Thank you for using Who Built America?  The project is currently in beta with new features to be implemented over the coming months, so please check back. If you have feedback or encounter any bugs, please fill out this form.

American Social History Projec
WHO BUILT AMERICA?

Demands of the Paterson Mechanics

Background: Like wide-scale industrialization, worker collective action was a mostly new concept in the early national period. The first recorded incident of a factory strike in the United States occurred in 1824, when over a hundred female workers walked out of their textile mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island (Sam Patch’s hometown), to protest a wage cut. Four years later, workers from multiple mills in Paterson, New Jersey, met to demand fair workday hours and committed to a walkout if their conditions were not met. The following resolution by the “mechanics of the town of Paterson” was published prior to the strike in newspapers throughout New Jersey and New York. After weeks of walkouts in the city, Paterson manufacturers agreed to the workers’ demands but fired those they believed responsible for the strike.

Paterson, July 22, 1828

At a meeting of the inhabitants, but more generally mechanics, of the town of Paterson, it was unanimously 

RESOLVED, That from this day forward 12 o’clock shall be our dinner hour.

RESOLVED, unanimously, That from this day forward, 10 hours shall be considered a full day’s work in the town of Paterson, and any workman working more, shall be considered an enemy to his fellow workmen.

RESOLVED, unanimously, That on Thursday, the 24 July, such of our employers as shall agree to the above propositions, shall be considered friends to their fellow citizens, and to mankind in general, and that any mechanic shall be perfectly at liberty to enter into his or their employment.

But such of our employers as continue requiring us to labor 11 hours for one day’s work, shall not be entitled to our services, and we hereby declare, upon our honor, and in the face of fellow citizens, here assembled, that we will not continue in their employment, and that we will do all which we can legally do, to prevent other people working for them.

We, whose names are hereunto annexed, as resolved to support the above resolves at the hazard of our present employment. [Names omitted].

Notice–– A meeting of the Mechanics will be held on Thursday evening, the 24th at 7 o’clock, at the Centre Market, for the purpose of taking the necessary measures to establish a fund for the support of those who may be thrown out of employment, in consequence of the above measures.

Source: “Paterson,” The Commercial Advertiser (New York, New York), July 28, 1828.