It would be, however, a mistake to conclude that the Philadelphia, New York, or New England political movements were totally without results.  Though unsuccessful in electing their candidates to office, they did succeed in placing their demands to advantage before the public.  Humanitarians, like Horace Mann, took up independently the fight for free public education and carried it to success.  In Pennsylvania, public schools, free from the taint of charity, date since 1836.  In New York City the public school system was established in 1832.  The same is true of the demand for a mechanics’ lien law, of the abolition of imprisonment for debt, and of others.

(3) The Period of the “Wild-cat” Prosperity, 1833-1837

With the break-up of the workingmen’s parties, labor’s newly acquired sense of solidarity was temporarily lost, leaving only the restricted solidarity of the isolated trade society.  Within that limit, however, important progress began to be made.  In 1833, there were in New York twenty-nine organized trades; in Philadelphia, twenty-one; and in Baltimore, seventeen.  Among those organized in Philadelphia were hand-loom weavers, plasterers, bricklayers, black and white smiths, cigar makers, plumbers, and women workers including tailoresses, seamstresses, binders, folders, milliners, corset makers, and mantua workers.  Several trades, such as the printers and tailors in New York and the Philadelphia carpenters, which formerly were organized upon the benevolent basis, were now reorganized as trade societies.  The benevolent New York Typographical Society was reduced to secondary importance by the appearance in 1831 of the New York Typographical Association.

But the factor that compelled labor to organize on a much larger scale was the remarkable rise in prices from 1835 to 1837.  This rise in prices was coincident with the “wild-cat” prosperity, which followed a rapid multiplication of state banks with the right of issue of paper currency—­largely irredeemable “wild-cat” currency.  Cost of living having doubled, the subject of wages became a burning issue.  At the same time the general business prosperity rendered demands for higher wages easily attainable.  The outcome was a luxuriant growth of trade unionism.

In 1836 there were in Philadelphia fifty-eight trade unions; in Newark, New Jersey, sixteen; in New York, fifty-two; in Pittsburgh, thirteen; in Cincinnati, fourteen; and in Louisville, seven.  In Buffalo the journeymen builders’ association included all the building trades.  The tailors of Louisville, Cincinnati, and St. Louis made a concentrated effort against their employers in these three cities.