From 1879 till 1882 the labor movement was typical of a period of rising prices. It was practically restricted to skilled workmen, who organized to wrest from employers still better conditions than those which prosperity would have given under individual bargaining. The movement was essentially opportunistic and displayed no particular class feeling and no revolutionary tendencies. The solidarity of labor was not denied by the trade unions, but they did not try to reduce the idea to practice: each trade coped more or less successfully with its own employers. Even the Knights of Labor, the organization _par excellence_ of the solidarity of labor, was at this time, in so far as practical efforts went, merely a faint echo of the trade unions. But the situation radically changed during the depression of 1884-1885. The unskilled and the semi-skilled, affected as they were by wage reductions and unemployment even in a larger measure than the skilled, were drawn into the movement. Labor organizations assumed the nature of a real class movement. The idea of the solidarity of labor ceased to be merely verbal and took on life! General strikes, sympathetic strikes, nationwide boycotts and nation-wide political movements became the order of the day. The effects of an unusually large immigration joined hands with the depression. The eighties were the banner decade of the entire century for immigration. The aggregate number of immigrants arriving was 5,246,613--two and a half millions larger than during the seventies and one million and a half larger than during the nineties. The eighties witnessed the highest tide of immigration from Great Britain and the North of Europe and the beginning of the tide of South and East European immigration. However, the depression of 1883-1885 had one redeeming feature by which it was distinguished from other depressions. With falling prices, diminishing margins of profit, and decreasing wages, the amount of employment was not materially diminished. Times continued hard during 1885, a slight improvement showing itself only during the last months of the year. The years 1886 and 1887 were a period of gradual recovery, and normal conditions may be said to have returned about the middle of 1887. Except in New England, the old wages, which had been reduced during the bad years, were won again by the spring of 1887. The year 1884 was one of decisive failure in strikes. They were practically all directed against reductions in wages and for the right of organization. The most conspicuous strikes were those of the Fall River spinners, the Troy stove mounters, the Cincinnati cigar makers and the Hocking Valley coal miners.