of New England on the State of Education, and on the Condition of the
Producing Classes in Europe and America, with Particular Reference to
the Effect of Manufacturing (as now conducted) on the Health and
Happiness of the Poor, and on the Safety of our Republic_" was delivered
widely and undoubtedly had considerable influence over the labor
movement of the period. The average working day in the best factories at
that time was nearly thirteen hours. For the children who were sent into
the factories at an early age these hours precluded, of course, any
possibility of obtaining even the most rudimentary education.

The New England movement was an effort to unite producers of all kinds,
including not only farmers but factory workers with mechanics and city
workingmen. In many parts of the State of New York the workingmen's
parties included the three classes--"farmers, mechanics, and working
men,"--but New England added a fourth class, the factory operatives. It
was early found, however, that the movement could expect little or no
help from the factory operatives, who were for the most part women and
children.

The years 1828, 1829, and 1830 were years of political labor movements
and labor parties. Philadelphia originated the first workingmen's party,
then came New York and Boston, and finally state-wide movements and
political organizations in each of the three States. In New York the
workingmen scored their most striking single success, when in 1829 they
cast 6000 votes out of a total of 21,000. In Philadelphia the labor
ticket polled 2400 in 1828 and the labor party gained the balance of
power in the city. But the inexperience of the labor politicians coupled
with machinations on the part of "designing men" of both older parties
soon lost the labor parties their advantage. In New York Tammany made
the demand for a mechanics' lien law its own and later saw that it