Probably 300,000 would be a conservative estimate for the time
immediately preceding the panic of 1873.
Although the strength of labor was really the strength of the national
trade unions, especially during the depression of the later sixties, far
greater attention was attracted outside as well as inside the labor
movement by the National Labor Union, a loosely built federation of
national trade unions, city trades' assemblies, local trade unions, and
reform organizations of various descriptions, from philosophical
anarchists to socialists and woman suffragists. The National Labor Union
did not excel in practical activity, but it formed an accurate mirror of
the aspirations and ideals of the American mechanics of the time of the
Civil War and after. During its six years' existence it ran the gamut of
all important issues which agitated the labor movement of the time.
The National Labor Union came together in its first convention in 1866.
The most pressing problem of the day was unemployment due to the return
of the demobilized soldiers and the shutting down of war industries. The
convention centered on the demand to reduce the working day to eight
hours.
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