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L labor unions and labor movements in the United States From the encyclopedic treatment of the labor movement from the 1910s–1930s at the John R Commons School, University of Wisconsin, to the emergence of a new labor history in the 1960s and after, scholarly inquiry into the history of labor unions and working people’s movements in the United States has made up a major field of study The new republic’s founding principle of private property created a situation in which people who lacked land or other material resources to earn their subsistence were compelled to sell their labor in the marketplace and were at a comparative disadvantage with the owners of capital In order to enhance their bargaining power vis-à-vis business owners, working people organized into various types of associations and unions, a process that went through a number of distinct phases corresponding to larger changes in industry, transport, and markets, in a national economy marked by frequent cycles of boom and bust, which comprises a major chapter in U.S history early years In the early republic and antebellum periods, most manufacturing was done by artisans in small, often family-owned and -operated shops in cities, towns, and rural areas Until the 1840s wage labor was rare The vast majority of the nation’s inhabitants made their living by the soil, while slavery, indentured servitude, apprenticeship, household production, and other forms of bound labor predominated Important exceptions were the shoe and textile industries in Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania during the first Industrial Revolution in the 1810s and 1820s, in which numerous large factories employing a permanent wage labor force first emerged in North America An example is the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, based on the paternalistic Waltham System, in which hundreds of mostly young farm women labored for upward of 70 hours per week under highly supervised conditions, mainly to supplement family income Because of the small scale of most manufacturing enterprises during this period, the most successful organizing efforts by working people resulted in the formation of relatively small and localized trade and craft unions and associations, which often melded with fraternal societies and benevolent organizations By the late 1820s the growth of the factory system, cities, markets, and the expanding scale of many workshops prompted the formation of the nation’s first labor movement A commonly cited touchstone marking the emergence of a self-conscious working class was the establishment of the Mechanics’ Union of Trade Associations of Philadelphia in 1827, the nation’s first citywide confederation of local trade unions In the same year in Philadelphia the Working Men’s Party was founded, the nation’s first political party organized specifically to defend and advance the interests of working people Similar associations and parties were soon established in New York, Boston, and elsewhere 215
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