For other organizations with a similar name, see Workingmen's Party (disambiguation). 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.
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 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.
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 Philadelphia.
Chief among Committee of Fifty was a 39-year old machinist named Thomas E. Skidmore (1790-1832), who authored most of the group's resolutions for the electoral campaign. 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. 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 (1801-1877), son of the utopian communalist pioneer Robert Owen.
The new party named a slate of candidates for the November elections, including representatives of a variety of trades for seats in the New York State Assembly. The new party engaged in political fusion with organizes seeking to defeat Tammany Hall in races for the New York State Senate.
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 (1805-1856), a self-described "mechanic."
Election of 1829
The Working Men's Party put forward a full slate of candidates for the New York State Assembly in the November election of 1829. 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.