Marching to Haymarket and the 1886 Eight-Hour Campaign

Abstract

This chapter discusses the 1886 eight-hour campaign. By 1884, organized labor once again was ready to make a city and nationwide eight-hour demand. At their Chicago meeting that year, the Federation of Organized Trade and Labor Unions voted to inaugurate the eight-hour day on May 1, 1886, recommending that labor unions across the country work to enact or enforce eight-hour laws by that date. Paradoxically, in the 1886 campaign, the Chicago Trades and Labor Assembly (CTLA)—which represented the majority of conservative, religiously inclined, skilled workers—had ceased to frame the eight-hour workday in explicitly religious terms. Compared to the CTA in the 1867 campaign and even through most of the 1870s, the Trades and Labor Assembly had adopted frames that argued for shorter hours on systematically economic grounds.