First labour-oriented U.S. political party.
It was formed in Philadelphia (1828) and New York (1829) by craftsmen, skilled journeymen, and reformers who demanded a 10-hour workday, free public education, abolition of debtor imprisonment, and an end to competition from prison contract labour. Leaders included Thomas Skidmore, Fanny Wright , Robert Dale Owen , and George H. Evans , who established the Working Man's Advocate , the first labour newspaper, in 1829. Factional disputes split the party in the 1830s, and many in New York joined the reform Locofoco Party .