: ''For other organizations with a similar name, see Workingmen's Party (disambiguation).'' The Working Men's Party in New York was a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

founded in April 1829 in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. 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 New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature, with the New York State Senate being the upper house. There are 150 seats in the Assembly. Assembly members serve two-year terms without term limits. The Ass ...

, 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

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, and many other urban centers of the United States during the period 1828 to 1832.

History

Background

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 union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

s of

leading to the adoption on a citywide basis of the 10-hour working day, replacing the former 11-hour standard.Philip S. Foner, ''History of the Labor Movement in the United States: Volume 1: From Colonial Times to the Founding of the American Federation of Labor.'' New York: International Publishers, 1947; pg. 130. 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.Frank T. Carlton, "The Workingmen's Party of New York City: 1829-1831," ''Political Science Quarterly,'' vol. 22, no. 3 (Sept. 1907), pg. 402. 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 Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to Working class, work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Str ...

Convention

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. This report was accepted by another mass meeting and the New York Working Men's Party was born, following the precedent established the previous year by the organized labor movement of

. Chief among Committee of Fifty was a 39-year old

machinist A machinist is a tradesperson or trained professional who operates machine tools, and has the ability to set up tools such as milling machines, grinders, lathes, and drilling machines. A competent machinist will generally have a strong mechan ...

named Thomas E. Skidmore (1790–1832), who authored most of the group's resolutions for the electoral campaign.Foner, ''History of the Labor Movement in the United States: Volume 1,'' pg. 131. Skidmore also presided over a convention held at Military Hall in New York City on October 19, 1829, at which a set of resolutions, largely authored by Skidmore, was passed. The party program of 1829 called for the grant of 160 acres of land to every man and to every unmarried woman over age 21, to be held perpetually until the owner's death. All land holdings in excess of 160 acres were to be confiscated by the government for redistribution, according to the Skidmore-authored party resolution. The party also adopted resolutions against the hereditary transmission of wealth and against exclusive privileges and

monopolies A monopoly (from Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic competition to produce a particular thing, a lack of viable sub ...

. Bankers were denounced as "the greatest knaves, impostors and paupers of the age." The program also called for a program of communal education of children, a plank favored by one of the secretaries of the Working Men's Party,

Robert Dale Owen Robert Dale Owen (7 November 1801 – 24 June 1877) was a Scottish-born Welsh-American social reformer who was active in Indiana politics as member of the Democratic Party in the Indiana House of Representatives (1835–39 and 1851–53) and re ...

(1801–1877), son of the utopian communalist pioneer

Robert Owen Robert Owen (; 14 May 1771 – 17 November 1858) was a Welsh textile manufacturer, philanthropist, political philosopher and social reformer, and a founder of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement, co-operative movement. He strove to ...

.Carlton, "The Workingmen's Party of New York City," pg. 403. The new party named a slate of candidates for the November elections, including representatives of a variety of trades for seats in the

.Foner, ''History of the Labor Movement in the United States: Volume 1,'' pp. 130-131. The new party engaged in political fusion with organizes seeking to defeat

Tammany Hall Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was an American political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789, as the Tammany Society. It became the main local ...

in races for the

New York State Senate The New York State Senate is the upper house of the New York State Legislature, while the New York State Assembly is its lower house. Established in 1777 by the Constitution of New York, its members are elected to two-year terms with no term l ...

. At the end of October 1829 a weekly newspaper was launched in support of the new labor political movement, the ''Working Man's Advocate,'' published by the English-born

George Henry Evans George Henry Evans (March 25, 1805February 2, 1856) was a radical reformer who was in the Working Men's movement of 1829 and the trade union movements of the 1830s. Evans was born in Bromyard, Herefordshire, England, the son of George Evans and ...

(1805–1856), a self-described "mechanic."

Election of 1829

The Working Men's Party put forward a full slate of candidates for the

in the November election of 1829.Carlton, "The Workingmen's Party of New York City," pg. 404. These included a number of working men from the bench, including two machinists, two carpenters, a cooper, a printer, a painter, and a silversmith, among others. On a very short timetable between its formation, nomination of candidates, and the fall election, the candidates of the Working Men's Party performed acceptably well in a three-way race with the Democratic Party dominated by

and the

National Republicans The National Republican Party, also known as the Anti-Jacksonian Party or simply Republicans, was a political party in the United States which evolved from a conservative-leaning faction of the Democratic-Republican Party that supported John ...

. Final results showed the Tammany Democrats winning 8 of 11 contested legislative seats, the National Republicans winning 2, and one candidate of the Working Men's Party emerging victorious — Ebenezer Ford, President of the

Journeymen A journeyman is a worker, skilled in a given building trade or craft, who has successfully completed an official apprenticeship qualification. Journeymen are considered competent and authorized to work in that field as a fully qualified employee ...

Carpenter Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenter ...

s Society. In the simultaneous elections for citywide office, the Working Men's Party received about 6,000 votes to Tammany Hall's 11,000, helping to stymie Tammany from gaining an outright majority in the Common Council.

Reaction

The emergence of the fledgling organized workers' movement in the electoral process represented a threat to the leaders of the established political parties, who attempted to appropriate for themselves some of the reform measures garnering broad popular support. In January 1830, a bill for the better security of mechanics and other laborers of New York City was introduced in the State Assembly by Silas M. Stilwell. The Tammany men immediately took it up as if it were their own, voted for it, and secured the credit of its adoption, when it became a law. Among other things, it required, under penalties, the owner of a building to retain from the contractor the amount to be paid to the workers.

