Laura Adams
2-15-16
History 1302
Professor Thomas Clarkin
There has been a constant argument over long work hours and acceptable wages
since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Workers wanted better working
conditions, higher pay and shorter hours, while the employers wanted to make a larger
profit and keep their own standard of living as it had always been. However, there are
two sides to every story that Dennis Kearney, H. L. Knight, and Joseph McDonnell
shared when employers started turning to the Chinese for labor.
In “Our Misery and Despair” Kearney and Knight tie America’s ‘bloated
aristocracy’ with Chinese migration. In the hopes of getting ‘cheap working slaves’
employers would find the poorest of the poor in China and bring them across the ocean to
