from 1793 to 1800 worked on the public buildings and streets of Washington. At Albany and New York wages were forty cents a day, at Lancaster, Pa., from eight to ten dollars a month, and at Baltimore, about six dollars or less. In Virginia the ordinary white laborer received, besides board and keep, about $5.33 a month, one-fourth less being paid for the hire of slaves. The work was arduous and lasted as long as daylight. The condition of skilled artisans was, of course, better, yet their wages were low in comparison with those of to-day. Typesetters were paid at a piece rate of 25¢ per thousand ems, and were thus enabled to earn as much as eight dollars a week. These wages were considered so excessively high that the newspaper companies felt justified in putting up the prices of their journals.

The first quarter of the nineteenth century brought an increase in wages to the laboring men of the country, but did not effectually settle the grievances of the workingmen. This period witnessed the beginning of manufacturing in the United States and the rise and gradual extension of the factory system. Many opportunities of labor formerly non-existent were created. The construction of canals and of public roads as well as the opening of the great West brought about a strong demand for unskilled labor. The policy of non-intercourse with Europe and the succeeding war with England had given an impetus to manufacturing, and industrial establishments sprang up in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. At the same time there began, about 1820, that vast wave of immigration which has continued to flow unceasingly and has peopled the new world with the children of the old.

From 1825 to 1829, or in other words, during the administration of John Quincy Adams, the earnings of the American workingman were higher than ever before in American history. The unskilled workmen, such as sawyers and hod carriers, received about 75¢ a day for twelve hours of work, while on the canals and turnpikes, men who, a quarter of a century before, had earned six dollars, now received fifteen dollars a month and board. During the winter, however, wages were lower. Men who could earn in summer from 621¢ to 80¢ per day were glad to receive a much smaller sum

in winter. With each approach of cold weather the whole community seemed to shrink within itself; wages were reduced, and the expenditures of the workingmen curtailed. The remuneration of women was, as to-day, lower than that of men, and their opportunities for employment incomparably less. According to Professor McMaster,' these women "might bind shoes, sew rags, fold and stitch books, become spoolers, or make coarse shirts and duck pantaloons at eight or ten cents a piece. Shirt-making was eagerly sought after, because the garments could be made in the lodgings of the seamstress, who was commonly the mother of a little family, and often a widow. Yet the most expert could not finish more than nine shirts a week, for which she would receive seventy-two or ninety cents. Fifty cents seems to have been the average."

While wages had thus risen in the quarter of a century since the inauguration of Jefferson, and many of the abuses which had plagued colonial workers had disappeared, yet prices also had risen and not a few of the old grievances were unrelieved. Still, on the whole, work was better remunerated and the workmen better off. The condition of the entire nation was improved, life was easier, and many of the hardships incident to the earlier days of the settlement of the country, had disappeared. Canals and turnpikes threaded the land and abridged distances between the main cities, which were growing rapidly in wealth and population. The Erie Canal had been built, transportation cheapened, the West and East linked together. Everywhere the country was full with the new life of a coming era. In all parts of the East banking, insurance, steamboat, turnpike, and canal companies were being formed, and factories and mills established. There was a demand for mill hands, mechanics, machinists, engineers, clerks and bookkeepers, and for workmen in occupations which, a quarter of a century before, could hardly be said to exist. The wages of labor had risen, hours had shown a slight tendency to decrease, and a somewhat greater willingness was manifested to treat the workingman as a human being and not as a slave or a serf. In many states the law consigning men to jail 'History of the People of the United States, by John B. Mc Master.

for small debts had been repealed or amended, and no man could now be imprisoned for a debt of less than $15, $20, or $25, according to the state in which he lived. In the larger cities savings banks had come into existence, and the workingman could secure not only a reasonably safe place of deposit, but also might receive interest upon his money. The old evils, however, had been lessened rather than removed. The workingman was still liable, in the absence of lien laws, to see his wages lost through the failure or fraud of a contractor, was, still liable, under the old common law, to arrest for striking or for other acts of conspiracy or combination, and as he was still without a vote in many states, he could not secure the enactment of better laws or even the repeal of the old ones. The conditions in some of the factories which were now springing up in New England and elsewhere, were extremely bad, and women and children were harshly treated and cruelly exploited. The time was marked also by a vast amount of intemperance and much want, suffering, and degradation in the rapidly growing cities.

