Notes

Abbreviations

Introduction

1. For reviews of such works see Paul Faler, “Working-class Historiography,” Radical America 3 (March–April, 1969): 56–68; Thomas Krueger, “American Labor Historiography, Old and New: A Review Essay,” Journal of Social History 4 (Spring, 1971): 277–85; Robert Zieger, “Workers and Scholars: Recent Trends in American Labor Historiography,” Labor History 13 (Spring, 1972): 245–66; and David Brody, “The Old Labor History and the New: In Search of an American Working Class,” Labor History 20 (Winter, 1979): 111–26.

2. E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (pbk. ed.; New York: Vintage, 1966), p. 10. For a richer theoretical discussion of culture and ideology see Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), esp. pp. 75–144.

3. See, for example, David Montgomery, Beyond Equality: Labor and the Radical Republicans, 1862–1872 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967); Herbert G. Gutman, “Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, 1815–1919,” American Historical Review 78 (June, 1973): 531–87; Alan Dawley, Class and Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976); Paul Faler, “Workingmen, Mechanics, and Social Change: Lynn, Massachusetts, 1800–1860” (unpub. Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1971); Faler, “Cultural Aspects of the Industrial Revolution: Lynn, Massachusetts Shoemakers and Industrial Morality, 1826–1860,” Labor History 15 (Summer, 1974): 367–94; Dawley and Faler, “Workingclass Culture and Politics in the Industrial Revolution: Sources of Loyalism and Rebellion,” Journal of Social History 9 (June, 1976): 466–80; Bruce Laurie, “‘Nothing on Compulsion’: Life Styles of Philadelphia Artisans, 1820–1850,” Labor History 15 (Summer, 1974): 377–66; and Gary Kulik, “Pawtucket Village and the Strike of 1824: The Origins of Class Conflict in Rhode Island,” Radical History Review 17 (Spring, 1978): 5–38. See also Daniel J. Walkowitz, Worker City, Company Town: Iron and Cotton-Worker Protest in Troy and Cohoes, New York, 1855–1884 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978); and Leon Fink, “Workingmen’s Democracy: The Knights of Labor in Local Politics, 1886–1896” (unpub. Ph.D. diss., University of Rochester, 1977).

4. See fn. 3, especially their “Workingclass Culture and Politics.”

5. See, for example, Lee Benson, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case (pbk. ed.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961); Paul J. Kleppner, The Cross of Culture: A Social Analysis of Midwestern Politics, 1850–1900 (New York: Free Press, 1970); and Ronald P. Formisano, The Birth of Mass Political Parties: Michigan, 1827–1861 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971). I might add that one can find value in these works without accepting their structural-functionalist assumptions or their conservative politics.

Chapter 1

1. Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), pp. 206–7. For a complete account of the procession see “Account of the Grand Federal Procession in Philadelphia,” American Museum 4 (July, 1788): 57–75.

2. Foner, Tom Paine, pp. 19–69 and esp. n. 22, p. 280. See also Jacob M. Price, “Economic Function and the Growth of American Port Towns in the Eighteenth Century,” Perspectives in American History 8 (1974): 139.

3. David Montgomery, “The Working Classes of the Pre-industrial City, 1780–1830,” Labor History 9 (Winter, 1968): 5.

4. See, for example, John R. Commons, “American Shoemakers, 1648–1895: A Sketch of Industrial Evolution,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 24 (Nov., 1909): 39–84; Carl Bridenbaugh, The Colonial Craftsman (pbk ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), pp. 125–54; Sam Bass Warner, Jr., The Private City: Philadelphia in Three Periods of Its Growth (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968), pp. 7–9; and Foner, Tom Paine, pp. 37–45.

5. John Fanning Watson, Annals of Philadelphia, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Edwin S. Stuart, 1887), 1: 220–21.

6. See, for example, John R. Commons, et al., Documentary History of American Industrial Society, 10 vols. (rpt. New York: Russell and Russell, 1958), 3: 77–78 and 99–103; J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 1609–1884, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: L. H. Everts, 1884), 3: 2231–32; and Foner, Tom Paine, pp. 41–45.

7. Ian M. G. Quimby, “Apprenticeship in Colonial Philadelphia,” (M.A. thesis, University of Delaware, 1963), pp. 60–63.

8. Foner, Tom Paine, n. 24, p. 280.

9. Montgomery, “Working Classes,” p. 6.

10. Allan R. Pred, Urban Growth and the Circulation of Information: The United States System of Cities, 1790–1840 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 189–90.

11. Commons, Documentary History, 3: 100.

12. Ibid., pp. 99–101.

13. Lewis Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought: Pennsylvania, 1776–1860 (pbk. ed.; Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968), pp. 129–42.

14. George R. Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, 1815–1860 (pbk. ed.; New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 107.

15. Hartz, Economic Policy, pp. 148–60.

16. Taylor, Transportation Revolution, pp. 38–42 and 43–45.

17. Ibid., pp. 77–80.

18. Ibid., pp. 135–40 and 442.

19. P. L. December 28, 1836.

20. James T. Lemon, The Best Poor Man’s Country: A Geographical Study of Early Southeastern Pennsylvania (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972), pp. 73–92.

21. Ibid. See also John Modell, “A Regional Approach to Urban Growth: The Philadelphia Region in the Early Nineteenth Century” (paper delivered at the Fall Regional Economic History Conference, Eleutherian Mills–Hagley Foundation, Wilmington, Del., 1968). Modell has found similar migration patterns for the Reading, Pennsylvania hinterland. See Modell, “The Peopling of a Working-class Ward: Reading, Pennsylvania, 1850,” Journal of Social History 5 (Fall, 1971): 71–95.

22. See also Modell, “Regional Approach.” Diane Lindstrom, Economic Growth in the Philadelphia Region, 1810–1850 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), pp. 24–25; and Warner, Private City, pp. 56–57.

23. Douglass C. North, The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790–1860 (New York: Norton, 1966), p. 168.

24. See, for example, Edward Pessen, Riches, Class, and Power before the Civil War (Lexington, Mass., D. C. Heath, 1973), pp. 183–89.

25. Stuart M. Blumin, “Mobility in a Nineteenth-century American City: Philadelphia, 1820–1860” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1968), pp. 110–37.

26. On the concentration of industrial jobs in the core see Richard Greenfield, “Industrial Location in Philadelphia, 1850–1880” (working paper, Philadelphia Social History Project, University of Pennsylvania, 1978); and Warner, Private City, pp. 59–60.

27. See, for example, Charles V. Hagner, Early History of the Falls of Schuylkill, Manayunk, Schuylkill and Lehigh Navagation Companies, Fairmount Water Works, etc. (Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen, and Haffelfinger, 1869); “Address of Dr. John Elkinton,” M.F.P., July 26 and Aug. 2, 1828; and M.C., Mar. 11, 1848.

28. For descriptions of the suburbs see David Montgomery, “The Shuttle and the Cross: Weavers and Artisans in the Kensington Riots of 1844,” Journal of Social History 5 (Summer, 1972): 411–47; Sam Bass Warner, “If All the World Were Philadelphia: A Scaffolding for Urban History, 1774–1930,” American Historical Review 74 (Oct., 1968): 26–43; and Bruce Laurie, “Fire Companies and Gangs in Southwark: The 1840s,” in Allen F. Davis and Mark H. Haller, eds., The Peoples of Philadelphia: A History of Ethnic Groups and Lower-class Life 1790–1940 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1973), pp. 71–86.

29. Foner, Tom Paine, p. 23. See also Richard G. Miller, “Gentry and Entrepreneurs: A Socioeconomic Analysis of Philadelphia in the 1790s,” Rocky Mountain Social Science Journal 12 (Jan., 1975): 71–84.

30. Blumin, “Mobility in a Nineteenth-century City,” pp. 45–50; and Pessen, Riches, Class, and Power, p. 40.

31. Pessen, Riches, Class, and Power, pp. 46–75, esp. pp. 50, 120–28, and 327–31.

32. Taylor, Transportation Revolution, pp. 294–95.

33. Ibid., pp. 296–97. For Campbell’s budget see N.Y.D.T., May 27, 1851.

34. The average yearly earnings of male artisans and industrial workers are estimated in Bruce Laurie, et al., “Immigrants and Industry: The Philadelphia Experience, 1850–1880,” Journal of Social History 9 (Winter, 1975): 229.

35. For an overview of the factors affecting women’s employment see Susan J. Kleinberg, “The Systematic Study of Urban Women,” Historical Methods Newsletter 9 (Dec, 1975): 14–25.

36. The best and perhaps only study of the frequency of women’s involvement in outwork during the antebellum period is Carol Groneman, “She Earns as a Child, She Pays as a Man’: Women Workers in a Mid-nineteenth-century New York City Community,” in Milton Cantor and Bruce Laurie, eds., Class, Sex, and the Woman Worker (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977), pp. 83–100. Quantitative data on this is unavailable for Philadelphia, but the testimony of artisans suggests a goodly number of their wives were employed in the home under the putting-out system. See, for example, the letters of journeymen cordwainers, Penn., April 1, 1836; and journeymen house carpenters, D.S., Aug. 9, 1850.

37. For the occupational distribution of women in 1850 see Bruce Laurie and Mark Schmitz, “Manufacture and Productivity: The Making of an Industrial Base, 1850–1880” in Theodore Hershberg, ed., Toward an Interdisciplinary History of the City: Work, Space, Family and Group Experience in Nineteenth-century Philadelphia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), table 2.

38. Blumin, “Mobility in a Nineteenth-century City,” p. 20. For a biographical sketch of Evans see D.A.B., 6. 208–10.

39. Hagner, Early History of Manayunk. The best description of textile production and machinery is Anthony F. C. Wallace, Rockdale: The Growth of an American Village in the Early Industrial Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), pp. 125–239.

40. Samuel Hazard, ed., Register of Pennsylvania 1 (Jan., 1828): 28; and Montgomery, “Shuttle and the Cross,” pp. 416–17.

41. U.S. Census, Population Schedule, Manayunk.

42. Hagner, Early History of Manayunk, p. 75; and M.C., March 11, 1848.

43. Manayunk Star, March 29, 1862.

44. See, for example, letter signed “A Jeffersonian American Working-Man,” G. T., Sept. 18, 1833. The local press is sprinkled with news of mill shutdowns due to fires, freshets, and, of course, slack times. See letter signed “A Looker-on in Manayunk,” P.L., May 2, 1846. See also ibid., Jan. 30, 1851; and G.T., April 3 and July 31, 1839, Nov. 29, 1843, Dec. 27, 1847, and Jan.1, 1851.

45. See, for example, Merritt Roe Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology: The Challenge of Change (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977); and David Montgomery, “Workers’ Control of Machine Production in the Nineteenth Century,” Labor History 17 (Fall, 1976): 485–509.

46. On the millhands’ struggles for a ten-hour day, see below, pp. 91 and 143–47.

47. See letter signed “A Jeffersonian American Working-Man,” G.T., Sept. 18, 1833.

48. Robert Baird, The American Cotton Spinner, and Manager’s and Carder’s Guide: A Practical Treatise on Cotton Spinning, Compiled from the Papers of the late Robert Baird (Philadelphia: A Hart, 1851), p. 203.

