'A Broad and Ennobling Spirit'': Workers and Their Unions in Late Gilded Age New York and Brooklyn, 1886-1898 (Contributions in Labor Studies)

“A Broad and Ennobling Spirit” Workers and Their Unions in Late Gilded Age New York and Brooklyn, 1886–1898

RONALD MENDEL

PRAEGER

“A BROAD AND ENNOBLING SPIRIT”

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“A Broad and Ennobling Spirit” Workers and Their Unions in Late Gilded Age New York and Brooklyn, 1886–1898 RONALD MENDEL

Contributions in Labor Studies, Number 59

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mendel, Ronald, 1947– “A broad and ennobling spirit” : workers and their unions in late Gilded Age New York and Brooklyn, 1886–1898 / Ronald Mendel. p. cm. — (Contributions in labor studies, ISSN 0886–8239; no. 59) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–313–32134–5 (alk. paper) 1. Labor unions—New York (State)—New York—History—19th century. 2. Working class—New York (State)—New York—History—19th century. 3. Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.) I. Title. II. Series. HD6519.N5M46 2003 331.88'097471'09034—dc21 2002044955 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2003 by Ronald Mendel All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2002044955 ISBN: 0–313–32134–5 ISSN: 1886–1898 First published in 2003 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.praeger.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10

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Copyright Acknowledgments The author and the publisher gratefully acknowledge permission for use of the following material: Excerpts from “Cooperative Unionism and the Development of Job Control in New York’s Printing Trades,” by R. Mendel. (1991) Labor History, Vol. 32:3, pp. 254–275. http://www.tandf.co.uk. Used with permission. “Craft Labor and the Development of Trade Unionism Among Building Tradesmen in Late Nineteenth Century New York,” by R. Mendel. (1998) Construction History. 3–20. Used with permission.

To Julius and Ruth, whose faith and confidence in their children always made a difference.

Contents

Preface Introduction Abbreviations 1 2 3 4

Workers in the Metropolitan Economies of New York and Brooklyn

ix xiii xxxiii 1

The State of Labor in 1886: Trade Union Development and the Springtime of Labor Reform

19

Cooperative Unionism and the Printers’ Reassertion of Craft Labor

47

Cigarmakers at the Crossroads: Defending a Craft or Organizing an Industry?

81

5

Building Tradesmen: Labor’s Militant Pragmatists

111

6

Garment Workers and the Travail of Seasonal Unionism

143

7

Labor and Electoral Politics in the 1890s: Trade Unionism by Other Means

175

Conclusion

187

Appendix A

197

Appendix B

201

Bibliography

205

Index

223

Preface

Tracing the influences on intellectual activity can take one along unanticipated paths. In my case I can look back on a family tradition of trade union activity. My paternal grandfather rose through the officialdom in one of New York City’s largest affiliates of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, while my father served as shop steward in another local in the Teamsters. Growing up in a union household it was easy to take trade union membership for granted. However, at university I became involved in the antiwar movement and became too aware of the movement’s tense relations with organized labor. Indeed trade unions appeared part of the so-called Establishment, conservative defenders of sectional interests rather than agents of progressive social change. In the 1970s, while working under a federal jobs program authorized by the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), I encountered trade unions in a different context. Seeking to cope with the consequences of a fiscal crisis, unions representing municipal workers ambiguously eyed the CETA program—simultaneously seeing CETA workers as potential threats to the job security of municipal employees while appealing to city and state labor boards for the right to organize and represent these same CETA workers. As I immersed myself in campaigns to protect the jobs of CETA workers in alliance with municipal workers, I appreciated how wary union officials were of organizing activity that seemed out of the union’s control and that apparently transcended conventional collective bargaining arrangements. In due time I moved from being an outside activist to an inside activist whereby I served as a shop steward, local vicepresident, and representative to the union’s delegate assembly. Then,

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upon commencing my studies for a PhD, I was hired by that union as one of two CETA Liaison Officers. Seeing unions from different perspectives and in multiple capacities, I was intellectually intrigued by the contingent character of trade union activity and development. My own experience had tempered if not cured me of reductionist tendencies and I hungered for the opportunity to study the history of trade unionism afresh. If open-mindedness and a creative approach to history is what I sought, I could not have chosen better than to study at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, where Herbert Gutman held court, so to speak. Although Gutman would die even before I wrote my PhD dissertation, his influence on my thinking was profound and indelible. I became leery of neat, linear patterns of historical development and more sensitive to the ways that historical agency could be read and appreciated. Yet as much as Gutman inspired me to approach working-class formation and workers’ collective activity as a practitioner of social history and what was then the so-called new labor history, events in the 1980s led many historians, sociologists, and industrial relations specialists to return to questions about institutional development. Labor unions which, for most of the post–World War era, were so well entrenched within the nation’s core industries were now facing assaults from the largest corporations. Aggressive union avoidance strategies and mass layoffs led to an absolute decline in union membership. Union influence was further chipped away by concessionary collective bargaining agreements that froze, if not cut, wages, scrapped cost-of-living allowances, and introduced two-tier wage scales. Not only were unions not organizing and recruiting workers, they were not successfully defending their members. While growing up union power was a given, by the time I began working on this book many observers were preparing obituaries for the labor movement, arguing that even with the return of vigorous rates of economic growth in the 1990s, unions were out of touch with the experience of workers in a postindustrial society and concomitantly revealed an inability to adapt to the realities of a global economy. Taking a longer historical perspective, I recognized that unions chronically faced an insecure future, most conspicuously during the formative period of corporate capitalism in the late Gilded Age and in the 1920s, when the cross-fertilization of big business and the federal government was transparent in public policy. Explaining how unions persevered under less than propitious circumstances and how they maintained the loyalty of workers, even when the concrete benefits often were illusive, posed a challenge. In the first instance, the questions I posed demanded that I examine the relationship between workers and their unions, proceed on the premise that unions sprung from workers’ experiences, and view skeptically the assumption that unions as bureaucratic organizations, were distant from workers’ lives and that their

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primary purpose was to advance the interests of careerists and not those of dues-paying members. In trying to meet this intellectual challenge I received invaluable assistance from a host of professionals, colleagues, coworkers, and friends. My research efforts were more productive thanks to the help provided by numerous librarians at the New York Public Library, British Library, and Senate House Library at the University of London. Staff in the Learning Resources Department at University College Northampton, especially Jane Marshall, Richard Bapty, Heather McBryde-Wilding, and Heather Whitaker, were never too busy to expedite the acquisition of material through interlibrary loans. Some remission from teaching duties and small but not insignificant grants from the Faculty of Social Science enabled me to complete my research and make headway in rewriting the manuscript. Practical assistance from friends afar and colleagues nearby were instrumental. Jerry Meyer offered some sensible advice on how to convert a dissertation to a book which retain the intellectual rigor of the former but is more accessible to the nonspecialist reader. Hadassa Kossak translated some documents from Yiddish to English and encouraged me to stick with the project. Jonathan Zeitlin and Rick Halpern read parts of much earlier renditions of the book and offered much appreciated advice. Andrew Dawson’s suggestions about reworking the introduction helped me to develop a more coherent structure and cogent set of arguments. David Brown read the penultimate version of the manuscript and indicated where I could present my arguments more succinctly and emphatically. Peter King provided me with wise council when I wrote my book proposal. Production of the manuscript would not have been possible without the expert input from Michelle Cook, of IT services at University College Northampton, and Diane Entwistle, the secretary for the School of Social Studies at University College Northampton. They helped me cope with the vagaries of scanning and editing as I converted the manuscript from an obsolete word processing software package to Microsoft Word. From beginning to end the entire enterprise received the warmest encouragement, the most consistent moral support and practical assistance from my partner, Anne Street. I am sure she will appreciate the hard labor that has gone into the research, writing, and editing of this book, which tested our stamina. Lastly, although none of my three children— Nathan, Jordan, and Maya—concretely contributed to the completion of this book, each in his/her own way helped to invigorate me, and thereby, made this journey feasible.

Introduction

Few cities in the late Gilded Age had a more vigorous labor movement than New York and Brooklyn.1 In the spring of 1886 many of the moreestablished unions in the printing and building trades spearheaded a drive for the eight–hour day. By the summer, union fever had caught hold among garment workers, hod-carriers, freight handlers, and cigarmakers employed in tenement house production. In the autumn, the trade union movement, bringing together craftsmen, factory operatives and laborers, launched Henry George’s candidacy for mayor of New York. Legions of printers, carpenters, cigarmakers, cloakmakers, tailors, and other workers marched and canvassed for labor’s alternative to Tammany Hall’s and the Republican Party’s candidates. Such a flurry of bold initiatives prompted a leading employers’ publication to forsee an unabated upsurge in political and industrial militancy.2 Brimming with hope, many immigrant male and female workers who were outside the house of labor raised the banner of a new unionism in which membership was not restricted according to skill, ethnicity, and gender. Craft workers, already empowered by trade union representation, such as printers and building tradesmen, strove to expand trade unionism’s reach into less-organized areas of their respective industries, as well as to maximize their collective influence vis-à-vis employers, by developing closer links among their unions. The last two decades of the nineteenth century have been neglected by labor historians despite the range of impressive literature that has added to our understanding of workers and trade unions in antebellum New York, the Civil War era, the early Gilded Age, and the Progressive era.3

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Available studies tend to be episodic—accounts of strikes and political campaigns—or highly specialized, focusing on individual organizations.4 What is missing for New York and Brooklyn is a systematic examination of how workers in both cities from a variety of occupations and industries sought to adapt or otherwise change the conditions engendered by industrial capitalism by forming trade unions and building a labor movement. The period from 1886 to 1898 in this context is particularly significant since 1886 witnessed an upsurge of organized labor, both on the industrial and political battlegrounds, and 1898 represented a more sober moment for New York’s labor movement that, in the wake of an acute and protracted depression, valued long-term survival more than visions of an emancipatory future. The relative lack of attention to the late Gilded Age is somewhat surprising. This was a fluid period, as suggested by the rise and decline of the Knights of Labor, the attendant expansion and contraction of inclusionist approaches to organizing workers, and the growth of craft unions—many affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL)—in industries where skilled workers still assumed a vital role in the production process. At least two unfortunate, if not deleterious, consequences for the study of labor history have resulted from not providing sufficient attention to developments in the late Gilded Age. First, there has been a tendency to read history backwards and to attribute to actors and their organizations of an earlier era features that prevailed in a later period, or to assume that, for example, the rise of the AFL in particular and business unionism in general were inexorable because both were ideologically, culturally, and institutionally compatible with the country’s social structure, market economy, and legal and political systems.5 Within this epistemological framework historical inquiry valorizes the outcomes of events and developments at the expense of the contingencies of the past. These can be assessed by reading history forwards from the perspective of historical actors who made choices based on what they felt was possible, preferable, and acceptable. Secondly, even after the new labor history’s assault on the whig theory of historical change embodied in much of the work by the practitioners of the old labor history, linear views of trade union development persist. The view that the origins of business unionism could be traced to the “market revolution” in antebellum America, and the normative observations advanced by John Commons, Selig Perlman, and Philip Taft that business unionism represented workers’ reconciliation to capitalist relations,6 rarely are explicitly embraced in recent scholarship. However, there has been a tendency to overstate certain features of trade union organization, policy and practice observable in the Gilded Age as prefigurative of a full-blown business unionism by the early twentieth century. Concomitantly, the ideological orientation of AFL leaders, such as Samuel Gompers, has received

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disproportionate if not misleading, attention. Otherwise useful considerations of “pure and simple” unions and voluntarism have suggested institutional behavior and indeed the labor movement’s character can be gleaned from the statements of selected leaders.7 Alternatively, conceptualizing the trade union experience in the late Gilded Age as adaptive unionism offers advantages to the labor historian who seeks to read history forwards. Adaptive unionism avoids the connotations of pure and simple (unadulterated by an interest in social reform), business unionism (an entrepeneurial-style management of unions), and “prudential” unionism (cautious, if not timid, disposition). Adaptation suggests fluidity, and implicitly rejects the premise that unions attained a fullyformed state of development. Adaptability implies contingency, and thereby facilitates an appreciation of the interactive process of trade unionism within the multiple contexts of industrial structures, political arenas, and state institutions. Furthermore, the concept potentially illuminates the diversity of trade unions’ strategic orientations, tactical measures, and organizational modus operandi, that an emphasis on charting a clear trajectory of trade unionism could obscure.8 Skilled workers assumed central roles in fostering an adaptive unionism that recognized the importance of strategic creativity, tactical flexibility, and organizational innovation. Building tradesmen who engaged in sympathy strikes were exemplars of a pragmatic militancy in defense of union standards. Their labor solidarity was not clearly defined ideologically or programatically; but nevertheless, it was no less meaningful, since it sprung from, and reinforced, interlocking institutional and occupational interests. Printers’ proactive and adaptive approach to trade unionism enabled them to defend their craft’s integrity even in the face of mechanization. Carefully planned and highly selective strikes to uphold union standards combined with a readiness to accommodate technological innovation insured that the printing industry would be jointly regulated by labor and management. Craft unions could, and did, display a capacity to forge alliances within the same industry and across occupational boundaries. Number Six of the International Typographical Union (No. 6) was instrumental in cultivating a cooperative unionism among other unions representing typographers, pressmen, and stereotypers in order to wage boycotts of newspaper publishers, promote union labels, and lobby the state legislature. Carpenters, under Peter McGuire’s leadership, made the most progress in eliminating the potentially corrosive effects of internecine conflict that often accompanied competing unions by forming a consolidated union, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners (UBCJ). Building trades’ unions, working through the Board of Walking Delegates, an industry-wide labor federation, encouraged greater cooperation, especially during disputes with employers.

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In short, craft unions, by virtue of their adaptability, displayed tenacity in the midst of an increasingly cold industrial relations environment during the Gilded Age. Faced with employers intent on raising productivity, reducing per unit costs, expanding market shares, as well as exerting control over the hiring, discharge and allocation of labor, skilled workers viewed craft unions as best suited to defend and advance their interests. Yet the persistence, if not, growth of craft unions should not be seen as a triumph for a more realistic and narrowly focused orientation at the expense of a movement that valued the fraternity of labor and workers’ solidarity. As skilled workers through their craft unions sought to meet the challenges of industrial capitalism, they maintained a broader vision in which cooperation and mutual support represented core principles. In this fundamental sense, the adaptativeness of craft unionism sounded neither a strategic retreat or, more pejoratively, expressed a disavowal of trade unionism’s transformative aims. An assessment of the experience of building tradesmen, cigarmakers, garment workers, and printers within New York’s labor movement calls for a reconsideration of the significance of the 1890s in the history of American trade unions.9 During the boom years of the late 1880s and early 1890s, unions representing workers from different backgrounds and distinct positions within the production process displayed a growing similarity in their organizing strategies, programmatic emphasis. and institutional arrangements. These practices predated the depression in the mid-1890s and evolved largely as an adaptation to local and specific industrial circumstances; and therefore, suggests labor historians have attributed too much explanatory power to national developments (the growth of corporate capitalism, the depression in the mid 1890s, and the marginalization of labor radicalism) or to individual events that apparently resonated with national significance (the Homestead strike and the Pullman boycott, for example). Implicit in this reinterpretation of craft unionism in the late Gilded Age is a conceptualization of trade unions in industrial capitalism. Trade union organization represented a marker of working class formation10 and, in the 1880s and 1890s, a remaking of the American working class as the nation’s factories, mines and workshops increasingly depended on the labor of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. During this period the structures of economic development and, with them, the social relations of production underwent significant transformation. Enterprises, as measured by the number of employees, capital stock, and scale of production, became larger. The pressures and opportunities presented by highly competitive markets induced manufacturers to become more efficient producers and increase market shares. Efficiency meant controlling, if not reducing, costs, especially for labor. Manufacturers in the iron and steel industry sought to lower per unit costs through technological

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innovation and reorganization of production, while owners of coal mines aimed to cut the total wage bill by tapping new and cheaper sources of labor. In some industries manufacturers pursued both strategies. In cigarmaking employers opened factories that deployed equipment and machinery; converted entire tenement houses to workplaces, and hired immigrant women and men from Bohemia, Germany, and Poland. In the ready-made clothing industry factories emerged, but unlike factory-produced cigars or shoe manufacturing, some phases of production were contracted to independent operators whose primary competitive advantage rested on their ability to recruit cheap labor among recently arrived Jewish immigrants from Tsarist Russia and Austria-Hungary. The logic of capital accumulation and the exigencies of market relations underpinned the expansion of industrial capitalism; but, neither, taken separately or combined, formed a working class per se nor shaped workers’ capacity to create trade unions. In one sense the structures of economic development remained distant, at least until workers identified a shared experience and articulated “conceived” interests based on that experience.11 In this context trade unions represented both the means by which workers collectively were able to define themselves and the results of organized activity. As one social historian put it, class constitutes “lived experience” based on agency, not autonomous from social, economic, cultural, and political landscapes but not environmentally conditioned by them either.12 Even if structure is not given primacy in understanding working class formation, an appreciation of structure does contextualize the process by which workers interacting among themselves decided upon organizational aims, specific courses of action to achieve these aims; and appropriate measures, rules, and procedures to sustain concerted activity. Moreover, the existence of a shared experience could be problematic. Divisions of labor that entailed distinctions by technically defined and socially constructed skills suggested the common terms of labor were not self-evident. Concomitantly, variations in labor markets, spatially (local, regional or national), industrially (specific labor requirements and needs), temporally (seasonal and cyclical shifts in demand). and competitively (their degree of openness or tightness) could produce even more differentiations among workers. Distinct positions within a division of labor and a labor market often overlapped with differences by gender and ethnicity whereby the production process contained male and female spheres. Some occupations became the domains of particular ethnic groups and some jobs became “ghettos” in which those from other ethnic groups were confined. A finely tuned micro approach, therefore, is necessary to identify the parameters of a shared experience within an occupation and industry.

