*
* "Labor Organization and Labor Politics," 1827-37; in the
"Quarterly Journal of Economics," February, 1907.
The union had its inception in the first general building strike
called in America. In the summer of 1827 the carpenters struck
for a ten-hour day. They were soon joined by the bricklayers,
painters, and glaziers, and members of other trades. But the
strike failed of its immediate object. A second effort to combine
the various trades into one organization was made in 1833, when
the Trades' Union of the City and County of Philadelphia, was
formed. Three years later this union embraced some fifty
societies with over ten thousand members. In June, 1835, this
organization undertook what was probably the first successful
general strike in America. It began among the cordwainers, spread
to the workers in the building trades, and was presently joined
in by cigarmakers, carters, saddlers and harness makers, smiths,
plumbers, bakers, printers, and even by the unskilled workers on
the docks. The strikers' demand for a ten-hour day received a
great deal of support from the influential men in the community.
After a mass meeting of citizens had adopted resolutions
endorsing the demands of the union, the city council agreed to a
ten-hour day for all municipal employees.
In 1833 the carpenters of New York City struck for an increase in
wages. They were receiving a dollar thirty-seven and a half cents
a day; they asked for a dollar and a half.
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