from Alexander Saxton, _The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti- Chinese Movement in California_, p. 74:
'The boycott of Chinese-made goods had been invoked at least as early as 1859. At that time, and for a good many years afterward, western cigar markers were organized not as trade unionists but in guilds which included masters and journeymen, and which functions as anticoolie clubs. Anticoolieism thus became a means of promoting their own product. The cigar boycott of 1859 and others undertaken during the sixties failed in part, at least, because of the difficulty of product differentiation. This need gave rise to the white label, which, pasted across the box lid, declared: "The cigars herein contained are made by WHITE MEN [MH: label emphasis]. This label is issued by authority of the Cigar Makers' Association of the Pacific Coast." Boot- and shoemakers followed soon after with a stamp designating the product of white craftsmen. In later years the idea would be expanded into the form of a placard for display on the premises of any businessman who had pledged himself to the anticoolie boycott. Since by that time trade unionism and anticoolieism had entered into a public and lasting marriage, the labels, stamps, and placards generally came to signify not only white but union as well. Such were the humble beginnings of the shop card and the union label.' Michael Hoover