GED Practice Test 8

Industrial cities in the late 1800s (original)

Between 1870 and 1900, new factories in cities such as Pittsburgh and Chicago drew millions of workers. Rural Americans left farms where machines now did much of the work, and immigrants arrived from Europe in large numbers. Together they crowded into cities, where cheap tenement housing filled rapidly.

Factory workers often labored ten to twelve hours a day, six days a week, and children worked in many mills. The most shameful failure of the era was that city governments did almost nothing to protect these families. In response, workers formed labor unions to demand shorter hours and safer conditions.

— Original passage written for practice