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The United States Grows
(1865-1900)

A Changing Workforce

A Changing Workforce
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   high interest, readability grades 3 to 5
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   4.97

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    droughts, employer, boring, working, people, dangerous, certain, jobs, meant, brothers, return, skilled, willing, earn, whole, between
     content words:    United States, Civil War

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A Changing Workforce
By Cathy Pearl 		  
1     Factories drew people to cities. These people came from all over the country and all over the world. The chance to go to work drew people to this country.
 
2     Between 1860 and 1900, about fourteen million people came to this country. Other countries in the world were struggling. The United States was growing. All of these workers were needed to help the new factories run.
 
3     Most of the immigrants came from Germany, Ireland, and England in the 1870s and 1880s. This is where many immigrants came from before the Civil War started. But immigrants were also coming from other countries like China.
 
4     There were only so many people in this country who could go to work. More immigration was needed so there would be more workers. A law passed in 1864 let employers and immigrants agree to a contract. The employer would pay for a person or a family to immigrate to this country. In return, the immigrants had to work for a certain time to pay back the money.
 
5     More people who used to be farmers also moved to the cities. About sixty percent of the workforce worked on farms in 1860. Forty years later less than forty percent of the work force still worked on farms. The rest worked in factories.

Paragraphs 6 to 12:
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