1. What do we learn of Elzbieta and her family?
2. What is the Beef Strike, and how did it happen?
3. How does the press become involved in the events of the strike?
4. Who is the “new American hero,” and why is he considered such?
5. What exciting news does Jurgis receive?
6. What kind of racism exists in Chicago at this time?
7. What are the working conditions for scabs? How do they compare to those for regular workers?
8. Why does a second strike quickly ensue?
9. Summarize the descriptions of the city and its inhabitants.
10. Jurgis has now become what he had despised. How did this happen?
4. Who is the “new American hero,” and why is he considered such?
ReplyDeleteThose who were the strike breakers and they stayed at work when the union left the work. They were seen as the hero of the day because they kept the meat coming throught the market to the people.
10. Jurgis has now become what he had despised. How did this happen?
ReplyDeleteJurgis comes to hate himself for working against union interests. He has a bad temper and he starts drinking again. One day, the news comes that a couple of cattle have escaped out into the crowd of striking workers. The packers put Jurgis and his crew on a truck so that they can go and fight these workers The police jump into this scene and start using their clubs on every union member they can reach, because this is technically theft.Jurgis and his boys join in the violence. Jurgis and a couple of cops chase a guy into a bar. As the second cop runs after the union guy, Jurgis and the first cop both start helping themselves to drinks inside the bar. One of the two cops grabs the Polish woman bartender to hold her back while the second cop goes through her cash register and takes all of her money. Then the three run men run off, and the riot outside dies down. Jurgis gets trashed that night.He finds a woman whom he plans to sleep with. They head into a dark room together. Whom should Jurgis find there but Connor and Jurgis feels his old rage at Connor welling up again. He leaps on top of Connor and Jurgis starts to pound Connor's head against the floor. The cops come and pull Jurgis off after beating him unconscious. Jurgis spends the night at the stockyard police station. The next morning, Jurgis's old buddy "Bush" Harper comes by and bail has been set at 500 bucks. "Bush" Harper says he can manage that. When Jurgis tells "Bush" the name of the guy he beat up, though, everything comes crashing down. Connor is Phil Connor – one of Mike Scully's biggest helpers. Mike Scully is out of town, so he can't get Jurgis out of prison before Phil Connor finds out about it."Bush" Harper can't afford to make Phil Connor angry."Bush" Harper makes Jurgis this offer: "Bush" can get the bail reduced, and then Jurgis can skip town. Jurgis has three hundred dollars in the bank."Bush" takes the whole three hundred, pays Jurgis's bail, and Jurgis gets out of jail. Jurgis has about three dollars left to his name. They reach an agreement with the union, but the packers break their promise to not discriminate against union leaders..
1. What do we learn of Elzbieta and her family? We learned that she and her family had gone “downtown” which inferred the possibility that prostitution was a lifestyle one of the women had taken up to support the family.
ReplyDelete2. What is the Beef Strike, and how did it happen? When a new contract needed to be signed between the packers and unions because it had expired the wage of the previous year was asked to be maintained for the following year specifically for unskilled men at 18.5 cents per hour. The unions however rejected this contract and lowered wages to 16.5 per hour despite having beef prices increase nearly 50 percent within the last 5 years. The unions banded together and all walked out of the plants to protest the cut in wages.
3. How does the press become involved in the events of the strike? The press wanted to paint the strike as a violent and ominous time, they wanted something to write about and clung to any story of discord between strikers and scabs as they could find.
6. What kind of racism exists in Chicago at this time? Racism is rampant toward any class of immigrants, but specifically targets the rural African Americans that are brought in to replace the strikers. They are categorized as being of lower intelligence, lazy, and violent against others and themselves. The book discusses how they are the ancestors of slaves so their new found freedom is a recipe for disaster in conditions such as Packingtown.