ctory workers with mechanics and city
workingmen. In many parts of the State of New York the workingmen's
parties included the three classes--"farmers, mechanics, and working
men,"--but New England added a fourth class, the factory operatives. It
was early found, however, that the movement could expect little or no
help from the factory operatives, who were for the most part women and
children.

The years 1828, 1829, and 1830 were years of political labor movements
and labor parties. Philadelphia originated the first workingmen's party,
then came New York and Boston, and finally state-wide movements and
political organizations in each of the three States. In New York the
workingmen scored their most striking single success, when in 1829 they
cast 6000 votes out of a total of 21,000. In Philadelphia the labor
ticket polled 2400 in 1828 and the labor party gained the balance of
power in the city. But the inexperience of the labor politicians coupled
with machinations on the part of "designing men" of both older parties
soon lost the labor parties their advantage. In New York Tammany made
the demand for a mechanics' lien law its own and later saw that it
became enacted into law. In New York, also, the situation became
complicated by factional strife between the Skidmorian "agrarians," the
Owenite state guardianship faction, and a third faction which eschewed
either "panacea." Then, too, the opposition parties and press seized
upon agrarianism and Owen's alleged atheism to brand the whole labor
movement. The labor party was decidedly unfortunate in its choice of
intellectuals and "ideologists."

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