BIBLIOGRAPHY

General Survey, 541. Colonial and Federal Beginnings, 548. Citizenship, 555. Trade Unionism, 561. Humanitarianism, 566. Nationalisation, 571. Upheaval and Reorganisation, 576.

GENERAL SURVEY

In no country has the value of strictly economic records been sufficiently appreciated, whether by the government or by private associations and least of all in America. As far as colon

ial industrial conditions and policies are concerned, with the special organisations of those days such as guilds, voluntary associations to raise capital, to develop markets, and to enlist governmental support for domestic producers, the economic historian is able to draw, in common with the general historian, upon such sources as Colonial Records, local histories, and publications of historical societies.

For the succeeding periods, and especially on the subject of the early labour struggles, there has been until recently scarcely any collected documentary material. The first state bureau of labour statistics in the United States was established in Massachusetts in 1869 and the Federal Bureau first came into existence in 1884. In their reports there are a few cursory studies of labour events and conditions during earlier years, such as the incomplete chronology of strikes since 1825, given for Massachusetts in the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eleventh Annual Report, 1880, pp. 3-71; the account of "Strikes and Lockouts occurring Prior to 1881 in the United States," in the Commissioner of Labor, Third Annual Report, 1887, pp. 1029-1108; the similar one for Pennsylvania since 1835 in Secretary of Internal Affairs, Annual Report, 1880-1881 (Harrisburg, 1882), Pt. III, Industrial Statis tics, IX, 262-391; and the list of eleven (instead of seventeen) labour conspiracy cases prior to 1842 enumerated in the United States Bureau of Labor, Sixteenth Annual Report, 1901, pp.

873-986. A Documentary History of the Early Organizations of Printers was prepared by Ethelbert Stewart (United States Bureau of Labor, Bulletin No. 61, 1905), and is the pioneer work in the field.

In 1886, when Professor Richard T. Ely, of the University of Wisconsin, then of Johns Hopkins University, published his Labor Movement in America, he said in the preface: "I offer this book merely as a sketch which will, I trust, some day be followed by a book worthy of the title History of Labor in the New World." During the following two decades, keeping this aim in mind, Professor Ely made notes and memoranda for this larger work and especially spared neither effort nor expense in collecting material for that book. As a result, he found himself in possession of a unique collection of labour literature which had outgrown the capacity of a private house and had begun to involve an expense beyond his private resources. For a time the Wisconsin Historical Society housed and cared for the Collection and assisted in its enlargement. With the growth of the Collection and the possibilities of still further enlargement, the expense involved becoming greater, with the approval of Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites, Secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society, the Collection, after examination by Mr. Clement W. Andrews, the librarian, was turned over to the John Crerar Library of Chicago.

The management of the Crerar Library evinced special interest in this field of work and undertook to care for and increase the collection. In addition, 'it agreed to the condition that Dr. Ely and his co-workers at Madison should have the right to borrow or use at Madison any part of the Collection needed in the prosecution of his undertaking.

By letters and personal interviews with prominent men throughout the country, Professor Ely strove to secure the organisation of a society for industrial research. As a result of his initiative and the personal interest as well as material support of Messrs. V. Everit Macy (treasurer), Robert Hunter, Robert Fulton Cutting, Justice Henry Dugro, and William English Walling, of New York, Stanley McCormick and Charles R. Crane, of Chicago, and others, the American Bureau

of Industrial Research was organised with headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin.

Dr. Ely's collection was turned over to the Crerar before the American Bureau was established. But this event changed the situation and made it advisable to form as large a collection in Madison as possible, and in this effort the University of Wisconsin and the State Historical Society have co-operated, with the result that in Madison and Chicago are now unrivalled collections and their use is available for the work of all investigators.

A survey of the field revealed an unexpected wealth of hitherto unknown sources in the form of pamphlets and files of newspapers published in the interest of early labour organisations. Some of the newspapers in question had not hitherto been consulted at any time, so far as the librarians in charge were aware, and in one library, The Man, a daily labour paper, published in co-operation with the Trades' Union of New York in 1834 and 1835, was discovered literally buried beneath the accumulations of seventy years. Some of the most important material, however, has not been found in libraries, but has been obtained by searching dusty old bookshops in many cities, and by begging or buying personal collections from aged labour leaders a part of the work carried on largely by Dr. John B. Andrews, Dr. Helen L. Sumner, and Mrs. W. H. Lighty. Many others also aided generously and loyally, and their help is highly appreciated even if they are too many to be named in this connection. The collection thus made is now in the libraries of the University of Wisconsin and of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, both of which have given valuable co-operation.

