Labor Party (United States, 19th century)

Number of 19th century political parties in the US

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History

Utopian socialism

* Bishop Hill Commune
* Brook Farm
* Icarians
* Jonestown
* Looking Backward
* New Harmony
* Oneida Community

Progressive Era

* 1877 St. Louis general strike
* Christian socialism in Utah
* 1912 Lawrence textile strike
* Catholic Worker Movement
* Green Corn Rebellion
* Labor unionization
* Haymarket affair
* May Day
* Women's suffrage

Red Scare

* American Defense Society
* American Protective League
* Communist Party USA and African Americans
* Communist Party USA in the labor movement
* 1919–1937
* 1937–1957
* Espionage Act of 1917
* First Red Scare
* John Birch Society
* McCarthyism
* Seattle General Strike
* Smith Act
* Smith Act trials

Anti-war and civil rights movements

* Black power movement
* COINTELPRO
* "I Have a Dream"
* March on Washington
* New Left
* Poor People's Campaign

Contemporary

* 1999 Seattle WTO protests
* 2008 financial crisis
* Occupy movement

Activists

* Alston
* Balagoon
* Day
* Dixon
* Du Bois
* Ehrenreich
* Ervin
* Flynn
* Goldman
* Grace
* Guthrie
* Hampton
* Hay
* Haywood (Bill)
* Haywood (Harry)
* Hill
* Hoffman
* Jones
* Keller
* King
* Labadie
* Lovestone
* Marcy
* Mitchell
* Morello
* Newton
* Ochs
* Parsons (Albert)
* Parsons (Lucy)
* Reed (John)
* Robbins
* Rocha
* Rustin
* Sacco and Vanzetti
* Seale
* Seeger
* Shakur
* Tankian
* Zinn

Commentators

* Bruenig (Elizabeth)
* Bruenig (Matt)
* Brooks
* Cockburn
* Hedges
* Harrington
* Jameson
* Kochinski
* Magdoff
* Moore
* Parenti
* Piker
* Robinson (Nathan)
* Roediger
* Sunkara
* Sweezy
* West

Intellectuals

* Albert
* Andrews
* Avrich
* Bellamy (Edward)
* Bellamy (Francis)
* Berkman
* Bookchin
* Brisbane
* Butler
* Cabet
* Cannon
* Cantor
* Carmichael
* Chomsky
* Clark
* Davis (Angela)
* Davis (Mike)
* Dean
* Dennis
* Dreiser
* Einstein
* Fearing
* Feinberg
* Flemm
* Foster
* Gilmore
* Graeber
* Greene
* Hahnel
* Hammett
* Heywood (Angela)
* Heywood (Ezra)
* Hillquit
* Kelley
* London
* Lum
* Most
* Noyes
* Piven
* Reed (Adolph)
* Ripley
* Robinson (Cedric)
* Rocker
* Sandburg
* Shachtman
* Smith
* Stone
* Wolff
* Wood
* Wright
* Zerzan

Politicians

* Abern
* Berger
* Bowman
* Bush
* Debs
* De Leon
* De la Cruz
* Dellums
* Ford
* Foster
* Gitlow
* Hall
* Hawkins
* Hoan
* La Guardia
* Mamdani
* McReynolds
* Mitchell
* Ocasio-Cortez
* Panken
* Randolph
* Ruthenberg
* Sanders
* Sawant
* Seidel
* Thomas
* Tlaib
* Turner
* Zeidler

Organizations

Active

* Antifa
* Black Riders Liberation Party
* Black Socialists in America
* Communist Party USA
* Democratic Socialists of America
* Freedom Party of New York
* Freedom Road Socialist Organization
* Freedom Socialist Party
* Green Mountain Peace and Justice Party
* Green Party of the United States
* Industrial Workers of the World
* Legal Marijuana Now Party
* New Afrikan Black Panther Party
* Party for Socialism and Liberation
* Peace and Freedom Party
* Progressive Dane
* Progressive Labor Party
* Redneck Revolt
* Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
* Socialist Action
* Socialist Alternative
* South Carolina Workers Party
* Social Democrats, USA
* Socialist Equality Party
* Socialist Party USA
* Socialist Rifle Association
* Socialist Workers Party
* Solidarity
* Spark
* Spartacist League
* Working Families Party
* Workers World Party
* Working Class Party
* World Socialist Party of the United States

