You will be evaluating the claims and evidence in Thomas DiLorenzos chapter, How Capitalism Saved the Working Class, (ATTACHED PDF) within the context of two readings:  Slavery by Another Name (ATTACHED PDF) and Ghosts of Gold Mountain (ATTACHED PDF). The word evaluating is significant.

In this paper, you will NOT be comparing or summarizing. Instead, you will be arguing to what extent DiLorenzos assertions and evidence regarding wages, hours of work, working conditions, child labor, and the like accurately describe, or not, the experiences of convict laborers in the South and the Chinese railroad workers in the West.

How you organize your paper will determine the coherence of your argument. Your introduction should open with the period following the nations Civil War, when the South became industrialized and the building of railroads drove westward expansion. Briefly introduce Blackmon and Changs pieces on the convict labor system and the Railroad Chinese, respectively. Transition to DiLorenzos piece, briefly stating how capitalism benefited workers, from improved wages and working conditions to a shortened workweek and higher standard of living.

For your thesis, youll want to clearly state the degree to which, if any, convict laborers and Chinese railroad workers benefited, based on DiLorenzos claims and evidence, from improved wages, hours, and working conditions, among other points. Heres a good rule of thumb regarding paragraphs:  one idea, one paragraph. You can, of course, continue a same point in a following paragraph. Unorganized paragraphs are a symptom of unorganized or sloppy thinking.

Start your paragraphs with a topic from DiLorenzo, for example, wages. First state his claim (that capitalism improved wages) and the evidence he uses to support his claim. Next, cite evidence from either Blackmon or Chang, or both, arguing whether DiLorenzo supports the experiences of either or both groups of workers on that topic. Continue this structure for each of your body paragraphs, or sections, keeping your argument before the reader throughout your paper.

Conclude with what you have found most interesting about either one, two, or all three of the readings. Please DO NOT summarize your paper.
– Follow MLA format.