Businesses needed workers as factories were being built. Employers could set wages as low as they wanted with a long line of people willing to work because people were willing to do work as long as they were paid. Six days a week, people worked fourteen to sixteen hours a day. However, the majority were unskilled workers who earned only $8-$10 per week while working for 10 cents an hour. Skilled workers made slightly more money, but not significantly more. Women were paid one-third to one-half of what men were paid. Children got even less. Owners who were only interested in making a profit were pleased because labor was less expensive.
Many historians agree that westward expansion was indeed the primary source of contention between the North and South in the sense that it made the question os slavery unavoidable. Each new state had to be determined slave or free--leading to disagreements that led to the Civil War.