49. See the testimony of Philadelphia textile hands in Penn. Senate, Peltz Committee, esp. pp. 25–26, 49, and 75–76.

50. Penn. Senate, Peltz Committee, p. 58.

51. G.T., Nov. 6, 1833.

52. See letters signed “A Jeffersonian American Working-Man,” ibid., Sept. 18, 1833; and “J.F.,” ibid., Nov. 13, 1833.

53. Ibid., Nov. 6, 1833.

54. Laurie, et al., “Immigrants and Industry,” p. 229.

55. Rona Weiss, “The Transition to Industrial Capitalism: Workers and Entrepreneurs in Randolph, Massachusetts, 1800–1870” (seminar paper, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1974).

56. The names of the largest shoe manufacturers in 1850 were selected out of the manuscripts of the industrial census and traced backwards in the city directories each year for twenty-five years.

57. Penn., April 4, 1834. See also letter signed “Sherman,” U.S.G., April 2, 1836.

58. See letter signed “A Reflecting Operative,” S.T., Oct. 9, 1849.

59. See, for example, ibid., June 21, 1847.

60. Edwin T. Freedley, Philadelphia and Its Manufactures: A Handbook Exhibiting the Development, Variety, and Statistics of the Manufacturing Industry of Philadelphia in 1857, together with Sketches of Remarkable Manufactories, and a List of Articles Now Made in Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Edward Young, 1858), p. 223. See also the advertisement of Bennett and Company, P.L., Aug. 14, 1847.

61. See Freedley, Philadelphia and Its Manufactures, pp. 186–88; Penn., April 1 and 4, 1836; and D.S., Feb. 14, 1845.

62. U.S.G., July 6, 1834; and Freedley, Philadelphia and Its Manufactures, p. 173.

63. Adam Smith and then Karl Marx, of course, placed great emphasis on the division of labor. One of the first scholars to analyze this process in the American setting was John R. Commons in his classic article published in 1909, “American Shoemakers.” Since then many American writers have investigated the division of labor in one-industry towns and cities with diversified economies, the most recent of which are Alan Dawley, Class and Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), esp. pp. 42–50; and Susan E. Hirsch, Roots of the American Working Class: The Industrialization of the Crafts in Newark, 1800–1860 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978), esp. pp. 21–36. It should be added that Prof. Hirsch also draws attention to the unevenness of this process within the crafts.

64. The best analysis of the persistence of hand techniques in Raphael Samuel, “The Workshop of the World: Steam Power and Hand Technology in Mid-victorian Britain,” History Workshop Journal 3 (Spring, 1977): 6–72. Though Samuel claims that American industry mechanized much faster than British manufacturers, the evidence presented here and in Hirsch’s Roots of the American Working Class suggests that the gap was not as great as Samuel believes.

65. Sweatshops necessarily overlap with what will be described as artisan shops since both were quite small and are not easily distinguished from one another in the census manuscripts. There is reason to believe, however, that sweatshops or garrets were larger than artisan shops in this period. Freedley observes that they had as many as twelve workers and one can easily imagine the largest of them as twice that size. Thus it was decided to treat such operations as shops with six to twenty-five workers. See Freedley, Philadelphia and Its Manufactures, p. 188.

66. See, for example, ibid.; the letter of a garret boss in P.L., Oct. 10, 1846; Elva Tooker, Nathan Trotter, Philadelphia Merchant, 1783–1853 (rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1972), esp. p. 115; Commons, “American Shoemakers”; and letters of “sweated” workers in F.T.R., May 14, 1864, and Feb. 11, 1865.

67. On the fitful pace of work in the needle trades see P.L., Sept. 21, 1837. That many small producers did repair work is indicated in the manuscripts of the industrial census.

68. There is no easy way of estimating the proportion of outworkers in the various trades. Evidence from antebellum New York and Philadelphia indicates, however, that with the notable exception of Alan Dawley (see Class and Community) historians have vastly underestimated the role of outwork in the early period of industrialization. Thus, the largest clothing producers in New York and Philadelphia in 1849 and 1869, respectively, hired the overwhelming majority of their female employees at home under the putting-out system. See Hunt’s Merchants’ Magazine 20 (March, 1849): 347–48; and Isaac Vansant, ed., Royal Road to Wealth: An Illustrated History of the Successful Business Houses of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Samuel Loage, n.d.), p. 144. On the frame tenders in the county see Hazard, Register of Pennsylvania 1 (January, 1828): 28; and Freedley, Philadelphia and Its Manufactures, pp. 239–49.

69. They earned less than $1.00 a day throughout this period. See Montgomery, “Shuttle and the Cross,” p. 417.

70. Ibid., pp. 414–18.

71. Freedley, Philadelphia and Its Manufactures, p. 241–42.

72. See, for example, P.L., March 2, 1846.

73. That workers in the smallest shops usually earned the best wages is disclosed in Laurie, et al., “Immigrants and Industry,” table 8, p. 228.

74. Tabulated from U.S. Census, Population Schedule, Philadelphia County.

75. See, for example, Herbert G. Gutman, “Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, 1815–1919,” American History Review 78 (June, 1973): 531–87; and Montgomery, “Workers’ Control.”

76. Penn., April 4, 1835.

77. P.L, Oct. 10, 1846.

78. U.S. Census, Population Schedule, Philadelphia County. For the occupational distribution of nationality groups see Laurie, et al, “Immigrants and Industry,” tables 12 and 13, pp. 235–38.

79. Warner, Private City, p. 71 also makes this point.

Chapter 2

1. J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott, History of Philadelphia 1609–1884, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: L. H. Evarts, 1884), 1. 623. See also U.S.G., Aug. 13–14 and Dec. 8, 1828; Poulson’s Daily American Advertiser, Aug. 14, 1828; and Democratic Press, Aug. 13, 1828.

2. Robert Adair, Memoir of Rev. James Patterson, Late Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Northern Liberties, Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Henry Perkins, 1840), pp. 170–76.

3. On the origins of the Mechanics’ Union see Lewis H. Arky, “The Mechanics’ Union of Trade Associations and the Formation of the Philadelphia Working-men’s Movement,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 76 (April, 1952): 142–76. The speech Heighton delivered on this occasion is Operative, Principles. The other speeches are: Fellow-laborer, Address and Unlettered Mechanic, Address.

4. These terms are obviously adapted from Alan Dawley and Paul Faler, “Workingclass Culture and Politics in the Industrial Revolutions: Sources of Royalism and Rebellion,” Journal of Social History 9 (1976): 466–80.

5. See, for example, Adair, Memoir of Rev. James Patterson, pp. 100–01; Alfred P. Smith, In Memorium, Abraham Oothout Halsey, D.D., 1798–1868: First Pastor of Eleventh, Now West-Arch Presbyterian Church (Philadelphia: n.pub., 1897); and Rev. William Ramsey, Diary, 1822–1849, 23 vols., Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia vol. 6, Aug. 25, 1826, and passim. (Since Rev. Ramsey neglected to number the volumes of his diary after vol. 10, the citations to such volumes will include the date only.)

6. Robert W. Doherty, “Social Basis of the Presbyterian Schism, 1837–1838: The Philadelphia Case,” Journal of Social History 2 (Fall, 1968): 69–79; and George M. Marsden, The Evangelical Mind and the New School Experience (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970).

7. The most recent and clearly superior study of the Second Great Awakening is Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper’s Millenium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815–1837 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978). See also Whitney R. Cross, The Burned–over District: A Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800–1850 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1950); T. Scott Miyakawa, Protestants and Pioneers: Individualism and Conformity on the American Frontier (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964); and Donald G. Mathews, “The Second Great Awakening as an Organizing Process, 1780–1830: An Hypothesis,” American Quarterly 21 (Spring, 1969): 23–43.

8. Quoted in Marsden, Evangelical Mind, p. 52.

9. On Barnes’s career see Edward B. Davis, “Albert Barnes, 1798–1870: An Exponent of New School Presbyterianism” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1961).

10. Albert Barnes, The Choice of a Profession: An Address Delivered before the Society of Inquiry in Amherst College, August 21, 1838 (Amherst, J.S. and C. Adams, 1838), p. 18.

11. Doherty, “Presbyterian Schism,” p. 78.

12. See, for example, Barnes, Choice of a Profession, p. 11 and passim; and Barnes, The Desire of Reputation: An Address before the Mercantile Library Company of Philadelphia, December 8, 1841 (Philadelphia: Henry Perkins, 1841).

13. Albert Barnes, The Connexion of Temperance with Republican Freedom: An Oration Delivered on the 4th of July, 1835 before the Mechanics and Workingmens Temperance Society of the City and County of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Boyles and Benedict, 1835), p. 17.

14. Faler, “Cultural Aspects of the Industrial Revolution,” pp. 367–68.

15. Doherty, “Presbyterian Schism”; and Marsden, Evangelical Mind, pp. 59–87.

16. Charles W. Ferguson, Organizing to Beat the Devil: Methodists and the Making of America (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971), pp. 355–56; Philip W. Ott, “The Mind of Early Methodism, 1800–1844” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1968); and Othniel O. Pendleton, Jr., “Temperance and the Evangelical Churches,” Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society 25 (March, 1947): 20–21.

17. Centennial Publishing Committee, History of Ebenezer Methodist Church, Southwark (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1892), pp. 27–28.

18. Ferguson, Organizing to Beat the Devil, p. 357.

19. Minutes of the Philadelphia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1833–1846 (Philadelphia; n.pub., n.d.), p. 27.

20. Minutes of the Philadelphia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Held at Philadelphia, March 30, 1836 (Philadelphia: James Harmsted, 1836), p. 16.

21. John Allen Krout, Origins of Prohibition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925), pp. 112–13.

22. Ferguson, Organizing to Beat the Devil, p. 359.

23. Rev. J. Kennady, Sermon Delivered before the Sunday School Teachers’ Union of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Philadelphia, September 29, 1839 (Philadelphia: Thomas U. Baker, 1839), p. 9.

24. Rev. Fitch Reed, “The Influence of Moral Principle, Secured by Early Culture, Essential to National Prosperity,” in Shipley W. Willson and Ebenezer Ireson, eds., The Methodist Preacher: Or, Monthly Sermons from Living Ministers (Boston: J. Putnam, 1832), pp. 355–73. The quotation is on p. 367.

25. Compiled from Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America from its Organization in A.D. 1798 to A.D. 1820 (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1847); Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, 1821–1835, 1836–1841, 1842–1847, 1848–1849 (Philadelphia: By the Stated Clerk of the Assembly, n.d.); Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (New School), 1838–1851 (New York: By the Stated Clerk of the Assembly, n.d.); Minutes Taken at the Several Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1810–1820, 1821–1829 (Philadelphia: n.pub., n.d.); and Minutes of the Philadelphia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1833–1846, 1847–1864 (Philadelphia: n.pub., n.d.).

26. Pendleton, “Temperance and the Evangelical Churches,” pp. 26–33. See also Pendleton, “The Influence of Evangelical Churches upon Humanitarian Reform: A Case Study Giving Particular Attention to Philadelphia, 1790–1840” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1945). The most recent works on temperance are Joseph R. Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963); and Norman Clark, Deliver Us from Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition. (New York: Norton, 1976).

27. On Hopkins see Marsden, Evangelical Mind, pp. 34–38 and 40–41.

28. See, for example, Clifford S. Griffin, “Religious Benevolence as Social Control, 1815–1860,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 44 (Dec, 1957): 423–44; and Griffin, Their Brothers’ Keepers: Moral Stewardship in the United States, 1800–1865 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1960).

