Wendell Phillips: “The Foundation of the Labor Movement”

Wendell Phillips’s calling was that of the political agitator, and his gifts were those of a compelling public speaker and intellectual. Since his speeches circulated widely in print, his audiences of readers were even more numerous and far-flung than those who heard him in person. Phillips is best known for his spirited and, to some, unsettling stance on abolition. After the Civil War, he became equally vocal in the labor movement. Phillips presided at the Labor Reform Convention, held in Worcester, Massachusetts, in September 1871, and presented a set of resolutions outlined in “The Foundation of the Labor Movement,” which were unanimously adopted.