[Footnote 1: The term "benefit" is used in this monograph to include all
forms of mutual insurance other than those directly connected with the
enforcement of trade-union rules by collective bargaining. "Strike
benefits" and "victimized benefits" are thus without the scope of the
study.]

The history of trade-union beneficiary activities in the United States
may be roughly divided into three periods. In the first, extending from
the beginning of the century to about 1830, the local associations laid
great stress on their beneficiary functions. The societies of printers
organized from 1794 to 1815 in the most important American cities were
typical of the period. In all of them, as far as the extant records
show, the beneficiary functions were regarded as equally important with
the trade-regulating activities. American trade unionism owed its origin
as much to the desire to associate for mutual insurance as to the desire
to establish trade rules.

The second period, from 1830 to 1880, was marked by the subordination of
beneficiary to trade purposes. The maintenance of a minimum rate and
other trade policies came to occupy the foremost place in the program of
the local unions. In this period national unions were formed in many
trades.

The new national unions were not strong enough to establish beneficiary
systems. Moreover, at many points the establishment of local benefits
conflicted with the success of the national organizations. A local union
was usually forced to impose certain restrictions upon claimants of
benefits, either an initiation fee or a requisite term of membership, in
order to protect its funds. Such limitations on the full participation
of all members in the benefits of membership militated severely against