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]
The most important of these local races of that period may have been that in
New York Cityin 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 a 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
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.
^"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
^Hillquit, Morris. History of socialism in the United States. New York, London: Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1903.
OCLC1822618, p. 271.
^Hudelson, Richard & Ross, Carl. By the ore docks : a working people's history of Duluth. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.
ISBN0-8166-4636-8 pp. 144-150.
Further reading
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.
OCLC498366, 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.