Mark Twain, a lifelong member of the Int?l Typographical Union (now part of CWA), speaks in Hartford, Conn., extolling the Knights of Labor?s commitment to fair treatment of all workers, regardless of race or gender - 1886
Michigan authorizes formation of workers? cooperatives. Thirteen are formed in the state over a 25-year period. Labor reform organizations were advocating "cooperation" over "competitive" capitalism following the Civil War and several thousand cooperatives opened for business across the country during this era. Participants envisioned a world free from conflict where workers would receive the full value of their labor and freely exercise democratic citizenship in the political and economic realms ? 1865
U.S. Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the Adamson Act, a federal law that established an eight-hour workday, with overtime pay, for interstate railway workers. Congress passed the law a year earlier to avert a nationwide rail strike - 1917