This movement centered in and around New
York. The cooperative principle met with success among the
English-speaking people only outside the larger cities. In Buffalo,
after an unsuccessful strike, the tailors formed an association with a
membership of 108 and in October 1850, were able to give employment to
80 of that number.
Again, following an unsuccessful Pittsburgh strike of iron founders in
1849, about a dozen of the strikers went to Wheeling, Virginia, each
investing $3000, and opened a cooperative foundry shop. Two other
foundries were opened on a similar basis in Stetsonville, Ohio, and
Sharon, Pennsylvania. These associations of iron founders, however,
might better be called association of small capitalists or
master-workmen.
During the forties, consumers' or distributive cooperation was also
given a trial. The early history of consumers' cooperation is but
fragmentary and, so far as we know, the first cooperative attempt which
had for its exclusive aim "competence to purchaser" was made in
Philadelphia early in 1829. A store was established on North Fifth
Street, which sold goods at wholesale prices to members, who paid twenty
cents a month for its privileges.
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