Judge Shaw’s decision brought no immediate revival of unions, however; the long, deep slump from the late 1830s through the early 1840s had wiped out most of the societies that had formed in the craft union resurgence of 1824 to 1837. Workingmen’s societies made a comeback in the 1850s (with setbacks in the recession years of 1854 and 1857), but it is important to remember that before 1860, union members never exceeded 1 percent of the total labor force. Factory workers, field hands, slaves, and domestic workers were almost completely outside the union movement. The primary early beneficiaries of workingmen’s organizations were labor’s minority elite, the craftsmen. Their unions were important, however, in that they established two concrete organizational advances for labor as a movement, as well as a series of political advances.
First, labor learned the technique of bargaining collectively, and aggressive unions began to use the weapons of the strike and boycott with skill and daring. The closed shop—an agreement whereby membership in a recognized union is made a condition of employment—was soon tested as an instrument for maintaining union security. The benevolent and protective aims of labor organizations tended to disappear, and militancy replaced early hesitance and reluctance to act.
Second, the rapidly increasing number of individual societies began to coalesce. Local federations and then national organizations appeared. In 1827, unions of different crafts in Philadelphia federated to form a “city central” or “trades’ union,” the Mechanics’
Union of Trade Associations. Six years later the societies in New York established a General Trades’ Union. In the next three years, city centrals were formed in several major cities—not, as might be supposed from the modern functions of such organizations, to exchange information or engage in political activities, but for the more pressing purpose of aiding individual unions engaged in battle with employers. Attempts at organization on a national scale followed. In 1834, the General Trades’ Union, New York’s city central, called a national convention of these city federations, which resulted in the foundation of a National Trades’ Union. At the same time, some of the craft societies began to see the advantages to be gained from a national organization along strict craft lines, and in 1835 and 1836, no less than five national unions of this type were established. The strongest of these were formed by the shoemakers and the printers.
World History