29. Doherty, “Presbyterian Schism,” pp. 76–78.

30. Hazard, Register of Pennsylvania 2 (Aug. 1828): 65–69. See also Benjamin Klebaner, “The Home Relief Controversy in Philadelphia, 1782–1861,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 76 (Oct., 1954): 413–23.

31. Quoted in Montgomery, “Shuttle and the Cross,” p. 424.

32. On the Pennsylvania Society see Pendleton, “Influence of the Evangelical Churches,” pp. 35–40. See also Barnes, Connexion of Temperance with Republican Freedom: and John J. Rumbarger. “The Social Origins of the Political Temperance Movement in the Reconstruction of American Society” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1968).

33. See Michael B. Katz, “Four Propositions about Social and Family Structure in Pre-industrial Society” (paper delivered before the Comparative Social Mobility Conference, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J., July 15–17, 1972), esp. pp. 7–8.

34. See letter signed “Obediah,” M.F.P., Oct. 31, 1829, and editorials, July 10 and 24, 1830.

35. Rev. Thomas P. Hunt, Life and Thoughts of Rev. Thomas P. Hunt (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.: Robert Baur and Son, 1901), p. 300.

36. Benjamin T. Sewell, Sorrow’s Circuit, or Five Years’ Experience in the Bedford Street Mission, Philadelphia (Philadelphia: n.pub., 1859), p. 274.

37. American Temperance Union, Report of the Executive Committee (Philadelphia: L. Johnson, 1838), p. 5.

38. Sewell, Sorrow’s Circuit, pp. 275–76. Nor was this an isolated incident of a worker’s committing suicide in frustration over his inability to refrain from drink, unemployment, or more likely, a combination of both. See D.S., Jan. 3, 1845, June 3 and 15, 1845, and March 29, 1848.

39. On the enrollment in the local temperance movement see Pendleton, “Temperance and the Evangelical Churches,” p. 35.

40. The names of the officers of the Pennsylvania Society were collected from Pendleton, “Influence of the Evangelical Churches upon Humanitarian Reform” and Rumbarger, “Social Origins of the Political Temperance Movement,” and traced to the city directories. The leadership included six ministers, twelve physicians, and twenty-four merchants, manufacturers, and lawyers. The Mechanics’ and Workingmen’s Society did not boast the names of wealthy merchants or professionals, but it did have a healthy representation of rising industrialists in addition to Baldwin and Vaughan. See Barnes, Connexion of Temperance with Republican Freedom.

41. Johnson, Shopkeeper’s Millenium, p. 119, finds the same pattern in Rochester where “A full 42 percent of the men who joined churches between 1832 and 1837 were journeymen craftsmen.”

42. On Patterson see Adair, Memoir of Rev. James Patterson, pp. 25–44. See also ibid., pp. 321–34, for a sketch of Rev. Albert Judson. On Halsey see Smith, Alfred O. Halsey; on Ramsey see Ramsey, Diary, vol. 1, passim.

43. See Ramsey, Diary, vol. 5, Nov. 3, 1826; and A. O. Halsey to John Johnson, March 11, 1828, Miscellaneous Papers, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia. See also Adair, Memoir of Rev. James Patterson, p. 105.

44. Z. Smith to Halsey, Jan. 9, 1827, Miscellaneous Papers; Ramsey, Diary, vol. 5, Jan. 23, 1826, and vol. 6, July 29, 1829; and Young Men’s Association of the First Presbyterian Church, Annual Report (Philadelphia: I. Ashmead, 1839).

45. Adair, Memoir of Rev. James Patterson, p. 158.

46. A. O. Halsey to John Johnston, March 11, 1828, Miscellaneous Papers.

47. Ramsey, Diary, vol. 6, July 25, 1826.

48. Adair, Memoir of Rev. James Patterson, p. 134.

49. Ibid., pp. 59–61, 105–06, and 170–76.

50. Ibid., p. xi.

51. Ramsey, Diary, vol. 3, April 11, 1824.

52. Ibid., vol. 7, July 13, 1828.

53. Adair, Memoir of Rev. James Patterson, pp. 126–47. The quotation is on p. 143. See also Ramsey, Diary, vol. 6, Feb. 2, 1828; vol. 8, Sept. 8, 1828; and vol. 9, May 4, 1830.

54. Adair, Memoir of Rev. James Patterson, p. 143.

55. Ramsey, Diary, vol. 7, Sept. 7, 1828.

56. Adair, Memoir of Rev. James Patterson, pp. 66–67.

57. See, for example, First Presbyterian Congregation of Kensington, Session Books, 1814–1845, 1843–1859, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, June 2, 1821, June 2, 1827, June 23, 1828, and passim; Ramsey, Diary, vol. 8, Nov. 19, 1829, and passim; and Central Presbyterian Church in Northern Liberties, Minutes of the Session, 1832–1852, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Nov. 28, 1832, Nov. 7 and 21, 1832, June 8, 1836, and May 3, 1838.

58. Adair, Memoir of Rev. James Patterson, p. 146.

59. Stuart M. Blumin, “Mobility in a Nineteenth-century American City: Philadelphia, 1820–1860” (unpub. Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1968), pp. 103–9.

60. Paul Johnson finds that a comparable percentage of evangelical journeymen in Rochester improved their social standing, though his study terminates in 1837. See Johnson, Shopkeeper’s Millenium, pp. 123–24.

61. Doherty, “Presbyterian Schism,” p. 75.

62. U.S. Census, Industrial Schedule, Southwark.

63. Ramsey complained that he was “frequently sent for by those who attended no place of worship and perhaps think of me only when ill” (Diary, vol. 6, Aug. 24, 1826). For instances of conversion encouraged by illness, the death of loved ones, and the like see ibid., vol. 7, June 13–14, 1828; vol. 8, Sept. 12, 1829; and vol. 9, June 12, 1830. See also Adair, Memoir of Rev. James Patterson, pp. 63 and 93.

64. Ramsey, Diary, vol. 6, Nov. 26–27, 1826.

65. See, for example, Adair, Memoir of Rev. James Patterson, pp. 45–49 and 105–06; and Ramsey, Diary, vol. 4, Jan. 26, 1825; vol. 7, Feb. 11, 1829; and vol. 9, April 4, 1830. For an intimate portrait of upper-class evangelical women see Wallace, Rockdale, pp. 22–32, 312–17, and 459–67. For the revivalist efforts of middle-class women see Carol Smith Rosenberg, Religion and the Rise of the American City: The New York City Mission Movement: 1812–1870 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971), pp. 97–124; and Barbara Welter, “The Feminization of American Religion, 1800–1860,” in Mary Hartman and Lois Banner, eds., Clio’s Consciousness Raised: New Perspectives on the History of Women (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), pp. 137–57.

66. See, for example, First Presbyterian Church in Southwark Minutes, 1830–1840; and Cedar Street Presbyterian Church, Records of the Session, 1838–1870, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia.

67. Johnson, Shopkeeper’s Millenium, pp. 33–34 finds that evangelical converts were more residentially stable than nonchurch members between 1830 and 1834, and thus deemphasizes the connection between rural-urban migration and evangelical instincts. A close reading of his evidence suggests, however, that the persistence rates of revivalist converts (79) and nonchurch members (67) are not strikingly different. My argument is not that in-migration alone predisposed an individual to evangelicalism, but that it was one of three interacting factors, the others being career mobility and the nature of work.

68. G.T., May 20, 1835.

69. Johnson, Shopkeeper’s Millenium, pp. 104–06, notes that employers in the more advanced work settings were more likely to become evangelized than those who ran traditional workshops. I have extended this argument to the workers in the employ of such owners.

70. Johnson’s remarkably thorough research on Rochester led him to play down the possibility that evangelized workers succeeded because they internalized the Protestant work ethic and to emphasize the material ties between journeymen and employers of the same congregation. He finds that such employers “sponsored” the careers of workingmen in their congregations by hiring them over nonchurch workers, bringing them into their firms as partners, and lending money in hard times to those who achieved employer status, as well as publicly endorsing their products. See ibid., pp. 124–28. Sources do not disclose whether wealthier evangelicals in Philadelphia’s suburban churches assisted their humbler brothers in similar ways, but it is unlikely that they did much beyond hiring them since there were very few prestigious members of these churches. That is, the churches under analysis here were not as class integrated as those studied by Johnson.

71. See, for example, Adair, Memoir of Rev. James Patterson, pp. 49–51, 66–69, and 105–06; Ramsey, Diary, vol. 7, June 13–14, 1828, and Feb. 10, 1829, and passim; and First Presbyterian church in Southwark, Trustees Minutes, 1818–1832, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia.

72. See letter signed “True American,” U.S.G., Oct. 8, 1836. See also letter signed “Pater Familias,” ibid., March 5, 1836.

Chapter 3

1. James W. Alexander [Charles Quill], The American Mechanic (Philadelphia: Henry Perkins, 1838), pp.. 66–67. See also Alexander, The Working Man (Philadelphia: Perkins and Purvis, 1843).

2. Alexander, American Mechanic, pp. 63–68. For examples of working-class recreation in this period see U.S.G., August 14, 1828; letter signed “I Am, Gentlemen, with Great Respect, a Working Man,” M.F.P., April 8, 1831; Fountain, Feb. 24, 1838; and P.L., June 6, 1843. See also R. Sean Wilentz, “Ritual, Republicanism, and the Artisans of Jacksonian New York City” (paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, New York, April 14, 1978).

3. Alexander, American Mechanic, p. 87. See also William Cobbett, A Year’s Residence in the United States of America 1819 (rpt., Cardondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1964), pp. 205–06.

4. See, for example, J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 1609–1884, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: L. H. Everts, 1884), 2: 748–58; P.L., Aug. 14, 1837; and D.S., June 6, 1846.

5. For an amusing but generally accurate analysis of the drinking habits of elites and workers see Fountain, Feb. 24, 1838. See also Rev. Thomas P. Hunt, Jesse Jackson and His Times (Philadelphia: Griffith and Simon, 1845), pp. 20–21; and P.L., April 17,1839. For an overview of traditional attitudes toward drink see Joseph R. Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963), pp. 36–39.

6. Scharf and Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 2: 987.

7. Ibid., 2: 986.

8. P.L., Nov. 24, 1851. See also Scharf and Westcott, History of Philadelphia 2: 941; and D.S., March 5, 1846.

9. Society of Friends, Statistical Inquiry into the Condition of the People of Colour, of the City and Districts of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Kite and Walton, 1849), p. 39. See also P.L., June 23, 1848, and Nov. 9, 1849.

10. Scharf and Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 2: 941–42. See also P.L., May 4, 1836, and March 29, 1838.

11. Alexander, American Mechanic, pp. 12–15, 21–22, and 61–67. See also P.L., April 17, 1839; and D.S., Sept. 21, 1849.

12. Pennsylvania Society for Discouraging the Use of Ardent Spirits, Anniversary Report of the Board of Managers (Philadelphia: n.pub., 1831), pp. 22–23.

13. Benjamin J. Sewell, Sorrow’s Circuit, or Five Years’ Experience in the Bedford Street Mission, Philadelphia (Philadelphia: n.pub. 1859), p. 273.

14. For an overview of the Old School’s social perspective see Doherty, “Social Basis of the Presbyterian Schism, 1837–1838: The Philadelphia Case,” Journal of Social History 2 (Fall, 1968): 79. See also “Report of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church” in D.S., June 7, 1848.

