This is America in Pursuit, a limited-run series from ThruLine and NPR.

I'm Randa Abdel Fattah.

Each week, we bring you stories about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the U.S. that began 250 years ago.

In the U.S., in the mid-1800s, rapid industrialization was transforming cities across the U.S.,

and as businesses were getting bigger and bigger.

Your relationship with your employer is getting a lot smaller.

People were being tied to their jobs.

They were denied a democratic voice in the way they made a living.

Working like 14, 16-hour days, six, seven days a week.

People were struggling all across the United States. In Indiana, a teenager watched his father get caught up in this system, unable to keep up with a demanding job.

The work broke his health, as it would for so many workers.

So he jumped into action to help his father.

At 14, he started working, first in the grocery business, and then in the growing world of

railroads, where abuses were rampant.

This is a time when there are no safety standards to speak of.

Employers are skimping on cheap equipment to save money,

even as railroads are expanding so rapidly,

causing boiler explosions and derailments and collisions,

making hazards like this not uncommon at all.

What he saw on the railroads transformed him, and what he believed the people actually

building the U.S. deserved.

He wants workers to see themselves as workers, not middle class, not as temporarily embarrassed

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