1848 Trade Unionists Meet in Faneuil Hall to Condemn Slavery

In May of 1848, Trade Unionists met in Faneuil Hall to celebrate the European revolutions of that year which were spreading freedom through the continent. The meeting also put quite a bit of focus on the South and its “despotic attitude of Slave Power.” Slavery had become widely condemned throughout the Labor Movement. Outside of Faneuil Hall, labor newspapers circulated that spoke out against this oppressive practice. Slavery struck a familiar chord with many Massachusetts laborers because as the Voice of Industry put it, “the question of slavery is in truth a question of labor.”

Massachusetts is the birthplace of the abolitionist movement, as well as Frederick Douglass’s first home in his life as a freeman.  The progressive social freedoms that were present in the Commonwealth, as well as the remaining social barriers, inspired Douglass and many other to join the abolitionist movement. As the abolitionist movement grew, so did activism among white workers who felt their own freedoms were being sacrificed to the new capitalist system. In the great shoe strike of 1860, which was the largest strike in US history at that time, the shoe stitchers of Lynn marched with a  banner that read “American Ladies Will Not be Slaves.”