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Such an inquiry which acknowledges the diversity of experience but simultaneously appreciates diversity is not necessarily an indicator of intra-class divisions or a portent of working class fragmentation. That skilled workers often organized craft unions indicated that their common reference points, in the first instance were narrowly framed. However, it would be misleading to infer from this development a proclivity to parochialism that discouraged broader activity, such as participation in coalitions and alliances with other labor organizations, or an insensitivity, if not hostility, to those workers who did not articulate an identity with a craft or occupation. There is another reason to adopt a finely tuned micro-approach. Recent scholarship, with an emphasis on exploring the impact of the state on the character of the labor movement, has provided a necessary corrective to a tendency among labor historians to downplay, if not overlook, the importance of government authority, the use of political power, and the formulation of public policy on the development of trade unionism. Despite making specific contributions to an understanding of the significance of judicial regulation and the intervention of federal officials on industrial relations, their work analyzes developments at the macro-level and thereby loses sight of the complexity of developments at the micro-level. Concomitantly, some of this work (by Forbath and Hattam, for example) has posited a clear trajectory for the labor movement in the late nineteenth century, resulting in the triumph of so-called business unionism characterized by insular-oriented craft union activity and a voluntaristic approach to the state and political action.13 Even Dubofsky’s circumspect approach, which interprets the thrust of state invention from 1870–1900 in a more ambiguous light, focuses on the statements and actions of presidents, attorney generals, federal court justices, and congressmen at the expense of what occurred in individual states and cities.14 An examination of judicial decisions, including the application of common law and the granting of injunctions, as well as the use of federal troops, undoubtedly sheds light on the power relations between capital and labor. However, what does state intervention in disputes involving major corporations in the nation’s core industries (railroads, iron, steel, and coal) suggest about the tenor of conflict in which the employers did not possess the organizational resources and operated in national markets as did Jay Gould’s Missouri Pacific, the Pullman Car Company, or the Carnegie Iron and Steel Company? How immediately relevant was the judicial curbing of mass strikes and secondary boycotts on behalf of the public interest to workers’ efforts to pressure employers for wage increases, a reduction in the workday, and better working conditions in industries where no manifest public interest could be demonstrated? When building tradesmen, cigarmakers, garment workers, and printers engaged in strikes or boycotts, they did so selectively and strategically,

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targeting individual firms and exercising their power as producers and consumers when circumstances were most favorable. Equally important, unions organized and applied economic pressure at the point of production and in the community at large without becoming ensnared in the web of judicial regulation or falling a foul with local law enforcement agencies. Neither the courts nor the police played any major role in affecting the dynamics or the outcome of the strikes waged by the four groups of workers, even those which involved a large percentage of the labor force, affected an entire industry, or became protracted disputes. The major strikes, such as those by the book and job printers (1887), the cigarmakers (1890), the cloakmakers (1890 and 1894), and the coatmakers (1894), were largely wars of attrition in which each side weighed the additional costs of resisting the other, be it lost wages and widespread dismissals, or lost revenue and a damaged market position. Focusing on agency does not suggest the application of a calculus of human behavior whereby individuals rationally weigh up the anticipated benefits and costs before acting, as represented in the rational choice paradigm developed by Mancur Olsen and others.15 To do so would eliminate, or at the very least, downgrade the importance of actors’ beliefs and values—both inherited and cultivated—which inform a disposition to act within particular situations. Nor should focusing on agency entail an insensitivity to the enabling and constraining effects of institutional structures. Marx, in warning against misguided “romantic” voluntarism and an over-determined materialism, aptly pointed to a contextualized agency: Men [sic] make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.16

It is important here to emphasize that the “circumstances transmitted from the past” did not consist solely of the accumulative impact of events but also included received ideas that helped men and women to interpret the meanings of events. By being sensitive to how structural and institutional factors can facilitate or, conversely, constrain agency, the historian can transcend the exaggerated gap between culturalist and institutionalist approaches to the study of labor and working class history.17 Both the culturalist and the institutionalist approaches offer potentially useful frameworks for exploring how workers defined a shared experience and acted upon that understanding. This study consciously draws from both approaches in recognition that they can complement each other. Culturalists emphasize the centrality of ideas, values, beliefs, and attitudes, but not at the expense of collective action; indeed, the examination

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of cultures of resistance and adaptation explicitly addresses the interactions among groups at workplaces and in communities and implicitly touches on the power relations between historical actors. The strength of the institutionalists, in part, resides in their systematic analysis of the sources of power, especially the capacities to act collectively and effectively, and the exercise of power with a view of appreciating both its functional characteristics (for example, within an industry or economic sector) and its dynamic features, whereby mechanisms of control are being challenged covertly, if not, overtly or when contestation gives way to acquiescence. Labor historians’ recent interventions have provided more nuanced conceptualization of class—class identity, consciousness, and relations.18 Essentialist notions about class have largely been jettisoned in recognition that the experiences bound up in gender, ethnicity, and race inform class as a lived experience. Potentially deterministic epistemologies, such as historical materialism and linguistic-discourse analysis, increasingly have been viewed as theoretical straightjackets, leading to one-dimensional inquiries or, even worse, reductionist studies. Likewise, efforts to revitalize Marxist theories of historical change have re-examined the relationship between structure and action. Instead of granting primacy to the former or deeming the latter a dependent variable, the relationship is more subtly framed. Even where action is conceptualized as a “structure,” as in the work of Elster and Post, the emphasis lies in understanding the strategic parameters of choices within structures of economic, political and cultural power.19 In this framework it is possible to recognize the decisions by historical actors can not be deduced by their position within a political economic system and their objectively situated “class interests.”20 How workers identified common interests, and under what circumstances this occurred, underscores the centrality of assessing relationships, especially those regarding the distribution of power. In this way the meaning of structures are “revealed” and acted upon, and thereby a collective consciousness is articulated.21 This process of interpreting structures as the contexts of concerted activity can be appreciated by examining workers’ experience at the points of production. Their encounters with the intensity of labor (increased work loads and/or accelerated work paces), job and income insecurity (seasonal, cyclical, and structural unemployment), and threats to customary practices and standards of craft labor (restructuring apprenticeships, deskilling, and less autonomous work relations) spurred many to devise means by which they could define or redefine their terms of employment. Thereby, some developed a conceived interest that emphasized the codetermination of wages, hours, and conditions in contrast to one unilaterally determined by employers, and, accordingly, valued greater stability within their occupation. Others articulated interests based on the reaffir-

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mation of claims, privileges, and rights cultivated in earlier stages of industrialization, including handicraft production. In both cases trade unions figured prominently in shaping the power relations at the workplaces, be it sewing machine operators who sought respite from reductions in piece rates and increases in production quotas, or typographers who strove to ensure that technological innovation did not augur a devaluation of their labor or, worse yet, displacement. This micro approach to workers’ experience in the late Gilded Age concentrates on four representative groups of workers—building tradesmen (bricklayers/masons, carpenters, painters, plasterers, and plumbers), printers (typographers and pressmen), garment workers, and cigarmakers. These four occupations constitute a core of New York’s and Brooklyn’s manufacturing base. They exemplify the diversity that marked industrialization. They provide an opportunity to understand the importance of ethnicity and gender in workers’ experience. Lastly, the union workers from these occupations formed were central to the development of not only the labor movement in both cities but in the nation at large. The cigarmaking, clothing, construction, and printing industries in the late nineteenth century demonstrated the diverse tracks of social and economic change. First, workers in each of these industries were vital to New York’s and Brooklyn’s growth. The building trades pulsated to the boom in residential and business construction; printing expanded with the increased importance of advertising in the marketing of goods and the development of a literate population; and the ready-made men’s and women’s clothing industries indicated the emergence of mass markets for consumer goods. These industries ranked in the top four in terms of net value (in descending order, men’s clothing, printing, women’s clothing, and cigarmaking). The four trades together had a labor force of 170,000, which constituted 17 percent of all New York’s gainfully employed adults and 56 percent of all the city’s manufacturing workers. Secondly, a variety of production systems, labor processes, and labor markets flourished among these trades. In printing, although the accelerated technological change in the last quarter of the nineteenth century resulted in a growing standardization of production and specialization of tasks, the typesetter or compositor experienced neither serious deskilling nor erosion of his position in a local craft labor market. In the building trades, standardization and the subdivision of work were the exception as bricklayers, painters, plasterers, and plumbers, among others, honed their skills with precision hand tools and, like printers, reaped the benefits of a healthy demand for craft labor. In contrast, cigarmakers and garment workers labored in multiple systems of production. The former traditionally found work with proprietors of small shops, often specializing in particular types of cigars. However, increasingly during the Gilded Age, these handicraft workers encoun-

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tered the competition of tenement house production and large-scale factories that used more up-to-date technology and tapped the supply of recently arrived immigrants, especially women, to promote a more detailed division of labor, that was essentially incompatible with the integrity of craft labor. In the garment trades, outside and inside work coexisted. Outside shops, more commonly called sweatshops, featured production under the guidance of a contractor who paid his employees from the amount he received from a wholesale manufacturer to complete an order. Inside shops consisted of small operations (less than 25 workers) run by tailors and large manufacturing concerns employing hundreds of workers. The former was prevalent in the men’s clothing industry, and the latter more characteristic of the women’s clothing industry. Common to the men’s and women’s clothing industries was the relative decentralization of production, whereby, only a part of the garment was processed at a given workplace. Moreover, in both industries the demand for the different grades of labor fluctuated seasonally and dramatically, except for cutters who enjoyed the most favorable conditions of employment in the garment trades. Thirdly, the composition of the four groups provides a cross-section of New York’s working class by ethnicity and gender. In 1890 more than 80 percent of New York’s and Brooklyn’s wage earners and 90 percent of their manufacturing workers were either first generation immigrants or their native-born offspring. Among garment workers, Russian and Polish Jews, Austrian-Hungarians, and Germans predominated; Bohemians and Germans filled the ranks of cigarmakers; more than half of the labor force in the printing industry was first and second generation Irish, German, and British; and among building tradesmen, German, Irish, and Scandinavian immigrants were conspicuous. In addition, in the garment trades and cigarmaking, women constituted a significant proportion of the workforce, and in some branches of the women’s clothing industry they were the majority. Fourthly, the unions created by these four groups of workers shed light on the complex dynamics of the labor movement in New York and Brooklyn. Unions in the building trades were very diverse, ranging from parallel and rival unions among painters and plumbers to the uncontested Bricklayers’ and Masons’ International Union. In the 1880s building tradesmen had knitted together an industry-wide network of unions, consisting of affiliates of the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor (AFL), that formed the core of the Central Labor Union (CLU), the city’s federation of labor unions. No. 6 of the International Typographical Union (ITU) featured an elaborate scale of prices covering pay rates for different kinds of composition work, a comprehensive package of benefits, and a well developed apprenticeship system. Accordingly, No. 6 had laid the

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foundation for systematic, collective bargaining, and appeared to epitomize the union that looked after its own. Local affiliates of the CMIU played a central role in the national union’s development. Few unions were faced more starkly with the challenges of industrialization than the cigarmakers, as the introduction of bunchmaking machines and suction tables ushered in the hiring of cheaper labor. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s the craft-oriented CMIU remained hesitant to organize those operating this new technology, although increasingly calls from below for a more flexible union structure appeared in the union’s journal and at annual conventions. Garment workers formed unions by skill, such as the Clothing Cutters and the Brotherhood of Tailors, and by trade, such as the Cloak Makers Union and Pantsmakers Union, and forged cross-trade links and industrywide cooperation under the aegis of the socialist-led United Hebrew Trades. Yet despite the emphasis of socialists and nonsocialists alike on the need for organizational coherence as the sine qua non for securing and defending material gains, most of garment workers’ collective activity took the form of “seasonal unionism,” rising in the midst of the busy phase of the trade cycle when workers’ expectations for improvements in pay and conditions spurred them to wage strikes, and falling as the slack phase arrived when employers exploited the opportunity to renege on earlier agreements. The experience of a critical mass of workers are encapsulated in these four industries. Therefore, an examination of how building tradesmen, cigarmakers, garment workers, and printers conceived their interests, both within an occupation and across occupations; adopted strategies to pursue these interests; and developed adaptable organizations could yield insights into the dynamics and character of trade unionism and the labor movement in the late Gilded Age. Under the influence of Herbert Gutman’s thesis that workers’ challenge to employers’ authority had been sharpest in smaller cities and towns, and that the labor movements of the older seaport cities were relatively weak, studies by so-called new labor historians have concentrated on industrial communities in the northeast.22 Easily overlooked, however, are two fundamental points: first, labor unions in two of the country’s largest cities represented a hub of the national labor movement and secondly, their members’ concerted activity were no less militant or sustained than their counterparts from smaller urban areas. In three cases New York affiliates were the linchpins of national unions. Among the printers No. 6 was for many years the flagship local of the ITU, setting standards on wage rates and the length of the work day. The New York locals provided the leadership for the CMIU, virtually from the union’s founding. The building trades’ unions in New York and Brooklyn spearheaded the mergers of competing organizations representing car-

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penters and plumbers, and thereby, created the foundation for viable national unions. In addition, the craft unions in New York led the way in developing more coordinated relations through the Board of Walking Delegates that was instrumental in promoting mutual support of strikes and boycotts, which reached their peak in the early 1890s and proved instrumental in defending the standards of craft labor. This solidarity across craft lines was noticeable in other cities, such as Chicago, Detroit, and San Francisco, where building trades councils or federations developed.23 The unions formed by garment workers in the 1880s and 1890s— notwithstanding their precarious existence—were the progenitors of the national organizations that rose between 1909 and 1914, such as the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union, and expressed the stirrings of manufacturing workers to forge links irrespective of skill levels and job classifications and thereby in part transcend the boundaries of gender and ethnicity in the working class. Some of the leaders of New York’s trade union movement became national spokespersons for organized labor. Samuel Gompers and Adolf Strasser, who helped to resuscitate the CMIU in the 1870s, were founders of the AFL, as was Peter McGuire from the UBCJ. All three gave testimony to Congressional and state legislative hearings on a variety of issues, including the sweating system in the garment trades, tenement house production in the cigarmaking industry, and judicial curbs on trade union activity. In the process they were able to gain support for labor’s reform agenda that stressed workers’ right to organize in order to improve their conditions of employment, the enactment of laws that set and enforced health and safety standards, and measures to cleanse the political process of monied power brokers and self-seeking/self-aggrandizing office holders. Developments in New York’s labor movement had national repercussions. The conflict between local affiliates of the CMIU and the Knights of Labor in 1886 led to a secession of craft unions from the latter and the formation of the AFL. The state of relations between socialists and nonsocialists in New York’s labor movement prefigured events on the national level. A relatively ecumenical milieu between 1886 and 1890, which was expressed in common programmatic priorities and a shared language of protest, began to give way to organizational wrangling and internecine conflict. The Central Labor Federation (CLF), influenced by the Socialist Labor Party (SLP), in effect vetoed Gompers’ nomination by the Republican Party to run for the state assembly in 1889, and in the following year the AFL convention voted not to seat Lucien Sanial, a SLP leader as a delegate from New York’s CLF. Relations deteriorated further in 1895, when the SLP and its supporters in the United Hebrew Trades launched the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, thereby creating a schism among unions in New York’s garment trades, New England’s cotton textile mills and boot and shoe factories, as well as Pennsylvania’s coal fields.24

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An examination of the interplay between the challenges and opportunities faced by employers and workers in the four industries provides a fuller understanding of the contingent character of labor relations in the late Gilded Age: that what appeared as imperatives to employers—cost-cutting measures, technological innovation, and control over labor—represented to workers examples of employers’ capacity unilaterally to define the terms of employment. In turn, workers’ concerted activity signified not only resistance to employer initiatives but also reassertion of standards, claims, and customs predicated on the experience of craft labor and articulated through trade union organization. That such a scenario generated conflict is no surprise. But what can we ascertain about the nature, thrust, intensity, and overall process of conflict? Under certain conditions conflict was self-generating and thereby destabilizing for employers and trade unions alike. In the garment trades frequent strikes jeopardized contractors’ ability to retain their business ties with wholesale manufacturers and simultaneously prevented unions from establishing a framework for collective bargaining. Chronic industrial conflict in some cases reminded one party that there were limits to its ability to impose its will on the other. In this context conflict helped to produce a modus vivendi, in which the prerogatives claimed by employers and the rights asserted by workers were mutually recognized. In the building trades, for example, the outbreak of sympathy strikes in the early 1890s pressured both unions and employers’ associations to seek agreements on procedural matters as well as substantive issues. In short, we can identify the factors that alternately promoted adversarial and accommodationist relations between employers and workers. This line of inquiry also casts light on how the world of work profoundly affected the breadth of trade union organization (density of membership and extent of recognition by employers) as well as the efficacy of trade union activity to influence the contours of the labor market, promote income security, and clarify the scope and intensity of the work effort. From this perspective we can understand trade union development as part and parcel of the movement building process.25 Although unions displayed different approaches in the ways they organized within specific industries, they remained committed to forging a programatic consensus about priorities and objectives that transcended occupational or industrial boundaries. Important to the appreciation of movement building is an understanding of the factors which facilitate the formation of federations, the development of networks, and the knitting of coalitions. Likewise, a focus on the strategies and the specific courses of action— boycotts, sympathy strikes, and union label campaigns, for example—can help explain how trade union mobilization contributed to the sense of belonging to a working class movement. In this vein, the cultural dimensions of trade unionism were critically important. The parades, rallies, and

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picnics attended by trade unionists as well as the poetry and vignettes of working class life that appeared in union newspapers, journals, and the socialist and anarchist press signified the cultivation of a collective sense of purpose and identity with a movement by, for, and of labor. In this context the immigrant composition of New York’s and Brooklyn’s working class contributed to the tenor and ethos of the labor movement. Irish immigrant dockers and building tradesmen treated the violations of established standards of conduct by employers and co-workers with a comparable disdain and ostracism shown by Irish cottage farmers and peasants against collaborators with British colonial rule. Boycotts of landlords in the Irish countryside found new meaning in Irish workers’ withdrawal of labor from employers who did not respect union standards and the refusal to work with those whose lack of trade union consciousness suggested a “unmanliness.”26 Peter McGuire, the President of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and one of the cofounders of the AFL, drew on this tradition of protest and resistance to define an ethical code of trade unionism. Jewish immigrant garment workers also drew sustenance from moral values that steeled them against oppression as an alien people in their original homelands in Tsarist Russia. Jewish immigrants lived by an ethical code embedded within religious beliefs that labor activists, as well as socialist and anarchist agitators, irrespective of their identification with Judaism, turned to as an imprimatur for collective action. Abraham Cahan, editor of the Arbeiter Zeitung (a Yiddish newspaper published in New York’s lower east side), tapped Old Testament allegories and rabbinical teachings to invest trade unionism with a moral legitimacy. In this way trade union membership and participation in strikes marked a commitment to struggle against injustice,27 which not only represented a reaffirmation of Judaic tradition but, in the eyes of Cahan and others, symbolized Jewish immigrants’ aspirations for American citizenship. The dynamics of an adaptive unionism and the importance of the late Gilded Age for its development highlight the cross-currents of a labor movement in flux: from the patricians among printers and building tradesmen to the plebians in the garment trades not to mention those in the cigarmaking craft in danger of falling from grace. Typographers, threatened by technological innovation, but empowered through trade union organization to adjust to its implementation, drew attention to the narrowing possibilities of craft regulation and the widening opportunities of collective bargaining. Building tradesmen, determined to uphold their handicraft tradition, combined the muscle of workplace militancy and overtures to the employers’ business sense to exert influence over the supply and demand for their skills. Garment workers, caught in the snares of a sweating system of labor in which wage rates (by the piece in the main) and work loads were inversely related, managed to score temporary