15. See Herbert G. Gutman, “Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America, 1815–1919,” American Historical Review 78 (June, 1973): esp. 543–46 and 563–64. See also A Full and Accurate Report of the Trial for Riot before the Mayor’s Court of Philadelphia . . . Arising Out of a Protestant Procession (Philadelphia: Jesper Harding, 1831); and E. B., June 11, 1855.

16. See, for example, U.S.G., Aug. 14, 1828; and P.L., June 6, 1843.

17. Report of the Trial, p. 44.

18. Hunt, Jesse Jackson, p. 11.

19. See Fountain, Feb. 24, 1838.

20. Bruce Laurie, “Fire Companies and Gangs in Southwark: The 1840s,” in Allen F. Davis and Mark H. Haller, eds., The Peoples of Philadelphia: A History of Ethnic Groups and Lower-class Life, 1790–1940 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1973), p. 76; Nicholas B. Wainwright, ed., A Philadelphia Perspective: The Diary of Sidney George Fisher, 1834–1871 (Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1967), p. 122; Ellis P. Oberholtzer, Philadelphia: A History of the City and Its People, 4 vols. (Philadelphia: S. J. Clark, 1911) 2: 89–90; and Andrew Neilly, “The Violent Volunteers: A History of the Philadelphia Volunteer Fire Department, 1736–1871” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1959), p. 20.

21. Scharf and Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 3: 1912. See also Elizabeth M. Geffen, “Violence in Philadelphia in the 1840s and 1850s,” Pennsylvania History 36 (October, 1969): 406.

22. For example, fully 85 percent of the members of Southwark’s Niagara Hose Company who were found in the census of 1850 were journeymen without real property. The remaining 15 percent were master craftsmen, grocers, and tavern owners, and most of them were officers. See Niagara Hose Company, Minute Books, 1833–1848, 1848–1864 Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; city directories; and U.S. Census, Population Schedule, Southwark. The social profiles of several other Southwark companies closely resembled that of the Niagara. See Laurie, “Fire Companies and Gangs,” n. 29, pp. 85–86. It would be interesting to plot the occupational mobility and property holdings of such traditionalists from the 1830s to 1850, but this is not possible. Membership lists for the 1830s are rare and those that are available pertain to companies situated in suburban areas which were either covered poorly or ignored entirely in the city directories. Still, it should be obvious that in 1850, and probably in the 1830s, these traditionalists were not as prestigious as the revivalists or the radicals.

23. Borough of Manayunk, Council Minutes, 1840–1852, 1852–1854 2 vols., Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia vol. 1, April 23, and Sept. 5, 1843, and vol. 2, June 28, 1854.

24. For the locations of the companies see Scharf and Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 3: 1911–12.

25. Frank H. Schell, “Old Volunteer Fire Laddies, the Famous, Fast, Faithful, Fistic, Fire Fighters of Bygone Days,” Frank H. Schell Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, ch. 4, p. 2.

26. Ibid. See also a retrospective on the county fire department in P.L. Sept. 13, 1903; and Neilly, “Violent Volunteers,” ch. 9.

27. P.L., Jan. 14, 1853.

28. Ibid.

29. Quoted in Oberholtzer, Philadelphia, 2: 89.

30. There is some evidence, however, that women did drink in the grog shops of the city’s “skid row.” See Sewell, Sorrow’s Circuit, passim.

31. Schell, “Old Volunteer Fire Laddies,” ch. 2, p. 3.

32. See the collection of firemen’s memorabilia in the Atwater-Kent Museum, Philadelphia.

33. See Mark H. Haller, “Recurring Themes,” in Davis and Haller, eds., Peoples of Philadelphia, p. 286.

34. The following account is based on coverage in Hazard, Register of Pennsylvania 14 (Aug. 23, 1834) and 14 (Sept. 27, 1834). Both editions reprinted items published in other local newspapers.

35. See, for example, Leonard L. Richards, “Gentlemen of Property and Standing”: Anti-abolitionist Mobs in Jacksonian America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970).

36. Hazard, Register of Pennsylvania 14 (Aug. 23, 1834).

37. Ibid. Lists and names and addresses of 17 men who were arrested in the early stage of the riot. Eight of them were located in the city directories and of these three were weavers, two were laborers, and the remaining three were listed as cabinetmaker, limeburner, and house painter.

38. Ibid.

39. “The Diving Bell,” for example, was an integrated tavern, and the houses of two employers who evidently hired Blacks were attacked with singular fury.

40. Theodore Hershberg, “Free Blacks in Antebellum Philadelphia: A Study of Ex-slaves, Freeborn, and Socioeconomic Decline,” Journal of Social History 5 (Winter, 1971–72): 183–209, and esp. 191–92.

41. Hazard, Register of Pennsylvania 14 (Aug. 23, 1834).

42. Ibid., (Sept. 27, 1834).

Chapter 4

1. Robert Adair, Memoir of Rev. James Patterson, Late Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Northern Liberties, Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Henry Perkins, 1840), pp. 177–81. The best study of cholera is still Charles E. Rosenberg, The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).

2. Lib., July 14, 1832.

3. Ibid.

4. Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), p. 261. See also Edward Pessen, MostUncommon Jacksonians: The Radical Leaders of the Early Labor Movement (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1967), p. 111.

5. Anthony F. C. Wallace, Rockdale: The Growth of an American Village in the Early Industrial Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), pp. 243–95. Only three pages, 289–92, of this lengthy section are dedicated to worker rationalists.

6. See Sidney Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), pp. 356–58, 391–93, and 481–83; John H. Gihon, A Review of the Sermon against Universal Salvation (Philadelphia: By the author, 1841); Abel Thomas, A Century of Universalism in Philadelphia and New York: With Sketches of Its History in Reading, Hightstown, Brooklyn, and Elsewhere (Philadelphia: Collins, 1872), esp. pp. 162–66 and 176–86; and Lib., Aug. 17, 1833.

7. Letter signed “A.M.,” Lib., July 7, 1832.

8. J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 1609–1884, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: L. H. Everts, 1884), 2: 1445.

9. See, for example, T. R., Aug. 29 and Sept. 1 and 29, 1835; see also July 11, 1835.

10. Scharf and Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 2: 1442–48; and Thomas, Century of Universalism, pp. 63–64 and 104–05.

11. On the Society of Liberal Friends see letter signed “A Liberal Friend,” M.F.P., June 7, 1828; and Lib., March 22, 1834. On the Society of Free Enquirers see T.R., Feb. 6 and Sept. 3, 1836. On the Liberal Union which was either an independent group or the Society of Free Enquirers under another name see P.L., Dec. 13, 1838. In addition to these groups there was one or more German-speaking organizations. See ch. 8, pp. 165–66. Another Free Thought newspaper, The Correspondent, appeared during this period, but copies have not survived.

12. These figures are based on projections of membership in churches and groups that left no records, and on estimates of the membership of some organizations that did leave records as reflected in First Universalist Church, Minute Book, 1820–1842, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; and Second Universalist Church, Minute Book, 1820–1854, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Edward Thompson, Oration on the Ninety-eight Anniversary of the Birth Day of Thomas Paine, at the Military Hall, before the Society of Free Enquirers, January 29, 1834 (Philadelphia: Thomas Clark, 1834); and T.R., Feb. 6, 1837, and Feb. 18, 1837.

13. See, for example, Lib., Oct. 18 and Nov. 22, 1834, and May 6 and 15, 1835.

14. T.R., Feb. 6, 1836. See also Feb. 18, 1837; and Thompson, Oration.

15. See letters signed “Scrutator,” T.R., Sept. 1 and 29, 1835.

16. Ibid., May 28, 1836; and Thomas, Century of Universalism, p. 121.

17. Quoted in Pessen, Most Uncommon Jacksonians, p. 86.

18. See, for example, Gihon, Sermon against Universal Salvation, pp. 23–24; Gazetteer, Nov. 22, 1824; and letter signed “Paul,” M.F.P., May 24, 1828.

19. Compare the list of incorporators in The Charter, Articles of Faith, Constitution, and By-laws of the First Universalist Church (Philadelphia: Gihon, Fairchild, 1842) with the names on the register of First Universalist Church, Minute Book.

20. Most leaders of the General Trades’ Union, for example, were rationalists, and one of their number answered a critic who accused his organization of being a foreign import with a roster of the officers showing that all but one, John Ferral, an Irish immigrant, were native-born Americans. See letter signed “Sherman,” U.S.G., April 6, 1836.

21. See, for example, R. S. Neale, Class and Ideology in the Nineteenth Century (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), pp. 15–40; William H. Sewell, Jr., “The Working Class of Marseille Under the Second Republic: Social Structure and Political Behavior,” in Peter N. Stearns and Daniel J. Walkowitz, eds., Workers in the Industrial Revolution (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1974), pp. 75–116; and Joan W. Scott, The Glassworkers of Carmaux: French Craftsmen and Political Action in a Nineteenty-century City (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974).

22. Louis H. Arky, “The Mechanics’ Union of Trade Associations and the Formation of the Philadelphia Working-men’s Movement,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 76 (April, 1952): 144.

23. On Heighton’s English counterparts see E. P. Thompson, Making of the English Working Class (pbk. ed; New York: Vintage, 1966), pp. 17–103; and Trygve Tholfsen, Working-class Radicalism in Mid-victorian Britain (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), pp. 25–82.

24. Quoted in Wallace, Rockdale, p. 290.

25. See Chapter 2.

26. Unlettered Mechanic, Address, p. 4. Most contemporary radicals, of course, did not consider unskilled laborers to be producers.

27. Ibid.

28. Fellow-labourer, Address, p. 14.

29. Ibid., p. 15.

30. Ibid.

31. Unlettered Mechanic, Address, p. 5.

32. Letter signed “Sherman,” U.S.G., April 6, 1836.

33. T.R., July 11, 1835. See also Fellow-labourer, Address, pp. 14–25.

34. M.F.P., Aug. 23, 1828.

35. See, for example, ibid., Jan. 24 and May 5, 1829; Lib., May 23 and June 20, 1835; and T.R., June 9, 1832, and Feb. 13, 1835.

36. Lib., Dec. 8, 1832. See also T.R., July 11, 1835.

37. Letter signed “J.P.,” Lib., March 9, 1833.

38. Gazetteer, Nov. 24, 1824. See also Aug. 8, 1824; letter signed “Equity,” M.F.P., Dec. 20, 1828; letter signed “An Operative,” M.F.P., June 27, 1829; and T.R., July 11, 1835.

39. Lib., June 14, 1834.

40. Gihon, Sermon against Universal Salvation, p. 27.

41. Lib., May 18, 1833.

42. See letter signed “Edward,” M.F.P., July 23, 1828. See also letter signed “J.A.M.C.,” April 26, 1828, and letter signed “Rational Recreation,” July 30, 1828.

43. Gihon, Sermon against Universal Salvation, p. 27.

44. T.R., August 15, 1835. See also May 9, 1835; Lib., Jan. 26, 1833, and July 29, 1835.

45. Letter signed “Edward,” M.F.P., Aug. 16, 1828.

46. Ibid., Jan. 9, 1830.

47. See Wilentz, “Ritual, Republicanism, and the Artisans of Jacksonian New York City” (paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians, New York, April 14, 1978). For an example of a mechanics’ patriotic procession in Philadelphia see U.S.G., July 18 and 24, 1843.