Defunct

* American Indian Movement
* American Labor Party
* American Union of Associationists
* American Workers Party
* Black Panther Party
* Citizens Party
* Communist League of America
* Communist League of Struggle
* Communist Workers' Party
* Democratic Socialist Federation
* Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee
* Farmer–Labor Party
* Human Rights Party
* Independent Socialist League
* International Socialists
* International Socialist Organization
* International Workingmen's Association
* Justice Party
* Labor Party of the United States
* Labor Party
* Maoist Internationalist Movement
* Red Guards
* Red Guard Party
* New American Movement
* New Party
* Nonpartisan League
* Patriot Party
* People's Party
* Proletarian Party of America
* Raza Unida Party
* Revolutionary Socialist League
* Revolutionary Youth Movement
* Social Democracy of America
* Social Democratic Federation
* Social Democratic Party of America
* Socialist Labor Party of America
* Socialist Party of America
* SDS
* Weather Underground
* White Panther Party
* Workers Party of the United States
* Young Lords
* Young Patriots Organization

Literature

* Appeal to Reason
* Current Affairs
* Daily Worker
* Dissent
* International Socialist Review
* Jacobin
* The Jungle
* Looking Backward
* Monopoly Capital
* Monthly Review
* The Other America
* A People's History of the United States
* Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat
* Voluntary Socialism
* Why Socialism?
* ZNetwork

Related topics

* American Left
* Anarchism in the United States
* individualist
* Labor history
* Labor laws
* Labor unions
* Minimum wage
* Progressivism in the United States

* Socialism portal
* United States portal

* v
* t
* e

Labor Party was the name or partial name of a number of United States political parties which were organized during the 1870s and 1880s.

## History

[edit]

* In 1867, the first American chapter of the International Workingmen's Association opened. In 1873, the Workingmen's Party of Illinois is formed. In 1874, the Social-Democratic Workingmen's Party of North America was formed. In the 1870s, the Social Political Workingmen's Society of Cincinnati was formed. In 1876, all four merged into the Workingmen's Party of the United States. In 1877, that became the Socialist Labor Party of North America.

* In 1877, the Workingman's Party was formed in California, led by Denis Kearney. By 1879, it was powerful enough to help re-write the state constitution of California, inserting provisions intended to curb the powers of capital and to abolish Chinese contract labor.

* In 1878, the Greenback Party, under the influence of leaders of organized labor, changed its name to the Greenback Labor Party. The GLP continued to operate in some states, electing a congressman as late as 1886. However, the party had dissipated by 1888.

* In 1886, a United Labor Party was organized in Chicago under the leadership of that city's Central Labor Union. It drew over 20,000 votes for its county ticket in the fall of 1886, and in the following spring elections garnered 28,000 votes for its candidate for mayor. However, by 1888, it had merged with the Democratic Party in that city.[1]

* In 1884, in Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Trades' Assembly organized a fusion of the Greenback Party and Anti-Monopoly Party into a local People's Party.[2] In 1886, this was reorganized into the Union Labor Party. The ULP saw obtained considerable results in the city of Milwaukee, electing a state senator, several members of the State Assembly (including Michael P. Walsh, their president) and a member of Congress, Henry Smith. In 1892, the ULP would merge into the People's Party.

* The most important of these local races of that period may have been that in New York City in 1886, when the United Labor Party of that city nominated Henry George for mayor of New York, and cast for him 68,000 votes. The Single Taxers and socialists united in this vote, with the Socialists supporting the George candidacy as a popular movement against corporate capitalism. By 1887, the United Labor Party of New York State nominated Henry George for Secretary of State, repudiating socialism. Socialist Labor members, combining with other labor organizations, formed a Progressive Labor Party, nominating John Swinton to run against Henry George. Swinton, however, would decline the nomination, instead choosing to run as the party's candidate for the State Senate's 7th district election, which he would go on to lose. J. Edward Hall was nominated by the convention in Swinton's place. The Progressive Labor Party vote of about 5,000 was virtually confined to New York City.

