Working People’s Strategies

For centuries, working people had migrated from countryside to city and from country to country to make a living. After the middle of the nineteenth century, empire and industry were powerful factors in migration for a variety of reasons. In parts of Europe, the land simply could not produce enough to support a rapidly expanding population. Because of eroded soil, hundreds of thousands of Sicilians left, often temporarily, to find work in the industrial cities of North and South America. One-third of all European immigrants came from the British Isles, especially Ireland between 1840 and 1920, first because of the potato famine and then because English landlords drove them from their farms to get higher rents by simply changing tenants. Between 1886 and 1900, half a million Swedes out of a population of 4.75 million quit their country. (See “Taking Measure: European Emigration, 1870–1890.”) Millions of rural Jews from eastern Europe also fled vicious anti-Semitism. Russian mobs brutally attacked Jewish communities, destroying homes and businesses and even murdering some Jews. These ritualized attacks, called pogroms, were scenes of horror. “People who saw such things never smiled anymore, no matter how long they lived,” recalled one Russian Jewish woman who migrated to the United States in the early 1890s.

Commercial and imperial development determined destinations for international migration. Most migrants who left Europe went to North and South America, Australia, and New Zealand as news of opportunity reached Europe. The railroad and steamship made journeys across and out of Europe faster, though most workers traveled in steerage with few comforts. Once established elsewhere, migrants frequently sent money back home; European farm families often received a good deal of their income from husbands or grown sons and daughters who had left. Cash-starved peasants in eastern and central Europe welcomed the arrival of “magic dollars” from their kin. Even though they formed the cheapest pool of labor, often in factories or sweatshops, migrants themselves appreciated the chance to begin anew. One settler in the United States was relieved to escape the meager peasant fare of rye bread and herring: “God save us from . . . all that is Swedish,” he wrote home sourly.

More common than international migration was internal migration from rural areas to European cities, accelerating the urbanization of Europe. The most urbanized countries were Great Britain and Belgium, followed by Germany, France, and the Netherlands; established port cities like Riga, Marseille, and Hamburg offered opportunities for work in global trade. Many who moved to the cities were seasonal migrants who worked as masons, cabdrivers, or factory hands to supplement declining income from agriculture. When they returned to the countryside, they provided hands for the harvest. In villages across Europe, independent artisans such as handloom weavers often supported their unprofitable livelihoods by sending their wives and daughters to work in industrial cities. (See “Contrasting Views: Experiences of Migration.”)

Changes in technology and management practices often made factory work more stressful. Workers complained that new machinery sped up the pace of work to an unrealistic level. For example, employers at a foundry in suburban Paris required workers using new furnaces to turn out 50 percent more metal per day than they had produced using the old furnaces. Despite more physical exertion, workers received no additional pay for their extra efforts. Workers also grumbled about the increased number of managers; many believed that foremen, engineers, and other supervisors interfered with their work. Some women kept their jobs only in return for granting sexual favors to the male manager.

Many in the urban and rural labor force continued to do outwork at home. In Russia, workers made bricks, sieves, shawls, lace, and locks during the slow winter season. Every branch of industry, from metallurgy to toy manufacturing to food processing, also employed urban women at home—and their work was essential to the family economy. Women painted tin soldiers, wrapped chocolate, made cheese boxes, and polished metal. Factory owners liked the system because low piece rates made outworkers willing to work extremely long days. A German seamstress at her new sewing machine reported that she “pedaled at a stretch from six o’clock in the morning until midnight. . . . At four o’clock I got up and did the housework and prepared meals.” Owners could lay off women at home during slack times and rehire them whenever needed with little fear of organized protest, as the threat of joblessness meant destitution. By and large, however, urban workers were better informed and more connected to the progress of industry and empire than their rural counterparts were.