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improvements but few fundamental changes in industrial relations practices. Meanwhile, cigarmakers, who, upon seeing their occupation under serious strain, debated the merits of retaining a craft-based organization rather than adopting an industriallyfocused one. These themes proceed from an line of inquiry grounded in an exploration of structures and agency. The first chapter surveys the economies of both cities, with special emphasis on the diversity of manufacturing, as well as examines the symbiotic relationship between the immigrant experience and the changing composition of the late Gilded Age working class. It contextualizes the development and activity of unions within the framework of metropolitan industrialization and the process of working class formation. Chapter 2 places the labor activity of the four groups of workers within the context of the citywide labor movement. It assesses the state of labor in 1886, especially the extent of trade union organization, and discusses labor reform politics from 1881 to 1886 with particular emphasis on Henry George’s campaign for mayor of New York. Chapters 3 through 6 probe the worlds of work experienced by garment workers, cigarmakers, printers, and building tradesmen, and focus on how they sought to adjust to, if not overcome, economic insecurity and the restructuring of production relations. The major concern in these chapters is to appreciate the breadth and depth of trade unionism, and secondly, to identify and analyze the factors which facilitated and inhibited the formation of trade unions. In the last chapter I discuss the ways and reasons why the character of labor’s intervention in the political arena changed after 1886. The central argument here is that trade union involvement in electoral politics represented trade unionism by another means, and concomitantly trade unions displayed an adaptability to shifts in the political terrain which allowed them to exercise influence in municipal affairs. NOTES 1. Brooklyn was a separate city until 1898 when it became part of Greater New York. 2. See, for example, United States Tobacco Journal, October 30, 1886. 3. See Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, 1789–1860 (New York: Knopf, 1986); Richard Briggs Stott, Class, Ethnicity and Youth in Antebellum New York City (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989); Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984); Carl Degler, “Labor in the Economy and Politics of New York City, 1850–1860: A Study of the Impact of Early Industrialism” (unpublished PhD diss. Columbia University, 1952); Lawrence Costello, “The New York City Labor Movement, 1861–1873” (unpublished PhD diss., Columbia University, 1967); Melvyn Dubofsky, When Workers Organize: New York City in the Progressive Era (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1968); Irwin Yel-

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lowitz, Labor and the Progressive Movement in New York State, 1897–1916 (New York: Cornell University Press, 1965). 4. Notable exceptions to this observation are Richard J. Oestreicher, Solidarity and Fragmentation: Working People and Class Consciousness in Detroit, 1875–1900 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986) and Richard Schneirov, Labor and Urban Politics: Class Conflict and the Origins of Modern Liberalism in Chicago, 1864–97 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998). 5. Gerald Grob, Workers and Utopia: A Study of Ideological Conflict in the American Labor Movement, 1865–1900 (Evanston, Northern Illinois Press, 1961); Victoria Hattam, Labor Visions and State Power: The Origins of Business Unionism in the United States (Princeton University Press, 1993); Selig Perlman, A Theory of the Labor Movement (New York: MacMillan Press, 1928). 6. John Commons, David Saposs, and Helen Sumner et al., The History of Labor in the United States, Volumes 1 and 2 (New York: MacMillan, 1918); Perlman, A Theory of the Labor Movement; Philip Taft, The American Federation of Labor in the of Gompers, 1881–1924 (New York: Harper and Row, 1957). 7. Julie Greene, Pure and Simple Politics: The AFL and Political Activism, 1881–1917 (Cambridge University Press, 1998); Hattam, Labor Visions and State Power; John H.M. Laslett, “Samuel Gompers and the Rise of American Business Unionism,” in Melvyn Dubofsky and Warren Van Tine, Labor Leaders in America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), pp. 62–88. Notwithstanding my observation, all three of these works have made significant contributions to labor historians’ understanding of the factors influencing the development of the AFL’s strategic orientation and programatic emphasis. 8. See, for example, Eric Arneson, “American Workers and the Labor Movement in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Charles Calhoun, ed., The Gilded Age: Essays on the Origins of Modern America (Scholarly Resources, 1996), pp. 39–62; and Bruce Laurie, Artisans to Wage Workers (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997). Arneson’s otherwise insightful survey stresses the exclusionist tendencies of craft unionism and Laurie’s provocative interpretation of the evolution of prudential unionism underscores the AFL’s defensive and insular orientation. Both thereby downplay if not neglect the solidaristic and inclusionist features of craft unionism during the late Gilded Age. In New York this was most manifest in sympathy strikes waged by building tradesmen, the broad support for boycotts launched by the Cigar Makers International Union and the willingness of craft unions to assist organizing efforts of factory operatives and sweatshop hands. 9. One view, influenced by a general belief that a mature trade unionism had evolved in the post–World War II era, stressed the rise of professional and careeroriented trade unionists during the 1890s. See Robert Christie, Empire in Wood: A History of the Carpenters Union (New York: Cornell University Press, 1956) and Lloyd Ulman, The Rise of the National Trade Union (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1955). Another view, following the lead of Selig Perlman, cast the 1890s as a decade where a job conscious unionism triumphed over utopian labor reformism. See for example, Gerald Grob, Workers and Utopia. Philip Foner, A History of the Labor Movement in the United States Volume II (New York: International Publishers, 1955) has interpreted the developments in the 1890s in a more pessimistic light, contending that a conservative business unionism took hold in the labor movement. Bruce Laurie, Artisans into Workers, argues, in less pejorative

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terms, that the prudential unionism embodied in the AFL became stronger in the wake of depression, employer hostility, and state repression. 10. Jerry Lembcke, Capitalist Development and Class Capacities: Marxist Theory and Union Organization (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1988), pp. 3–9, stresses the relationship between uneven development historically and spatially— and working-class formation, especially workers’ capacity to act as a collectivity. See also Goran Therborn, “Why Some Classes Are More Successful Than Others,” New Left Review 138 (March–April 1983), pp. 37–55. 11. For a theoretical framework to understand the process of working class formation see Ira Katznelson and Aristide Zolberg, eds., Working-Class Formation: Nineteenth Century Patterns in Western Europe and the United States (Princeton University Press, 1985). The term conceived interests is derived from Robert Max Jackson The Formation of Craft Labor Markets (New York: Academic Press, 1984). 12. E.P. Thompson, “The Peculiarities of the English,” in Ralph Miliband and John Saville, eds., Socialist Register (London: Merlin Press, 1966) and The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1963). 13. William Forbath, Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement (Cambridge, Harvard University: 1991); Victoria Hattam, Labor Visions and State Power: The Origins of Business Unionism in the United States (Princeton University Press, 1993). 14. Melvyn Dubofsky, The State and Labor in Modern America (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press: 1994), pp. 1–35. 15. Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965). See John Kelly, Rethinking Industrial Relations: Mobilization, Collectivism and Long Waves (London: Routledge, 1998), pp. 66–82 for a lucid discussion and critique of rational choice theory. 16. Karl Marx, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” Christopher Pierson, ed., The Karl Marx Reader (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997). 17. There has been considerable heat and some insight generated by debates among labor historians, specialists in industrial relations and sociologists about the purported tyranny of culturalism in the new labor history and the narrow institutionalist perspective of those making trade unions the focus of their inquiry. For example, Jerry Lee Lembcke, “Labor History’s ‘Synthesis Debate’: Sociological Interventions,” Science and Society, 59 (Summer 1995), pp. 137–173; Symposium: Toward Synthesis in Labor Studies, especially contribution by Howard Kimeldorf, Science and Society, 60 (Winter 1996–1997), pp. 467–494; Ira Katznelson, “The Bourgeois’ Dimension: A Provocation About Institutions, Politics and the Future of Labor History,” International Labor and Working-Class History, 46 (Fall 1994), pp. 7–32; Howard Kimeldorf, “Bringing the Unions Back In (Or Why We Need a New Old Labor History),” with comments by Michael Kazin, Alice Kessler-Harris, David Montgomery, Bruce Nelson, and Daniel Nelson, Labor History, 32 (Winter 1991), pp. 91–129. 18. See, for example, Eric Arnesen, Julie Greene and Bruce Laurie, eds., Labor Histories: Class, Politics and the Working-Class Experience (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), especially the introduction; and Leon Fink, In Search of the Working Class: Essays in American Labor History and Political Culture, especially “Looking Backward: Reflections on Workers’ Culture and Certain Conceptual Dilemmas within Labor History.”

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19. Jan Elster, Making Sense of Marx (Cambridge University Press 1985); Ken Post, Regaining Marxism (The Hague: Institute of Social Studies, 1996). 20. Howard Sherman, Reinventing Marxism (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995) and Alex Callinicos, Making History (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987). In contrast, G.A. Cohen, Karl Marx’s Theory of History (Clarendon Press, 1978) argues class position (the “objective place in the network of ownership relations”), “strongly conditions consciousness, culture and politics.” (p.73) 21. Neville Kirk, Labour and Society in Britain and the USA, Volume I: Capitalism, Custom and Protest, 1780–1850 (Scolar Press, 1994), p. 9. 22. See Herbert Gutman, “The Worker’s Search for Power: Labor in the Gilded Age,” in H. Wayne Morgan, ed., The Gilded Age: A Reappraisal (Syracuse University Press, 1963). Taking a different approach from mine but arriving at a compatible conclusion is David Gordon who argues that manufacturers relocated to areas where trade unions were absent or labor activity was less conflictual. See “Capitalist Development and the History of American Cities, “ William Tabb and Larry Sawers, eds., Marxism and the Metropolis: New Perspectives in Urban Political Economy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984). For examples of community-based studies by new labor historians, see John Cumbler, Working-Class Community in Industrial America: Work, Leisure and Struggle in Two Industrial Cities, 1880–1930 (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1979); Leon Fink, Workingmen’s Democracy: The Knights of Labor in American Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983); and Daniel Walkowitz, Worker City, Company Town: Iron and Cotton Worker Protest in Troy and Cohoes, New York (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978). 23. See Richard Schneirov and Thomas Suhrbur, Union Brotherhood, Union Town: The History of the Carpenters’ Union in Chicago, 1863–1987 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988); Richard Oestreicher, Solidarity and Fragmentation: Working People and Class Consciousness in Detroit 1877–1895 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986); and Michael Kazin, Barons of Labor: The San Francisco Building Trades and Union Power in the Progressive Era (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987). 24. For accounts of the nineteeth century socialist movement that link developments in New York with those nationally, see William Dix, Labor and Socialism in America and Howard Quint, The Forging of American Socialism: Origins of the Modern Movement (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964). 25. I treat the labor movement as a social movement which constituted a “collective challenge by people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interaction with elites, opponents and authorities,” Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 3–4. Consequently, I have focused on the character of the labor movement’s challenge (its breadth and depth), the opportunities for and constraints on mobilization, and the dynamics of interaction with employers, in the main; and, to a lesser degree, with political leaders and government’ officials. Also relevant here is the process by which dissatisfaction develops into a sense of injustice; and, in turn, coalesces into group interest and finds expression in collective action. See for example, William A. Gamson, “Constructing Social Protest,” in H. Johnston and B. Klandermans, eds., Social Movements and Culture (London: University College London Press, 1995); Bert Klandermans, The Social Psychology of Protest (Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishers, 1997); and Doug McAdam, John

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D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald, “Social Movements,” in Neil Smelser, ed., Handbook of Sociology (Beverley Hills, California: Sage Publications, 1988), pp. 125–154. 26. David Montgomery, “Workers’ Control of Machine Production in the Nineteenth Century,” in Workers’ Control in America (Cambridge University Press, 1979); The Fall of the House of Labor (Cambridge University Press, 1987); Ilene A. De Vault,”’To Sit Among Men’: Skill, Gender, and Craft Unionism in the Early American Federation of Labor,” in Arnesen et al., eds., Labor Histories. 27. Barrington Moore, Jr., Injustice: The Social Bases of Obedience and Revolt (White Plains, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1978).

Abbreviations

AFL BMIU CLF CLU CMIU IPPU ITU PLP SLP UBCJ UBT UGT UGW UHT

American Federation of Labor Bricklayers and Masons International Union Central Labor Federation Central Labor Union Cigar Makers International Union International Printing Pressmen’s Union International Typographical Union Progressive Labor Party Socialist Labor Party United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners United Brotherhood of Tailors United German Trades United Garment Workers United Hebrew Trades

CHAPTER 1

Workers in the Metropolitan Economies of New York and Brooklyn

A flurry of economic activity noted for its diversification and volume supported New York’s and Brooklyn’s development. In New York, for example, manufacturing, commerce, finance, and wholesale and retail trade flourished. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, both cities hosted numerous manufacturing industries of which ready-made men’s and women’s clothing and printing and publishing were most prominent. Many commercial institutions, including the Cotton, Produce, Mechanics, and Trades Exchanges, and, of course, the New York Stock Exchange were located in lower Manhattan. Over 100 trust companies, commercial and savings banks, among them the largest in the nation, operated in the city. New York served as the nation’s major hub for import-export trade, with 65 percent of the United States’ imports and 41 percent of its exports in 1890 passing through the city’s docks, railway depots, and warehouses.1 Assessed by all available measurements, the economic expansion of New York and Brooklyn from 1880 to 1900 was vigorous. (see Tables 1.1 and 1.2) The number of business establishments more than doubled, and the number of workers increased by half. Likewise, wages earned jumped two-fold, capital invested more than doubled, and sales value climbed by almost two-thirds. Brooklyn, during the same period, experienced a comparable economic expansion. The number of establishments doubled and capital invested more than doubled, while the number of workers leaped slightly more than twofold and the wages they earned tripled. The economic growth and development of New York and Brooklyn during the late Gilded Age reflected a more general transformation of the nation’s industrial map. The country’s urban population and number of

2

“A Broad and Ennobling Spirit”

Table 1.1 Economic Growth of New York

(Manhattan and Bronx)

Table 1.2 Economic Growth of Brooklyn

* All figures for wages, capital, and sales are in thousands. Sources: United States, Census Office, Eleventh Census (1890); Manufacturing in Cities, Bulletin 211, 3 and Bulletin 213, 3; and Twelfth Census (1900), Manufactures, Part II, p. 594.

production workers (excluding sales, clerical and managerial personnel employed by manufacturing concerns) doubled between 1880 and 1900. The rapid rate of growth in the industrial labor force nationally represented the economic development of the Trans-Mississippi West, especially the expansion of the railway system as well as the growth of the mining and lumber industries. During the same period the number of workers in Brooklyn likewise doubled, while in New York the city’s labor force increased by 51 percent (see Tables 1.1 and 1.2). Brooklyn’s labor force grew at a faster rate than New York’s largely because its population was growing at faster rate (by 100 percent compared to 30 percent for Manhattan and the Bronx), which in turn spurred the development of many of its fringe areas such as East New York, Brownsville, and Red Hook. The breadth of manufacturing in New York and Brooklyn particularly was impressive. Unlike other manufacturing centers neither New York nor Brooklyn was identified with any one industry. No industry stood out as did Lynn’s shoemaking, Pittsburgh’s iron and steel, Milwaukee’s brewing, or Kansas City’s meatpacking industries. In this respect, New York’s and Brooklyn’s economic development was similar to that of older coastal cities, such as Philadelphia and Boston, where manufacturing diversity prevailed. In Philadelphia textiles and clothing led the way, followed by

Workers in the Metropolitan Economies of New York and Brooklyn

3

machine building, shipbuilding, and the building trades, while woolen textiles, boot and shoe manufacturing, and numerous smaller consumer goods production predominated in Boston and its environs.2 In Manhattan, especially below 14th Street, a host of manufacturing industries thrived. In the older and more densely populated sections, the men’s and women’s clothing industries predominated as factories and tenement shops appeared to multiply weekly. Production in the cigarmaking industry, likewise, occurred in large factories, small shops, and the apartments of immigrants. Interspersed among these industries were the various branches of the apparel industry—men’s furnishings, fur goods, silk wear, hats, millinery, and boots and shoes. Also below 14th Street in the vicinity of City Hall the manufacturing of stationery and envelopes, the publishing of the many daily newspapers, the printing of books and periodicals, and the production of printing presses and other equipment flourished.3 Further uptown, between 14th and 59th Streets, along blocks radiating from the Hudson River on the west side and from the East River on the east side, were medium sized metal works, furniture making establishments, shops specializing in the production of musical instruments, and food processing businesses. North of 42nd Street could be found some of Manhattan’s largest workplaces: on the west side—breweries, piano making plants, and slaughterhouses—and on the east side—sugar processing plants and slaughterhouses. On the east side, north of 50th Street and reaching into East Harlem north of 96th Street, cigarmaking, cabinetmaking, upholstering, baking, and custom-made clothing businesses opened and expanded operations, indicative of Manhattan’s uptown development. Further north, in the borough of the Bronx, along the Harlem River between 135th and 149th Streets, manufacturers took advantage of convenient railway transport and lower rents to set up facilities producing pianos, furniture, and iron goods.4 Diversity also marked Brooklyn’s manufacturing base. At the heart of Brooklyn’s economic development stood its waterfront where the majority of the ships entering the metropolitan area delivered their goods and where many of the city’s manufacturing plants took root. In Williamsburg, sugar-refining plants, grain elevators, and refrigerator factories occupied the waterfront. Many Manhattan-headquartered firms had their production facilities there. For example, Henry Worthington and Company, whose offices were located in lower Manhattan, maintained a plant several blocks long where steam pumps used to pump water were manufactured. Both D. Appleton and Company and A.J. Barnes had their offices in Manhattan while the actual printing and binding was done in Brooklyn.5 More common in Williamsburg and other manufacturing areas in Brooklyn, such as Greenpoint, were modest-sized, mechanized factories and traditional handicraft shops. Here Brooklyn’s glassware industry,

