" "It is a low calculation when we
estimate that two-thirds of the workingmen of the city, numbering
several thousand persons, belong to it," and that "it is
controlled and supported by the great majority of our native
born."
The Boston Trades' Union was organized in 1834 and started out
with a great labor parade on the Fourth of July, followed by a
dinner served to a thousand persons in Faneuil Hall. This union
was formed primarily to fight for the ten-hour day, and the
leading crusaders were the house carpenters, the ship carpenters,
and the masons. Similar unions presently sprang up in other
cities, including Baltimore, Albany, Troy, Washington, Newark,
Schenectady, New Brunswick, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and St.
Louis. By 1835 all the larger centers of industry were familiar
with the idea, and most of them with the practice, of the trades
organizations of a community uniting for action.
The local unions were not unmindful of the need for wider action,
either through a national union of all the organizations of a
single trade, or through a union of all the different trades'
unions. Both courses of action were attempted. In 1834 the
National Trades' Union came into being and from that date held
annual national conventions of all the trades until the panic of
1837 obliterated the movement. When the first convention was
called, it was estimated that there were some 26,250 members of
trades' unions then in the United States. Of these 11,500 were in
New York and its vicinity, 6000 in Philadelphia, 4000 in Boston,
and 3500 in Baltimore.
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