Meanwhile a movement was under way to
federate the unions of a single trade. In 1835 the cordwainers
attending the National Trades Union' formed a preliminary
organization and called a national cordwainers' convention. This
met in New York in March, 1836, and included forty-five delegates
from New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut. In the fall
of 1836 the comb-makers, the carpenters, the hand-loom weavers,
and the printers likewise organized separate national unions or
alliances, and several other trades made tentative efforts by
correspondence to organize themselves in the same manner.
Before the dire year of 1837, there are, then, to be found the
beginnings of most of the elements of modern labor organizations
--benevolent societies and militant orders; political activities
and trades activities; amalgamations of local societies of the
same trades and of all trades; attempts at national organization
on the part of both the local trades' unions and of the local
trade unions; a labor press to keep alive the interest of the
workman; mass meetings, circulars, conventions, and appeals to
arouse the interest of the public in the issues of the hour. The
persistent demand of the workingmen was for a ten-hour day.
Harriet Martineau, who traveled extensively through the United
States, remarked that all the strikes she heard of were on the
question of hours, not wages. But there were nevertheless
abundant strikes either to raise wages or to maintain them.
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