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.

The wave of organization reached at last the women workers. In 1830 the
well-known Philadelphia philanthropist, Mathew Carey, asserted that
there were in the cities of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and
Baltimore about 20,000 women who could not by constant employment for
sixteen hours out of twenty-four earn more than $1.25 a week. These were
mostly seamstresses and tailoresses, umbrella makers, shoe binders,
cigar makers, and book binders. In New York there was in 1835 a Female
Union Association, in Baltimore a United Seamstresses' Society, and in
Philadelphia probably the first federation of women workers in this
country. In Lynn, Massach