President Andrew Johnson, the First Working Man to Become President of the United States, Supports Labor Unions, and Will Give Them His “Personal Cooperation”

The earliest significant presidential letter supporting labor unions that we can recall seeing

Andrew Johnson was the first working man to become President of the United States. All of his predecessors not born into wealth had risen because of careers in the military or in law. He was born in a log cabin to nearly illiterate parents, and began his professional life as a tailor in Greeneville, Tennessee. Johnson’s young wife taught him how to read, and he hired readers to educate him while he worked. The shop became a gathering place for local men to debate. When Johnson was elected to his first political office as alderman of Greeneville in 1829, meetings were held in the shop. By 1834, he had already served several terms as alderman and as mayor of Greeneville, identifying with the town’s laboring class. He found that his common-man, tell-it-like-it-is style went over well with both the town’s mechanics and artisans as well as the country inhabitants. His views, and theirs, were rooted in the class opinions of non-slaveholding yeomen farmers and working people against elite planters. Johnson later said of his time as a tailor, “I always made a close fit, and was always punctual to my customers, and did good work.”

Craft unions existed in the United States from its early years. Starting in the 1830s and accelerating rapidly during the Civil War, the factory system accounted for an ever-growing share of American production. It also produced great wealth for a few, grinding poverty for many. With workers recognizing the power of their employers, the number of local union organizations increased steadily during the mid-19th century. In a number of cities, unions in various trades joined together in citywide federations. The Nation Labor Union, an organization of local unions, was formed in 1866, and instituted the first national campaign for an eight-hour workday. Congress passed an eight hour day for Federal workers in 1869. The NLU’s participating unions comprised mainly skilled trades, such as the Union of Carpenters and Joiners in Boston, Massachusetts, headed by J. B. Roys. The national organization, which at its height may have been comprised of hundreds of thousands of members, eschewed strikes in favor of arbitration and called for the formation of a national labor party as an alternative to the two established political parties. Roys additionally advocated the end of national banks and untaxed national bonds.

In the spring of 1867 Roys and his union scheduled a Workingmen’s State Mass Meeting, to be held on May 16, 1867 in Faneuil Hall. Roys was elected President of the meeting, and Wendell Phillips was set as the featured speaker. Roys invited President Johnson to provide a statement to be read to the assemblage.

He responded with this Letter Signed, as President, on Executive Mansion letterhead, Washington, April 13, 1867 to “J. B. Roys, Chairman of the Committee, Union Carpenters & Joiners” in Boston, seeming at first to decline, but then making as strong a pro-labor statement as the union could have hoped for. ”I have received your letter of the 27th ult. on behalf of the Massachusetts Union of Carpenters and Joiners. I sincerely regret that the pressure of public business will prevent me from saying more in response thereto than to assure your Society that in all their endeavors for the amelioration of the condition of the working-men as a class, they have my warmest empathy, and so far as circumstances may permit, my personal cooperation.”

The New York Times ran a story on the meeting on May 17, 1867. It reported that some 2,000 people attended, and that Phillips spoke for an hour, making a rousing pro-labor address that called on political leaders to support its goals. President Johnson’s letter above was read to the crowd and printed in full at the end of the Times article.

This letter is from the library of John Augustin Daly, one of the most important figures in nineteenth-century American theater, who worked as a critic, manager, playwright and stage director. At the time of his death, he owned two major theaters, one in New York and the other in London and is considered personally responsible for the careers of such acting greats as John Drew Jr. Maurice Barrymore, Fanny Davenport, Maude Adams, Sara Jewett, Isadora Duncan, Tyrone Power, Sr. and many others.  Daly was also an avid book lover and collector, amassing an enormous library over the course of his career. That collection was dispersed in an epic, two-week auction at the American Art Association in New York in March 1900. The present letter was part of an extra-illustrated volume, described in the catalog as a “Unique copy, with autograph letters of all the Presidents inserted…”  Walter Benjamin, writing in The Collector, described the sale as a “blaze of glory, due to the total having reached nearly $200,000.” The extra-illustrated volume fetched $850, nearly four times above the going rate for presidential sets at the time (Benjamin quipped that they normally realized around $250). The purchaser quickly resold the volume for $1,000. (The Collector, New York, May 1900, 1-2).