The aim of research is to explore the origins as well as the reasons for survival of AFL unionism in the midst of mechanization and systematic deskilling, by examining the extent to which workers' control prevailed in this period, the effects of deskilling on skilled labor, the flexibility of organizing principles and institutional structures of AFL unions, and the relations between skilled and unskilled workers at their workplaces. The origins of AFL unionism will also be examined by exploring how and why a unity of the labor reform movement could be achieved in the 1880s and then broke down rather quickly.