History

The abolition of slavery and the economic progress contributed largely to the ideology of free labor. The idea of free labor in the nineteenth century became the first step towards realizing the American Dream. But the idea of free labor for Northern white women, free blacks in the North and enslaved persons in the south were not so easily accepted.

The idea that the husband or the males in the household are still the breadwinners and the womens place is the home is still prevailed. For women, opportunities for independence barely existed.

Women could not compete freely for employment, since only a few low-paying jobs were available to them (Foner, 19). Even common law then limited a married womans ability to earn her own money as married women could not sign independent contracts, and not until after the Civil War did the states accord them control over the wages they earned. (Foner, 19) Men expected their wives and daughters to clean the house and to cook a warm dinner they could go home to after work.

However with the time, the recognition of women as wage earners soon emerged as more and more people recognized their capacity to handle domestic chores and create profitable ventures which could be done at the same time. A lot of skills, until that time considered pastimes for women, brought more money to the table. Early industrialization enhanced the importance of womens work in the North, as the spread of the putting out system in such industries as shoemaking, hatmaking, and clothing manufacture allowed women working at home to contribute to family income even as they retained responsibility for domestic chores. (Foner, 30)

Earlier, the idea that a woman can work outside the house was not an acceptable norm and the only time she did not attract frowned looks at was being in the marketplace in the role of the consumer. Soon, early factories offered new employment opportunities for the young daughters of farm families (Foner 30).

The emergence of women wage earners in the North still brought about conflicting opinions by many. A labor leader in 1870s, P.J. McGuire said Capitalism tore the woman from her true duties as mother and nurse of the human race (qtd in Foner  31). Some male laborers before the Civil War also supported the demands for higher wages and better working conditions of factory girls and urban seamstresses . . . but their organizations excluded women from membership and generally viewed women workers as threats to craft skill and male wages (Foner 31).

Women were given a taste of independence as they were able to earn their own money and spend it as they wished. Equal opportunity to enter the labor market was a persistent demand of the early movement for womens rights, which utterly rejected the domestic ideologys celebration of the idle housewife (Foner 32).

The abolition of slavery in the North drew a geographical line across the country, separating slave and free states. Thus, the stage was set for the development of an ideology that identified the North as the home of free labor(Foner 15). For the free blacks in the North the idea of becoming wage earners was not easily realized as their freedom was constantly criticized. There were some who believed that slavery was meant for blacks, freedom for whites, and what was degrading in wage labor was reducing white men to the same level as African-Americans (Foner 19). This is one reason why African-Americans in the North became identified as wage slaves. The abolition of slavery produced a considerable amount of free blacks as skilled craft workers but they remained in the lowest ranks of the labor market because of the hostility of white craftsmen. White employers refused to hire them and white customers refused to be served by them. Many artisans were critics of Southern slavery, but few viewed the free blacks as anything but low-wage competitors who should be barred from skilled employment (Foner 28). As hard as the free blacks worked, it became even harder for them to earn a dime in a hostile environment still dominated by whites who still believed they are more superior than blacks.

It was even harder for the enslaved persons in the South to make free labor a realization. Efforts by white Southerners to restrict the freedom of the former slaves in ways that violated fundamental free labor premises had much to do with the unraveling of President Andrew Johnsons postwar policies and the coming of Radical Reconstruction (Foner 33). The Southern whites had a very different definition of free labor and this only made it harder for the enslaved persons of the South to taste independence as free laborers.

The Southern whites were not easily convinced of the idea of freedom of slaves. For them, the only place that slaves belong to is either laboring in their homes or working in their plantations. They opposed a lot of things that remotely give a slave the idea that they could be landowners because they feared that they know that this will end plantation slavery and they would end up with no workers.
 According to a Southern newspaper, The destiny of the former slaves was subordination to the white race. (Foner 15) The notorious Black Codes was enacted which aimed to force the former slaves back to work on plantations. This code mandates year-long contracts, vagrancy laws, coercive apprenticeship regulations, and criminal penalties for breach of contract. As the Southern Black Codes were soon eradicated the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 enshrined free labor values as part of the definition of American citizenship (Foner 35). The Civil Rights Acts gave enslaved persons the right to make contracts, bring lawsuits, or enjoy equal protection of the rights of the security of person and property (Foner 35).

Although free labor was defined by many groups before the Civil War, it cannot be denied that the most powerful act that started the idea of free labor is the ending of slavery, especially for the African-American communities. A lot of good came after the beginning of free labor such as the right of black people to own properties. The Civil War has been a long battle but it has afforded the ending of slavery of the blacks and acceptance that black and white people are equal. Civil war resulted in new drive for the idea of free labor, which was promoted in accompaniment with the Northern discourse of liberating slaves. In this view, Civil War was the struggle not only for liberation of Afro-Americans, but for social liberation of all oppressed workers, especially women.

However, it should be noted, that due to capitalist nature of Northern states such struggle could not be successful, because violent exploitation of labor was characteristic of them. In this way, the concept of free labour was partial and limited. It was not until the beginning of the 20-th century, when it was reinvigorated by new labor and trade-union movements in the United States.

If initially free labor meant workers, who could easily sell their labor force on the labor market and not be the subject of forced labor and racial discrimination, from then on the concept of free labor was supplemented by demands of equal access of workers to working place decision-making, reformation of working time schedule, working conditions and social services, such as education and healthcare for workers and their families.