Working Men's Party
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Working Men's Party
|
|
|---|---|
| Chairman | Thomas Skidmore |
| Secretary | Robert Dale Owen |
| Founded | 1829 |
| Dissolved | 1831 |
| Headquarters | New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Newspaper | Working Man's Advocate |
| Ideology |
Communalism Labor rights Utopian socialism |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| International affiliation | None |
The Working Men's Party in New York was a political party founded in April 1829 in New York City. After a promising debut in the fall election of 1829, in which one of the party's candidates was elected to the New York State Assembly, the party rapidly disintegrated into factionalism and discord, vanishing from the scene in 1831.
The New York Working Men's Party was one of a number of short-lived independent workingmen's parties which simultaneously emerged in Philadelphia, Boston, and many other urban centers of the United States during the period 1828 to 1832.
In the late 1820s, corruption was rampant in the municipal administration of New York City. Public services like street lighting, were rendered by friends of the politicians who got monopolies for almost no payment to the city. "Charter dealers", among them Samuel B. Romaine, bribed assemblymen in Albany to get a large number of banks chartered. These banks issued their own currency with which working men were paid but which was not well accepted by the commerce, and devaluated quickly. Contractors built houses, but did not pay the workers after delivering the house, without consequences.
A reform movement had also emerged, with the organized agitation of the trade unions of New York City leading to the adoption on a citywide basis of the 10-hour working day, replacing the former 11-hour standard.
In an effort to avert a return to the longer working day, a mass meeting of "mechanics and others" was held on April 23, 1829. The mass meeting passed a resolution promising not to work past the current "just and reasonable" 10 hour standard and indicating that the names of violators of this restriction would have their names published in the press as enemies of labor. A strike fund was also collected.
An organizational meeting followed on April 28, at which a so-called Committee of Fifty elected to coordinate what was believed to be a forthcoming strike action.
This strike was not to be, however, as the city's employers abruptly ended their plan to impose an extension of the working day. This capitulation did not end the Committee of Fifty, however, with the erstwhile strike committee instead submitting a report late in the summer of 1829 calling for establishment of a political party of the workers to contest the forthcoming fall elections.
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Wikipedia