The middle class existed long before unions as we know them were ever imagined. (
No way. Before the 1860s, most of the population was engaged in farming. With the advent of labor saving farm implements and reoccurring farm price crashes, the population was steadily driven to the rapidly growing industrial areas, specifically the North. (This was especially true of African American populations migrating to the North.) For a few decades, Industry barons grew fabulously wealthy while employing men, women and a lot of children in "sweatshops". While there was some limited opportunity for advancement, the majority of workers lived hand to mouth in poor conditions. Private home ownership was fairly rare, and when it happened, was usually after years and years of saving and scrimping, unless one got sick, then the gamble was lost. Not until organized Unions got a bigger piece of the pie for the workers did a true "middle class" emerge in any sufficient numbers. Although Henry Ford had some serious clashes with Unions in later days, early on he understood that there would be no one to buy his product if he didn't pay high enough wages for the common man to afford his product. His wages in the early years were three times more than the average pay of factory workers of the same time period.
