In 1878, theGreenback Party, under the influence of leaders of organized labor, changed its name to theGreenback 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, aUnited Labor Party was organized inChicago under the leadership of that city'sCentral Labor Union. It drew over 20,000 votes for itscounty ticket in the fall of 1886, and in the following spring electionsgarnered 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 inNew York Cityin 1886, when theUnited Labor Party of that city nominatedHenry George for mayor of New York, and cast for him 68,000 votes. TheSingle Taxers and socialists united in this vote, with theSocialists supporting the George candidacy as a popular movement againstcorporate capitalism. By1887, the United Labor Party of New York State nominated Henry George forSecretary of State, repudiating socialism. Socialist Labor members, combining with other labor organizations, formed aProgressive Labor Party, nominatingJohn Swinton to run against Henry George. Swinton, however, would decline the nomination, instead choosing to run as the party's candidate for theState 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) theUnion Labor Party, which was formed by a coalition of theGreenback Labor Party, largely rural in its constituency, with the urbantrade union movement, which had been demanding labor and industrial reforms: it nominatedAlson Streeter for president; and (2) theUnited Labor Party, a much smaller party, which under leadership of FatherEdward McGlynn of New York, demanded asingle 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 asUnited Labor Party,Union Labor Party,Industrial Labor Party,Labor Reform Party, or simplyLabor Party.[3]
These parties were made up in varying proportions of members of theAmerican Federation of Labor andKnights of Labor,socialists, Greenbackers, and evenanarchists. They challenged theRepublicans andDemocrats primarily in local elections and state elections, but not at thepresidential 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 thePopulists (which in urban areas drew heavily on former Labor Party advocates), or theSocialist 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.
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. 296online
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.
