JOURNAL OF AN EARLY LABOR ORGANIZER.

This article presents the journal of S. C. Hewitt, appointed lecturer of the Fall River Mechanics' Association and labor organizer in Massachusetts in the early 1840s. Students U.S. labor movement know that the most important development of the 1840s was the ten-hour movement, and that the organization which spearheaded this demand was the New England Workingmen's Association which came into existence in the fall of 1844 to give support to the shorter workday crusade. The association was largely the product of the mechanics of Fall River, Massachusetts. Early in 1844 these men organized a Mechanics' Association to further the ten-hour day in their community. The association distributed pledge cards binding the signers not to work for more than ten hours and conducted a number of strikes for the shorter working day. In April 1844, the Fall River Mechanics Association set up a publishing committee, headed by Thomas Almy, to print a four-page weekly paper, "The Mechanic," to advocate the cause of the oppressed mechanic and laborer in all its bearings. The Mechanics' Association secure the services of S. C. Hewitt as a lecturer. Readers of "The Mechanic" were already familiar with Mr. Hewitt.