United States 1874

Synopsis

The union label movement began in 1874. The first union label was white, to distinguish cigars made by white union men from those produced by Chinese immigrants. From these ignoble beginnings, the union label became one of several weapons in efforts to end sweatshops and child labor and to improve the working conditions of laborers in the United States. The union label movement continued in the twenty-first century with similar aims: to end sweatshops, slavery, and child labor, conditions that still existed globally.

Timeline

• 1854: Republican Party is formed by opponents of slavery in Michigan.
• 1859: American abolitionist John Brown leads a raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His capture and hanging in December heighten the animosities that will spark the Civil War sixteen months later.
• 1864: General William Tecumseh Sherman conducts his Atlanta campaign and his "march to the sea."
• 1867: Establishment...