Booming immigration, especially from eastern European countries, supplied labor for Chicago’s slaughterhouses.
[Statistics provided by U.S. Department of Homeland Security.]
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Immigrants’ lack of literacy and political knowledge fed the avarice of the beef trust, which set low wages, demanded long hours, and exploited workers in other unscrupulous ways.
Otherwise defenseless workers turned to socialism, an ideal that encouraged economic equality.
Socialist literature grew in popularity by publishing stories of workers’ plights and the menace of capitalism.
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“Here, as elsewhere, capitalism has invaded the home and dragged forth the mother and child to do its work while the father vainly walks the streets looking for a master.”
[A. M. Simons. "Packingtown", The Pocket Library of Socialism. 1899.]
[J. S. Pughe. The Socialist's theory, and how it would work out. 1899.]
