Argument on the Hours of Labor, Delivered Before the Labor Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature

New York: Labor Standard Publishing, 1877. Good.. 20pp. Disbound, lacking wrappers. Trimmed closely along fore-edge occasionally touching text, light occasional foxing. A scarce pamphlet on American labor practices in the late-1870s, and an early work by George E. McNeill, a millworker and noted labor leader. George E. McNeill (1836-1906) was born and raised then later died in Massachusetts after a long career as a staunch advocate for improving labor conditions. In Boston, he served as the president of the Great Eight Hour League, founded the Working Men's Institute, worked with labor newspapers in Massachusetts and New York, among his many activities in support of organized labor. The present work is one of McNeill's earliest publications, and devoted to the issue of a ten-hour work day for laborers in Massachusetts. McNeill provides a history of the effort for the ten-hour day, as well as detailed chapters with cogent arguments on the "reasons for a reduction of the hours of labor," its (positive) impact on production, a section addressing a reduction in wages, and a long final chapter on "Non-interference or Freedom of Contract." The imprint from the Labor Standard Publishing likely refers to the printing offices of the New York Labor Standard newspaper, one of many labor-related publications for which McNeill worked during his career. McNeill was most famous in his own time and for some time afterwards for his monumental 1892 work, The Labor Movement, or, The Problem of To-Day. Eight copies in OCLC.