48. See, for example, Radical Reformer and Working Man’s Advocate, July 4, 1835.

49. Compare the letters written by “Franklin” and “Sherman” in U. S. G., March and April, 1836.

50. Wilentz, “Ritual, Republicanism, and the Artisans of Jacksonian New York City,” esp. pp. 14–16, interprets republicanism in this light, but emphasizes the consensus view of it. He also regards it as an ambiguous ideology that propelled workers against employers while it limited the character of their protest, a point which we shall return to in assessing the political importance of the labor theory of value. See also Dawley, Class and Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), pp. 1–3, 9–10, 191–93, and 226–27, for a discussion of the economic import of “equal rights,” the Lynn shoemakers’ rendition of republicanism.

Chapter 5

1. See Edward Pessen, Most Uncommon Jacksonians; The Radical Leaders of the Early Labor Movement (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1967), pp. 3–51; Lewis H. Arky, “The Mechanics’ Union of Trade Associations and the Formation of the Philadelphia Working-men’s Movement,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 76 (1952): 142–76; John R. Commons, et al., History of Labour in the United States, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1918–1935), 1: 374–80 and 384–93; William A. Sullivan, The Industrial Worker in Pennsylvania, 1800–1840 (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1955) pp. 142–76 and 181–93; Sullivan, “Did Labor Support Andrew Jackson?” Political Science Quarterly 62 (Dec. 1947): 569–80; Sullivan, “Philadelphia Labor during the Jackson Era,” Pennsylvania History 15 (Oct. 1948): 305–320; and Leonard Bernstein, “The Working People of Philadelphia from Colonial Times to the General Strike of 1835,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 74 (July 1950): 322–39.

2. Constitution and By-laws of the Association of Journeymen Hatters of the City and County of Philadelphia, Instituted in 1824 (Philadelphia: William P. Finn, 1834), pp. 15–16.

3. Marcus T. C. Gould [recorder], Trial of Twenty-four Journeymen Tailors, Charged with a Conspiracy: Before the Mayor’s Court of the City of Philadelphia, September Sessions, 1827 (Philadelphia: n.pub., 1827), pp. 235–6.

4. M.F.P., Dec. 20–27, 1828.

5. The most important veterans of the 1820s were William English and Edward Penniman. For their attitudes towards mixing politics with trade unionism see John R. Commons, et al., Documentary History of American Industrial Society, 10 vols. (rpt., New York: Russell and Rusell, 1958), 6: 214–15.

6. Commons, et al., History of Labour, 1: 373–80; Commons, Documentary History, 5: 325–28, 375, and 387–88; and letter signed “Sherman,” U.S.G., April 2, 1836.

7. Commons, et al., Documentary History, 5: 345–47. The quotation is on p. 346.

8. Letter signed “J.C.,” Penn., Feb. 9, 1836.

9. Letter signed “Sherman,” U.S.G., April 4, 1836.

10. Bruce Laurie, “The Working People of Philadelphia, 1827–1853” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1971), app. A.

11. Commons, et al., Documentary History, 5: 355, 360–61, 371–73, 379–80, and 390.

12. U.S.G., June 4, 1835.

13. Committee of Boston Mechanics, Proceedings of the Government and Citizens of Philadelphia, on the Reduction of the Hours of Labor, and Increase of Wages (Boston: Committee of Boston Mechanics, 1835).

14. See, for example, U.S.G., Oct. 2, 1835; and Penn., April 4, 1835.

15. See, Commons, et al., Documentary History, 5: 351–52, 354, 356 and 383.

16. U.S.G., Sept. 24, 1836.

17. Albert Barnes, The Connexion of Temperance with Republican Freedom: An Oration Delivered on the 4th of July, 1835, before the Mechanics and Workingmens Temperance Society of the City and County of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Boyles and Benedict, 1835), p. 27.

18. Penn., June 4, 1835.

19. See ibid., June 4, 5, 8, and 9, 1835; Committee of Boston Mechanics, Proceedings of the Government and Citizens of Philadelphia; Leonard Bernstein, “Working People of Philadelphia,” pp. 366–69; and Sullivan, The Industrial Worker in Pennsylvania, pp. 134–37.

20. J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott, History of Philadelphia, 1609–1884, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: L. H. Everts, 1884), 1: 641.

21. Quoted in Commons, et al., History of Labour, 1: 391.

22. Cited in Sullivan, Industrial Worker in Pennsylvania, p. 135.

23. Penn., June 18, 24, Aug. 4, and Oct. 17, 1835.

24. Ibid., June 6, 8, and 9, 1835.

25. Commons, et al., Documentary History, 6: 41.

26. Quoted in Commons, et al., History of Labour, 1: 362.

27. M.F.P., Dec. 17, 1829.

28. Commons, et al., Documentary History, 5: 391.

29. Letter signed “Sherman,” U.S.G., April 6, 1836.

30. Penn., May 15, 1834. See also Penn., March 19, 1834; and Sullivan, Industrial Worker in Pennsylvania, p. 148.

31. Penn., July 26, 1834.

32. The Democrats polled between 55 and 65 percent of the vote in these districts. Spring Garden and Northern Liberties returned slight Whig majorities in the early thirties, but shifted to the Democratic fold by the end of the decade.

33. Commons, et al. Documentary History, 5: 355.

34. Ibid., 6: 252–53. See also 6: 281–91.

35. See, for example, Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood, 1820–1860,” American Quarterly 18 (Summer, 1966): 151–74. See also Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman’s Sphere” in New England, 1780–1835 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 197–206.

36. See, for example, Lib., March 22 and April 19, 1834; and T.R., Sept. 10, 1836, and Jan. 28, 1837.

37. T.R., Feb. 18, 1837.

38. Penn., March 19 and May 15, 1834; and Commons, et al., Documentary History, 5: 355.

39. Penn., March 23, 1836. See also Sept. 24 and Dec. 31, 1835.

40. Committee of Boston Mechanics, Proceedings of the Government and Citizens of Philadelphia, p. 9.

41. U.S.G., Aug. 3, 1835. For additional testimony on the oratorical skills of radical workingmen see Democratic Press, July 12, 1828; and James W. Alexander [Charles Quill], The American Mechanic (Philadelphia: Henry Perkins, 1838), pp. 225–26.

42. P.L., June 10, 1836.

43. Letter signed “Sherman,” U.S.G., April 6, 1836.

44. Letter signed “A Perceiver,” G.T., Oct. 30, 1833.

45. E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (pbk. ed.; New York: Vintage, 1966), pp. 102–85.

46. Commons, et al., Documentary History, 5: 373. For other such disputes see 5: 371–73; and Sullivan, Industrial Worker in Pennsylvania, pp. 109–10.

47. An Address to the Workingmen of the City and County of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Mifflin and Perry, 1839).

48. U.S.G., April 5, 1836.

49. Commons, et al., Documentary History, 5: 383.

50. U.S.G., April 5, 1836.

51. Penn., Jan. 15, Feb. 12, and March 12, 1836. See also Sullivan, Industrial Worker in Pennsylvania, pp. 138–39.

52. Penn., Feb. 5, 1836.

53. Commons, et al., Documentary History, 5: 377 and 384.

54. Penn., Nov. 2, 1836.

55. Sullivan, Industrial Worker in Pennsylvania, p. 156.

56. Letter signed “J.C.,” U.S.G., Sept. 1, 1836.

57. Commons, et al., History of Labour, 1: 377–79.

58. Penn., Feb. 9, 1836.

59. See letters signed “Sherman,” U.S.G., April 1 and 4, 1836. See also P.L., Sept. 26, Oct. 19, and Nov. 17, 1837.

60. Letter signed “An Observer,” G.T., Nov. 27, 1833.

61. See, for example, Alexander, American Mechanic, pp. 225–26.

62. See, for example, Penn., March 17 and 28, 1836; and Sullivan, Industrial Worker in Pennsylvania, p. 142.

63. Letter signed “Sherman,” U.S.G., April 2, 1836; and Commons, Documentary History, 5: 375 and 377–78.

64. See, for example, U.S. G., March 3, April 2, 8, 9, and 20, and Oct. 11, 1836.

65. Ibid., Oct. 8, 1836.

66. Letter signed “Sherman,” U.S.G., April 4, 1836.

67. On the cordwainers see P.L., June 10, 1836; on the saddlers seeCommons, et al., Documentary History, 5: 386; on the tailors and other tradesmen see 6: 58–62; on the weavers see P.L., Nov. 25, 1836.

68. Commons, et al., Documentary History, 5: 357–58.

69. Ibid., 6: 60.

70. P.L., Dec. 20, 1838.

71. See, for example, ibid., Feb. 14, March 6 and 25, April 5, Oct. 21, and Nov. 7, 1837. See also Commons, et al., Documentary History, 6: 58–65; and Commons, et al., History of Labour, 1: 468–69.

72. P.L., May 17, 1837.

73. Ibid., Aug. 12, 1837.

74. Ibid., April 29, Sept. 29, and Nov. 28, 1837.

75. Ibid., Jan. 7, 1839. See also Jan. 25, 1839. Aug. 14, 1841, Feb. 21, 1842, and June 6, 1842.

76. Letter signed “A Workingman,” Dec. 1, 1838.

Chapter 6

1. Ogden W. Niles, ed., Niles’ National Register, 5th ser., vols. 4–14 (Washington, D.C.: By the editor, 1837–1843), vol. 5 (Sept. 22, 1838), p. 51.

2. Nicholas B. Wainwright, ed., A Philadelphia Perspective: The Diary of Sidney George Fisher, 1834–1871 (Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1967), pp. 134–35.

3. P.L., July 12, 1842. See also Jan. 14, 1842.

4. See, for example, Richard A. McLeod, “The Philadelphia Artisan, 1828–1850” (Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri, 1971), table 1, p. 43.

5. P.L., Jan. 6, 1843.

6. Penn., May 26, 1837.

7. U.S.G., May 16 and 19, 1837. See also Penn., May 4, 17, and 21,1838; and P.L., Oct. 16, 1839.

8. U.S.G., May 19, 1837.

9. Ibid., Sept. 1, 1836.

10. John R. Commons, et al., Documentary History of American Industrial Society, 10 vols. (rpt., New York: Russell and Russell, 1958), 6: 216.

11. For biographical sketches of the G.T.U. leadership see Bruce Laurie, “The Working People of Philadelphia, 1827–1853” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1971), app. A.

12. In this respect the Pennsylvania Democracy resembled its counterpart in other northern states. See Lee Benson, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case (Princeton: Princeton Univesity Press, 1961), esp. pp. 216–53; and Ronald P. Formisano, The Birth of Mass Political Parties: Michigan, 1827–1861 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), esp. pp. 56–80. On Pennsylvania politics in this period see Lewis Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought: Pennsylvania 1776–1860 (pbk. ed., Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968). On the Democracy’s support for “freedom of conscience” and opposition to evangelical extremism see S.T., June 23 and 29, 1843.

13. See Charles M. Snyder, The Jacksonian Heritage: Pennsylvania Politics, 1833–1848 (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1958), pp. 75–95; and Hartz, Economic Policy, pp. 51–81.

14. Snyder, Jacksonian Heritage, pp. 50–67 and 82–95; and Hartz, Economic Policy, pp. 69–81 and 187–204.

15. Snyder, Jacksonian Heritage, pp. 120–21.

16. See, for example, Penn., June 8 and 9, 1835, Nov. 17, 1836, and Jan. 17, 1837.

17. Laurie, “Working People of Philadelphia,” app. A.

18. See Penn., June 11, Aug. 16, 1835; and April 7, 8, 12, July 23, 26, Aug. 22, and Sept. 21, 24, 1836. Sam Bass Warner, Jr., The Private City; Philadelphia in Three Periods of Its Growth (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968), pp. 85–91, leaves the erroneous impression that Sutherland left his party voluntarily.

