This chapter chronicles how Chicago's anarchists came to reject trade unionism, expressing both their increasing alienation from the labor movement in the city along with a fundamental shift that had occurred in radical anarchist thinking and organizing over the previous half decade. While nearly uncritical support for the labor movement was a bedrock principle of American socialism from the time of the First International in 1863 to the formation of the Socialist Labor Party in 1879, it was a principle at first pushed aside at the London Congress of 1881 and then actively combated after the Pittsburgh Congress two years later. In addition, the chapter narrates how these same anarchists went from being opponents to becoming reluctant latecomers to the eight-hour-workday movement.
