A History of Trade Unionism in the United States

Beginnin

t genuine labor strike in America occurred, as far as known, in 1786, when the Philadelphia printers "turned out" for a minimum wage of six dollars a week. The second strike on record was in 1791 by Philadelphia house carpenters for the ten-hour day. The Baltimore sailors were successful in advancing their wages through stri

until such discontent has become expressed in an organization that keeps alive after a strike, or between strike

lphia again organized in 1794 under the name of the Federal Society of Journeymen Cordwainers and maintained their existence as such at least until 1806. In 1799 the society conducted the first organized strike, which laste

d struck in 1786, neglected to keep up an organization after winning their demands. Between the years 1800 and 1805, the shoemakers and the printers had continuous organizations in Philadelphia, New York

ose over the continuation in membership of those who became employers. The shoemakers excluded such members from the organization. The printers, on the other hand, were more l

iolence and intimidation. In that case "scabs" were beaten and employers intimidated by demonstrations in front of the shop or by breaking shop windows. During a strike the duties of "picketing" were discharged by tramping committees. The Philadelphia shoemakers, however, as early as 1799, employed for this purpose a paid officer. This strike was for higher wages for workers on boots. Although those who worked on shoes made no demands of their own, they were obliged to strike, much against

structive competition from "advertisers" and sellers in the "public market" at low prices. As soon, however, as the wage question became serious, the masters' associations proceeded to take on the function of dealing with labor-mostly aiming to

tions in wages as by their imposition of working rules, such as the limitation of the number of apprentices, the minimum wage, and what we wou

ach case was tried before a jury which was judge both of law and fact. Four of the cases were decided against the journeymen. In one of the Baltimore cases judgment was rendered in favor of the journeymen. The Pittsburgh case of 1815 was compromised,

fter the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars. The lifting of the Embargo enabled the foreign traders and manufacturers to dump their products upon the American market. The incipien

to mutual insurance. Several of the printers' societies had already instituted benefit features, and these now helped them considerably to maintain

age earners in several industries. We find strikes and permanent organizations among hatters, tailors, weavers,

he important industrial centers. The majority were called to enforce higher wages. In Philadelphia, 2900 weavers out of about 4500 in the city

the "gentlemen engaged in building," the customers of the master builders. They condemned the journeymen on the moral ground that an agitation for a shorter day would open "a wide door for idleness and vice"; hinted broadly at the foreign origin of the agitation; declared that all combinations intending to regulate the value of l

tailors in Philadelphia and Buffalo and the fourth was a hatters' case in New York. The masters were acquitted and the hatters were found guilty of combining to deprive a non-union man of his liveli

Citizenshi

rld. This Union, originally intended as an economic organization, changed to a political one the following year and initiated what was probably the most interesting and most typically American labor movement-a struggle for "equality of citizenship." It was brought to a head by the severe industrial depression of the time. But the decisive impulse came from the nation-wide democratic upheaval led by Andrew Jackson, for which the poorer classe

l and social equality in particular. If the middle class Jacksonian was probably thinking first of reducing the debt on his farm or perchance of getting a political office, and only as an after-thought proceeding to look for a justification in the Declaration of Independence, as yet the wage earner was starting with the abstract notion of equal citizenship as contained in the Declaration, and only then proceeding to search for the remedies which would square reality with the ide

papers, clearly marks off the movement as a rebellion by the class of newly enfranchised wage earners agai

ccusation may be understood only if we keep in mind that this was a period when bank credits began to play an essential part in the conduct of industry; that with the extension of the market into the States and territories South and West, with the resulting delay in collections, business could be carried on only by those who enjoyed credit facilities at the banks. Now, as credit generally follows access to the market, it was inevitable that the beneficiary of the banking system should not be the

ned for very small debts. In one Massachusetts prison, for example, out of 37 cases, 20 were for less than $20. The Philadelphia printer and philanthropist, Mathew Carey, father of the economist Henry C. Carey, cited a contemporary Boston case of a blind man with a family dependent on him imprisoned for a debt of six dollars. A labor paper reported an astounding case of a wid

tration of the compulsory militia system. Service was obligatory upon all male citizens and non-attendance was punished by f