Factionalism

Although Thomas Skidmore had managed to push some of his favored ideas calling for a redistribution of property into the 1829 platform of the Working Men's Party, his ideas were regarded by primary rival Robert Dale Owen as "crude and impractical" and his personal political style reckoned as "somewhat overbearing and dictatorial." Only a minority supported Skidmore's radical ideas about expropriating and evenly dividing property, a minority favored the education-based

humanitarian Humanitarianism is an ideology centered on the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotiona ...

appeal of Owen, Wright, and Evans.Carlton, "The Workingmen's Party of New York City," pg. 405. As the year 1829 drew to a close, a meeting of "mechanics and other workingmen" was held in New York City on December 29 to set the future policy of the party. The meeting was chaired by prominent local politician and Skidmore foe Henry G. Guyon, who refused to allow Skidmore to speak. When Skidmore attempted to address the meeting without official sanction, he was howled down. Skidmore's

agrarianism Agrarianism is a social philosophy, social and political philosophy that advocates for rural development, a Rural area, rural agricultural lifestyle, family farming, widespread property ownership, and political decentralization. Those who adhere ...

-oriented program was defeated and the communal education policies given primacy in the revised Working Men's Party program, with class differentiation and the denial of political liberty to working people directly connected to the current pedagogical model. Denied access to the floor at the December 29, 1829, meeting and thereby effectively "read out" of the party, Thomas Skidmore and his co-thinkers called a preparatory meeting soon thereafter, with a formal organizational meeting for a new political organization following on February 23, 1830.Carlton, "The Workingmen's Party of New York City," pg. 406. About 40 party adherents were in attendance to hear a long argument between Skidmore and ''Working Man's Advocate'' publisher Evans in which Skidmore charged that the official party had come to be dominated by the wealthy, while Evans accused Skidmore of having made himself "obnoxious to the great body of workingmen." A May 19, 1830, meeting of the 70-member General Executive Committee of the Working Men's Party dealt a blow both to the Skidmore and Owen-Evans factions, however, granting to party members "the free enjoyment of their own private opinions on all subjects" while simultaneously asserting "never to support any attempt to palm upon any man, or set of men, the peculiar doctrines of infidelity, agrarianism or sectarian principles," dismissing both the equal distribution of property and communal boarding and clothing of children in favor of maintenance of the traditional family unit. This was followed by another meeting one week later, at which the majority belong to the Owen-Evans group.Carlton, "The Workingmen's Party of New York City," pg. 408. Those dissenting from the communal boarding school educational model were expelled. The Working Men's Party was thereby formally split. Evans editorialized upon the situation in the pages of his ''Working Man's Advocate,'' attributing the split to a "deliberate plot that has been lately unmasked" to subvert the Working Men's Party to the cause of electing National Republican orator

Henry Clay Henry Clay (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the United States Senate, U.S. Senate and United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives. He was the seventh Spea ...

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...

Elections of 1830 and demise

The majority of the Working Men's Party identified as members of the "Clay Workingmen," whether through personal admiration for their banner-bearer, belief in a

protective tariff Protective tariffs are tariffs that are enacted with the aim of protecting a domestic industry. They aim to make imported goods cost more than equivalent goods produced domestically, thereby causing sales of domestically produced goods to rise, ...

as a fundamental matter of policy, or sheer opportunism in seeking to use the political movement for personal ends.Carlton, "The Workingmen's Party of New York City," pg. 411. The Owen-Evans Working Men's Party, a minority at the time of the May 1830 split, attempted to persevere with the party's communal education-oriented program and nominated a full ticket for the local election, including an effort to return Ebenezer Ford to the legislative assembly. The field was joined by Thomas Skidmore's Agrarian Party, which also called itself the "Original Working Men's Party," which nominated a full ticket for state and city office as well, including running Skidmore for

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...

and his right-hand man, Alexander Ming, Sr., tapped for State Assembly.Carlton, "The Workingmen's Party of New York City," pg. 412. The party nominated an individual from Orange County for

governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

, but he declined and no replacement was chosen. The result of the 1830 election was a crushing blow for the Owens-Evans Working Men's Party and the Skidmore Agrarian Party alike, with the Working Men's candidate for Governor, Ezekiel Williams, winning just 2,332 votes against the nearly 250,000 votes split by the Democratic and National Republican candidates. Tammany Democrats routed the National Republican proxy "Clay Workingmen" in legislative races, with Ebenezer Ford garnering only 2,329 votes in his losing bid for re-election, barely more than a third of his 1829 total. With the majority of its adherents absorbed into mainstream politics and no radicals elected, the Working Men's Party movement quickly expired. There is anecdotal evidence that it continued to exist into the early part of 1831, but all traces of its existence are absent from the historical record by the time of the 1831 New York City elections.Carlton, "The Workingmen's Party of New York City," pp. 412-413. The party was the progenitor, to some extent, of the

Locofocos The Locofocos (also Loco Focos or Loco-focos) were a faction of the Democratic Party in American politics that existed from 1835 until the mid-1840s. History The faction, originally named the Equal Rights Party, was created in New York City as ...