ten-hour movement.

The first concerted demand for the ten-hour day was made by the
workingmen of Baltimore in August 1833, and extended over seventeen
trades. But the mechanics' aspiration for a ten-hour day--perhaps the
strongest spiritual inheritance from the preceding movement for equal
citizenship,[5] had to await a change in the general condition of
industry to render trade union effort effective before it could turn
into a well sustained movement. That change finally came with the
prosperous year of 1835.

The movement was precipitated in Boston. There, as we saw, the
carpenters had been defeated in an effort to establish a ten-hour day in
1825,[6] but made another attempt in the spring of 1835. This time,
however, they did not stand alone but were joined by the masons and
stone-cutters. As before, the principal attack was directed against the
"capitalists," that is, the owners of the buildings and the real estate
speculators. The employer or small contractor was viewed
sympathetically. "We would not be too severe on our employers," said the
strikers' circular, which was sent out broadcast over the country, "they
are slaves to the capitalists, as we are to them."

The strike was protracted. The details of it are not known, but we know
that it won sympathy throughout the country. A committee visited in July
the different cities on the Atlantic coast to solicit aid for the
strikers. In Philadelphia, when the committee arrived in company with
delegates from New York, Newark, and Paterson, the Trades' Union held a
special meeting and resolved to stand by the "Boston House Wrights" who,
"in imitation of the noble and decided stand taken by their
Revolutionary Fathers, have determined to throw off the shackles of more