[5] The circular read in part "We have been too long subjected to the odious, cruel, unjust and tyrannical system which compels the operative mechanic to exhaust his physical and mental powers.

We have rights and duties to perform as American citizens and members of society, which forbid us to dispose of more than ten hours for a day's work.

"[5] Influenced by events in Boston, unskilled Irish workers on the Schuylkill River coal wharves the same year went on strike for a ten-hour day.

[6] The coal heavers were soon joined by workers from many other trades, including leather dressers, printers, carpenters, bricklayers, masons, house painters, bakers, and city employees.

On 29 August 1836, a committee of Philadelphia Navy Yard mechanics, wrote to President Andrew Jackson,pleading the ten hour system be expanded, " The Committee are sure that if the example is set in Philadelphia it will be [illegible] required in other places and they will not attempt to disguise the pleasure it would give them as Citizens and as Workingmen to see a reformation taking place under the auspices of the Government"[10] The labor press carried the news as far south as the Carolinas, and a wave of successful strikes followed in its wake.

Strikes for the ten-hour day hit towns such as New Brunswick and Paterson, New Jersey, Batavia and Seneca Falls, New York, Hartford, Connecticut, and Salem, Massachusetts.