OD LABOR ORGANIZATIONS. For a time trade unionism seems to have become involved in the cause of general reform; wide-reaching and am bitious federations were formed which worked at the same time for the abolition of slavery, for woman's rights, land nationalization, and cooper ation, as well as the improvement of the con ditions of employment. During this period trade unionism proper was undoubtedly making prog ress in the separate trades, and by IS40 in the principal industrial centres local unions had been organized among the masons, marble-cut ters, shoemakers, saddlers, hatters, tailors, print ers, bricklayers, roofers, painters, carpenters, and shipworkers.
The fifteen years between 1S50 and 1865 may well be described as the period of nationalization. Labor leaders had learned that for a time at least the labor movement must go forward cau tiously, that participation in politics and broad attempts to reform things in general were dangerous, that labor organizations must be ex tended, if at all, within trade lines, and not by all-embracing amalgamations. In 1850 the union now known as the International Typographical Union was organized. (See TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION OF NORTH AMERICA, THE INTERNATIONAL.) This was probably the first American national union, though there is some reason to believe that the Silk and Fur Hat Finishers' National Association was organized as early as 1843. The National Association of Hat Finishers of the United States of America was founded in 1854, the National Protective Association (the Loco motive Engineers) in 1855, the Sons of Vulcan and the National Spinners' Association in 1858.
Since the Civil War local and national unions have been organized on every hand. their gov ernment has been perfected, and their adminis tration improved. A large number of vigorous
labor journals have appeared; labor parties have been formed and in places have succeeded in electing labor candidates; permanent boards of collective bargaining or arbitration and con ciliation have been formed in many trades; boy cotting through the union label and labor press has been systematized and developed ; favorable legislation has been secured in every State: and, more important than any other result, perhaps, public opinion has been brought to concede the utility and even the necessity of the trade union. The most striking phenomenon of the epoch has been the formation of hirge federations of unions. Among these larger organizations may be named the National Labor Union (1866), the Knights of Labor (1869), the International Association of Workingmen (1864), the Industrial Brother hood (1873), the American Federation of Labor (1881), the National Building Trades Council (1897), and the American Labor Union (1898). By far the most important of these is the Ameri can Federation of Labor. (See Luton, AMERI CAN FEDERATION OP.) The growth and striking success of this organization supply a potent les son in the requirements and conditions of suc cessful labor organization. Avoiding direct participation in politics. and sedulously refrain ing from eompuisory interference in the immedi ate affairs of its constituent unions, it confines itself to the prosecution of those aims which all labor organizations have in common, namely, the organization of new unions, the passage of legis lation favorable to the working classes, the wider use of the union label, and the support of the labor press.