4

“A Broad and Ennobling Spirit”

steeped in the skilled craftmanship of hand tool technology, and the porcelain industry, driven by mechanization, coexisted. Not to be overlooked were Brooklyn’s breweries, glue factories, and iron foundries as well as its smaller specialized machine producing shops and architectural iron works.6 Although both New York and Brooklyn experienced comparable rates of economic growth that rested on diversified industrial foundations, there were differences in the industrial economies of both cities. New York’s manufacturing tended to concentrate on light industry directly providing consumer goods to its rapidly expanding population. (See Appendix A—Table A.1.) Light manufacturing included many of the city’s leading industries: the ready-made men’s and women’s clothing industries and cigarmaking. Taken as a whole, the multifaceted apparel industries provided the most employment and generated the greatest amount of sales revenue. The apparel trades employed more than 100,000 workers (representing 30 percent of New York’s manufacturing work force) and had an output valued at over $190 million (representing one-quarter of the city’s manufacturing output).7 Brooklyn contained a greater mix of heavy and light manufacturing, and the emphasis of its industrial activity, in contrast to that of New York, remained in producing a wide variety of goods both to businesses as well as individual consumers. Four of Brooklyn’s leading industries by value of output included heavy manufacturing—sugar refining, foundry work, meatpacking, and slaughtering—and two consisted of light manufacturing—bread and other bakery goods and men’s clothing. Lower property values attracted investment, especially in larger scale manufacturing. Even in less capital-intensive industries lower outlays on rents and land purchases fueled rapid expansion. A case in point was the growth of Brownsville as a center of the women’s clothing industry and concomitantly as a burgeoning Jewish immigrant community. By 1900 an estimated 7,000 workers were employed in cloakmaking shops, many of which had relocated from New York’s lower east side.8 In addition, much of Brooklyn’s manufacturing focused on supplying the material, equipment and machinery necessary for the production of finished goods. These included lumber yards, painting mills, sugar refineries, foundries, machine-tool shops, and the makers of specialized machinery such as printing presses.9 Many of the customers of Brooklyn’s manufacturers were just across the East River among New York’s building contractors, furniture makers, and newspaper and book publishers. Although there were important differences in the economic development of New York and Brooklyn, manufacturing in both cities shared three characteristics: (1) a highly competitive market in which there was easy entry into and exit from the industry, and where no single firm or group of firms claimed a lion’s share of sales; (2) low capital requirements,

Workers in the Metropolitan Economies of New York and Brooklyn

5

especially on machinery and physical plant; and (3) a significant dependency on the investment in labor for gains in productivity. The scale of operations of most manufacturing firms, as measured by the number of employees, was modest. Brooklyn’s manufacturing workers commonly worked at sites with less than ten employees. (See Appendix A—Table A.2.) Only among foundry and machine shop workers and lumber yard and mill hands was it usual that large groups of workers labored together. New York’s manufacturing workers labored in workplaces that on the average were larger than those in Brooklyn. In six of the leading industries as measured by employment, work sites averaged more than twenty workers, which, nevertheless was small when compared to factory based industries such as steel, textiles, and meatpacking where manufacturing plants commonly consisted of more than twothousand workers.10 The modest scale of operations was also reflected in small shares of the industry’s sales revenue. In New York, for instance, custom-made men’s clothing shops sold on the average $10,000 worth of goods, and cigarmaking concerns grossed an average $26,000. Less extreme, but nevertheless indicative of competitive market conditions, were the two branches of the printing industry in which gross sales revenue ranged on the average from $69,000 in newspaper publishing to $30,000 in book and job printing. In Brooklyn, the pattern became even more pronounced in three industries (ranked among the top five in employment and the top ten in value of sales)—men’s clothing, carpentering, and bread and bakery goods— sales revenue averaged below $20,000. In short, except for a few industries, which collectively employed only an infinitesimal proportion of the manufacturing labor force, petty production prevailed both in New York and Brooklyn.11 Characteristic of petty production were low capital requirements; relatively little investment in machinery, equipment, and physical plant; and concomitantly a greater aggregate expenditure on labor as a factor of production. The factory produced men’s clothing, women’s clothing, and cigarmaking industries in New York, and men’s clothing and carpentry in Brooklyn represented the most glaring examples. Although employers in these industries were introducing innovative equipment and devices, for a variety of reasons their primary concern was guaranteeing an adequate supply of labor. Consequently, in these industries a subcontracting system emerged which involved the use of middlemen to hire the labor and oversee the actual day-by-day organization of work. Subcontracting tended to retard investment in technological development, or at least block the dissemination of technological breakthroughs. Significantly, printing and construction did not adhere to the pattern demonstrated by most of New York’s and Brooklyn’s manufacturing industries. First, printing was a less decentralized and divided industry—with

6

“A Broad and Ennobling Spirit”

fewer employers entering and leaving the industry. Newspaper publishing and book and job printing relied on investments in typesetting machines and sophisticated presses which raised capital requirements, and thereby encouraged the emergence of larger firms. Moreover, production—the setting of type and the printing of copy—was completed at one site, or at the least under the direction of the same firm. Secondly, the technostructure of these industries stressed skilled labor. In the building trades machine technology aided the preparation of construction materials—bricks, wood, architectural iron, concrete, for example, but the use of hand tools prevailed in on-site work. In the printing industry, the introduction of typesetting machines, printing presses, and photo reproducing equipment revolutionized the production process, increased plant capacity, expanded physical output and lowered per unit costs. Yet, printer and employer alike valued the knowledge compositors and pressmen acquired during a formal apprenticeship. Whereas in the construction industry machine technology could not embody the knowhow of building tradesmen, in the printing industry, the maximum potential of machine technology could not be realized without the printers’ skills. In sum, no single industry dominated either city’s economy, although by volume of sales and numbers of workers the apparel trades, the printing industry, and the building trades had assumed leading positions.12 For example, New York’s men’s clothing industry generated 30 percent of the national output of men’s garments. Moreover, unlike other manufacturing centers, heavy industry failed to sink deep roots in either city. Consequently, most manufacturing operations remained modest, employed few workers per site, possessed limited assets, and claimed a minor share of the market. Possessing few economic resources to weather the trials and tribulations of a volatile market, most firms desperately sought to control labor cost and increase productivity. For example, in the cigarmaking and garment trades employers tapped a pool of cheap labor and intensified the work effort of their largely immigrant labor forces. Cigar manufacturers set up tenement house production in Manhattan’s Upper East Side where entire families, as a condition of their tenancy, were employed to strip tobacco and roll cigars at rates far lower than claimed by union cigarmakers hired in small specialty shops. Cloak and coat manufacturers contracted out work to proprietors of store front operations who squeezed production from workers through a task system whereby wage rates were pegged to the number of tasks (cloaks or coats) completed. In both cases workdays were unregulated and elastic, ranging from twelve to fifteen hours in the busy seasons, and working conditions unsanitary and unsafe.13 Immigrant labor assumed a critical place in the economic development of both cities. The observation by a clergyman that “not every working-

Workers in the Metropolitan Economies of New York and Brooklyn

7

man is a foreigner, but in the cities at least, it may almost be said that every foreigner is a workingman”14 rang especially true in late Gilded Age New York and Brooklyn. In 1890, among all occupations, excluding the selfemployed (proprietors), professionals (doctors, lawyers, and teachers), and managerial personnel (bankers and company officers, for example), 82 percent of New York’s and Brooklyn’s gainfully employed men consisted of the foreign-born and their native-born sons, and 88 percent of the female labor force consisted of immigrant mothers and their daughters.15 A multi-ethnic working class was not peculiar to New York and Brooklyn. In 1890, 56 percent of the gainfully employed men in U.S. manufacturing and mechanical industries were either foreign-born or their native-born sons. This sector provided more employment to first-generation immigrant and second-generation men than any other group of occupations, including agriculture, which in the 1890 Census encompassed mining as well as farm proprietors and farm laborers. In Detroit, for example, 54 percent of the labor force in 1890 were foreign-born, with Germans leading the way.16 Indeed, during the late Gilded Age, immigrants, in the main from Eastern and Southern Europe, were helping to make a third American working class.17 This reconstituted working class had by the first decade of the twentieth century become the bedrock of the labor forces in many of the nation’s major industries, including steel, coal mining, cotton and woolen textiles, and the garment trades. For many immigrants their entry into an industrial labor force signified a dramatic transformation in social position—from casual laborer to factory operative, from sharecropper and cottage farmer to wage worker, from peasant to proletarian. Ethnicity and gender informed the remaking of New York’s and Brooklyn’s working class, as evidenced by distinct patterns of occupational clustering displayed by male and female immigrants and their native-born offspring. Germans numerically dominated within such goods-producing occupations as bakers, butchers, cabinetmakers, cigarmakers, tailors, and woodworkers. The Irish stood out most clearly in the building trades— plastering, plumbing, masonry and stone cutting—and in transportation and the handling of goods, employed as steam railway and streetcar workers, teamsters, draymen, and packers. First-generation British immigrants, while only representing about five percent of all wage earners and six percent of all manufacturing workers, constituted at least one-tenth and as much as one-fourth of New York’s and Brooklyn’s skilled occupations—printers, machinists, marble and stone cutters, plumbers, masons, carpenters, and shipbuilders. Not to be overlooked, although not specifically delineated by government reports, such as the U.S. Census, recently arrived immigrants from Eastern, Southern, and Central Europe massed into the flourishing garment trades, the apparel industries, especially boots and shoes, the silk good industry, and cigarmaking.18

8

“A Broad and Ennobling Spirit”

The tendency for certain immigrant groups to gravitate to particular occupations appeared in numerous cities. Both first and second-generation Irish established footholds in Chicago’s and Philadelphia’s textile and carpet making industries and second-generation Irish particularly were conspicuous within the building trades in both cities. German immigrant workers in Chicago from 1880 to 1900 disproportionately occupied skilled positions in trades with origins in handicraft production. First-generation Germans maintained a niche among such occupations as bakers, butchers, cigarmakers, tailors, and carpenters, although by 1900 cigarmaking and tailoring had become less attractive because of changes in production methods and comparatively lower rates of compensation. Meanwhile, second-generation Germans tended to enter the more-specialized divisions of furniture making and metal trades.19 The composition and occupational distribution of the female workforce in New York City and Brooklyn varied in significant respects from their male counterparts. Foreign-born men were more likely than foreign-born women to be employed in manufacturing, with the former constituting more than four-fifths of both cities’ male manufacturing labor force, and the latter representing just under three-fifths of the female manufacturing labor force.20 The lower rate of participation in the manufacturing labor force among foreign-born women stemmed in large part from their genderdefined roles as wives and mothers which restricted many to householdbased labor and, to a lesser extent, the fears of some immigrant groups that wage labor outside the home left women vulnerable to the sexual abuse of male coworkers and foremen. The fact that the overwhelming majority of immigrant women were over 25 and that half of their native-born offspring were between 15 and 24 years old21 influenced the specific composition of the female wage earning labor force. Census reports and studies prepared by the U.S. government indicated that female wageworkers, whether foreign or native born, were predominantly drawn from the 15 to 24 age group. In New York and Brooklyn women from this age group represented almost 60 percent of women wage earners. Conversely, they showed that women over 25 who were usually married and raising a family were less likely to become wageworkers. In fact, it was rare in the United States as a whole for married women, regardless of age, to be engaged in wage work outside the household.22 The importance of age, marital status, and birthplace among New York’s and Brooklyn’s women workers conformed to the U.S. pattern. Single, young women were more likely to become wage earners than married women. However, native-born single, young women—both whose parents were native-born or foreign-born—were less likely to perform wage labor than their foreign-born counterparts. This difference in the labor force participation among single, young women arose from the economic

Workers in the Metropolitan Economies of New York and Brooklyn

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status of the male heads of households. Native-born men found greater employment opportunities in skilled, manual work and white-collar positions which offered primary wage earners higher incomes. Immigrant men, especially from Germany and Ireland, experienced occupational mobility within manufacturing as recently arrived immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe supplied many industries with relatively unskilled labor. In brief, as the incomes of fathers and husbands rose, the overriding need for their daughters to work declined. The relative significance of immigrant women and their native-born daughters (second generation) in the labor forces of New York and Brooklyn deviated from the national pattern largely because the foreign-born represented a greater proportion of the overall population in both cities than they did for the nation’s population at large. In the United States the majority of women who worked as wage earners, regardless of age, were the native-born daughters of the foreign-born. This was especially applied to those between 15 and 24, because the number of second-generation women doubled that of immigrant women. However, in New York and Brooklyn, in 1890, immigrant women outnumbered second-generation women among all wage-earning occupations, (i.e., exclusive of the selfemployed, professionals and managers).23 Women’s participation in manufacturing followed a checkered pattern. In New York City, for example, both foreign-born women and their nativeborn daughters, in almost equal proportions, worked in the garment trades, while the former almost tripled the number of the latter engaged in cigarmaking. Conversely, second-generation women more than quadrupled immigrant women in the printing trades as compositors, bookbinders and engravers. Distinctions in the work experiences of immigrant women and their native-born daughters stemmed from features specific to certain industries and trades. Some of the phases of clothing manufacturing and cigarmaking were done at home, thereby facilitating the employment of the foreignborn, especially women with children. For example, homework prevailed in the felling and finishing phases of coatmaking and the making of children’s wear. In addition, before arriving in the United States young girls learned the use of a needle, thread and even sewing machine in preparation for wifehood and motherhood, and cigarmaking had become a traditional trade for women in regions of Germany and Bohemia.24 On the other hand, printing, done exclusively outside the home, contained skills learned not in the course of performing household duties and, in the case of typesetting, usually required literacy in English—all of which favored the participation of second-generation rather than immigrant women. Regardless of place of birth, women’s position in the labor forces of the clothing, cigarmaking, and printing industries shared some common features. Between 1880 and 1900 women represented a majority of the cloak-

10

“A Broad and Ennobling Spirit”

making work force, especially in the larger factories, and about 40 percent of those making coats and men’s suits. In any case, they were concentrated in the lower paid jobs and supervised by men, especially where teamwork prevailed. In the cigarmaking industry, although women were a minority, in the larger factories which deployed the most up-to-date technology and the tenement house shops, they often constituted the bulk of the labor force. For many male members of the Cigar Makers International Union who considered their occupation a craft, the influx of women was closely associated with sub-standard wage rates and working conditions. In the printing trades, job segregation appeared more firmly entrenched. Women were more likely to find employment with book and job firms than with publishers of the larger newspapers, and while they worked in the composing and bookbinding departments, they were conspicuously absent from the press rooms. The engendered division of labor translated into lower pay rates and often-longer workdays, especially in nonunionized shops.25 Notwithstanding differences in background, recently arrived immigrants were being incorporated into an industrial labor force. Emerging from rural agricultural or nascent urban-industrial societies, recently arrived immigrants experienced proletarianization as uprooted peasants (Southern Italians and migrants from Western Ireland in the main); adrift luftmenshn (many Eastern European Jews without a documented skill or trade); or craftsmen whose traditional skills were less needed and valued by an industrializing society (numerous Germans). Immigrants displayed similar approaches to finding their way in New York and Brooklyn even if the specific paths they chartered varied. Immigrants often had a clear destination, more precise than just Manhattan. For example, each of the five Italian colonies in New York attracted immigrants from certain provinces, and in Little Italy, between Houston and Canal Streets, not only individual streets but tenement houses attracted former residents from the same Italian town.26 Equipped with the names and addresses of relatives and friends, new arrivals sought familiar faces and voices if not familiar grounds. Settling with their compatriots permitted immigrants to cope with the vagaries of urban-industrial life. When Samuel Cohen arrived at Castle Garden in 1880, after almost a month’s journey from Russia, he was met by his Uncle Ben, who took him, his brother, and sister-in-law to Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side where they were to live together. Sam was put to work in his uncle’s grocery store, at least until he decided he could better on his own as a peddler.27 Even when kinship ties were not immediately evident, clustering of immigrants and employment opportunities were closely linked. Jewish immigrants gravitated to Manhattan’s Lower East Side because they knew landsmen from the old country who were contractors and operators in the

Workers in the Metropolitan Economies of New York and Brooklyn

11

garment trades or heard of the German clothing and cigar manufacturers’ tendency to hire “greenhorns.” Abraham Cahan recalled finding work with the cigarmaking firm of Stachelberg, whose proprietor customarily hired recently arrived immigrants as tobacco strippers for a few weeks. Irish and Italian immigrants considered the Brooklyn communities of Red Hook and Greenpoint particularly attractive. Along the docks of Red Hook, and Greenpoint’s Brooklyn Navy Yard recent arrivals found work as stevedores and warehousemen and inexpensive accommodations in tenements and two-story brick houses.28 Intimately related to the formation of a multi-ethnic urban working class was the adaptation and acculturation of immigrants to American society. For some immigrants the transition from original to adopted homeland constituted a challenge to their traditional, old world habits of thought and behavior which could not be easily and painlessly jettisoned or forgotten. For others, the adoption of new modes of living and cultural patterns was paved by time-tested attitudes and practices nurtured in societies quite different from New York’s and Brooklyn’s. Tensions developed between those seeking to adopt new attitudes and values and those clinging to traditional ways. For example, among the waves of Eastern European Jews who migrated to New York in the 1880s and 1890s, some stressed a secular and not a religious outlook. This cultural conflict continued to blaze in New York’s lower east side within the cafés, Yiddish press, and landmanschaften (societies of townspeople which doubled as fraternal and mutual aid societies that provided funeral benefits, medical insurance and loans, as well as information about employment opportunities and housing vacancies).29 Jewish immigrant intellectuals valued the city’s cosmopolitan milieu, seeing it as an opportunity to develop a new Jewish culture. For their part, Jewish religious elders sought to replenish the cultural resources of a people cast in a turbulent sea and threatened by Protestant and Catholic currents and the stormy winds of American secularism. In contrast, Russian Jewish immigrant socialists and anarchists made their atheism an emblem of their movement. Marcus Savage, recalling the days of his radical youth, highlighted this antireligious creed: We were all missionaries, and some of us were quite genuine bigots. On the Day of Atonement, when all the conservative people of the quarter fasted and repented and knelt in prayer, we ostentatiously went about with big cigars in our mouths and bags of food in our pockets; and in the afternoon we met in the public square and marched off in a body with flags and trumpets to the atheist picnic somewhere in Brooklyn.30

Some in the Jewish immigrant socialist movement came to respect rather than disparage traditional Jewish culture. Socialist organizers of the early Jewish trades unions, leaders of the major strikes among cloak-

