A History of Trade Unionism in the United States | Page 3

wage, and what
we would now call the "closed shop." The conspiracy trials largely
turned upon the "closed shop" and in these the shoemakers figured
exclusively.[2]
Altogether six criminal conspiracy cases are recorded against the

shoemakers from 1806 to 1815. One occurred in Philadelphia in 1806;
one in New York in 1809; two in Baltimore in 1809; and two in
Pittsburgh, the first in 1814 and the other in 1815. Each 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, the shoemakers paying the costs and
returning to work at the old wages. The outcome in the other cases is
not definitely known. It was brought out in the testimony that the
masters financed, in part at least, the New York and Pittsburgh
prosecutions.
Effective as the convictions in court for conspiracy may have been in
checking the early trade societies, of much greater consequence was the
industrial depression which set in after 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 incipient American industries were in no position to
withstand this destructive competition. Conditions were made worse by
past over investment and by the collapse of currency inflation.
Trade unionism for the time being had to come to an end. The effect on
the journeymen's societies was paralyzing. Only those survived which
turned to mutual insurance. Several of the printers' societies had
already instituted benefit features, and these now helped them
considerably to maintain their organization. The shoe-makers' societies
on the other hand had remained to the end purely trade-regulating
organizations and went to the wall.
Depression reached its ebb in 1820. Thereafter conditions improved,
giving rise to aggressive organizations of wage earners in several
industries. We find strikes and permanent organizations among hatters,
tailors, weavers, nailers, and cabinet makers. And for the first time we
meet with organizations of factory workers--female workers.
Beginning with 1824 and running through 1825, the year which saw the
culmination of a period of high prices, a number of strikes occurred in
the important industrial centers. The majority were called to enforce

higher wages. In Philadelphia, 2900 weavers out of about 4500 in the
city were on strike. But the strike that attracted the most public
attention was that of the Boston house carpenters for the ten-hour day
in 1825.
The Boston journeymen carpenters chose the most strategic time for
their strike. They called it in the spring of the year when there was a
great demand for carpenters owing to a recent fire. Close to six hundred
journeymen were involved in this struggle. The journeymen's demand
for the ten-hour day drew a characteristic reply from 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 labor by abridging the
working day were in a high degree unjust and injurious to the other
classes in the community; announced their resolution to support the
masters at the sacrifice of suspending building altogether; and bound
themselves not to employ any journeyman or master who might enforce
the ten-hour day. The strike failed.
The renewed trade-union activities brought forth a fresh crop of trials
for conspiracy.[3] One case involved Philadelphia master shoemakers
who combined to reduce wages, two were against journeymen 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 livelihood. In the
Philadelphia tailors' case, the journeymen were convicted on the charge
of intimidation. Of the Buffalo tailors' case it is only known that it
ended in the conviction of the journeymen.
(2) Equal Citizenship, 1827-1832
So far we have dealt only with trade societies but not yet with a labor
movement. A labor movement presupposes a feeling of solidarity
which goes beyond the boundaries of a single trade and extends to
other wage earners. The American labor movement began in 1827,
when the several trades in Philadelphia organized the Mechanics'

Union of Trade Associations, which was, so far as now known, the first
city central organization of trades in the world. 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."