San Francisco brewery workers begin a 9 month strike as local employers follow the union-busting lead of the National Brewer’s Assn. and fire their unionized workers, replacing them with scabs. Two unionized brewers refused to go along, kept producing beer, prospered wildly and induced the Association to capitulate. A contract benefit since having unionized two years earlier, certainly worth defending: free beer - 1868

W.E.B. DuBois, educator and civil rights activist, born - 1868

A California state law was enacted providing the 8 hour day for most workers, but it was not effectively enforced - 1868