12

“A Broad and Ennobling Spirit”

makers and coatmakers in 1890 and 1894, and the creators of a vibrant Yiddish literature, drew on the imagery of the Torah (the five books of the Old Testament) and other religious folklore to speak to and for their audience. Abraham Cahan, editor of the Arbeiter Zeitung, was the leading socialist advocate and practitioner of the need to appreciate the value of the Jewish immigrant’s religious beliefs. The Arbeiter Zeitung became a popular Yiddish daily newspaper in part because of its willingness to open its pages to writers whose vignettes and poetry accepted Jewish immigrants for who they were, instead of emphasizing their inability to conform to the standards of secular-minded intellectuals. In reality, however, the activity of Cahan and others remained just one current in the Jewish immigrant socialist movement during the 1890s. Yet, because of the continuing disdain many in the movement held for a culture they saw as riddled with superstition and mysticism, these attempts by some socialists to establish a common ground for the secular and religious aspects of Jewish immigrant life were especially meaningful. They presented the foundation for a possible alliance of intellectuals and workers from which the efforts to build viable unions could draw strength. If religious identity did not preclude labor activity, neither did ethnic consciousness. Among New York’s and Brooklyn’s older immigrants the Irish for almost half a century had been developing an institutional network, consisting of fraternal, mutual aid, and social groups, that helped them adjust to an urban and industrial environment and cope with a dominant Protestant culture.31 By 1880, a vibrant Irish immigrant community was much in evidence and gave additional substance to the Irish nationalism sweeping many cities. Irish nationalism grew in the United States between 1875 and 1882 as Charles Parnell and other advocates of Irish home rule scored successes in parliamentary elections. The American counterpart of the Irish Land League conducted a campaign of education and agitation via public rallies and its press. At a rally sponsored by the Irish Land League in 1882, which led to the formation of the Central Labor Union, Peter McGuire from the Brotherhood of Carpenters and the League’s Michael Davitt denounced the land monopoly for denying American workers and Irish peasants the just rewards of their labor. Patrick Ford, editor of the New York-published Irish World, stressed the symmetry of the United States’ anticolonial and republican heritage and the Irish nationalist movement.32 The evangelical appeals of Ford and Davitt among others bore fruit. From afar Irish-Americans contributed to the nationalist cause with hopes of finally ridding their homeland of absentee owners and British overseers. Financial donations, especially from working class areas in Pennsylvania, flowed to the Irish World, and the newspaper gained a loyal working class readership, even among non-Irish. Resistance to landlords’ control of the sources of wealth in Erie reverberated with new significance

Workers in the Metropolitan Economies of New York and Brooklyn

13

among aroused Irish immigrant laborers whose conditions of employment led many to join unions and labor reform organizations, such as the Knights of Labor, and enter the ranks of independent labor parties in New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago.33 Nevertheless, the development of ethnic consciousness and working class formation was complex. Italian immigrants often depended on padrones, who as labor agents placed applicants in exchange for a fee and with the understanding that job seekers would stay clear of unions and strikes. Moreover, prominenti—newspaper editors, padrones, and entrepreneurs—who remained cool to Italian immigrant workers’ participation in the labor movement and most concerned in promoting an image of the respectable Italian-American, often dominated mutual aid and benefit societies.34 In contrast, German immigrants manifested an exclusiveness in their adjustment to their adopted homeland. German immigrant Catholics and Protestants, both in response to the hostility of the dominant AngloSaxon culture and in reverence for traditional German customs, strove to establish exclusively German churches and congregations in which only German would be spoken and German rituals observed. German immigrant workers formed organizations whose membership remained restricted to auswanderers. German trade unions emerged in occupations in which Germans overwhelmingly represented a majority or a sizeable minority. Brewery workers, furniture workers, musical instrument makers, bakers, carpenters, and printers, to name just a few, organized exclusively German unions. Moreover, the German trade unions maintained an umbrella group—the United German Trades—-even when each union held membership in the New York’s Central Labor Union. One historian of the New York German-American community regarded such activity as contributing to the development of “an ethno-class consciousness, which simultaneously promoted ethnic solidarity and ethnic fragmentation of the working class.”35 Nevertheless, the strategic role played by German trade unionists in New York’s labor movement in the 1880s and 1890s suggests this characterization is misleading. German labor leaders and socialists served as leaders in Henry George’s mayoral campaign in 1886 and the movement to build the United Labor Party in 1887. Furthermore, the United German Trades helped to promote the fledgling United Hebrew Trades, created by Eastern European Jewish immigrants. In addition, German trade unions were the staunchest practitioners of labor solidarity, providing mutual support for strikes and boycotts waged by other unions and immigrant workers.36 The exclusivity of German immigrants’ institutional life grew from an independence of spirit and cultural pride that facilitated their adaptation to American society. The chairman of New York’s Central Turner Verein,

14

“A Broad and Ennobling Spirit”

speaking at the opening of a new Turner Hall at 67th Street, expressed the German immigrants’ sense of belonging most sharply: “The German loves his fatherland like a man loves his mother, and he loves America like a man loves his wife. He can adore both at the same time, but he will leave the mother to follow the wife.”37 The ethnic dimensions of working class formation indicates that a shared experience based on wage labor, or, for that matter, employment in the same industry or occupation did not emanate naturally from economic conditions. In fact, the very conditions that encouraged the employment of immigrants sowed divisions among workers. Recent arrivals, especially during periods of economic downturns, often encountered resentment by immigrant workers already “entrenched” in their occupations. In the building trades, for example, the bricklayers’ union, reacting to the seasonal influx of migrant masons from Great Britain and Ireland, required that all members be U.S. citizens, and officials of the painters’ union complained of cheap competition from Russian and Swedish immigrants. In the garment trades German and Austrian-Hungarian immigrant tailors, who constituted the core of the United Brotherhood of Tailors’ membership, ridiculed the Russian immigrant machine operators as “Columbus tailors” because the latter learned their trade in the United States and purportedly “debased” the standards of workmanship and conditions at the workplace.38 The diversity of New York’s and Brooklyn’s working class carried implications for labor activity. The realities of ethnicity and gender informed the experience of building tradesmen, printers, cigarmakers and clothing workers. Attempts to forge a common understanding of workers’ interests and needs faced the challenge of accommodating the multivalent experience of workers—as craftsmen and industrial laborers; as men and women; as “settled” immigrants or native-born Americans and immigrant newcomers.

NOTES 1. Moses King, King’s Handbook of New York (Boston: Moses King, 1892), p. 785. 2. Bruce Laurie and Mark Schmitz, “Manufacturing and Productivity: The Making of an Industrial Base, Philadelphia 1850–1880,” in Theodore Hershberg, ed., Philadelphia: Work, Space, Family and Group Experience in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford University, 1981), pp. 44–55; Lawrence Kennedy, Planning the City Upon a Hill: Boston Since 1630 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1992), pp. 109–110; and Robert Eisenmenger, The Dynamics of Growth in the New England Economy, 1870–1964 (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University, 1967), p. 19. Also see Blake McKelvey, The Urbanization of America, 1869–1915 (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University, 1963), pp. 20–60, for a discussion of economic diversification in the development of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and St. Louis. Even as late as 1900, the number of workers engaged in manufacturing exceeded

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those employed in commerce and trade, although the gap was considerably smaller than that of most manufacturing towns in the Mideast and Midwest (McKelvey, p. 48). 3. King, King’s Handbook of New York, pp. 930–950. 4. New York State. Factory Inspection Bureau, Fifth Annual Report (1890), pp. 321–330. 5. Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac (1893), pp. 100–101; King, King’s Handbook of New York, pp. 922–934; Margaret Lattimer, Two Cities: New York and Brooklyn, The Year the Great Bridge Opened (Brooklyn Educational and Cultural Alliance, 1983), pp. 24–26; Eleanora Schoenebaum, “Emerging Neighborhoods: The Development of Brooklyn’s Fringe Areas 1850–1930” (unpublished Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1976), pp. 71–72. 6. David Ment, The Shaping of a Clay: A Brief History of Brooklyn (Brooklyn Educational and Cultural Alliance: 1979), p. 56. 7. United States. Eleventh Census (1890) Manufacturing in the Cities, pp. 88–97 and pp. 390–406. 8. Alter E. Landesman, Brownsville (New York: Bloch Publishing Company, 1969), pp. 40–41, 47 Schoenebaum; pp. 186–7. 9. United States. Eleventh Census (1890) Manufacturing in the Cities, pp. 390–406. 10. Daniel Nelson, Managers and Workers: Origins of the Twentieth-Century Factory System in the United States 1880–1920 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), pp. 5–9. 11. United States. Eleventh Census (1890) Manufacturing in the Cities, pp. 88–97 and pp. 390–406. 12. Steve Fraser, “Combined and Uneven Development in the Men’s Clothing Industry,” Business History Review 57 (Winter 1983), p. 541. 13. See Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (1890; reprint, New York: Hill and Wang, 1957), pp. 100–110 for a description of working and living conditions of Bohemian immigrant cigarmakers. 14. Quoted in Bryan Palmer, “Social Formation and Class Formation in North America—1800–1900,” in David Levine, ed., Proletarianization and Family History (New York: Academic Press, 1984), p. 260. 15. United States Census Bureau. Eleventh Census (1890). Population, Part II, pp. 640–641 and 704–705; United States. Twelfth Census (1900) Special Reports. Statistics of Occupations, pp. 634–641. 16. Richard Oestreicher,” Solidarity and Fragmentation: Working People and Class Consciousness in Detroit, 1877–1895” (PhD diss., Michigan State University, 1979), pp. 16, 513, 516. 17. The phrase third American working class speaks to the process of working class formation and development in the United States. The sources of the first American working class were native-born artisans, Yankee farm girls, and, to a lesser extent, immigrants from Great Britain, Ireland and Germany. The period of proletarianization occurred between 1820 and 1850. The “second American working class” was formed between 1850 and 1890, and consisted largely of Irish, German, and British immigrants and their offspring. See Herbert Gutman and Ira Berlin “Class Composition and the Development of the American Working Class, 1840–1890,” in Ira Berlin, ed., Power and Culture: Essays on the American Working Class (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987), pp. 380–394 for more on the periodization of working class formation.

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18. United States. Eleventh Census (1890), Population, Part II, pp. 640–641 and 704–705. 19. David Doyle, “Unestablished Irishmen: New Immigrants and Industrial America, 1870–1910,” Dirk Hoerder, ed., American Labor and Immigration History, 1877–1920s (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977), pp. 193–220; and Hartmut Keil, “Chicago’s German Working Class in 1900,” in Harmut Keil and John Jentz, eds., German Workers in Industrial Chicago (De Kalb: Northern Illinois University, 1983), pp. 26–29. 20. United States. Eleventh Census (1890), Population, Part II, pp. 640–641 and 704–705. 21. About three-fourths of foreign-born adult women in New York and Brooklyn were over 25 years old and one-forth between 15 and 24 years old. Native-born female offspring of immigrant women in contrast showed a more equal distribution by age with slightly more than half between 15 and 24 and just under half older than 25. United States. Eleventh Census (1890) Population, Part II, pp. 116 and 126. 22. United States. Twelfth Census (1900) Statistics on Women at Work. See Appendix B, Table B.4 for data on age and marital status of women workers in the United States. 23. In New York the gap between first and second generation women exceeded 30,000, and in Brooklyn were about 2,000. United States Eleventh Census (1890), Population, Part II, pp. 640–641 and 704–705. 24. Jesse Pope, The Clothing Industry in New York (New York: Columbia University Press, 1905), pp. 51–53 and 66–73; Mabel Willet, The Employment of Women in the Clothing Trade (New York: Columbia University, 1902), pp. 38 and 68–69; Edith Abbott, Women and Industry (New York: D. Appleton, 1909), pp. 189, 198, 199; Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (New York: Scribner, 1890), p. 106. 25. For studies about gender divisions in the production process, see Ava Baron, “Contested Terrain Revisited: Technology and Gender Definitions of Work in the Printing industry,” in Barbara Drygulski Wright et al., eds., Women, Work and Technology: Transformations (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1987); Patricia Cooper, Once A Cigar Maker: Men, Women and Work Culture in American Cigar Factories, 1900–1919 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987). 26. Donna Gabaccia, From Sicily to Elizabeth Street: Housing and Social Change Among Italian Immigrants, 1880–1930 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), pp. 78–79. 27. Samuel Cohen, Transplanted (New York: the author, 1937), pp. 100–106. 28. Abraham Cahan, The Education of Abraham Cahan, edited and translated by Leon Stein, Volume I (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1969), pp. 229–230; David Ment and Mary Donovan, The People of Brooklyn: A History of Two Neighborhoods (Brooklyn Educational and Cultural Alliance, 1980), pp. 52–56. 29. For the role of landsmanshaftn in Jewish immigrants’ adaptation to American Society, see Daniel Soyer, Jewish Immigrant Associations and American Identity in New York, 1880–1939 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1997). 30. Marcus Savage in Irving Howe and Kenneth Libo, eds., How We Lived (New York: Richard Marek, 1979), p. 163. 31. There are numerous works that describe Irish immigrants’ adaptation to American society. Among the most instructive are Dennis Clark, “The Irish Cath-

Workers in the Metropolitan Economies of New York and Brooklyn

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olics: A Postponed Perspective,“ in Randall Miller and Thomas Marzik, eds., Immigrants and Religion in America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1977), pp. 48–61; Jay Dolan, The Immigrant Church: New York’s Irish and German Catholics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1975); James Donnelly, “Catholic New Yorkers and New York Socialists, 1870–1920” (unpublished PhD diss., New York University, 1982); David Doyle, “Catholicism, Politics and Irish-Americans,” and Kerby Miller, “Emigrants’ Responses to Industrial America,” in P.J. Drudy, The Irish in America: Emigration, Assimilation, and Impact (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Oscar Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants: A Study of Acculturation (revised ed., New York: Atheneum, 1970); Timothy Meagher, From Paddy to Studs: Irish American Communities in the Turn of the Century Era, 1880–1920 (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 1986); Kerby Miller, Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); Stephen Thernstrom, The Other Bostonians: Poverty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880–1970 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1973); Norman Yetman, “The Irish Experience in America,” Harold Oriel, ed., Irish History and Culture (University of Kansas, 1976). 32. R.K. Webb, Modern England (New York: Harper and Row, 1980), pp. 366–372; Michael Gordon, “‘The Labor Boycott’ in New York City, 1880–1886,” in Labor History, 16 (1975), pp. 184–229; Thomas Brown, Irish-American Nationalism (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1966); Eric Foner, “Class and Ethnicity and Radicalism in the Gilded Age: The Land League and Irish America,” in Politics and Ideology in the Age of the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 157–160. 33. Foner, “Class and Ethnicity,” pp. 170–178; Gordon, ‘The Labor Boycott’ in New York City,” pp. 195–196; Brown, Irish-American Nationalism, pp. 86–100; V.A. Walsh, “ ‘Fanatic Heart’: The Cause of Irish-American Nationalism in Pittsburgh During the Gilded Age,” Journal of Social History (December, 1981); Dale Light, “The Rise of Irish-American Organs in Assimilation and Community Formation,” P. J. Drudy, ed., The Irish in America, pp. 132–136; Stephen Ross, Workers as the Edge: Work, Leisure and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788–1890 (New York: Columbia University, 1985), pp. 310–320. 34. Fenton, “Immigrants and Unions,” pp. 62–65; David Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor (Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 75–77. 35. Stanley Nadel, Little Germany: Ethnicity, Religion and Class in New York City 1845–1880 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), p. 161. 36. Lapham, “The German-Americans of New York City,” pp. 35–37; Morris Schappes, “The Political Origins of the United Hebrew Trades, 1888,” Journal of Ethnic Studies; 5 (1977), pp. 13–44; The Leader, September 6, 9, 10, 12, 19, and 21, 1887 and November 6, 1887. For an insightful examination of the role of German immigrant workers in the development of unions representing bakers, brewers, and cigarmakers, see Dorothee Schneider, Trade Unions and Community (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994). German workers in Gilded Age Chicago showed a similar tendency to form distinct unions among those trades in which they constituted a considerable proportion of the workforce, such as bakers, cabinetmakers, and furniture workers. See Harmut Keil, “The German Immigrant Working Class of Chicago, 1875–1890: Workers, Labor Leaders and the Labor Movement,” in Dirk Hoerder, ed., American Labor and Immigration History, 1877–1920s (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 156–176.

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37. The Leader, September 7, 1887. 38. United States. Industrial Commission. Volume 15, p. 428; New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Sixteenth Annual. Report (1898), pp. 1036–1040; Benjamin Stolberg, Tailor’s Progress: The Story of a Famous Union and The Men Who Made It (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Doran, 1944), p. 7. Immigration could not only intensify competition for jobs but also contribute to labor unrest and ethnic conflict. See Susan Olzak, The Dynamics of Ethnic Competition and Conflict (Stanford University Press, 1992).

CHAPTER 2

The State of Labor in 1886: Trade Union Development and the Springtime of Labor Reform

INTRODUCTION 1886 represented a watershed year for New York’s labor movement. Workers from a cross-section of trades and industries asserted their collective strength at the workplace and in the political arena. Labor activism, uniting craftsmen, factory operatives, casual laborers, and sweatshop hands, showed that solidarity was not merely rhetorical. A new unionism appeared ascendant, as freight handlers, hod-carriers, cloakmakers, and cigarmakers employed in tenement house production joined their more traditionally skilled cohorts among printers, building tradesmen, furniture workers, piano makers, and machinists within the city’s house of labor. If events in New York and Brooklyn were devoid of the violence manifest in Chicago’s Haymarket affair or the drama of the confrontations between strikers and troops all along the Southwestern Railroad System owned by Jay Gould, they nevertheless signified to employers and the general public alike that the power of capital would be contested. The labor movement aggressively mobilized to overturn the employers’ use of the courts to punish practitioners of labor boycotts. On May 1 more than 20,000 trade unionists, led by the United Framers, the German Bakers Union, and the Empire Protection Association (representing striking streetcar workers), marched in torch-lit processions to mark the official inauguration of the campaign for the eight hour day.1 On the political front the labor movement was likewise combative and bold. That summer, in the wake of the fining and imprisonment of the organizers of a boycott against the proprietor of a music hall, the Central Labor Union (CLU), the

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federation of unions in New York, drafted Henry George to run for mayor as an independent. At the crest of labor’s advance stood New York’s Central Labor Union. The CLU emerged in the process of organizing a mass protest meeting against landlordism in colonial Ireland in December 1881. The following February, delegates from fourteen unions representing tailors, cutters, house painters, and longshoremen, among others, established the rudiments of the organization, and elected Robert Blissert, a journeyman tailor and member of the Excelsior Labor Club, president. Within two years 37 unions with 67,000 members had became affiliate. Commensurate with the CLU’s growth, an elaborate array of committees which focused on organization, arbitration, the resolution of grievances, and mobilization of boycotts had emerged. With the merger of the CLU and its one-time rival, the Amalgamated Trade and Labor Union, in late 1884, the aim of a unitary citywide federation was realized.2 The growth of the CLU symbolized an accelerated trade union development and organizational cohesion that in turn spurred closer coordination among individual unions. Increasingly the CLU became more active on several fronts. It assisted organizing drives of brewery workers and bakers, promoted the boycotts waged by the CMIU, No. 7 of the GermanAmerican Typographia and No. 6 (the New York Typographical Union), and helped to raise $5,000 in support of striking Hocking Valley miners in Indiana. In addition, it spearheaded the campaigns to pressure the state legislature to amend the conspiracy law and enact a contract prison labor law. In May 1886 approximately 150 unions were affiliated, including many local assemblies of the Knights of Labor, which constituted half of CLU’s membership. By virtue of the CLU’s breadth of organization it assumed leadership in Henry George’s campaign. The CLU published a daily newspaper, The Leader, which mobilized trade unionists for his candidacy and served as a mouthpiece for the city’s labor movement. For little over a year, The Leader promoted support for strikes, boycotts, and union label campaigns, as well as publicized trade union social and cultural events.3 The process of trade union development during the first half of the decade revealed the ability of many of New York’s and Brooklyn’s workers to seize opportunities to organize more aggressively and confidently and press their advantage for greater influence over wage rates and conditions of employment. Steeled by their belief that the achievements of concerted activity were self-evident, movement spokespersons enthused over trade unionism’s potential. To many the burgeoning drive for the eight-hour day symbolized trade unionism’s unrealized promise to ensure that working men and women would not be deemed mere commodities in an industrializing society.

