called in America. In the summer of 1827 the carpenters struck
for a ten-hour day. They were soon joined by the bricklayers,
painters, and glaziers, and members of other trades. But the
strike failed of its immediate object. A second effort to combine
the various trades into one organization was made in 1833, when
the Trades' Union of the City and County of Philadelphia, was
formed. Three years later this union embraced some fifty
societies with over ten thousand members. In June, 1835, this
organization undertook what was probably the first successful
general strike in America. It began among the cordwainers, spread
to the workers in the building trades, and was presently joined
in by cigarmakers, carters, saddlers and harness makers, smiths,
plumbers, bakers, printers, and even by the unskilled workers on
the docks. The strikers' demand for a ten-hour day received a
great deal of support from the influential men in the community.
After a mass meeting of citizens had adopted resolutions
endorsing the demands of the union, the city council agreed to a
ten-hour day for all municipal employees.

In 1833 the carpenters of New York City struck for an increase in
wages. They were receiving a dollar thirty-seven and a half cents
a day; they asked for a dollar and a half. They obtained the
support of other workers, notably the tailors, printers,
brushmakers, tobacconists, and masons, and succeeded in winning
their strike in one month. The printers, who have always been
alert and active in New York City, elated by the success of this
coordinate effort, sent out a circular calling for a general
convention of all the trades societies of the city. After a
preliminary meeting in July, a mass meeting was held in December,
at which there were present about four thousand persons