The stove industry had early reached a high degree of development and organization. There had existed since 1872 the National Association of Stove Manufacturers, an organization dealing with prices and embracing in its membership the largest stove manufacturers of the country. The stove foundrymen, therefore, unlike the manufacturers in practically all other industries at that time, controlled in a large measure their own market. Furthermore, the product had been completely standardized and reduced to a piecework basis, and machinery had not taken the place of the molders' skill. It consequently was no mere accident that the stove industry was the first to develop a system of permanent industrial peace. But, on the other hand, this was not automatically established as soon as the favorable external conditions were provided. In reality, only after years of struggle, of strikes and lockouts, and after the two sides had fought each other "to a standstill," was the system finally installed. The eighties abounded in stove molders' strikes, and in 1886 the national union began to render effective aid. The Stove Founders' National Defense Association was formed in 1886 as an employers' association of stove manufacturers. The Defense Association aimed at a national labor policy; it was organized for "resistance against any unjust demands of their workmen, and such other purposes as may from time to time prove or appear to be necessary for the benefit of the members thereof as employers of labor." Thus, after 1886, the alignment was made national on both sides. The great battle was fought the next year. March 8, 1887, the employes of the Bridge and Beach Manufacturing Company in St. Louis struck for an advance in wages and the struggle at once became one between the International Union and the National Defense Association. The St. Louis company sent its patterns to foundries in other districts, but the union successfully prevented their use. This occasioned a series of strikes in the West and of lockouts in the East, affecting altogether about 5000 molders. It continued thus until June, when the St. Louis patterns were recalled, the Defense Association having provided the company with a sufficient number of strike-breakers. Each side was in a position to claim the victory for itself; so evenly matched were the opposing forces.