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This sense of purpose fed on and in turn engendered a two-pronged militancy, which in the first instance was most sharply expressed on the shop floor—both by craft workers, such as printers and building tradesmen, keen on asserting the prerogatives and entitlements of craft labor and consolidating the gains of trade union organization, and industrial workers, such as factory-based cigarmakers and clothing workers, who sought to curtail the logic of competitive labor markets that depressed wage rates and heightened economic insecurity. However, as employers turned to the state—through legislation, judicial intervention, and police action—to combat organized labor’s insurgency, worker’s militancy assumed a more explicitly political dimension. In this vein, the sponsorship of Henry George for mayor as an independent represented a confluence of industrial and political militancy. Without the development of trade unions representing an increasing number of workers in New York’s key industries, such a challenge to either Tammany Hall or the two-party system would have been inconceivable. PRINTERS: THE GROWTH OF UNION POWER By 1886, New York’s and Brooklyn’s printers had established a network of unions representing more than 5,000 compositors, pressmen, stereotypers, and photo-engravers, among others. There were three pressmen’s unions—the Franklin Association, New York Pressmen’s Union No. 9, and the Adams Cylinder Pressmen’s Association. The Franklin Association was the oldest, dating back to 1861. During its first twenty-five years the Franklin Association successfully warded off attempts by No. 6 of the International Typographical Union (ITU) to absorb its organization and continued to claim the most members, although both the New York Pressmen’s Union No. 9, chartered by the ITU in 1883, and the Adams Cylinder Pressmen’s Association were growing rapidly.4 Three unions representing compositors coexisted, although, like the pressmen’s unions, tension existed among the organizations. The youngest of these was No. 98 of the ITU based in Brooklyn. Formed in 1874, it made inroads in some of that city’s daily newspapers and book and job publishing firms. By 1886 No. 98 had organized five so-called chapels (the name given by compositors to workplace union branches), consisting of compositors employed at The Brooklyn Union, The Brooklyn Standard, The Brooklyn Times, Appleton’s Publishing Company, and Saften and Company.5 Active in both New York and Brooklyn was No. 7 of the German-American Typographia, representing compositors working on German-American newspapers and printing firms specializing in German language literature. Launched in 1869 with 32 members, the union grew steadily, even during the depression of 1873–1877, and in the process helped to launch a

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national organization. By 1880, No. 7 had developed a sick and death benefit fund, a travelling card (providing assistance to members seeking work in other localities), and an out-of-work fund serving more than two hundred members. Six years later, this union had established eight card offices, two of which—The Herald and The New Yorker Zeitung—were the results of boycotts. Probably more impressive, No. 7’s 300 members had secured the eight-hour day and gained from the employers recognition of their union label.6 The oldest and largest typographical union was No. 6 of the ITU. Formed in 1852 at the founding convention of the National Typographical Union (the ITU’s predecessor), its membership consisted of compositors at a handful of newspapers. During the first decade of its existence, No. 6 created a disability benefit that provided eligible members four dollars a week and a death benefit that defrayed a portion of a member’s funeral expenses and allocated thirty-five dollars a week to the surviving spouse. From 1860 to 1880, No. 6 augmented its benefit features, increasing the payments for disability and death and introducing a temporary out-ofwork fund in the wake of the Panic of 1873. By 1886, the union had also set up a pension for members sixty years or older. Indicative of its leading position among printing trades’ unions in 1886, No. 6 had 3,500 members organized into 110 chapels.7 Although in 1886 No. 6 stood as the epitome of the well-established union, only a few years earlier it had faced difficulties in introducing and enforcing its scale of pay rates. Between 1882 and 1884 the union had two priorities: one, to gain acceptance of a basic scale for book and job compositors; and two, to standardize pay for compositors working on daily, weekly, bi- and tri-weekly newspapers, with the provision that those working overnight on morning editions would earn a differential. Employer resistance prompted industrial action, consisting of short walkouts against isolated firms, coordinated strikes throughout the industry, and boycotts against the most recalcitrant and powerful firms. The campaign to introduce or otherwise modify the scale of pay rates became intimately tied to the union’s revitalization. In 1882 membership was at less than 1,800, with unionized compositors being a distinct minority in the book and job labor force. The union, therefore, held a series of meetings to formulate a pay scale and to determine what action to adopt. Discussion of the feasibility of strike action stressed the need for stronger workplace organization. William Parker, chair of the subcommittee to review strategy, convincingly argued that any immediate strike would be suicidal and doomed to disastrous failure. Consequently, delegates voted to postpone the introduction of the scale to April, one month after its original proposed effective date.8 In the midst of these discussions over strategy, the union faced a situation which required more decisive action. In early February 1883, the

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business manager of Burgoyne and Co. informed No. 6 members that union men would be employed in the future only to a limited extent. The union’s executive committee promptly called on the 72 compositors in question not to report to work. When all but one heeded the executive committee’s instructions, Burgoyne backed down, and rehired all the compositors at the union scale of 35 cents per 1000 ems (the standard measurement of typeset matter).9 Despite this unqualified victory, the union waited until October of that year to mount a full-scale campaign to gain acceptance of the proposed scale. About three-fourths of the 170 book and job firms quickly reached terms with the unions. Simultaneously, No. 6 presented its demand for a uniform scale to newspaper publishers and experienced similar success. In the case of Frank Tousey, the publisher of dime novels and mass-market periodicals, the union waged a boycott, which, with the support of the CLU, resulted in the book and job firm being put into receivership in March 1885. At the end of its campaign to implement union pay scales in the newspaper and book and job sectors, membership stood at approximately 3,500, or twice what it was two years earlier.10 Where the union’s strategy and tactics produced relatively quick and clear-cut results in 1883 and 1884, the dispute with The Tribune suggested there were limits to the union’s growing power. The dispute began in 1877 when the newspaper announced that, effective July 3, the composing room would be a nonunion shop. In November 1883, when No. 6 was pressuring other newspapers to accept a modified scale, an apparent settlement with The Tribune was reached. The newspaper agreed to recognize No. 6 in return for the union’s acquiescence to the introduction of typesetting machinery and pledge not to interfere with foremen’s exercise of their managerial responsibilities. Less than a month later, however, after the newspaper canvassed Philadelphia, Baltimore, and cities in upstate New York for replacements, foremen casually informed the compositors they could only retain their positions if they renounced membership in the union.11 The union responded with a two-pronged strategy. Since the paper’s owner, Thurlow Reid, was a national figure in the Republican Party, No. 6 pledged to use its influence with other affiliates of the ITU in New York State to urge printers to withhold their vote from the Republican presidential candidate, James Blaine, in the 1884 election. Secondly, the union mobilized a boycott of the newspaper, targeting news dealers, advertisers, and the general public. On this front the support of the Central Labor Unions in New York and Brooklyn was instrumental in gaining the endorsement of 81 unions, some of them based in Hoboken, Jersey City and Newark, New Jersey. Advertising revenue fell modestly in the spring of 1884 as dry goods merchants and furniture makers withdrew from The Tribune.12

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In October 1885, twenty months after the boycott’s launching, there was an apparent breakthrough, as union representatives and Thurlow Reid reached an agreement through the auspices of the State Republican Committee. Reid pledged that the newspaper would not discriminate against compositors choosing to join the union and would not hire additional nonunion men. Moreover, he stated his willingness to pay compositors at the union scale. On November 1, within days of the announced agreement, union leaders charged The Tribune with violating its terms. Compositors reported that foremen pressured them not to join No. 6, amidst the business manager’s insistence that the newspaper “control its office.” Subsequently, at a heated general membership meeting, members demanded a lasting settlement and required the “turning out of rats” (nonunion men) from The Tribune’s composing room.13 For the next few years the union remained steadfast for its call for an unconditional surrender. Only when this goal became more illusive was an authentic compromise struck. Finally in August 1892, The Tribune agreed to place union foremen in charge of its composing room, insuring that members of No. 6 would be hired. This time the agreement held, and the boycott was officially suspended.14 The extent of union power was confirmed by No. 6’s ability to gain a wider acceptance of its scale of prices for typographers. Symbiotically, the union experienced a dramatic increase in membership, especially in the book and job sector. Yet, as illustrated by the conflict with The Tribune, union power did not go unchallenged. Some proprietors of newspaper and book and job firms resolutely sought to control the management of production and the labor force. CIGARMAKERS: THE RESILIENCY OF THE UNION CAUSE The position of union cigarmakers in 1886 was most impressive in light of the humble origins of trade unionism in their occupation. In the 1870s a severe economic slump and bitterly contested strikes inflicted damaging wounds on the Cigar Makers International Union (CMIU). When the union experienced a recovery of sorts in the early 1880s, factionalism erupted and resulted in the formation of a breakaway organization, the Progressive Cigarmakers, which competed with the CMIU for members and union recognition agreements. Frequently, attempts to organize triggered strikes which drained the union’s resources. In 1869, Local 15, affiliated with the CMIU, reached out to Bohemian cigarmakers who mobilized against employers introducing molds into the shops. An intensely fought strike ensued that, at its conclusion, left Local 15 with less than 50 members. In 1873, in an effort to salvage the barely existent union, two young immigrants—Samuel Gompers

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from London, England and Adolph Strasser from Germany—organized the United Cigarmakers. Reflecting the ethnic composition of the workforce, 70 three sections—English, German, and Hungarian—were established. The following year a Bohemian section was added. The union took additional steps to make itself more inclusive. In 1875 bunchmakers and mold workers, mostly Bohemian immigrant women, became eligible for membership. That same year, the leaders decided to merge the sections into one local, dissolve the United Cigarmakers Union, and apply to the CMIU for a new charter as Local 144. In 1876 the combination of economic depression and a lost strike cut the union’s membership by more than a half.15 The following year cigarmakers tried to revitalize their union in a drive against the spread of tenement house shops. Selected strikes resulted in evictions of cigarmaking families. In response, the union mobilized a general strike during which it sought accommodations for evictees and established a cigarmaking cooperative. Mounting personal hardship and organizational burdens took their toll on the cigarmakers and their union. After 107 days on strike most returned to work under the status quo ante. Membership again declined, although unlike 1869, 1873, and 1876, the union could claim that some shops made gains, its core remained intact and enthusiasm for the union still ran high.16 The disquieting experience of the 1870s triggered, at first, retrenchment and reorganization. Arguing that the locals could not adequately complete the tasks of organizing without a strong, effective, central organization, Strasser and Gompers increasingly shifted their attention to the affairs of the CMIU at the national level. In 1877 Strasser was elected President, and Gompers was chosen to preside over the union’s constitutional committee. In 1879, under their leadership, the union’s biannual convention adopted new bylaws to ensure a closer coordination of locals and the international union, and introduced financial reforms, including higher dues, initiation fees, and equalization of funds. Moreover, convention delegates endorsed a travelers’ loan that would assist cigarmakers in search of a better job market. These changes inaugurated a period of steady growth in New York and nationally, and established the foundation for an expansion of benefits to cover illness, death, strikes, and unemployment.17 However, the resurfacing of centrifugal forces, in part, offset these advances. Local 144, the only New York local between 1879 and 1885 that contained a multiethnic and multitrade membership (Local 90 admitted only German-speaking cigarmakers), encountered pressure to reorganize. Cuban and Spanish cigarmakers insisted on retaining their autonomy in a separate local. Packers also pressed for a separate local that could establish its pay scale and work rules. Even more ominous was the formation of a rival union—the Progressive Cigar Makers in 1881—following a contested election to Local 144’s executive board. Led by socialists who severely crit-

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icized Gompers and Strasser’s non-partisan political orientation, the Progressive Cigar Makers found support in the Knights of Labor District Assembly 49, under the leadership of advocates of revolutionary unionism and producers cooperatives, known as the Home Club. Less than two years after its founding, the Progressive Cigar Makers claimed the majority of the city’s cigarmakers as members.18 Efforts to forge a rapprochement between the Progressive Cigar Makers and the CMIU faltered after a promising start. Representatives from both unions met in Rochester and agreed upon terms of reunification. In December, 1885 the membership of the Progressive Cigar Makers endorsed the Rochester initiative, and locals in Brooklyn and Morrisania, in the Bronx, soon after applied to the CMIU for charters.19 Yet within two months the merger appeared stillborn when the Progressives and New York locals of the CMIU became entangled in a dispute stemming from the attempts of manufacturers to cut piece rates. The Progressives and CMIU locals conducted separate strikes and entered into separate negotiations with members of the United Cigar Manufacturers’ Association. The Progressives, with the assistance of the CLU in which District Assembly 49 assumed a prominent role, agreed to a sliding scale of piece rates which resulted in modest cuts for cigarmakers employed in the lower-paying shops and significant reductions for those employed in the higher-paying shops. The CMIU locals, unlike the Progressives (which derived their support mainly from tenement house workers whom the CMIU excluded), maintained their base among producers of higher priced cigars, and accordingly resisted the manufacturers’ tactics, insisting that the pay scales effective January 1, 1886, be observed. While the CMIU tried to carry on the strike, the Knights of Labor gained recognition of their union label and admitted the Progressives as a Local Assembly.20 Hopes for amalgamation of the two unions did not disappear, though. In the summer of 1886, the Progressives, faced the prospect of being swallowed up by the Knights of Labor District Assembly 49, whose representatives sought exclusive recognition pacts with manufacturers. The Progressives turned for support to the CMIU whose leadership at this time was also hungry for allies. By the end of 1886, the Progressives joined the CMIU receiving charters for three locals: numbers 10, 90, and 251 in New York and Local 149 in Brooklyn. The merger of the two unions signaled further expansion and reorganization of the union. The packers gained their own locals—two in New York and one in Brooklyn—and membership almost doubled from the previous year.21 The strike’s impact also reverberated through the American labor movement. The controversial role of District Assembly 49 convinced Samuel Gompers, President of Local 144, which was at the center of the January-February strike/lockout, that an independent organization of trade unions outside the Knights of Labor was necessary. Conferences

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between Terence Powderly of the Knights of Labor, who attempted to discipline the leadership of District Assembly 49, and representatives of national unions exploring the prospects of forming a labor federation, failed to resolve differences about the Knights’ jurisdiction and the unions’ autonomy. In October, at its annual General Assembly, the Knights of Labor voted to expel any member who did not renounce his/her membership in the CMIU. Two months later, leaders of twelve national unions, including Gompers from the CMIU and Peter McGuire from the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, created the American Federation of Labor, which soon after began to rival the Knights for influence among American workers.22 For cigarmakers considerable progress had been made in forming a single union. No longer plagued by internecine conflict, they seemed better prepared to confront employers committed to tenement house manufacturing and the mechanization of production. For their part, the manufacturers, during the height of 1886 mayoralty elections, saw the possibility that cigarmakers “so elated at the idea of displacing office holders” would think “they have the right to go for the manufacturers.”23 While the editors of the U.S. Tobacco Journal expressed the matter in alarmist language, their underlying perception was correct. Probably at no other time during the decade was trade unionism stronger. BUILDING TRADESMEN: THE CHALLENGES OF CRAFT UNIONISM By 1886 the five major crafts within the building trades (bricklayers, carpenters, painters, plasterers, and plumbers) had established unions. The smaller, more specialized, crafts had experienced success in organizing too. These included the United Framers’ Union (500 members), the Fresco Painters (400 members in two branches), the Paper Hangers’ Union (500 members) and the Stairbuilders’ Union (approximately 200 members in two lodges). Irrespective of size, the building trades’ unions held seats on the thirty strong Board of Walking Delegates, and sent delegates to the Central Labor Unions in New York and Brooklyn where they played a prominent role in the federations’ activities, including public forums, rallies, and Labor Day marches.24 Representation on the Board of Walking Delegates was critical to the growth of the building trades’ unions. The Board evolved from the Executive Council of the Building Trades, created in 1883 to mount effective pressure on contractors who employed nonunion labor. Within three months of its founding, the Executive Council mobilized support for the Derrickmen’s Union among bricklayers, carpenters, framers, plumbers, and roofers, who halted construction on two sites in midtown Manhattan. This sympathy strike resulted in an agreement with contractors to only

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hire members of the Derrickmen’s Union. A year later the Executive Council changed its name to the Board of Walking Delegates and adopted changes in its governance. To improve its ability to adjudicate the disputes between constituent unions, grievances brought to the Board’s consideration were defined as its property, which meant that no constituent union could seek resolution or redress outside the Board’s auspices. The authorization of sympathy strikes required the approval of two-thirds of the delegates, who had the authority to endorse an action without referring the matter back to their respective unions. Moreover, the Board’s president was empowered to determine if participation in a sympathy strike was compulsory.25 Four carpenter unions competed for membership in the early 1880s. The Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, formed in 1881, was led by Peter McGuire, who viewed trade unions as a countervailing force to the power of employers at the workplace as well as instruments for workers’ self emancipation and training grounds for full citizenship.26 During the early years of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners membership stagnated. At the end of 1885 the union nationally claimed 5,800 members. Among its competitors, the United Order of Carpenters, formed in 1872, appeared to make the most headway. By early 1886 it had organized ten lodges in New York and five in Brooklyn, with a combined membership of over 5,000. In Brooklyn the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters, consisting of Irish and British immigrants, many of whom had been members of the same union before emigrating, impeded the Brotherhood’s progress. Also the Brotherhood faced a challenge from the Progressive Carpenters, which had established five local assemblies consisting of about 1,000 members by 1886.27 A series of measures, introduced in 1885 and 1886, re-energized the Brotherhood. The establishment of a strike fund under the direction of the General Executive Board provided locals with some protection from overextending themselves in protracted disputes with employers. The provision of a members and wives’ funeral benefit, ranging from 25 to 200 dollars, as well as a disability benefit that paid up to 300 dollars for injuries incurred on the job made membership more attractive.28 Bricklayers had been active in the trade union movement the longest of any of the construction crafts. Following the Civil War the New York and Brooklyn locals constituted the core of Bricklayers International Union. In 1870 the union reorganized as the National Union of Bricklayers. Following the depression of 1873–1877, membership had hemorrhaged so profusely that the union looked moribund. During the early 1880s trade union organization experienced a resurrection. In 1881 the union was reconstituted and two years later it expanded its base to include masons. In 1884 the New York and Brooklyn affiliates waged a campaign for the nine-hour day that resulted in the creation of first arbitration scheme in