It was at this time, about the year 1825, when the conditions of the American workman had already begun to improve, that the first considerable unrest appeared among the laboring classes. Friends of the workingmen called upon the legislatures to "prevent the rich from swallowing up the inheritance of the poor," asked for protection for factory operatives, who were exposed to sickness, death, and mutilating accidents, and demanded better, cleaner, and healthier workshops for these people. "Such pleas," says the historian, Professor John B. McMaster, "had small effect on the public but more on the workingmen and women who, after 1825, began to organize in earnest." It was at this time that the American workmen embarked upon socialistic and communistic schemes, formed societies in various parts of the country, and endeavored to live according to the dictates of their conscience and their ideas of social justice. Societies were formed at New Harmony and elsewhere, the workingmen were stirred to higher ideals by the visit to America of Robert Owen, and a number of workmen in the large cities became interested in movements for reform, which, however, lacked elements of permanence and stability.

The improvement in the status and condition of American workmen becomes more apparent after 1825, when a number of local trade unions sprang up in the chief cities of the country. During this period and until the outbreak of the Civil War, there was a gradual evolution of the American workman toward a higher standard of life and labor. Money wages rose, as did also real wages, though to a smaller extent, since prices rose at the same time. The increase in wages during the period ending 1860 may be shown by a large number of instances. Thus, carpenters, who were paid less than 60 in 1790, received, according to Mr. Carroll D. Wright, United States Commissioner of Labor, from $1.13 to $1.40 per day during the period from 1830 to 1840, after which these wages remained fairly stationary. A similar rise took place in the wages of common laborers, who averaged about 43 a day in 1790, 621 in 1800, 824 from 1800 to 1810, 90¢ from 1810 to 1820 and 874¢ to $1.00 a day from 1840 to 1860. The wages of printers rose from an average of about $1.00 a day in 1800, to $1.75 in 1860, while the daily remuneration of shoemakers increased from 731¢ to $1.00. The wages of the hands in the textile mills also advanced, in the cotton mills the average rising from about 446 in 1820 to $1.03 in 1860.

It must, of course, be understood that these statistics are not absolutely exact, owing to the fact that the records during this period are incomplete and, to a certain extent, untrustworthy. But there can be no doubt that a gradual increase took place in the rate of wages paid to most classes of workmen. While for certain commodities prices rose, other prices fell, and it seems to be unquestioned that the American workman could and did purchase more with his earnings in 1860 than was possible in 1800. In addition to increased wages, the working classes secured an extension of their political rights, better opportunities for education, and the amelioration of many onerous conditions which had formerly borne heavily upon them.

CHAPTER IX

ORGANIZED LABOR BEFORE AND SINCE THE CIVIL WAR

American Labor Unions Date from the Nineteenth Century. Reasons for Late Development. Agricultural Population. Smallness of Cities. New York and Haverhill. Early Unions Local. Slow Growth. Central Labor Unions. Political Progress of Unions. Persecution and Conspiracy. Union Successes. National Unions after 1850. The Civil War and the Unions. Growth of Unionism from 1866 to 1873. The Progress of American Unions.

PRIO

RIOR to the nineteenth century trade unionism could hardly be said to exist in the United States. There were in Boston and New York some small organizations of calkers and other artisans, and it was largely the turbulence and aggressive patriotism of these men that led, in 1770, to the Boston Massacre. Not until the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, did the unions become of sufficient importance to warrant much notice, and even during the period from 1800 to 1865 they at no time became an element of real power in the community.

This late growth of labor organizations in the United States was due to the primitive character of early American industry. Trade unionism, as we now know it, is the result of a highly developed industrial system. Only where industry is conducted on a large scale and is diversified, only where great cities exist and commerce between them flourishes, only, then, in highly organized industrial communities can trade unions prosper. The movement took rise in England earlier than in the United States, because in England industrial development was earlier, and for the same reason English trade unions are older and stronger than those of Continental nations.

At the time of the adoption of the Constitution of 1787 the United States was a thinly populated country stretching from Canada to Florida and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, although the pioneers had, as yet, hardly crossed the Alleghenies. The total population in this area was but