." The lack of a mechanic's lien law, which would protect his wages in the case of his employer's bankruptcy, was keenly felt by the workingmen. A labor pa

a book bearing the self-revealing title of "The Rights of Man to Property: being a Proposition to make it Equal among the Adults of the Present Generation: and to Provide for its Equal Transmission to Every Individual of Each Succeeding Generation, on Arriving at the Age of Maturity," published in 1829. This Skidmorian program was better known as "agrarianism," probably from the title of a book by Thomas Paine, Agrarian Justice, as Opposed to Agrarian Law and to Agrarian Monopoly, published in 1797 in London, which advocated equal division by means of an inheritance tax. It

lies partly in the political situation, partly in the moral character of the "intellectual" spokesmen for the workingmen, and partly in the inborn conservatism of the tax-paying classes upon whom the financial burden would fall. That the educational situation was deplorable much proof is unnecessary. Pennsylvania had some public schools, but parents had to declare themselves too poor to send their children to a private school before they were allowed the privilege of sending them there. In

tion, which is even now young in this country, was undoubtedly first introduced by the leaders of this early labor movement. They demanded a system of public education which would "combine a knowledge of the pr

e owed his abiding faith in human virtue and social progress to his years at Hofwyl. In 1825 Robert Dale left England to join his father in a communistic experiment at New Harmony, Indiana, and together they lived through the vicissitudes which attended that experiment. There he met Frances Wright, America's first suffragist, with whom he formed an intimate friendship lasting through many years. The failure at New Ha

is system, it was asserted, public schools would become "not schools of charity, but schools of the nation, to the support of which all would contribute; and instead of being almost a disgrace, it would become an honor to have been educated t

demand was for "literary" day schools. Yet the underlying principle was the same everywhere. A labor candidate for Congress in the First Congressional District of Philadelphia in 1830 expressed it succinctly during his campaign. He made his plea on the ground that "he is the friend and indefatigable defender of a sy

n account, had "for years lived among cotton mills, worked in them, travelled among them." His "Address to the Working Men of New England on the State of Education, and on the Condition of the Producing Classes in Europe and America, with Particular Reference to the Effect of Manufacturing (as now conducted) on the Health and Happiness of the Poor, and on the Safety o

ts of the State of New York the workingmen's parties included the three classes-"farmers, mechanics, and working men,"-but New England added a fourth class, the facto

phia the labor ticket polled 2400 in 1828 and the labor party gained the balance of power in the city. But the inexperience of the labor politicians coupled with machinations on the part of "designing men" of both older parties soon lost the labor parties their advantage. In New York Tammany made the demand for a mechanics' lien law its own and later saw that it became enacted into law. In New York, als

in placing their demands to advantage before the public. Humanitarians, like Horace Mann, took up independently the fight for free public education and carried it to success. In Pennsylvania, public schools, free from t

the "Wild-cat" Pro

hia, twenty-one; and in Baltimore, seventeen. Among those organized in Philadelphia were hand-loom weavers, plasterers, bricklayers, black and white smiths, cigar makers, plumbers, and women workers including tailoresses, seamstresses, binders, folders, milliners, corset makers, and mantua workers. Several trades, such

ity, which followed a rapid multiplication of state banks with the right of issue of paper currency-largely irredeemable "wild-cat" currency. Cost of living having doubled, the subject o

hirteen; in Cincinnati, fourteen; and in Louisville, seven. In Buffalo the journeymen builders' association included all the building

four earn more than $1.25 a week. These were mostly seamstresses and tailoresses, umbrella makers, shoe binders, cigar makers, and book binders. In New York there was in 1835 a Female Union Association, in Baltimore a United Seamstresses' Society, and in Philadelphia probably the first federation of w

on and a common purpose. This was expressed in city "trades' unions," or federations of a

l and commercial center. There the house carpenters had struck for higher wages in the latter part of May 1833, and fifteen other trades met and pledged their support. Out of this grew the New York Trades' Union. It had an official organ

nswick and Newark, New Jersey; in Albany, Troy, and Schenectady, New

sociations of 1828, had served as a preliminary for a political movement, the General Trades' Union took especial precaution and provided in the constitution that "no party, political or religious questions shall at any time be agitated in or acted upon in the Uni

ods. Under the pressure of the New York Union the State Legislature created in 1834 a special commission on prison labor with its president, Ely Moore, as one of the three commissioners. On this question of prison labor the trade unionists clashed with the humanitarian prison reformers, who regarded productive labor by prisoners as a necessary

now embodied in the city trades' unions found its fir

tion for a ten-hour day-perhaps the strongest spiritual inheritance from the preceding movement for equal citizenship,[5] had to await a change in the general condit

ot stand alone but were joined by the masons and stone-cutters. As before, the principal attack was directed against the "capitalists," that is, the owners of the buildings and the real estate speculators. The employer or s

