(part 4) Baiting The Hook

Once the industrial revolution began to build momentum the average American still had is eye on the American dream, family, home, comfort, freedom, but their were some who had their eye on other things, and, a select few had the wealth or the contacts with wealth to put their plans in motion.  These people became know as the "Robber Barons" and sadly ,as we are well aware, they still exist to this day,but, they will have to wait for anther chapter.

In 1860, war came to America, and the industrialist charged into full swing.  Railroads north, south, east ,and west.  Steel Mills in the north, cotton mills in the south, war machine factories every where.  All needed workers to fill their ranks.  The average rural citizen was earning about $39 a year, these manpower hungry factories begin to offer wages 10 time that amount to draw the needed labor, so tens of thousands gave up their American dream their farms and land for one they thought bigger and better (the bait) and moved to the industrial center to help fuel the war industry.

 When they arrived and saw the tenement houses and slums they had to live in, they began to realise why they were paid such a high wage.  But, they thought, with these high wages I can work for a while and move back home and have a farm twice as big.  There were several factors that stood in the way of this plan.  The Railroad magnets were granted hundreds of millions of acres of land surrounding their tracks that the new city dwellers had abandon.  This created land speculators, town builders and real estate brokers, all selling for a profit the land that used to belong to the people freely, or at minor cost. In addition, the new laborers were now forced to buy every thing they needed to live instead of raising it or making it them selves, and company stores were created to take back as much of the wages as possible, then there was the matter of rent all of these provided, all of this created, "the hook".

  Soon there were millions of Americans, many who once possessed the Dream, who now, could only lay their drained, tired, bodies down in a stiffening tenement, and dream, once again, of the American dream.  We, have all been chasing it sense.