Excerpt from Fourth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1888: Working Women in Large Cities Sir: I have the honor to submit herewith my fourth annual report. This report properly belongs with the series emanating from the Bureau of Labor. By law the Bureau of Labor ceased to exist, practically, on the 30th of J une last, the Department of Labor having been created by an act approved J uue 13, 1888. The investigation on which this report is based was made by the Bureau of Labor. As a part, there fore, of the work of the Department of the Interior, and as material constitutin g a part of your annual report for the fiscal year ending J uue 30, 1888, it seems proper that I should transmit this report to you, and in doing so I desire to thank you for your courtesy at all times in aid. Ing me to forward the work of the Bureau of Labor. Your kindness and that of your predecessors has been of great assistance in perform ing the duties assigned to the Bureau of Labor. All future reports, of course, will come from the Department of Labor, and by law will be transmitted to Congress. While the material for this report was col lected prior to the close of the last fiscal year, much other work was done by the Bureau which must naturally be carried forward into the reports of the present and the comin g fiscal years. I can not, therefore, strictly say that the present report constitutes the operations of the Bureau of Labor for the fiscal year ending J uue 30, 1888. The special work called for by Congress relating to the statistics of marriage and divorce does not form a part of the annual report, but by law is to be presented to Congress as a special matter. This work relatin g to mar riage and divorce has been carried through, so far as the fieldwork was concerned, by the Bureau of Labor, under your administration, and your liberal construction of law and hearty cooperation have enabled me to make an exhaustive report relating to one of the most vital questions connected with the social affairs of the country. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

With the introduction of new production methods and technological innovation, tradesmen and workers encountered new challenges. This study examines the development of trade unions as a manifestation of working class experience in late Gilded Age America. It underscores both the distinctive and the common features of trade unionism across four occupations: building tradesmen, cigar makers, garment workers, and printers. While reactions differed, the unions representing these workers displayed a convergence in their strategic orientation, programmatic emphasis and organizational modus operandi. As such, they were not disparate organizations, concerned only with sectional interests, but participants in an organizational-network in which cooperation and solidarity became benchmarks for the labor movement. Printers coped with the mechanization of typesetting by promoting greater cooperation among the different craft unions within the industry, with the aim of establishing effective job control. Building tradesmen exerted a pragmatic militancy, which combined strikes with overtures to the employers' business sense, to uphold the standards of craft labor. Cigar makers, especially handicraftsmen who found their position threatened by machinery and the growth of factory production, debated the merits of a craft-based union against the possible advantages of an industrial-oriented organization. Garment workers, caught in the snare of a sweating system of labor in which wages and work loads were inversely related, organized unions to mount strikes during the busy season in the hope of securing higher wages, only to see them whither in the midst of slack periods.