LABOR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA, The. °Labor Movement° is a term applied to the conscious, united and persistent efforts of the laboring people to improve their economic and social conditions. °Laboring people° has come to mean those who work for wages. Or ganizations of laborers have existed from time immemorial. The guilds of the Middle Ages were exclusive and monopolistic, caring noth ing for other workers. This form appeared among the shoemakers in Massachusetts in 1648, organized mainly for the purpose of con trolling inferior workmen. Like organizations appeared in other industries from time to time, always local in character and more or less tem porary. Several strikes for higher wages oc curred before the close of the 18th century.
History.—The birth of modern trade union ism may be assigned to the closing years of the 18th century, though it never attained the dignity of a movement until the 19th was well under way. The cordwainers (Phila delphia 1789 and 1794). the shipwrights, car penters and tailors (New York 1803, 1806) were the pioneers.
The labor movement grew out of the in dustrial revolution which brought about a change in the manner and means of production and so caused a wider separation between mas ter and journeyman. The change is well illus trated in the shoe industry. At first the master made only a "bespoke" product and employed journeymen to meet this demand. Then came the capitalists, "cunning men from the East," who stocked up and held shoes for chance pur chasers. Changes of this character, which brought about the factory system, were espe cially noteworthy 1820-40, but were noticeable before this. This stocking up and the compe tition between the capitalists for sales necessi tated a reduction of wages. The labor move ment came as a protest against such conditions.
While the aims of the labor organizations were industrial in its earlier stages the move ment assumed a political character and a work ingmen's party appeared in various places in the later twenties and early thirties. No doubt this was largely due to the fact that the suf frage was a new instrument in the hands of the propertyless laboring man. As a separate
body the labor party accomplished little that was good while doing some harm to the cause. It was impossible to make a complete divorce between labor and politics, for many of its de mands could be realized only through legisla tion. But to insist upon the passage of certain laws was one thing, to enter politics as a party was another. The experiment in politics brought out this truth, though its significance has been lost a few times since, in labor organ izations and in recent years, efforts have been made to launch a labor party. The organization soon learned that better results could he secured by formulating their demands and then leaving it to the members to support the party which promised and performed most.
In the platforms of the later twenties and early thirties may be found the causes of the movement and the ends sought. They demand the abolition of special privileges to the strong and the giving of protection to the weak. The specific demands were free schools, the aboli tion of imprisonment for debt, of the militia system and of payment in store checks, the en actment of a mechanic's lien law, cheaper legal procedure, equal taxation, no chartered monop olies, no inflation of the currency, the leasing of the public lands to actual settlers and the taxation of unearned increments in town prop erty.
The specific demands have varied from time to time, hut the essential principles have re mained the same, though stated at times in more passionate language. Throughout the whole movement most emphasis has been laid upon a shorter working day and better pay. The working day of the farm, "from sun to sun," had been carried over into the industries and even extended there, for in some industries men worked longer in winter than did the farmer. The weapons used to remedy the situ ation were organization and the strike, backed up by appeal to public sentiment.