* In 1888, two "labor parties" appeared in the field of presidential politics. These were: (1) the Union Labor Party, which was formed by a coalition of the Greenback Labor Party, largely rural in its constituency, with the urban trade union movement, which had been demanding labor and industrial reforms: it nominated Alson Streeter for president; and (2) the United Labor Party, a much smaller party, which under leadership of Father Edward McGlynn of New York, demanded a single tax and the sharing of the rent of land. These parties both disappeared after the campaign of 1888.

In other states there were groupings known variously as United Labor Party, Union Labor Party, Industrial Labor Party, Labor Reform Party, or simply Labor Party.[3]

## Activity and legacy

[edit]

These parties were made up in varying proportions of members of the American Federation of Labor and Knights of Labor, socialists, Greenbackers, and even anarchists. They challenged the Republicans and Democrats primarily in local elections and state elections, but not at the presidential level. For varying reasons, none of these organizations maintained their existence as separate parties. The constituents and activists became involved either in one of the major parties (as in the Chicago example) or in such movements as the Populists (which in urban areas drew heavily on former Labor Party advocates), or the Socialist Party of America, and their various splinter groups.

There is no direct continuity between any of these organizations and the Union Labor Party of early 20th-century San Francisco, California; nor with the Duluth, Minnesota Union Labor Party which elected William Leighton Carss to Congress and various candidates to city offices in that region in the early 20th century, before merging into the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party.[4]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Party Lines in the West; Decrease of Republican Votes in Wisconsin. A Combination Which May Give the State to the Democrats - The Political Situation in Illinois" New York Times, July 16, 1888, p. 1
2. ^ "Wisconsin Greenbackers", Lake Geneva Herald September 5, 1884; p. 7, col. 6
3. ^ Hillquit, Morris. History of socialism in the United States. New York, London: Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1903. OCLC 1822618, p. 271.
4. ^ Hudelson, Richard & Ross, Carl. By the ore docks : a working people's history of Duluth. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. ISBN 0-8166-4636-8 pp. 144-150.

## Further reading

[edit]

* Denton, Charles Richard. "The American nonconformist and Kansas industrial liberator: a Kansas union labor-populist newspaper, 1886-1891." (1961).
* McCollom, Jason. "The Agricultural Wheel, the Union Labor Party, and the 1889 Arkansas Legislature." Arkansas Historical Quarterly 68.2 (2009): 157-175. online
* McLaughlin, Andrew Cunningham & Hart, Albert Bushnell. Cyclopedia of American Government. New York, London: D. Appleton and Co., 1914. OCLC 498366, p. 296 online
* McNitt, Andrew W. "Union Labor Party, 1887–1888" in Immanuel Ness, and James Ciment, eds. The Encyclopedia of Third Parties in America (Sharpe Reference, 2000) 3:569–572.

* v
* t
* e

Historical left-wing third-party U.S. presidential tickets

This group includes only pre-1996 parties that fielded a candidate that won greater 0.1% of the popular vote in at least one presidential election

Presidential
tickets that
won at least
one percent of
the national
popular vote
(candidate(s) /
running mate(s))|

| Greenback|

* Peter Cooper/Samuel F. Cary (1876)
* James B. Weaver/Barzillai J. Chambers (1880)
* Benjamin Butler/Absolom M. West (1884)

|

Union Labor|

* Alson Streeter/Charles E. Cunningham (1888)

Populist|

* James B. Weaver/James G. Field (1892)
* William Jennings Bryan/Thomas E. Watson (1896)

Socialist|

* Eugene V. Debs/Ben Hanford (1904 and 1908)
* Eugene V. Debs/Emil Seidel (1912)
* Allan L. Benson/George R. Kirkpatrick (1916)
* Eugene V. Debs/Seymour Stedman (1920)
* Norman Thomas/James H. Maurer (1932)

Bull Moose|

* Theodore Roosevelt/Hiram Johnson (1912)

Progressive (1924)|

* Robert M. La Follette/Burton K. Wheeler (1924)

Progressive (1948)|

* Henry A. Wallace/Glen H. Taylor (1948)

Other notable
left-wing parties|

* Socialist Labor Party of America
* Social Democratic Party of America
* Independence Party
* Farmer–Labor Party
* Communist Party USA
* Socialist Workers Party
* Liberty Party
* People's Party
* Citizens Party
* New Alliance Party

* Third-party performances in presidential elections
* Labor history of the United States
* Liberalism in the United States
* Progressivism in the United States
* Socialism in the United States

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