In 1891, the average earnings in Poland for a farm worker was 12 cents, in America it was 90 cents, just another great reason for “Poles” to make the trip to America. But the actual “trip” was not all so pleasant, very poor conditions on the ships taking “Poles” to America. It was very crowded, dirty, limited food was given, and this of course led to casualties. Most “Poles” arrived in America at Ellis Island outside of New York.
The majority of these laborers were men. The scarcity of women made families on these plantations even scarcer. The laborers lived in quarters, which were anywhere from ten or fifteen workers living together in one or two buildings. Each quarter was supervised by an American overseer, who was in charge of his ten or fifteen slaves and was responsible to make sure that their share of work gets done. Each slave was expected to cultivate about two acres of tobacco a year, which meant a lot of hard work almost every day.
Living appears to be a luxury for these poor workers; their American dream is deformed. To make the capitalist society into a competitive and ruthless Darwinism jungle, the most often used metaphor in The Jungle is animal. Sinclair parallels the workers with weak creatures or rough beasts to dehumanize them and make the readers treat them with extra sympathy. "… … he [Jurgis] lived like a dumb beast of burden, knowing only the moment in which he was"(140). "Then Jurgis fought like a wild beast … …"(202).