Tag: labor

Roediger explained in his essay how and why white freemen, that were earning wages, compared themselves to the slaves in the South and said they were white slaves. The growing abolition movement made it a necessity to define the difference between slavery and freedom. Then came the consideration of ‘white slaver’ as a category as more and more urban laborers and especially artisans publicized their experiences. The workers looked to Britain as an example of reform, just as the abolitionists had done. The labor activists did have some evidence of work place incidents where the workers were subjected to slavery rhetoric. The textile manufacturers mostly employed young single women and called “their management practices as paternalistic.” This obviously led to slavery comparisons. Some employers were even accused of calling their textile workers “their slaves.” Some laborers claimed to have ‘masters’ and be ‘slaves.’ However, some  tried to make some almost laughable comparisons about how the labor conditions were worse in the North than the conditions slaves experienced in the South. Activists claimed that the masters in the South were concerned with prolonging the life of the slave as long as possible, whereas northern employers did not care about their workers’ lives. What seems to me as a huge contradiction, many of the advocates for labor reform in the North were proslavery advocates at the same time. Proslavery advocates who were trying to end white slavery. As WIROBERTSON said his post, many of the proslavery advocates were scared of the African Americans slaves taking the jobs for lower pay. WIROBERTSON also said that the poorer whites had a fear of equality with the slaves. This statement agrees with one that Roediger made in his essay. Roediger said that the white workers didn’t want to relate too much with the slaves because that would suggest that they were unworthy of freedom. There was a fine line between comparing the northern workers and artisans to southern slaves and actually relating with them. The labor activists had to walk this tight rope, while still making strong  and gripping argument for labor reform.