. In Philadelphia, when the committee arrived in company with delegates from New York, Newark, and Paterson, the Trades' Union held a special meeting and resolved to stand by the "Boston House Wrights" who, "in imitatio

ere involved. Street parades and mass meetings were held. The public press, both friendly and hostile, discussed it at length. Work was suspended and after but a brief "standout" the whole ended in a complete victory for the workingmen. Unskilled laborers, too, struck for the ten-hour day and, in the attempt to prevent others from taking their jobs,

ended to many smaller towns. In fact, the ten-hour system, which remained in vogue in this country in

ore than doubled. Most of these strikes were hastily undertaken. Prices, of course, were rising rapidly but the societies were new and lacked

owell strike in February, 1834, against a 15 percent reduction in wages. The strike was short and unsuccessful, notwithstanding that 800 striking girls at first exhibited a determination to carry their struggle to the end. It appears that public opinion in New England was disagreeably impressed by this early manifestation of feminism. Another notable factory strike was one in Paterson in July 1835. Unlike similar strikes, it had been preceded by an organizatio

osed shop, appealed to the courts for relief. By 1836 employers' associations appeared in nearly every trade in which labor was aggressive; in New York there were at least eight and in Ph

ctments; in three cases the defendants were acquitted after jury trials; and the outcome of one case is unknown. Finally, in 1842, long after the offending societies had gone out of existence under the

itation of the General Trades' Union of New York. The delegates were from the trades' unions of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Brooklyn, Poughkeepsie, and Newark. Ely Moore, then labor candidate for Congress, was elected presiden

te employment in 1835 generally led to its adoption by states and municipalities. However, the Federal government was slow to follow the example, since F

would be detrimental to the government to accede to their request. This forced the matter into the attention of the National Trades' Union. At its second convention in 1835 it decided to petition Congress for a ten-hour day for employes on government works. The petition was introd

ave nothing further to do with Congress. They had supported President Jackson in his fight against the United States Bank and now sought a return favor. At a town meeting of "citi

a and New York the mechanics secured the ten-hour day in Baltimore and Annapolis, but in the District of Columbia and elsewhere t

resident went on. Finally, although somewhat belatedly, President Van Buren issued on March 31, 1840, t

t. Early in 1837 came a financial panic. The industrial depression wiped out in a short time every form of labor organization from the trade societi

rkingmen were awake to the issue of monopoly. Together with their employers they had therefore supported Jackson in his assault upon the largest "monster" of them all-the Bank of the United States. The local organizations of the Democratic party, however, did not always remain true to faith. In such circumstances the workingmen, again acting in conjunction with their masters, frequently extended their support to the "insurgent" anti-monopoly candidate

g Depressio

ve unions of the thirties practically disappeared. With industry disorganized, trade unionism, or the effort to protect the standard of living by means of strikes, was out of question. As the prospect for immediate

but also from the accompanying fact that, for the first and only time in American history, the labor movement was domina

ey, and the Brook Farm enthusiasts and "Associationists" of the forties, made famous by their intimate association with Ralph Waldo Emerson, had much in common with the present-day efficiency engineers. This "old" efficiency of theirs, like the new one, was chiefly concerned with increasing the production of wealth through the application of the "natural" laws of human nature. With the enormous increase in production to

ime of depression, while on its spiritual side it did not fail to satisfy the loftiest intellectual. It was the resultant of the two most potent forces which acted upon the movement of the for

n Philadelphia in 1791, when the house carpenters out on strike offered by way of retaliation against their employers to undertake contracts at 25 percent less than the price charged by the masters. Fourteen years later, in 1806, the journeymen cordwai

andloom weavers in two of the suburbs of Philadelphia started cooperative associations at the same time. At the end of 1836 the hand-loom weavers of Philadelphia proper had two cooperative shops and were planning to open a third. In New Brunswick, New Jersey, the jo

was obliged to take notice. Early in 1837 a conference of about 200 delegates requested each trade society to submit estim