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the construction industry. The agreement between the Master Builders’ Association and the Bricklayers and Masons’ International Union (BMIU) required that all issues, with the exception of union recognition, be submitted to a joint arbitration board.29 In return for a less adversarial orientation to employers the BMIU negotiated wage scales making bricklayers the highest paid building tradesmen in New York and Brooklyn and secured the nine-hour day (1884) and then the eight-hour day (1890). Union growth correspondingly was impressive. In 1885 the five locals in New York and Brooklyn had 3,000 members and a year later on the eve of the drive for the eight-hour day, membership rose to 4,000.30 In the early 1880s the Knights of Labor assumed leadership of the drive to organize plumbers, in contrast to the unions representing carpenters and bricklayers. After incurring a defeat in a strike for higher wages in 1881, union plumbers, the following year, reorganized themselves into local assemblies within District 49, joining gas fitters and steam fitters who had their own local assemblies. In search of greater autonomy and an effective organization, New York’s and Brooklyn’s plumbers led a drive to establish the National Association of Plumbers, Steam Fitters, and Gas Fitters. The Knights’ General Executive Board responded by forming National Trade Assembly 85, exclusively open to plumbers. In 1886, only two years after the birth of the National Association, most of the New York and Brooklyn locals, the bedrock of the young union, seceded to join the Knights as National Trade Assembly 85.31 Collectively the unions representing building tradesmen had developed an effective network of mutual support. The capacity to mobilize and willingness to deploy sympathy strikes enabled building tradesmen to restrict the power of employers over the hiring of labor and indeed over the production process itself. As the unions organizationally developed and increased their membership, agreements with building contractors about wage rates and working conditions became more commonplace. Yet trade union power remained stymied in part because of the competition among unions within specific crafts. Union carpenters and plumbers faced the prospect of damaging internecine conflict, and therefore, their more farsighted leaders made the amalgamation of rival organizations a priority. TRADE UNIONISM IN THE READY-MADE CLOTHING INDUSTRY: PROMISING INITIATIVES AND ABORTIVE CAMPAIGNS Garment workers’ unions emerged, disappeared, and reemerged with a regularity and rapidity that defies description. Unions appeared when it became evident that workers’ faced employers bent on wage cuts or intransigent on the issue of upgrading conditions of employment. Yet

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workers often did not regard unions as useful or practical other than to strike against employers. Nevertheless, throughout the period some workers understood unions to be more than temporary instruments, and strove to build permanent edifices to house the ranks of labor. Cloakmakers were tireless in their efforts to organize unions. From 1881 to 1886, under the auspices of the Knights of Labor, cloakmakers organized to increase wages. Despite, or because, of their intermittent success in securing wage hikes, the unions formed by cloakmakers were shortlived. In 1886 cloakmakers organized the Independent Cloak Operators Union and the Independent Cloak Finishers, representing 1,000 and 250 workers, respectively. However, by 1889, the only traces of unions in women’s clothing was a small Knights of Labor local assembly, representing dressmakers.32 Coatmakers’ efforts to organize unions were more extensive and slightly less intermittent. Between 1884 and 1886 three different coatmaker unions emerged. In 1885, a year after its founding, the United Tailors Union (UTU) won a twelve-hour day and established a permanent work exchange bureau to help tailors adjust to the industry’s seasonal cycles. In 1886, however, internal conflict between socialists and nonsocialists left the union barely intact. In addition, coatmakers created the Progressive Tailors Union No. 1, affiliated with the Knights of Labor. The union reached a peak in 1886 with 5,000 members, organized in five sections, each representing a particular craft or occupational classification. Nevertheless, the Progressive Tailors Union by 1889 barely functioned, leaving tailors in the men’s clothing industry virtually unorganized. Only those employed in the custom-made men’s clothing trade claimed membership in a union, the Journeymen Tailors National Union, which had a foothold in some of the expensive Fifth Avenue shops.33 In contrast to the mercurial unions of the cloakmakers and the uneven development of their counterparts among coatmakers, clothing cutters throughout the 1880s demonstrated an ability to organize relatively durable unions. Their success in large measure rested on their position in the production process. They performed the primary tasks of cutting and preparation of cloth without which coats or cloaks could not be made. Their labor demanded the skills of physical strength and precise judgment— neither of which were duplicated by machine technology. Founded in 1884, the Gotham Knife Cutters Association (Knights of Labor Local Assembly No. 3038) expanded in 1886 to include the United Cloak and Suit Cutters Association and amalgamated with the Beehive Cutters (underwear) Association. Over the next two years, the Gotham Knife Cutters assumed a low profile. The Knife Cutters, 125 strong, held weekly meetings which featured regular reports from delegates to District Assembly 49 of the Knights of Labor and New York’s Central Labor Union and reminders to members to respect union rules, especially those concerning working with nonunion cutters.34

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OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR THE LABOR MOVEMENT The labor movement seemed poised to improve its position based on the gains of the past twelve months. Yet, leaving aside the different degrees of trade unionism’s efficacy, the unions representing the four groups of workers faced similar challenges. In each industry craft unions had established footholds, including the CMIU which, notwithstanding its admission of bunchmakers and women, in 1886 remained a union primarily of cigar rolling craftsmen. Central to these unions’ future lay questions about their capacity to confront employers who showed a greater resolve to contest union power, as well as their ability to adapt to the restructuring of industrial markets and technological innovation. In the printing trades both the uneven development of trade unionism and the multiplicity of trade union organization loomed as obstacles to cross-craft action, although compositors, stereotypers and pressmen shared the same employers. The CMIU, despite an unprecedented gain in membership, confronted manufacturers, who were determined to introduce new machinery that threatened to deskill cigarmakers and otherwise sought to reduce production costs by establishing factories in upstate New York where prevailing wage rates were lower. In the building trades the potential for jurisdictional disputes and internecine conflict appeared greater with the accelerated development of new materials and construction methods. In the garment trades clothing cutters might readily conclude that the unsuccessful initiatives of cloakmakers and coatmakers underscored the inability of less skilled operators to organize. It remained an open question whether pressers, basters, and finishers would receive the cutters’ support when they organized to eradicate the sweating system of production. That craft unions would continue to grow if they maintained a strategy based on their members’ position in the production process and the operation of craft labor markets was not certain. Withholding labor in industries with flexible labor requirements, as in the building trades, and those working under tight production schedules, such as in the publication of newspapers, might generate concessions from employers or otherwise enable unions to defend their standards of employment. However, strikes involved a high-risk strategy, or in any event were not always sufficient in themselves. Since cigarmaking and the publication of newspapers hinged on local markets, consumer boycotts represented a potentially feasible adjunct if not alternative to strikes. It remained problematic, however, whether unions’ appeals to working class patrons of local businesses for support would be heeded when only a minority of manual workers were union members.

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Although the logic of a workplace-centered strategy was self-evident to craft workers, it was became clear that certain issues were not readily addressed directly with employers; indeed, by their very nature they constituted issues of public policy and therefore required government intervention. These included health and safety standards, the growth of tenement house manufacturing, the use of convict labor, and the employment of children. Despite the organizational gains made by unions in the 1880s, which often translated into impressive improvements in wage rates and working conditions, organized labor found it necessary to intervene in the political arena. While political intervention seemed axiomatic in the context of the limited development of collective bargaining and the opportunities urban politics afforded to well-organized groups, the character of that intervention was more fluid, contingent on the course of events, and open to debate with the labor movement. SPRINGTIME OF LABOR REFORM: THE HENRY GEORGE CAMPAIGN OF 1886 AND ITS AFTERMATH On July 11, 1886, at one of the weekly Sunday meetings of New York City’s Central Labor Union (CLU), delegates spoke alarmingly about the rising tide of state intervention which threatened to hamper labor activity: the use of injunctions, the arrest of strikers, and prosecution of boycott organizers. In 1886 over a hundred trade unionists were indicted for conspiracy, coercion, or extortion under a revised penal code that targeted militant direct action which “exposed valuable property to destruction or serious injury” or “openly outraged public decency.”35 The prosecution of participants in labor boycotts drew swift and bitter condemnation from labor spokesmen. On May 1, at a rally attended by 20,000 to launch the drive for an eight-hour day, John Macklin of the Progressive Painters, drew a rousing response when he decried the “illegal means” by which the courts protected capital, and defiantly predicted that the illegal means deployed by the state to stop labor from exercising its right to boycott would be as futile as “stopping the tide with a pitchfork.” John Swinton (editor of New York’s most prominent labor reform publication in the mid-1880s, John Swinton’s Paper) railed against a “black terror” as “corrupt judges and the police . . . now drag citizens—tailors, car drivers and bakers—to prison by wholesale.”36 As calls for a concerted trade union response mounted, one case in particular spurred the CLU to mobilize. On July 2 a state court ruled that the $1,000 paid by George Theiss, owner of a music hall, boycotted by CLU affiliates in support of the Waiters’ Union and the Carl Sahm Club representing musicians, to cover the costs for organizing the strike and boycott constituted extortion. The jury also agreed with the District Attorney’s

The State of Labor in 1886

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contention that the picketing and boycotting of the music hall was intimidating. George Barrett, the trial judge, sentenced the five boycott leaders to prison terms ranging from two and half years to almost four years.37 Less than five days later the CLU convened a mass meeting to consider proposals to wage a political boycott of the Democratic and Republican Parties in the upcoming elections. So began the most vigorous political initiative by New York’s labor movement in the Gilded Age: one which trade unionists enthusiastically rallied in support of Henry George’s campaign for mayor in the hope government would be “redeemed from the sponsors of class legislation” and the “money-power judges.”38 This plunge into independent electoral politics occurred in the wake of widespread militant industrial action and tighter trade union organization. From November 1885 through the following November almost 80,000 of New York’s workers participated in strikes that affected approximately 2,000 workplaces. In three-fifths of these strikes workers obtained most or some of their demands.39 Conductors and drivers began a series of walkouts in February that continued to tie up New York’s streetcar network well into the summer, and ended with the strikers winning a twohour reduction on a fourteen-hour workday without incurring a commensurate cut in pay.40 Dress and cloakmakers mobilized to pressure clothing manufacturers into eliminating contracting work to outside shops, and in separate strikes other garment workers sought wage increases. In May the movement for an eight-hour day drew enthusiastic support from cabinet makers, fresco painters, furniture makers, wood workers, and varnishers among others. The CMIU and the Progressive Cigar Makers ended a rift that allowed employers to use a divide and conquer strategy against both unions to cut wages and expand tenement house production.41 A growing sense of combativeness and confidence in labor’s ability to wrest control from governments that protected capital at the expense of trade unionists reverberated nationally. Independent labor parties emerged in 1886 and 1887, both in small towns and large cities. Candidates running on United Labor and Union Labor tickets vied for local, state, and federal offices. In Chicago, probably the only city with as strong a trade union network as New York in the 1880s, one state senator, five judges, and seven assembly men won election under the United Labor Party. The following year a campaign waged by the United Labor Party in Cincinnati gained more than a third of the 17,100 total votes, and came within 680 votes of capturing the mayor’s office. As in New York, local city-wide labor federations and organizations which united workers across trades and industries, such as the Knights of Labor, viewed political activity as a means to reaffirm labor’s values and the principles of republican citizenship.42

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The upsurge of labor politics followed a period of relatively tentative interventions in the political arena earlier in the decade. In March, 1884 some of the figures who would assume important roles in the Henry George campaign—Lucian Sanial (a leader in the Socialist Labor Party) and John Swinton—organized the Liberty League. The Liberty League stressed the tripartite issues of land, labor, and currency, that invoked the memory of the National Labor Reform Party in the early 1870s and the Greenback-Labor Party at the end of the decade. The league, however, devoted more of its energies to immediate concerns of New York’s labor movement which fell within the jurisdiction of the state legislature: the passage of a life and limb bill as well as the prohibition of child labor and tenement house production. Nevertheless, despite the spirited efforts of Swinton in particular, the Liberty League remained on the margins of the city’s labor movement, and disappeared by the end of the year.43 A year later the CLU took the initiative to promote a reform program. Provoked by labor’s inadequate representation in government and lack of respect despite its numerical strength, the CLU launched the Union Card Political League (UCPL). The UCPL assumed a nonpartisan political position, with membership open to all bona fide trade unionists. The UCPL engaged in three sets of related activities: (1) the framing of a program which included the prohibition of contract, convict, and child labor as well as tenement house production; the strengthening of the state’s eight-hour law; the creation of a state printing office, and the enactment of a life and limb bill; (2) the monitoring of legislation pending in Congress and the State legislature; and (3) the promotion of workingmen into political office. While scant progress had been achieved in implementing the reform program in 1885 and 1886, its very articulation represented a consensus of priorities and clear sense of purpose which underpinned labor’s bolder initiatives in the autumn of 1886.44 The decision to break from organized labor’s nonpartisan tradition in electoral politics had its dissenters. At the inaugural meeting of the CLU’s “Political Conference,” where delegates first considered nominating Henry George, members from No. 6 of the International Typographical Union (ITU) steadfastly argued that labor could hold the balance of power in a two party race, and therefore could gain concessions from the major parties. The Boycotter, the official newspaper of No. 6, embraced this so-called reward your friends approach to politics. Contributors argued labor lacked the prerequisite unity to deliver the vote for an independent candidate. Some stressed the movement risked squandering its gains if it lost at the polls, and even if it were electorally successful, labor would find that governing would be nearly impossible since “no party nor faction would afford them all the recognition to administer municipal affairs.”45 Yet the most persuasive arguments came from some of the city’s most respected labor leaders. George Block, secretary of the National Bakers

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Union, whose New York locals figured prominently in the Theiss boycott, spoke of the upcoming election’s potential to demonstrate labor’s strength. Ludwig Jablinowski, President of Local 90 of the CMIU, referred to the breakthroughs scored by the Social Democratic Party in Germany. Members of the Organizing Committee, including Frank Ferrell of the Eccentric Engineers, who seconded George’s candidacy; Hugh Whoriskey of the United Order of Carpenters; and John Davitt from the Operative Painters, stressed the opportunity to rid the city of “boodle politicians” and to establish one set of laws for rich and poor alike.46 By late September, when the mayoral campaign gained momentum, virtually all of the city’s trade unions, including No. 6 of the ITU had thrown their support behind George. Unions representing bookkeepers, brass workers, canal boatmen, carpenters, cigarmakers, painters, piano makers, plumbers, printers, silk workers, tailors, and telegraphers formed legions to organize public forums and rallies and to canvass prospective voters.47 Most impressive were the efforts of the cigarmakers who formed the Tobacco Trades Legion, which included German, Bohemian, and Cuban cigarmakers; Locals 10 and 90, formerly of the socialist-led Progressive Cigar Makers; and Locals 13, 141 and 144 of the CMIU. No legion had more participants at the parade, held on October 29, one week before polling day, than did the Tobacco Trades Legion with the exception of the Printers Legion.48 For their part, the printers provided the most consistent support for George’s candidacy over the last six weeks of the campaign. The Printing Trades’ Legion brought together unions representing typographers, stereotypers, electrotypers, pressmen, plate printers, and bookbinders, including rival organization, such as the Pressmen’s Union No. 9 and the Franklin Association, and distinct organizations such as the Colored Printers. The Printing Trades Legion sponsored lectures, meetings, picnics, and mobilized for rallies throughout October. On election day members of the Printing Trades Legion served as captains for all twenty-four Assembly Districts in the city to help monitor the distribution of ballots and the casting of votes.49 How can we account for this broad and fervent support for the author of Progress and Poverty, one of most widely read social reform tracts of the Gilded Age, and the proponent of the single tax to curb the unequal distribution of wealth? Certainly, George’s background as a journeymen printer, as a reporter and then editor of the San Francisco Times from 1867 to 1871, and as a correspondent for The Irish World in 1881 won the respect of printing tradesmen.50 Yet George’s appeal to New York’s workers arose more from the themes he addressed in his campaign. George’s response to James Archibald (Chair of the CLU), who wrote to invite George to run for mayor under the ticket of the United Labor Party in late August, captured the essence of his appeal. In his letter he raised

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the hopes for a worker-based electoral movement to accomplish something radical and lasting: Hitherto all movements for municipal reform in political “halls” or have originated with wealthy remedy for civic corruption has been the election They have aimed at effects rather than causes, at roots. . . .51

New York have sprung from citizens whose sole and futile of respectability [sic] to office. outgrowths rather than at the

In that same letter he emphasized the prevailing problems of an urbanindustrial society—poverty, unhealthy living conditions and substandard housing among others—and pointed to an economic system that “robbed labor of its natural rewards and led to the “new states being filled with tramps” and “human beings being turned into machines.”52 Many of these ideas found a more programmatic expression in the platform adopted at the Clarendon Hall Convention organized by the CLU’s Political Conference on September 23. Delegates called for the abolition of all “class legislation” that gave “advantages to one class of citizens in reference to their judicial, financial, industrial or political power” and the elimination of the “system that turned beneficent discoveries, like railroads and telegraphs, into tools for the exploitation of the people . . . ” More specific to New York City, the platform included a series of political reforms, such as home rule for New York, abolition of property qualifications for jury service, and the enactment of laws that would reduce the need for money in campaigns and prevent bribery in elections, as well as measures to promote workplace health and safety and sanitary living conditions in tenement housing.53 The Clarendon Hall Platform, as it became known, contained the labor movement’s diagnosis of, and its prescription for, many of the political, economic, and social ills of Gilded Age America which labor reformers and the Knights of the Labor, in particular, had stressed earlier in the decade. The core of George’s appeal, or more exactly the appeal of his candidacy, resided in a description and analysis of industrial capitalism’s material injustices and moral failings that rang true to many of New York’s workers, who, like George, felt a political solution existed. The speeches of union leaders at meetings and rallies as well as the poems and songs which the campaign inspired highlighted the significance of George’s candidacy for New York’s labor movement. The thunderous response to George’s nomination had scarcely finished when Frank Ferrell from the Eccentric Engineers in his seconding speech compared labor’s moral imperative in 1886 with that of labor in 1860: The question of rights now before the people was something the same as when John Brown was killed at Harper’s Ferry—the right of one man to take and use the

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labor of others. The duty of the people was plain. If they refused to do it, the shame be on their own heads for making their children slaves.54

Similar motifs could be found in the lyrics of “the People’s Candidate” set to the music of “John Brown’s Body”: Hurrah we hail the bright awaking [sic] The toilers’ chains at last are breaking And the greedy millionaire with fear is quicking [sic] For Labor is marching on.55

and another set to the tune of “Hold the Fort”: See the workmen now advancing George is leading on Politicians now are falling They will soon be gone Hold New York for George is Coming Loud his praises sing We will cast our votes together For our Labor King.56

