Dew, Thomas Roderick2023-05-232023-05-23200https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/32782[Abstract shortened by cataloger:] The Association of Working People of Newcastle County was organized in the summer of 1829 ostensibly as an organization dedicated to the betterment of the laborer, but actually a local political party. […] ☐ The Association of Working People of Newcastle County lasted two and one-hald years. During that time, it put up candidates in three elections: the Wilmington borough election of May, 1830; the Delaware state election of October, 1830; and the Delaware election of October, 1931. […] ☐ The stated aims of the association, held in common with other Workingmen’s Movement groups, were the establishment of a system of free publica education; abolition of imprisonment for debt; passage of a mechanic’s lien law; reform of the election laws; simplification and codification of the laws; abolition of chartered monopolies such as banks; abolition of lotteries; and abolition of the militia system. […] ☐ On the non-political front, the Association of Working People of Newcastle County protested in vain the introduction of labor-saving machinery. […] ☐ The most active member of the association was George R. McFarlane, a Philadelphian by birth who came to Wilmington shortly before the association was organized and promptly became its secretary. […] McFarlane’s stay in Wilmington was relatively brief – he returned to Philadelphia after the state election of 1830. […] ☐ The other members of the association did not match McFarlane in zeal for the cause, and with his departure, the association began to decline. Two years after he left, it was dead. Its decline is partly traceable to the fact that it was never an association of the “real” working classes. […] ☐ The chief weakness of the association was its political orientation. Organized as a local political party with limited aims, it could not hope for lasting success against the rising tide of Jacksonian nationalism. […]Political parties -- Delaware.-- New Castle County -- 19th century.Association of Working People of Newcastle County.Thesis1379804568