" But their
little shop survived competition for only a few months. The
Cincinnati "Cooperative Magazine" was a sort of combination of
store and shop, where various trades were taught, but it also
soon disappeared.
In 1845 the New England Workingmen's Association organized a
protective union for the purpose of obtaining for its members
"steady and profitable employment" and of saving the retailer's
profit for the purchaser. This movement had a high moral flavor.
"The dollar was to us of minor importance; humanitary and not
mercenary were our motives," reported their committee on
organization of industry. "We must proceed from combined stores
to combined shops, from combined shops to combined homes, to
joint ownership in God's earth, the foundation that our edifice
must stand upon." In this ambitious spirit "they commenced
business with a box of soap and half a chest of tea." In 1852
they had 167 branches, a capital of $241,7191.66, and a business
of nearly $91,000,000 a year.
In the meantime similar cooperative movements began elsewhere.
The tailors of Boston struck for higher wages in 1850 and, after
fourteen weeks of futile struggle, decided that their salvation
lay in cooperation rather than in trade unionism, which at best
afforded only temporary relief. About seventy of them raised $700
as a cooperative nest egg and netted a profit of $510.60 the
first year. In the same year the Philadelphia printers,
disappointed at their failure to force a higher wage, organized a
cooperative printing press.
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