HISTORY MINUTE

“Another day, another dollar” was a saying that became popular in the late 1800s. Many workers made only 10 cents per hour for a ten-hour work day. With difficult work and dangerous work to perform for little pay, tensions rose between workers and their bosses. Labor unions emerged as workers sought to speak out. Arguments with management, however, erupted into full-scale wars. In 1886, railroad titan Jay Gould faced off a union called the Knights of Labor. The result was the Great Southwest Railroad Strike, the largest strike in Arkansas History.

In his thirty years in business, Jay Gould had risen from poverty to becoming one of the richest men in the country. By 1886, Gould owned 15% of all railroad tracks in the country – one mile out of every seven. The Knights of Labor had arisen promising to transform the landscape for workers, calling for equal pay for all races and for women, an end to child labor, an end to convict labor, and an 8-hour work day. These ideas would not come to fruition for American workers for decades.

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