An important collection is the one secured through the ef forts of Dr. R. T. Ely from Mr. Herman Schlüter who became interested in the work of the Bureau. William English Walling, of New York, contributed a generous sum toward the purchase price of this collection. It not only contains material covering the history of practically all the organisations of German-speaking workingmen in the United States, socialistic, trade union, benevolent as well as co-operative in early days, but presents also a rich collection of materials and docu

ments pertaining to the early history of the socialist movement in Germany. Many of the documents in this collection came to Mr. Schlüter from the late F. A. Sorge, surnamed the "Father of American Socialism," a personal friend of Marx and Engels, and their "official" representative in this country. Especially noteworthy among the "Sorge Documents" are the letter copy-book of the North American Federation of the International Workingmen's Association, 1869-1876, and a transcription of the letters and addresses which were sent by Sorge, in his capacity of General Secretary of the International Workingmen's Association, 1872-1876, to the national organisations of the International in Europe.

Another important collection in possession of the American Bureau of Industrial Research is the Henry Demarest Lloyd Collection abounding in material on co-operation and the socialist movement during the nineties. A unique document obtained by the Bureau is a complete file of Die Republik der Arbeiter (probably the only one in existence) (New York, 1850-1855), edited by Wilhelm Weitling, the famous communist. This came from the Philadelphia Freie Gemeinde.

Among the rarer and more important documents secured by the Bureau, in addition to those already mentioned, are: the Chicago Workingman's Advocate, 1864-1876; Fincher's Trades' Review, Philadelphia, 1863-1866, the Practical Christian, edited by Adin Ballou, 1860-1880, and the John Samuel Collection on Co-operation, composed of manuscripts, letters, and scrapbooks.

Practically all the large libraries of the country were visited by John B. Andrews, Helen L. Sumner, and Professor Commons. In October, 1906, the Bureau sent out to nearly 500 libraries a printed finding list containing the names of about 160 labour papers and papers sympathetic to labour published in the United States before 1872. By means of this list a number of valuable papers, of which no record had previously been found, were located.

As it was impossible to borrow these newspapers and it would be expensive to study them with the care they deserved in their scattered situations, it was decided to take transcripts from their most important articles and to abstract notes of

the less important. As a result, the Bureau now possesses a card catalogue, each card presenting either a brief statement of a labour event or else a summary of an article on a labour subject to be found in other libraries, as well as half a dozen large-sized filing cases of transcribed articles.

In view of the rarity of the sources and the interest manifested by economists and historians, the idea was suggested of publishing the material, in so far as it might be considered to have documentary value, in such form as to be available for students, economists, and historians. The outcome was the Documentary History of American Industrial Society (Cleveland, 1910). Of the ten volumes of this Documentary His tory, two, edited by U. B. Phillips, are devoted to Plantation and Frontier, 1649-1863; two (and a supplement), edited by J. R. Commons and E. A. Gilmore, to Labor Conspiracy Cases, 1806-1842; two, to Labor Movement, 1820-1840; two to Labor Movement, 1840-1860, and two, to Labor Movement, 1860-1880. The last volume contains a Finding List of Sources Quoted for seventy libraries. About one-tenth of the transcribed material in possession of the Bureau, selected for its typical value, found a place on the pages of the Documentary History.

Since the eighties, facilities for writing labour history began more or less to approximate those commanded by the general historian, owing to the output of the various labour bureaus and to frequent governmental investigations into labour conditions and labour troubles. The most convenient index of Federal documents is the Checklist of United States Public Documents, 1789-1909 (Vol. I, 1911) prepared by the Superintendent of Documents, Washington. For state publications, the most valuable is the "Index of Economic Material in Docu ments of the States of the United States prepared by Adelaide R. Hasse (Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publications, 1907-1915). This index has thus far been compiled for thirteen states. There is also an Index of All Reports issued by Bureaus of Labor Statistics in the United States Prior to March 1, 1902, published by the United States Department of Labor (Washington, 1902). Unfortunately there does not exist a similar useful index for the period since 1902.