d what funds they could and organized a sort of joint-stock company which they called "The Journeymen Molders' Union Foundry." Two local philanthropists erected

om the scenes of revolutions in Europe, they were more given to dreams about reconstructing society and more trustful in the honesty and integrity of their leaders. The cooperative movement among the Germans was identified with the name of Wilhelm Weitling, the well-known German communist, who settled in America about 1850. T

h investing $3000, and opened a cooperative foundry shop. Two other foundries were opened on a similar basis in Stetsonville, Ohio, and Sh

nd, so far as we know, the first cooperative attempt which had for its exclusive aim "competence to purchaser" was made in Philadelphia early in 18

do we discover an undertaking which can with certainty be considered as an effort to achieve distributive cooperation. Several germs of cooperative effort are found between 1833 and 1845, but all that is known about them is that their promoters sought to effect a saving by the purchase of g

n New England. Although the matter was discussed in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and even as far west as Ohio and

f 1843-1844 had failed completely. This failure, added to the fact that women and girls were employed under very unsatisfactory conditions, st

name of the Working Men's Protective Union. As often happens, prosperity brought disunion and, in 1853, a schism occurred in t

essed before. The important thought was that an economy of a few dollars a year in the purchase of commodi

2, the Union embraced 403 divisions of which 167 reported a capital of $241,712 and 165 of these announced annual sales amounting to $1,696,825. Though the schism of 1853, mentioned above, weakene

ad the peaceful development of the country remained uninterrupted. As it happened, the dis

tle field, foreigners poured into New England towns and replaced the Americans in the shops, while share-holders frequently be

tion of societies for wholesale purchases, but differed in that goods were sold to members nearly at cost rather than at the market price. Dr. James Ford in his Cooperation in New England, Urban and Rural,[8] d

ment of the forties was a resurgence o

e name of George Henry Evans, drew from him an inspiration for a new kind of agrarianism to which few could object. This new doctrine was a true Agrarianism, since it followed in the steps of the o

being. For practical reasons he would not interfere with natural resources which have already passed under priva

government. Estimates of the required time to dispose of this residuum at the same rate of sale varied from 400 or 500 to 900 years. With the exaggerated views prevalent, it is no wonder that Evans believe

n transporting the surplus to the waiting homesteads and towns that would grow up. With the immobility of labor thus offering no serious obstacle to the execution of the plan, the wage earners of the East would have the option of continuing to work for wages or of taking up their share of the vacant lands. Moreover, me

s from attachment for debts and even against himself by making the homestead inalienable. Moreover to assure that right to the American people in perpetuo he would prohibit future disposal of th

s cared more for offices than for measures. They would endorse any measure which was supported by voters who held the balance of power. His plan of action was, therefore, to ask all candidates to pledge their support to his measures. In exchange for such

ement as early as 1845. The next five years witnessed a remarkable spread of the ideas of the free homestead movement in the press of the

1851, a mass-meeting was held at Tammany Hall "of all those in favor of land and other industrial reform, to be made elements in the Presidential contest of 1852." A platform was adopted which proclaim

the Tennessee tailor, Andrew Johnson, later President of the United States, who introduced his first homestead bill in 1845. From the Western pioneers and settlers came the demand for increased population and development of resources, leading both to homesteads for

ry settler. But the same Congress launched upon a policy of extensive land grants to railways. The homestead legislation doubtless prevented great estates similar to thos

to victory, though to an incomplete victory. It contained a fruitful lesson to labor in politics. The vested interests in the East were seen ultimately to capitulate before a popular mov

, it urged a policy of "reward your friends, and punish your enemies" rather than an out and out labor party. It is noteworthy that of all social reform movements of the forties Agrarianism alone was not initiated by the intellectuals. On the othe

ing these few years unionism disentangled itself from humanitarianism and cooperationism and came out in its wholly modern form of restrictive craft unionism, only to be again suppressed by the business depressions

hirties to reach out for a wider basis of labor organization in city trades' unions, and ultimately in a National Trades' Union. On the other hand, the fifties foreshadowed a new form of expansion of labor organization-the joining together in a nation-wide organization of all lo

TNO

below,

below,

below,

required leisure to be able to e

ers had been similar

scussion of these tri

by the Russell Sage

han two years; likewise the cordwainers or shoemakers. But we must keep in mind that what constituted na