The International, a European-based international organization for…

The International, a European-based international organization for a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist political groups and trade union organizations, had moved its headquarters to New York City in 1872.

It was in a weakened and disorganized state, having recently suffered a bitter internal struggle between between Marxists, who supported trade union organization as preliminary to workers' revolution and anarchists, led by Mikhail Bakunin, who had advocated the immediate revolutionary overthrow of organized government.

In 1874, the members of the American-based International, led by cigarmaker Adolph Strasser and carpenter Peter McGuire, had joined forces with socialists from Newark and Philadelphia to form the ephemeral Social-Democratic Party of North America, the first Marxist political party in the United States. (The SLP does not seem to have used its distinctive arm-and-hammer logo until it appears on the front page of The Workmen's Advocate in 1885.)

Despite these organizational efforts, the socialist movement in America had remained deeply divided over tactics.

Newcomers from Germany often seek to follow the same parliamentary-driven approach that had been employed by Ferdinand Lassalle and fledgling Social Democratic Party of Germany, while longer term residents of America often tend to support a trade union orientation.

In April 1876, a preliminary conference had taken place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania bringing together representatives of the union-oriented "Internationalists" and the electorally oriented "Lassalleans.

The gathering had agreed to issue a call for a Unity Congress to be held in July to establish a new political party.

On Saturday, July 15, 1876, delegates from the remaining American sections of the First International had gathered in Philadelphia and disbanded that organization.

The following Wednesday, July 19, the planned Unity Congress had been convened, attended by seven delegates claiming to represent a membership of three thousand in four organizations: the trade union-oriented Marxists of the now-disbanded International, and three Lassallean groups—the Workingmen's Party of Illinois, the Social Political Workingmen's Society of Cincinnati, and the Social-Democratic Party of North America.

The organization formed by this Unity Convention is known as the Workingmen's Party of the United States (WPUS), and the native English-speaking Philip Van Patten is elected as the party's first "Corresponding Secretary," the official in charge of the day-to-day operations of the party.

A number of socialist newspapers also emerge around this time, all privately owned, including Paul Grottkau's Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung, Joseph Brucker's Milwaukee Socialist, and an English-language weekly also published in Milwaukee called The Emancipator.

German émigrés dominate the organization, although in Chicago Albert Parsons and G.A. Schilling maintain an active English-speaking section.