The rise of the huge and powerful railroads and other giant industries during and after the American Civil War (1861–65) signaled a loss of voice for workers. In the small, employer-owned businesses of earlier times, the worker and employer usually came to terms with each other as individuals, settling their differences and agreeing on wages, hours, and other issues through face-to-face discussions. This changed drastically in post-Civil War industry, when the owners hired professional managers to streamline the work. In the new era of mass production, in which goods are produced on a large scale, getting the most work from laborers at the lowest possible wages was a matter of company policy. With machines taking over many jobs, more labor became unskilled. Less value was placed upon the skills of the craftsmen, and workers were easily replaced. Large national labor unions arose to...