The Workingmen's Party of California was an American labor organization, founded in 1877 and led by Denis Kearney, J.G Day and H. L. Knight.
Organizational history
As a result of heavy unemployment from the 1873-78 national depression, Sand Lot rallies erupted in San Francisco that led to the Party's formation in 1877. The party won 11 seats in the State Senate and 17 in the State Assembly by 1878 and then rewrote the state's constitution, denying Chinese citizens voting rights in California. The most important part of the constitution included the formation of California Railroad Commission that would oversee the activities of the Central and Pacific Railroad companies that were run by Crocker, Huntington, Hopkins and Stanford. The party took particular aim against cheap Chinese immigrant labor and the Central Pacific Railroad which employed them. Their goal was to "rid the country of Chinese cheap labor." Its famous slogan was "The Chinese must go!" Kearney's attacks against the Chinese were of a particularly virulent and openly racist nature, and found considerable support among white Californians of the time. This sentiment led eventually to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Kearney's party should not be confused with the less influential Workingmen's Party of the United States, which was based in the Eastern United States.
Books and pamphlets
George W. Greene, The Labor agitators, or, The Battle for Bread: The Party of the Future, the Workingmen's Party of California: Is Birth and Organization. Its Leaders and Its Purposes: Corruption in Our Local and State Governments. Venality of the Press. San Francisco: George W. Greene, n.d. .
Denis Kearney, The Workingmen's Party of California: An Epitome of Its Rise and Progress. San Francisco: Bacon, 1878.
Carole Carter Mauss, The San Jose Branch of the Workingmen's Party of California, 1878-1880. M.A. thesis, San Jose State University, 1997.
Doyce B. Nunis, Jr., "The Demagogue and the Demographer: Correspondence of Denis Kearney and Lord Bryce," Pacific Historical Review, vol. 36, no. 3, pp. 269–288.
Mary Gabriel O'Connor, Denis Kearney, Sand-lot Orator: A Chronicle of California. M.A. thesis. Dominican College of San Rafael , 1937.
Robert Dean Potter, Denis Kearney: A Reappraisal. M.A. thesis. Chico State University, 1969.