19. John Ferral to James Buchanan, February 19, 1838, James Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

20. See, for example, Penn., June 13, 1838. See also P.L., Feb. 12, 1839.

21. P.L., Jan. 26, Feb. 2, 7, 11, and 18, 1839. The occupations of the delegates were: shoemakers (8), carpenters (4), tailors (3), brushmakers (2), coachmakers (2), and one each, jeweller, currier, cabinetmaker, bricklayer, oak cooper, house painter, laborer. The occupations of five delegates could not be identified.

22. The active Democrats were Solomon Demars, Joshua Fletcher, William Gilmore, Edward Penniman, Henry Scott, Samuel Thompson, and Israel Young.

23. P.L., Jan. 4, 1839.

24. Ibid., Jan. 10, 1839.

25. An Address to the Workingmen of the City and County of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Mifflin and Perry, 1839).

26. Penn., Aug. 28, 1838.

27. Laurie, “Working People of Philadelphia,” app. A.

28. P.L., Aug. 1, 8, 13, Sept. 16, and Oct. 19, 24, 1842.

29. U.S. Census, Population Schedule, Moyamensing.

30. Cedar Street Presbyterian Church, Minutes of the Session, 1838–1870, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, passim. See also Rev. William Ramsey, Diary, 1822–1849, 23 vols., Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Nov. 26, Dec. 27 and 28, 1837, Jan. 19, 1838, and Feb. 23, 1839. (Since Rev. Ramsey neglected to number the volumes of his diary after vol. 10, the citations will include the date only.)

31. William Ramsey, Ebenezer: A Sermon Embracing the History of the Cedar Street Presbyterian Church, at the Close of the Year 1844 (Philadelphia: Christian Observer, 1845), p. 16.

32. Cedar Street Presbyterian Church, Records of the Session, 1838–1870, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, passim.

33. See, for example, Margaret Byington, Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town (rpt., Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974), pp. 172–73.

34. Ramsey, Diary, Feb. 18, 1845, May 5, 1847, May 1, 1851, Nov. 1, 1852, and March 22, 1855.

35. See, for example, Robert Adair, Memoir of Rev. James Patterson, Late Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Northern Liberties, Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Henry Perkins, 1840), p. 231; First Presbyterian Congregation Church of Kensington, Session Books, 1814–1845, 1843–1859, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Nov. 9, 1842, and passim; and Centennial Publishing Committee, History of Ebenezer Methodist Church, Southwark (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1892), pp. 109–16.

36. Centennial Publishing Committee, History of Ebenezer Methodist Church, pp. 113–14.

37. John C. Hunterson, Echoes of Fifty Years: Memorial Record of Wharton Street Methodist Episcopal Church (Philadelphia: William H. Pile’s Sons, 1892), pp. 42–43.

38. Computed from the Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1833–1846, 1847–1864, (Philadelphia: n.pub., n.d.).

39. Computed from Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, 1836–1841 (Philadelphia: By the Stated Clerk of the Assembly, n.d.); and Minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (New School), 1838–1851 (New York: By the Stated Clerk of the Assembly, n.d.).

40. John Allen Krout, Origins of Prohibition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925), p. 239; Robert W. Doherty, “Social Basis of the Presbyterian Schism, 1837–1838: The Philadelphia Case,” Journal of Social History 2 (Fall, 1968): 79; and Ramsey, Diary, March 3, 1840.

41. Minutes of the Philadelphia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church held at Philadelphia, April 7, 1841 (Philadelphia: James Harmstead), p. 11.

42. Rev. James W. Porter, Revivals of Religion: Their Theory, Means, Obstructions, Uses and Importance, with the Duty of Christians in Regard to Them (5th ed.; New York: Lane and Scott, 1850), p. 139. For the secular version of this argument see letter signed “M, A Member of the Jefferson Temperance Society,” T.A., Feb. 12, 1842.

43. P.L., May 11, 1843.

44. Fountain, Dec, 1837.

45. Ibid., Jan. 20, 1838. See also, T.A., Sept. 11, 1841, Feb. 12, 1842, and letter signed “A Reformed Jeffersonian,” Dec. 3, 1842; and D.S., Jan. 28, 1845.

46. P.L., March 20, 1841.

47. On Levin see D.A.B., 11: 200–01.

48. Letter signed “Old Jeffersonian,” T.A., June 17, 1843.

49. Ibid., March 11, 1843.

50. Ibid., Sept. 25, 1841.

51. Warner, Private City, pp. 140–41; Ogden, ed., Niles’ Register 12 Aug. 6, 1842; and P.L., Aug. 2, 3, 6, and 11, 1842.

52. David Montgomery, “The Shuttle and the Cross: Weavers and Artisans in the Kensington Riots of 1844,” Journal of Social History 5 (Summer, 1972): 417–19; and Michael Feldberg, The Philadelphia Riots of 1844: A Study of Ethnic Conflict (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1975), pp. 35–38.

53. Feldberg, Philadelphia Riots of 1844, p. 36.

54. See, for example, P.L., Jan. 10, Sept. 7, and Nov. 9 and 11, 1843. See also S.T., Sept. 9 and Aug. 26, 1843.

55. P.L., Jan. 12–14, 1843.

56. Montgomery, “Shuttle and the Cross,” pp. 425–26.

57. Ibid., p. 416.

58. P.L., June 10, 1842.

59. Ibid., Aug. 22, 1842. See also Warner, Private City, p. 141.

60. P.L., June 10, 1842.

61. Ibid., Aug. 15, 1842.

62. Ibid., Aug. 11, 1842.

63. Vincent P. Lannie and Bernard C. Diethorn, “For the Honor and Glory of God: The Philadelphia Bible Riots of 1844,” History of Education Quarterly 8 (1968): 47–48.

64. Ibid., p. 48.

65. Ibid., pp. 57–58.

66. Elizabeth M. Geffen, “Philadelphia Protestantism Reacts to Social Reform Movements before the Civil War,” Pennsylvania History 30 (April, 1963): 208.

67. See, for example, P.L., Feb. 25, 1843. See also Feldberg, Philadelphia Riots of 1844, pp. 93–96.

68. John Hancock Lee, Origin and Progress of the American Party in Politics; Embracing a Complete History of the Philadelphia Riots in May and July of 1844 and a Refutation of the Arguments Founded on the Charges of Religious Proscription and Secret Combinations (Philadelphia: Elliot and Gihon, 1855), pp. 1–135.

69. S.T., March 4, 1844. See also Lannie and Diethorn, “For the Honor and Glory of God,” p. 65.

70. See the election returns in P.L., March 16 and 18, 1844.

71. Feldberg, Philadelphia Riots of 1844, pp. 99–116.

72. Lee, Origin and Progress of the American Party, pp. 136–61; and P.L., July 6, 1844.

73. Sister M. Theopane Geary, History of Third Parties in Pennsylvania 1840–1860 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Press, 1938), pp. 117–25, 136, and 141.

Chapter 7

1. See letter signed “A Reflecting Operative,” S. T., Oct. 9, 1849.

2. On the store order system see ibid., March 5, 1844, and letter signed “One Who Knows, and a Weaver,” Sept. 9, 1848. See also P.L., July 31, 1850.

3. Douglass C. North, The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790–1860 (pbk. ed., New York: Norton, 1966) p. 260.

4. See, for example, P.L., Oct. 15, and Nov. 18, 1847. See also March 15, 1844, and March 25, 1850.

5. Ibid., July 30, 1849.

6. Sam Bass Warner, Jr., The Private City: Philadelphia in Three Periods of Its Growth (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968), p. 52; D.S., April 11, 1845; and F.T.R., Jan. 28, 1865.

7. Stuart M. Blumin, “Mobility in a Nineteenth-century City: Philadelphia, 1820–1860” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1968), pp. 83–109.

8. The figure for the 1840 is based on a review of strike notices in P.L., 1843 to 1853. The figure for 1836 is based on William A. Sullivan, The Industrial Worker in Pennsylvania, 1800–1840 (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1955), pp. 221–30.

9. See, for example, American Protestant Association, First Annual Report of the American Protestant Association. Together with a Sketch of the Address at the First Anniversary, November 18, 1843 (Philadelphia: n.pub., 1844); and American Protestant Association, Address of the Board of Managers of the American Protestant Association; with the Constitution and Organization of the Association (Philadelphia: n.pub., 1843). See also Rev. Gideon P. Perry, “Of a Lecture to the Young,” in D.S., Jan. 6, 1845; Rev. J.F. Berg, “The Papal Church and not a Church of Jesus Christ,” Jan. 13, 1845; and letter signed “Sojourner,” Feb. 13, 1845.

10. Rev. John Hersey, Advice to Christian Parents (Baltimore: Armstrong and Berry, n.d.), pp. 106–07.

11. Ibid., p. 107.

12. See, for example, D.S., April 3, 1845, and March 25, 1848; Thomas Hunt, Life and Thoughts of Rev. Thomas P. Hunt (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.: Robert Baur and Son, 1901), pp. 167–169; Benjamin T. Sewell, Sorrow’s Circuit, or Five Years’ Experience in the Bedford Street Mission, Philadelphia (Philadelphia: n.pub., 1859), pp. 269–70.

13. Hersey, Advice to Christian Parents, pp. 106–07.

14. Rev. William Ramsey, Diary, 1822–1849, 23 vols., Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, vol. 1, March 1, 1824, vol. 6, Dec. 16, 1826, and passim. (Since Rev. Ramsey neglected to number the volumes of his diary after vol. 10, the citations to such volumes will include the date only.)

15. Sewell, Sorrow’s Circuit, pp. 268–69.

16. Ramsey, Diary, March 31, 1848.

17. Ibid., May 4, 1840. See also Sewell, Sorrow’s Circuit, pp. 269–70.

18. Ramsey, Diary, Aug. 20, 1841, March 2, 1842, and June 28, 1843. See also Sewell, Sorrow’s Circuit, pp. 214–15; and First Presbyterian Congregation of Kensington, Sessions Books, 1814–1845, 1843–1859, June 24, 1845, and passim.

19. See, for example, Ramsey, Diary, Sept. 22, 1828, March 3, 1830, Nov. 17, 1837, and passim.

20. Alexander Fulton, for example, was a member of the Odd Fellows and many followers of local temperance-beneficial societies in Southwark and Moyamensing were on the rolls of New School Presbyterian and Methodist churches.

21. Sewell, Sorrow’s Circuit, p. 270.

22. Anthony F. C. Wallace, Rockdale: The Growth of An American Village in the Early Industrial Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), pp. 296–317, esp. 316–17.

23. For the names and religious identities of Manayunk strike leaders see P.L., October 15, and November 18, 1847 and Mt. Zion Methodist Episcopal Church, Members, Green Lane Methodist Episcopal Church Manayunk, Philadelphia. For the Manayunk Sons of Temperance see P.L., Aug. 26, 1845.

