similar organizations in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.
But these were not unions like those of today. "There are," says
Richard T. Ely, "no traces of anything like a modern trades'
union in the colonial period of American history, and it is
evident on reflection that there was little need, if any, of
organization on the part of labor, at that time."*

* "The Labor Movement in America," by Richard T. Ely (1905), p.
86.


A new epoch for labor came in with the Revolution. Within a
decade wages rose fifty per cent, and John Jay in 1784 writes of
the "wages of mechanics and laborers" as "very extravagant."
Though the industries were small and depended on a local market
within a circumscribed area of communication, they grew rapidly.
The period following the Revolution is marked by considerable
industrial restiveness and by the formation of many labor
organizations, which were, however, benevolent or friendly
societies rather than unions and were often incorporated by an
act of the legislature. In New York, between 1800 and 1810,
twenty-four such societies were incorporated. Only in the
larger cities were they composed of artisans of one trade, such
as the New York Masons Society (1807) or the New York Society of
Journeymen Shipwrights (1807). Elsewhere they included artisans
of many trades, such as the Albany Mechanical Society (1801). In
Philadelphia the cordwainers, printers, and hatters had
societies. In Baltimore the tailors were the first to organize,
and they conducted in 1795 one of the first strikes in America.
Ten years later they struck again, and succeeded in raising their