A History of Trade Unionism in the United States | Page 6

Born in Scotland, he was educated at
Hofwyl, Switzerland, in a school conducted by Emmanuel von
Fellenberg, the associate of the famous Pestalozzi, as a self-governing
children's republic on the manner of the present "Julior Republics."
Owen himself said that he 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 Harmony convinced
him that his father had overlooked the importance of the anti-social
habits which the members had formed before they joined; and he
concluded that those could be prevented only by applying a rational
system of education to the young. These conclusions, together with the
recollections of his experience at Hofwyl, led him to advocate a new
system of education, which came to be called "state guardianship."
State guardianship was a demand for the establishment by the state of
boarding schools where children should receive, not only equal
instruction, general as well as industrial, but equal food and equal
clothing at the public expense. Under this 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 there." It was urged as an especial advantage that, as children
would be clothed and cared for at all times, the fact that poor parents
could not afford to dress their children "as decently as their neighbors"
would not prevent their attendance.
State guardianship became the battle cry of an important faction in the
Workingmen's party in New York. Elsewhere a less radical program
was advocated. In Philadelphia the workingmen demanded only that
high schools be on the Hofwyl model, whereas in the smaller cities and
towns in both Pennsylvania and New York the 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 system of general education, which will
place the citizens of this extensive Republic on an equality; a system
that will fit the children of the poor, as well as the rich, to become our
future legislators; a system that will bring the children of the poor and
the rich to mix together as a band of Republican brethren."
In New England the workingmen's movement for equal citizenship was
simultaneously a reaction against the factory system. To the cry for a
Republican system of education was added an anti-child labor crusade.
One who did more than any other to call attention to the evils of the
factory system of that day was a lawyer by the name of Seth Luther,
who, according to his own 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 of our
Republic" was delivered widely and undoubtedly had considerable
influence over the labor movement of the period. The average working
day in the best factories at that time was nearly thirteen hours. For the

children who were sent into the factories at an early age these hours
precluded, of course, any possibility of obtaining even the most
rudimentary education.
The New England movement was an effort to unite producers of all
kinds, including not only farmers but factory workers with mechanics
and city workingmen. In many parts 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 factory
operatives. It was early found, however, that the movement could
expect little or no help from the factory operatives, who were for the
most part women and children.
The years 1828, 1829, and 1830 were years of political labor
movements and labor parties. Philadelphia originated the first
workingmen's party, then came New York and Boston, and finally
state-wide movements and political organizations in each of the three
States. In New York the workingmen scored their most striking single
success, when in 1829 they cast 6000 votes out of a total of 21,000. In
Philadelphia the labor ticket polled 2400 in 1828