24. These petitions are available in Pennsylvania State Archives, Harrisburg, Pa. box 26, folder 80, Senate File.

25. S.T., Nov.12, 1847.

26. Ibid.

27. James L. Barnard, Factory Legislation of Pennsylvania: Its History and Administration (Philadelphia: Publications of the University of Pennsylvania Ser. in Political Economy and Public Law, no. 17, 1907), pp. 18–21. See also Laws of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg: J. M. G. Lescue, 1848), pp. 278–79.

28. Penn., May 30, 1848; and P.L., June 17,1848.

29. Ibid.

30. Letter signed “An Observer,” S. T., July 4, 1848.

31. Ibid., July 29, and Aug. 10, 1848.

32. See, for example, ibid., June 30, 1848; and P.L., October 2, 1848.

33. Barnard, Factory Legislation of Pennsylvania, pp. 21–23. See also Laws of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, J. M. S. Lescue, 1849), pp. 671–72.

34. This was true at Rockdale as well. Hiram McConnell, leader of the 1842 strike was clearly a radical, despite Prof. Wallace’s claims to the contrary. See McConnell’s speech in Wallace, Rockdale, p. 369.

35. S.T., March 11, 1849, emphasis added. See also, March 15, 1849.

36. It should be noted that local manufacturers reimposed the twelve- and thirteen-hour day in the early 1850s as prosperity returned and the ten-hour movement fell apart. See Penn., Aug. 20, 1852; and P.L., Dec. 6, 1853.

37. U.S. Census, Population Schedule, Philadelphia County.

38. See, for example, William F. Adams, Ireland and the Irish Emigration to the New World from 1815 to the Famine (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1932); and Oliver Macdonaugh, “The Irish Famine Emigration to the United States,” Perspectives in American History 10 (1976): 357–448.

39. John F. Maguire, The Irish in America (rpt., New York: Arno Press, 1969), p. 215.

40. U.S. Census, Population Schedule, Philadelphia County.

41. Michael Feldberg, The Philadelphia Riots of 1844: A Study of Ethnic Conflict (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1975), pp. 24–25.

42. Ibid., pp. 19–38.

43. The foregoing data was compiled for me by Ms. Joann Weeks of the University of Pennsylvania. See also Dennis Clark “A Pattern of Urban Growth: Residential Development and Church Location in Philadelphia,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society 82 (Sept., 1971): 159–70.

44. Feldberg, Philadelphia Riots of 1844, pp. 26–27. See also T. Thomas McAvoy, “The Formation of the Catholic Minority in the United States, 1820–1860,” Review of Politics 10 (Jan., 1948): 13–34.

45. C.H., July 1, 1841.

46. Feldberg, Philadelphia Riots of 1844, p. 22. See also Oscar Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants: A Study in Acculturation (2nd ed., rev. and enl.; New York: Antheneum, 1968), pp. 124–30.

47. See, for example, Paul J. Kleppner, Cross of Culture: A Social Analysis of Midwestern Politics, 1850–1900 (New York: Free Press, 1970). pp. 76–79.

48. Dennis Clark, The Irish in Philadelphia: Ten Generations of Urban Experience (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1973), pp. 101–05: Feldberg, Philadelphia Riots of 1844, pp. 26–27; C.H., Feb. 18, 1841.

49. Gilbert Osofsky, “Abolitionists, Irish Immigrants, and the Dilemmas of Romantic Nationalism,” American Historical Review 80 (Oct., 1975): 889–912.

50. See C.H., Jan. 6 and July 20, 1848.

51. Ibid., Aug. 15, 1850.

52. Frank H. Schell, “Old Volunteer Fire Laddies, The Famous, Fast, Faithful, Fistic, Fire Fighters of Bygone Days,” Frank H. Schell Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. ch. 2, p. 4.

53. P.L., Jan. 21, 1842.

54. Schell, “Old Volunteer Fire Laddies,” ch. 2, p. 4.

55. Bruce Laurie, “Fire Companies and Gangs in Southwark: The 1840s”, in Allen F. Davis and Mark H. Haller, eds., The Peoples of Philadelphia: A History of Ethnic Groups and Lower-class Life, 1790–1940 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1973), p. 78.

56. See, for example, Wayne G. Broehl, Jr., The Molly Maguires (New York: Vintage, 1964), pp. 1–40.

57. On the Killers see Life and Adventurers of Charles Anderson Chester, the Notorious Leader of the Philadelphia “Killers” (Philadelphia: Yates and Smith, 1850); and P.L., April 1, 1901. On the Schuylkill Rangers see P.L., June 23, 1849.

58. See David R. Johnson, “Crime Patterns in Philadelphia, 1840–1870,” in Davis and Haller, eds., Peoples of Philadelphia, pp. 97–98.

59. Life and Adventures of Charles Anderson Chester, pp. 27–28.

60. See Feldberg, Philadelphia Riots of 1844, pp. 125–27; and P.L., Jan. 14 and Feb. 28, 1853.

61. See Laurie, “The Working People of Philadelphia, 1827–53” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1971), pp. 177–79.

62. P.L., June 25–29 and July 1–4, 1844.

63. Ibid., Feb. 5, 8, 9, and 16, 1850. See also D.S., Feb. 5, 8, 15, and 23, and March 1–2, 1850.

64. Schell, “Old Philadelphia Volunteer Fire Laddies,” ch. 2, p. 10; and Andrew Neilly, “The Violent Volunteers: A History of the Philadelphia Volunteer Fire Department, 1736–1871” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1959), pp. 70–72.

65. P.L., Aug. 13, 1846.

66. D.S., Aug. 29, 1849.

67. Ibid., Jan. 28, 1850.

68. Ibid., April 19–20, 1850.

69. P.L., June 18–19, 1849.

70. D.S., June 18, 1849.

71. Ibid.

72. Ibid., June 19–20, 1849. See also P.L., June 19–20, 1849.

73. D.S., Aug. 20–22, 1849.

74. Ibid., Oct. 10–11, and Nov. 12, 1849. See also P.L., Oct. 10–13, and Nov. 11–12, 1849.

75. P.L., Oct. 10, 1849.

76. Letter signed “P.O.,” D.S., Nov. 10, 1849.

77. Theodore Hershberg, “Free Blacks in Antebellum Philadelphia: A Study of Ex-slaves, Freeborn, and Socioeconomic Decline,” Journal of Social History 5 (Winter, 1971–72): 192.

78. See, for example, P.L., June 23, 1849, for a description of the activities of the Rangers.

79. D.S., Feb. 6, 1851.

80. Ibid., Feb. 10–11, 1851.

81. C.H., March 26, 1846. At least two Catholics were on the Manayunk Ten-hours Committee. Compare the names of the Committee men in P.L., Oct. 15 and 18, 1847, with the list of parishioners in Eugene Murphy, The Parish of St. John the Baptist, Manayunk: The First One Hundred Years (Philadelphia: Press of the Church Printing and Envelope Company, 1931).

82. P.L., Feb. 10, 13, 20, 27, and 28, and March 2, 5, 9, and 11, 1846.

83. Stephan Thernstrom, “Urbanization, Migration, and Social Mobility in Late Nineteenth-century America,” in Barton J. Bernstein, ed., Towards a New Past: Dissenting Essays in American History (New York: Pantheon Books, 1968), pp. 158–75.

Chapter 8

1. P.L., Dec. 13, 1838.

2. Abel Thomas, A Century of Universalism in Philadelphia and New York: With Sketches of Its History in Reading, Hightstown, Brooklyn, and Elsewhere (Philadelphia: Collins, 1872), pp. 104–05 and 120–22.

3. First Universalist Church, Minute Book, 1820–1842, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Jan. 3, 1842. Forty of the expelled were located in the city directories of 1842 and 1843 and their occupations were: gentlemen (1), professional (5), manufacturer (2), merchant (4), public official (2), master craftsman (2), journeyman (21), unskilled worker (3).

4. On the tailors see P. L., Aug. 21, 1843, Oct. 1, 1846, and Oct. 5, 1847; on the shoemakers see March 10, 1843, and June 1, 1850.

5. Charlotte Erickson, ed., Invisible Immigrants: The Adaptation of English and Scottish Immigrants in Nineteenth-century America (Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1972), p. 231; and Mack Walker, Germany and the Emigration, 1816–1885 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), pp. 42–47 and 151–52.

6. United States Census, Population Schedule, Philadelphia County.

7. Mack Walker, German Home Towns: Community, State and General Estate, 1648–1871 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971), pp. 15–33 and 73–107.

8. Ibid., pp. 185–216 and 307–53. See also Theodore S. Hamerow, Restoration, Revolution, Reaction: Economics and Politics in Germany, 1815–1871 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958), pp. 3–76; and P. H. Noyes, Organization and Revolution: Working-class Associations in the German Revolutions of 1848–1849 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 15–33.

9. Ibid., pp. 322–47.

10. Hamerow, Restoration, Revolution, Reaction, pp. 32–37.

11. See, for example, David McLellan, Karl Marx: His Life and Thought (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), pp. 62–136 and 226–89.

12. Carl Wittke, Refugees of Revolution: The German Forty-eighters in America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1952), pp. 122–46. See also Noyes, Organization and Revolution, pp. 34–54.

13. E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (pbk. ed.; New York: Vintage, 1966), pp. 55–185; and Trygve Tholfsen, Working-class Radicalism in Mid-victorian Britain (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), pp. 25–82.

14. Ray Boston, British Chartists in America, 1839–1900 (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1971), pp. 21–35. See also ibid., app. A. On the Chartist League see S.T., June 27, 1848. On the Friends of Ireland, a radical organization that included several Chartists, see ibid., Aug. 30, 1848.

15. See Boston, British Chartists, pp. 58–62, 66–67, and 90.

16. Ibid. See also John R. Commons, et al., History of Labour in the United States, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1918–35), 1: 516–17.

17. Carl Wittke, The German-language Press in America (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1957), pp. 37–38. See also Wittke, Refugees of Revolution, pp. 280–99.

18. Wittke, German-language Press, pp. 41–44. See also Wittke, Refugees of Revolution, pp. 130–31.

19. Wittke, Refugees of Revolution, pp. 129–30.

20. See, for example, P.L., Aug. 4, 1849. See also Wittke, Refugees of Revolution, pp. 141–42.

21. Wittke, Refugees of Revolution, pp. 122–46. See also D.S., Sept. 22–24, 1851. The Universalist minister, John H. Gihon, was a firebrand nativist, but he appears to have been atypical of his sect.

22. Walker, Germany and the Emigration, p. 69.

23. Ibid., pp. 158–59.

24. Ibid., p. 155.

25. Erickson, Invisible Immigrants, p. 239.

26. Ibid., p. 157. See also pp. 147 and 171.

27. See, for example, ibid., pp. 162–82.

28. Fully one-fifth of the Germans, for example, were shoemakers and tailors. For the occupational distribution of the city’s leading immigrant groups in 1840, see Bruce Laurie, et al., “Immigrants and Industry: The Philadelphia Experience, 1850–1880,” Journal of Social History 9 (Winter, 1975); table 13, pp. 235–38.

29. On the English utopians see Boston, British Chartists in America, pp. 58–62 and 66–67. See also John Campbell, A Theory of Equality: Or, the Way to Make Every Man Act Honestly (Philadelphia: J. B. Perry, 1848). On the German utopians see Carl Wittke, The Utopian Communist: A Biography of Wilhelm Weitling, Nineteenth-century Reformer (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1950): and David Herreshoff, American Disciples of Marx: From the Age of Jackson to the Progressive Era (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1967), pp. 11–30.

