Eleanor Eck’s Reviews > A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present > Status Update

Populism is crazy and complex. We don’t talk enough about the late 1800s - I grew up thinking it was the most boring part of American history. I was #wrong. Soooo many labor strikes and unionization asking for the bare minimum (a living wage) but the US is a money machine that can never be stopped 😭😭

"By this time the Supreme Court has accepted the argument that corporations were 'persons' and their money was property protected by the due processs clause of the 14th Amendment. Supposedly, the Amendment has been passed to protect Black rights, but of the 14th Amendment cases brought before the Supreme Court between 1890 -1910, 19 dealth with Black rights 288 dealth with corporations" Corporations=people YEAH RIGHT

"The Supreme Court...was doing its bit for the ruling elite. How could it be independent, with its members chosen by the President and ratified by the Senate? How could it be neutral between rich and poor when its members were often former wealthy lawyers, and almost always come from the upper class? .... A NYC banker toasted in 1895 'Supreme Court-gaurdian of the dollar, depfender of private property, ....' "

"The government of the United States was behaving almost exactly as Karl Marx describe a capitalist state: pretending neutrality to maintain order but serving the interests if the rich....the purpose of the state was to settle upper-class disputes peacefully, control lower-class rebellion, and adopt policies that would further the long-range stability of the system."

(1877) "...the industrial+political elites...organized the greatest march of economic growth in human history. They would do it at the expense of, black labor, white labor, Chinese labor, European immigrant labor, female labor, rewarding them differently by race, sex, national origin, and social class, in such a way as to create separate levels of oppression-a skillful terracing to stabilize the pyramid of wealth"

Just finished the chapter...basically workers striked and striked and striked and the government and capital holders (Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc - OG billionaires) always sent in the National Guard and Militias and police and clubbed them to death and shot them!!! Not one strike in post Civil War didn't have casualties. Really makes you think about our current events...they've ALWAYS been against the working class!!!

"And the Conscription Act of 1863 provided that the rich could avoid military service: they could pay $300 or buy a substitute...."

Song of the Conscripts Poem stanza:
"We're coming Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more.
We leave our homes and firesides with bleeding hearts and sore.
Since poverty has been our crime, we bow to thy decree;
We are the poor and have no wealth to purchase liberty."

"By the fall of 1859, men were earning $3 a week and women were earning $1 a week, working 16 hours a day."

GODDAMN!

Gonna do live updates as I read cuz this book is crazy tea!!
Currently learning about working-class struggles leading up to the Civil War. POV:
-Irish immigration boats (people already weak cuz of the potato famine) were full of disease ~10,000 people died in quarantine upon arrival, and more died during the passage
-13 hour days 6 days a week in factories as a kid and only eating bread and gravy for dinner after