" (Meltzer, 21). .
Factory employers also cheated women, believing they were defenseless. Some employers did not pay them at all, or deducted a large part of their pay for "imperfect" work. An 1870 survey showed that 7,000 of the working women could only afford to live in cellars and 20,000 were near starvation. For children in the nineteenth century, idleness was considered a sin. And the factory was a God sent protector against the evils into which idleness might lead children. In the 1830's in Massachusetts, children in the factory worked 12 to 13 hours a day. In 1845, the mills in Lowell set hours for children from sunup to sunset. In New England two fifths of all workers were children. The Census of 1870 reported 700,000 children ages ten to fifteen at work. By 1910, nearly 2 million children ages ten to fifteen were at work. In addition to the extremely high hours, the conditions children were forced to work in were atrocious. The factories were often dirty, unsanitary, cramped, dark, and unsafe. As difference in wealth between workers and owners increased, there was a greater need for the worker to be able to improve their circumstances. There were several key strikes through which the workers fought to improve conditions. In this paper I will investigate the issues, events, and outcomes surrounding three important strikes. .
The Homestead Strike: 1891, Steel Industry, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Conditions in the steel mills were difficult, dangerous and wages were low. "Everywhere in the enormous sheds were pits gaping like the mouth of hell, and ovens emitting a terrible degree of heat, with grimy men filling and lining them. One man jumps down, works desperately for a few minutes, and is then pulled up exhausted. Another immediately takes his place; there is no hesitation," (Meltzer, 137). The accident rate in the steel mills of Pittsburgh was very high. In 1891 there was a total of 300 deaths and over 2,000 injuries.