First labour-oriented U.S. political party. It was formed in Philadelphia (1828) and New York (1829) by craftsmen, skilled journeymen, and reformers who demanded a 10-hour workday, free public education, abolition of debtor imprisonment, and an end to competition from prison contract labour. Leaders included Thomas Skidmore, Fanny Wright, Robert Dale Owen, and George H. Evans, who established the Working Man's Advocate, the first labour newspaper, in 1829. Factional disputes split the party in the 1830s, and many in New York joined the reform Locofoco Party