30. See, for example, D.S., March 20, 1845, April 4, 1848, and Oct. 5, 1849. See also John Hancock Lee, Origin and Progress of the American Party in Politics; Embracing a Complete History of the Philadelphia Riots in May and July of 1844 and a Refutation of the Arguments Founded on the Charges of Religious Proscription and Secret Combinations (Philadelphia: Elliot and Gihon, 1855).

31. Michael F. Holt, “The Politics of Impatience: The Origins of Know Nothingism,” Journal of American History 60 (Sept., 1973): 309–32.

32. Eight of the American Republican master craftsmen were traced to the industrial census of 1850 and all but one of them hired less than eight workers. The exception was Philip Dubosq, the son or brother of a large jewelry manufacturer with a labor force of thirty workers.

33. Again, the glaring exception was Dubosq, whose business was well established in the previous decade.

34. The former Trades’ Union radicals Joshua Fletcher and Andrew Craig, for example, were members of the John Hancock Temperance Beneficial Society. See P.L., Nov. 29, 1842, and Nov. 21, 1844.

35. See, for example, D.S., March 27, 1847. See also A.B., Jan. 10, 1852.

36. On temperance societies of shoemakers, tailors, and printers see P.L., Jan. 25, 1839, Aug. 14, 1841, and Feb. 21, 1842.

37. See, for example, American Republican Central Executive Committee, Address of the American Republicans of the City and County to the Native and Naturalized Citizens of the United States (Philadelphia: n.pub., 1844). See also P.L., Sept. 10, 1847.

38. Order of United American Mechanics, Journal of the State Council of the Order of United American Mechanics (Philadelphia: J. H. Jones, 1848–1853), passim. See also Order of United American Mechanics, Fredonia Lodge No. 52, West Philadelphia, Records of the Society, 1850–1857, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

39. A.B., Aug. 30, 1851.

40. Letter signed “B.B.,” D.S., Feb. 4, 1848. See also A.B., Oct. 1, 1850, and Aug. 30, 1851.

41. D.S., Jan. 10, 1848.

42. A.B., Aug. 30, 1851. See also Aug. 3, 1850.

43. D.S., March 16, 1847. See also June 18, 1846, March 8, 1847, and April 11, 1848.

44. Ibid., April 15, 1848.

45. Ibid. See also March 8, 1847.

46. Ibid., March 27, 1847.

47. Order of United American Mechanics, Journal, p. 3.

48. Ibid., p. 22. The occupations of the twenty-two founders were: house carpenter (8), gunsmith (7), cabinetmaker (2), fancy chairmaker (1), shipsmith (1), patternmaker (1) coachmaker (1), and printer (1).

49. On the organizational affiliations of U.A.M. activists see Bruce Laurie, “The Working People of Philadelphia, 1827–1853” (Ph.D. diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1971), app. C.

50. Order of United American Mechanics, Journal, p. 91.

51. Ibid., p. 435.

52. Ibid., passim. See also Order of United American Mechanics Fredonia Lodge, No. 52, Records of the Society.

53. A.B., June 1, 1850.

54. See P.L., Nov. 26, 1847. See also D.S., March 27, 1847.

55. Order of United American Mechanics, Journal, pp. 254–55.

56. Ibid., p. 3.

57. See Laurie, et al., “Immigrants and Industry,” table 8, p. 228.

58. Lee, Origin and Progress of the American Party in Politics, pp. 136–61.

59. D.S., July 4, 1846.

60. On the men’s shoemakers see S. T., Sept. 4, 1843, and March 16, 1844; and P.L., Aug. 21, and Sept. 20, 1843, March 10, 1845, Feb. 24, and June 23, 1847. On the tailors see P. L., March 4, Aug. 8, and Aug. 23, 1843, April 3 and 14, 1844, Oct. 11, 1845, Feb. 6, Sept. 1, Oct. 1, Nov. 28, and Dec. 12, 1846, March 13, Aug. 14, 18, and 26, 1847.

61. See, for example, P.L., Sept. 2, 1843, and March 10, 1847.

62. Ibid., Aug. 21 and 25, 1843 and Dec. 4–6, 1847.

63. Ibid., Sept. 4, 1847.

64. Ibid., May 4, 1850.

65. Ibid., Sept. 13, and Oct. 11, 1845. William F. Green and William Harper, leaders of the Brotherhood, were also members of the U.A.M.

66. Ibid., Dec. 28, 1847.

67. Commons, et al., History of Labour, 1: 573–74.

68. P.L., Nov. 15, 1848, Feb. 7 and 27, March 22, and Oct. 3, 1849, and June 17, 1850.

69. Ibid., March 4, 1846.

70. Ibid., May 6, 1848.

71. Ibid., Dec. 28, 1847.

72. D.S., June 15 and 18, 1847.

73. Ibid., June 28 and 29, 1847.

74. Ibid.

75. Ibid., April 25, 1851.

76. Ibid., May 14, 1851.

77. A.B., Sept. 2, 1850.

78. D.S., May 14, 1851.

79. P.L., April 4–6 and May 4, 1847, and April 14 and May 7, 1848.

80. See Laurie, “Working People of Philadelphia,” app. C.

81. D.S., Aug. 6, 1850.

82. Ibid. See also P.L., July 27, and Aug. 3, 8, and 22, 1850.

83. P.L., March 5, May 20, June 2 and 9, 1851.

84. D.S., April 25, 1851. See also May 12, 1851.

85. P.L., May 31, June 2 and 16, 1851.

86. S.T., Aug. 10, 1843.

87. See Laurie, “Working People of Philadelphia,” app. C.

88. P.L., July 30, 1849.

89. Ibid., July 22 and 29, 1850. See also D.S., July 9, 1850.

90. P.L., Aug. 11, 1851.

91. Ibid., Aug. 21 and 23, 1850. See also A.B., Sept. 21, 1850. See also letter signed “S. H. Johnson, et al.,” A.B., Nov. 6, 1850.

92. P.L., Sept. 2, 1850.

93. Letter signed “A Journeyman Printer,” D.S., Aug. 27, 1850. See also letter signed “Vindex,” Aug. 22, 1850, and letter signed “J,” A.B., Nov. 2, 1850.

94. See letter signed “S. H. Johnson, et al.,” D.S., Nov. 6, 1850.

95. P.L., Oct. 14 and Nov. 23, 1850.

96. See Laurie, “Working People of Philadelphia,” app. C.

97. Wittke, Utopian Communist, pp. 197–219. See also Hermann Schlüter, Die Anfange der deutchen Arbeiterbewegung in Amerika (Stutgart: J. H. W. Deitz, 1907), pp. 83–85.

98. P.L., Oct. 29, 1850. See also D.S., Oct. 24, 1850.

Chapter 9

1. See, for example, D.S., Oct. 29, 1851. See also P.L., Oct. 24, 1850.

2. The roster of trades included blacksmiths, bookbinders, bricklayers, brushmakers, cabinetmakers, carpenters, carpet weavers, coachmakers, coopers, frame work knitters, hatters, hat finishers, lithographic printers, machinists, plasterers, printers, shipsmiths, shoemakers (ladies’ and men’s), stone cutters, tailors, tinsmiths, trunkmakers and upholsterers. See P.L., Nov. 1, 7, 8, 16, and 20, 1850. By January 1851, however, the number of affiliated trades fell to under twenty. See P.L., Jan. 2, 1851.

3. Ibid., Dec. 9 and 11, 1850.

4. N.Y.D.T., Aug. 6, 1850.

5. P.L., Nov. 1, 1850.

6. Ibid., Dec. 11, 1850.

7. David Montgomery, Beyond Equality: Labor and the Radical Republicans, 1862–1872 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), p. 219. See also Alan Dawley, Class and Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), esp. pp. 188–93.

8. N.Y.D.T., April 12, 19, and 26, 1851. See also P.L., June 18 and July 8, 1851.

9. N.Y.D.T., April 19, 1851.

10. P.L., Aug. 30, 1851. Twenty-tour of the forty-eight delegates were located in the city directory and twenty of them were journeymen.

11. Ibid., Sept. 18, 1851.

12. See, for example, ibid., Aug. 19 and 25, 1851.

13. D.S., Sept. 19, 1851.

14. P.L., Oct. 13, 1851.

15. Ibid., Sept. 19, 1851. See also Oct. 4 and 13, 1851.

16. Ibid. See also D.S., Sept. 18 and 19, 1851.

17. See letters signed “Many Mechanics,” “An Old Native,” and “Natives,” P.L., Oct. 13, 1851.

18. See letter of William J. Mullen, ibid., Oct. 6, 1851.

19. Ibid., Oct. 11, 1851.

20. Ibid., Oct. 6, 1851.

21. See letter signed by A. Martin and T. L. Saunders, ibid., Oct. 6, 1851.

22. Ibid.

23. See letters signed by John Shedden, A. H. Rosenthal, et. al., ibid., Oct. 10 and 13, 1851.

24. D.S., Oct. 18, 1851.

25. See, for example, Edward Pessen, Most Uncommon Jacksonians: The Radical Leaders of the Early Labor Movement (Albany: State University of New York Press), pp. 9–13; and Montgomery, Beyond Equality, pp. 425–47. The Workingmen of Lynn actually won several elections between 1860 and 1890, but did very little while in office. See Dawley, Class and Community, pp. 199–207 and 208–09.

26. See Thernstrom, “Urbanization, Migration, and Social Mobility in Late Nineteenth-century America,” in Burton J. Bernstein, ed. Towards a New Past: Dissenting Essays in American History (New York: Pantheon, 1968), p. 168. See also Thernstrom, The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880–1970 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 15–44; and Peter R. Knights, The Plain People of Boston, 1830–1860: A Study in City Growth (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971).

27. Stuart M. Blumin, “Residential Mobility within the Nineteenth-century City,” in Allen F. Davis and Mark H. Haller, eds., Peoples of Philadelphia: A History of Ethnic Groups and Lower-class Life, 1790–1940 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1973), pp. 37–52.

28. Dawley, Class and Community, pp. 230–31.

29. Sam Bass Warner, Jr., The Private City: Philadelphia in Three Periods of Its Growth (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968), p. 61.

30. Dawley, Class and Community, pp. 230–31.

31. Thernstrom, “Urbanization, Migration, and Social Mobility in Late Nineteenth-century America,” pp. 171–72.

32. Any number of studies make this point. See, for example, Donald B. Cole, Immigrant City: Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1845–1921 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1963); and Victor R. Greene, The Slavic Community on Strike: Immigrant Labor in Pennsylvania Anthracite (South Bend: Notre Dame University Press, 1968).

33. This is a major theme of the “new political history,” as well. See Paul J. Kleppner, The Cross of Culture: A Social Analysis of Midwestern Politics, 1850–1900 (New York: Free Press, 1970), pp. 36–37.

34. See Lee Benson, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy: New York as a Test Case (pbk. ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), pp. 281–87.

35. In order to avoid competing with mechanized production, they also specialized in fabrics that were not produced on power looms, but this strategy did not always work. In 1842, for example, a Manayunk manufacturer produced by machine the same fabric weaved by the frame tenders of Kensington. The weavers marched into Manayunk intending to burn down the mill, but were intercepted by the sheriff and the mill owner. See Michael Feldberg, Philadelphia Riots of 1844: A Study of Ethnic Conflict (Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 1975), p. 36.

36. Dawley, Class and Community, p. 235. See also Montgomery, Beyond Equality, pp. 214–15.