This use of popular idioms to arouse enthusiasm for George’s candidacy and to elicit a more intimate form of participation in the campaign stressed a call to arms even if the lyrics did not evoke images of Union armies fighting to save the Republic. One such song sung to “Little Side Door” by Harringan and Hart (whose light-hearted depictions of Irish immigrant life entertained Broadway audiences in the 1870s and 1880s) referred to the ballot as a “gun” and worker-citizens as “soldiers.”57 Likewise, in a poem entitled, “Election Day,” the following battle cry was heard: Knights of Labor, man the yards Union members, work the guns He who values men’s regards Needed peril never shuns.58

Throughout the autumn of 1886 New York’s labor press paid tribute to George and testified to the importance of the election campaign to its participants. An anonymous printer writing in John Swinton’s Paper saw George’s candidacy as striking “a blow against the surface thinkers of political economy” and promoting the development of a workers’ movement like those in Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Germany.59 George’s supporters felt his candidacy reaffirmed workers’ bedrock values. A bookbinder intended to vote for “labor’s candidate” because he

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was honest. A German-American cigarmaker echoed this assessment, and added that George was man of “personal integrity and independence.” John McCarthy, a brewery worker, established the link between character and politics even more explicitly: “We (workingmen) want just such a pure, upright, independent, energetic man as George in the Mayor’s chair in order that the City government may be reformed.”60 George’s appeal to German and Irish immigrant workers from different trades illustrated the breadth of support his candidacy generated. In the Upper East Side, where many of the city’s immigrant cigarmakers lived and worked, Henry George Bohemian Clubs appeared in three assembly districts. In the Lower East Side the Jewish Workmen’s Society organized Henry George Hebrew Associations in four assembly districts, sponsored meetings and ran a nationalization bureau for the purposes of helping Jewish immigrants become eligible to vote. The nationalization drive extended to other immigrant communities, as almost 4,000 immigrants received citizenship papers between September 1 and October 24, 1886. In a mass demonstration of support for George towards the end of the campaign Cuban cigarmakers joined contingents of Bohemian, German, and Italian immigrant workers marching behind banners that read: “Cubans Shed Their Blood to Free Slaves, and They’ll Vote to do the Same.”61 The tireless efforts of the Henry George Clubs, Associations, and Legions also highlighted the ecumenical character of the campaign. Different, if not conflicting, tendencies within the city’s labor movement cooperated to boost labor’s candidate. The Socialist Labor Party (SLP) along with the Knights of Labor sponsored meetings, forums and rallies. The CMIU and District Assembly 49 of the Knights of Labor, which had been embroiled in a bitter dispute in July and August, mobilized their members in support of George. Both James Quinn from District Assembly 49 and Samuel Gompers stressed the need for workers to assert their citizenship rights as they spoke to the 35,000 bakers, brewery workers, carpenters, cigarmakers, framers, furriers, machinists, plumbers, printers, shoemakers, streetcar men among others who marched to Union Square. Even anarchists active among Jewish immigrant workers put aside their ideological rejection of electoral politics to support George’s candidacy.62 That such a cross-section of labor activists could work on behalf of George suggests his independent candidacy constituted a movement by, of, and for the labor movement contrary to the views of some historians of urban and reform politics who have argued that uptown intellectuals within the so-called Chickering Hall group (so named because that is where they met) hijacked the campaign to advance the single-tax concept at the expense of labor’s agenda.63 Even those historians who have seen an affinity between George’s proposed remedy to the unequal distribution of wealth and the priorities of the labor movement have shown a tendency to underestimate the insurgent nature of the United Labor Party (ULP),

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which coordinated the campaign, by stressing its orientation was traditionally American.64 Instead of using terms that suggest there were un-American or alien political perspectives vying for influence, it is more instructive to understand George’s candidacy as emerging organically from New York’s labor movement, which consisted of socialists, anarchists, and nondescript trade unionists. George’s candidacy resonated with authenticity, since it spoke to the needs and interests of the city’s diversified working class in a manner with which its constituency could readily identify. Despite the breadth of support and enthusiastic participation from New York’s workers, George fell short of capturing the election. George finished second to Abram Hewitt, a wealthy iron manufacturer who won the backing of both Tammany Hall and reform Democrats within the County Democracy, but ahead of Theodore Roosevelt who ran on the Republican ticket. Hewitt netted 41 percent of the 219,992 votes cast, while George and Roosevelt won 31 percent and 28 percent of the vote, respectively. George carried three of the city’s twenty-four assembly districts—the tenth, fifteenth, and seventeenth—and ran strongly (where the margin of George’s vote over that of Roosevelt far exceeded Hewitt’s margin of victory over George) in four assembly districts—the sixth, sixteenth, twentieth, and twenty-second.65 George particularly did well in those assembly districts in lower Manhattan (above City Hall and below 14th Street) whose population largely consisted of immigrants and their native-born offspring—Germans, Irish, and Eastern European Jews. George consistently carried those areas where German immigrants either constituted the majority or plurality of voters within the sixth, eighth, tenth, fifteenth, and seventeenth assembly districts. Although less consistently, George attracted substantial support from first- and second-generation Irish.66 George received a consistently higher level of support in those districts where the population density exceeded the city’s average and where many of the city’s factories, warehouses, and workshops were concentrated. In the four assembly districts where George finished a strong second, tenement houses predominated over private, single-family dwellings and industrial activity flourished. These included the sixteenth (Hewitt’s home district) between 14th and 26th Streets east of Third Avenue, which contained gasworks, machine shops, and furniture making operations; the sixth in the lower east side, a base of the ready-made clothing industry; and the twentieth and twenty-second, which consisted of numerous cigarmaking factories, tenement shops, and breweries. A similar picture can be drawn of the three assembly districts George carried, although in both the fifteenth and seventeenth (between 26th and 52nd Streets west of Seventh Avenue) private single-family dwellings coexisted more freely with tenement and boarding houses. In any event, these districts contained the city’s

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largest slaughtering houses, a busy waterfront, and variety of manufacturing plants.67 George’s second place finish disappointed his supporters, but it failed to dishearten the labor movement’s most articulate spokesmen. John McMakin, the Chairman of the CLU’s Political Conference, expressed the common view that although a battle had been lost, the war was yet to be won: “this has been the Bunker Hill of the labor revolution. We have been beaten back . . . but we shall within our own times too, gain the victory that will give us the true republic of the workingman.”68 The editor of The Boycotter considered George’s candidacy a vindication of the “clean, incorruptible, unselfish and patriotic” citizenry whose efforts were thwarted by the “bums, thieves, nickel gamblers, and toughs who turned away from their ancestry.”69 The SLP in an editorial in The Workman’s Advocate asserted, the mayoral campaign represented a new departure since “labor’s ranks were deserting their traitorous commanders.”70 For his part, George also considered the election as a turning point, although for different reasons than did the SLP. Addressing CLU delegates he optimistically declared, “we have demonstrated the political power of labor. Never again, never again will the politicians look upon the labor movement with contempt.”71 After all, George obtained considerably more support than any of the major New York daily newspapers predicted. The Sun, which did a district by district analysis, held that George would not win more than 42,000 votes and probably less than 37,000.72 Hoping to build on this solid foundation, many in the city’s labor movement looked forward to the elections in 1887 when important local state government offices would be contested. These expectations, however, went unrealized. In 1887, a split developed in the ULP between the singletax followers of George and members of the SLP over the ULP’s political program. Consequently, the socialists formed the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and fielded its own slate of candidates, headed by John Swinton, to contest the ULP in the statewide election. The CLU refrained from endorsing either party’s candidates, although George’s prestige and Swinton’s stature in the labor movement moved many of its delegates to urge the federation not to remain neutral. Most of the city’s unions followed the CLU’s example and did not support either party or, for that matter, endorse the candidates of the Democratic and Republican Parties.73 Some unions linked by membership in the United German Trades participated directly in the PLP’s campaign. These included Locals 10 and 90 of the CMIU, the United Framers, the German Painters, the Tailors’ Progressive Union, and the Furniture Workers’ Union of Brooklyn. In addition, most of the PLP’s candidates were union members. Among those running for the State Assembly in New York City included Aaron Henry and Paul Siebert from Local 90 of the CMIU, Charles Scheite from the German-American Typographia, and Edward Gottlieb, a Hungarian-

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born organizer of the Buttonhole Makers Union. Rallies, parades, and public meetings marked the 1887 campaign. However, unlike the previous year’s election campaign, they were smaller and less frequent. George garnered 37,500 votes in New York City (18 percent) and 70,000 statewide (7 percent) for Secretary of State while Swinton received 3,000 votes for State Senator.74 The performance of the PLP and the ULP in the statewide elections of 1887 was an anticlimax. While many of leaders of those unions involved in the PLP remained committed to independent political action, and constituted a hub of the socialist influence in the labor movement, the momentum for labor reform had waned. The united front forged within the labor movement between affiliates of the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor, and between socialists and nonsocialists, during the 1886 George campaign had fractured. Perhaps this change in mood not only reflected conflicting strategic orientations but a declining sense of urgency. After all, the new turn taken by most of the major unions in New York during the summer and autumn of 1886 followed a five year period of more or less steady growth in membership and improvements in wages, hours and working conditions. Judicial decisions, especially in the case of the Theiss boycotters, assumed special significance, since they symbolically, if not actually, threatened organized labor’s gains, and tested the intensity of its combativeness and depth of confidence. In the aftermath of the Henry George campaign and the less-impressive showing in the 1887 statewide elections, the strategy and tactics of trade unions’ political intervention demanded a reassessment. Could unions best exercise political influence over policy making as a pressure group in pursuit of sectional interests, or as members of a broader coalition for social reform? If unions were to adopt a higher political profile, did this entail lobbying legislators, providing bipartisan support to candidates from the major parties, or more boldly engaging in independent political action as a challenge to the Democratic and Republican party machines? As unions developed unevenly in the 1880s and 1890s and attempted to weather the turbulence of economic slumps and employers’ determination to exercise their prerogatives, these questions assumed a greater importance. Political activity represented a cornerstone of a movement which sought to empower workers and ensure that labor would equitably share in the nation’s industrial progress. In the process political action could be conceived as trade unionism by another means. NOTES 1. The Sun, May 2, 1886; The Tribune, May 2, 1886; John Swinton’s Paper, May 2, 1886.

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2. John Swinton’s Paper, April 6, 1884, July 6, 1884, and February 28, 1886; The New York Sun, May 2, 1886; The New York Sun’s Guide to New York (1892), pp. 100–101. 3. John Swinton’s Paper, February 28, 1886 and July 6, 1886; The New York Sun, May 2, 1886; Peter Speek, “The Single-Tax and the Labor Movement,” (unpublished Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1915), pp. 40–41; The Leader, passim. 4. The Boycotter, October 9, 1886; The Union Printer, January 8, 1887; A History of the 100 Years of Unions on the New York Tribune, pp. 11, 12. 5. George Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, A Study of a Modern Trade Union and Its Predecessors (Albany: New York State Department of Labor, 1913), pp. 536–540; The Union Printer, December 1886. 6. Hugo Miller, Zu Schutz and Trutz 25 Jahrige Geschite der Deutsch-Amerikanischen Typographia (Indianapolis, 1898), pp. 31–35; New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eight Annual Report (1890), pp. 231–232. 7. Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, pp. 205–206, 261–264, 472–477, 497–498, 500, 504–505, 533–534; The Union Printer, December 1886. 8. No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, March 12, 1882, September 3, 1882, October 1882, January 18 and 21, 1883, March 4, 1883, and April 1, 1883; Stevens, pp. 311–315, 416–418, 420. 9. No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, February 7, 1883; Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, p. 313. 10. Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, p. 314–316, 420; John Swinton’s Paper, November 18, 1883; The Craftsman, January 17, and March 21, 1885; The Boycotter, January 31, and March 21, 1885. 11. Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, pp. 386–388, 391–392; No. 6, Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting, December 18, 1883; The Boycotter, January 5, 1884. 12. Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, p. 391; The Boycotter, March 29, and May 14, 1884; John Swinton’s Paper, May 11, and October 26, 1884 13. No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, November 1, 1885; Minutes of Executive Committee, November 5 1885; John Swinton’s Paper, November 8, 1885. 14. Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, pp. 392–393. 15. Samuel Gompers, Seventy Years of Life and Labor: An Autobiography (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1925), pp. 33, 46, 47, 108–111, 114; Norman Ware, The Labor Movement in the United States, 1860–1895: A Study in Democracy (New York: D. Appleton, 1929), pp. 259–262; William Baer, Economic Development of the Cigar Industry, pp. 91–92 (Lancaster, Pennsylvania: The Art Printing Company, 1933) Dorothea Schneider, Trade Unions and Community (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), pp. 70–73. 16. Gompers, Seventy Years of Life and Labor, pp. 142, 143, 148–155, 164; John R. Commons, et. al., History of Labor in the United States Volume 2 (New York: Macmillan, 1918), p. 178; Philip Foner, Women and the American Labor Movement Volume 1 (New York: Free Press, 1979), p. 176; Dorothea Schneider, “The New York Cigarmakers Strike of 1877,” Labor History, 26 (1985), pp. 325–352. 17. Gompers, Seventy Years of Life and Labor, pp. 165–168; Philip Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States Volume 1 (New York: International Publishers, 1947), pp. 515–516. 18. Ware, Labor Movement in the United States, pp. 263, 264; T.W. Glocker, “The Structure of the Cigar Makers’ Union,” in Jacob Hollander and George Barnett, eds., Studies in American Trade Unionism (New York, [1912] 1969), pp. 51, 52;

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David Montgomery, “Labor in the Industrial Era,” Richard Morris, ed., A History of the American Worker (Princeton University Press, 1983), p. 104. Eileen Boris, “‘A Man’s Dwelling House in His Castle’: Tenement House Cigarmaking and the Judicial Imperative,” in Ava Baron, ed., Work Engendered: Toward a New History of American Labor (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 138; John Swinton’s Paper, December 23, 1883. Patricia Cooper, drawing on the work of Dorothea Schneider, “Three German Trade Unions in New York 1870–1900” (unpublished PhD diss., University of Munich, 1983), stresses the cultural differences between the Progressives and the CMIU. The former consisted mainly of German immigrants whom, she argues, were “less assimilated” and “more ethnically conscious” than their CMIU counterparts. In contrast, the leadership and rank and file of the latter were more ethnically mixed and contained a large proportion of English-speakers. See Once a Cigar Maker, pp. 22–23. 19. John Swinton’s Paper, January 3, 1886. 20. Ware, The Labor Movement in the United States, pp. 272–274; Samuel Gompers Papers, Volume 1 (1850–1886), Stuart Kaufman, ed., (University of Maryland, 1985), pp. 365–366; John Swinton’s Paper, February 7 and 14, 1886. p. 21; Cigar Makers Official Journal, October 1887; and The Boycotter, August 21, 1886. 22. Ware, The Labor Movement in the United States, pp. 280–294; and Joseph Rayback, A History of American Labor (New York: Free Press, 1966), pp. 176, 177. 23. Samuel Gompers Papers, Volume 1, pp. 442–443. 24. John Swinton’s Paper, April 6, 1884, and July 6, 1884; The New York Sun, May 2, 1886; The Leader, November 29, 1886, December 6, 20, and 22, 1886; and The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac (1887), pp. 76–83. 25. The Carpenter, August 1883; William Haber, Industrial Relations in the Building Industry (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1930), p. 347; The Leader, November 15, 17, and 24, 1886, and December 22, 1886; William Burke, The History and Functions of Central Labor Unions (New York: AMS [1899], 1968), pp. 92–98. 26. Walter Galenson, The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners: The First Hundred Years (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1983), pp. 23–25 and 28; Mark Erlich, “Peter J. McGuire’s Trade Unionism: Socialism of a Trade Union Kind?,” Labor History, 24 (Spring 1983), pp. 165–197. 27. The Carpenter, September and October 1886, and June 1887; The New York Sun, May 2, 1886; Galenson, The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, p. 16. 28. Walter Galenson, The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, pp. 48–49; and The Carpenter, September 1886. 29. Gary Fink, ed., Labor Unions (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 1977), pp. 44–45; Haber, Industrial Relations in the Building Industry, pp. 285–286. 30. John Swinton’s Paper, May 1, 1885; The New York Sun, May 2, 1886; and New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eight Annual Report (1890). 31. Martin Segal, The Rise of the United Association: National Unionism in the Pipe Trades, 1884–1924 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 20–26; John Swinton’s Paper, August 29 and September 19, 1886. 32. Carolyn D. McCreesh, Women in the Campaign to Organize Garment Workers, 1880–1917 (New York: Garland Publishing Company, 1985), pp. 28–29; Lewis Lorwin (Levine), The Women’s Garment Workers: A History of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (New York: D.W. Huebsch,1924), pp. 33, 34; The New York Sun, May 2,

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1886; John Andrews and W.D.P. Bliss, History of Women in Trade Unions (Washington, D.C., 1911), pp. 199–131. 33. James O’Neal, A History of the Amalgamated Ladies’ Garment Cutters’ Union Local 10 (New York: Local 10, 1927), pp. 22–24; The Union Printer, July 30 1887; The Carpenter, October, 1888. 34. O’Neal, History of the Amalgamated Ladies’ Garment Cutters’ Union, p. 11; Gotham Knife Cutters’ Association, Minutes of Meetings, August 7, 1887, and December 30, 1887. 35. The Boycotter, July 17, 1886; Peter Alexander Speek, “The Single-Tax and the Labor Movement” (unpublished PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1915), pp. 56–57; and New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Fourth Annual Report (1887), pp. 653, 669–671. 36. The Sun, May 2, 1886. 37. Philip Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Volume II (New York: International Publishers, 1955), pp. 117–118. 38. John Swinton’s Paper, July 11, and July 25, 1886; Louis Post and Charles Leubuscher, An Account of the George Hewitt Campaign in the New York Municipal Election of 1886 (New York 1887), pp. 5–6 39. New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Fourth Annual Report (1887), pp. 418, 419, 460. 40. For a comprehensive account of the streetcar strike which, after completing extensive interviews with conductors and drivers, concluded that the surface railroad companies were guilty of inhumane and unjustifiable treatment, see Ibid., pp. 818 ff. 41. Ibid., pp. 656–661 and The Tribune, May 7, 9, 10, 15, and 18, 1886. 42. Foner, A History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Volume II, pp. 129–130. Leon Fink, “The Uses of Political Power: Towards a Theory of the Labor Movement in the Era of the Knights of Labor,” Michael Frisch and Daniel J. Walkowitz, eds., Working-Class America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983), p. 113; Steven Ross, Workers On the Edge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), p. 312. 43. John Swinton’s Paper, March 18, 30, April 20, 27, and May 4, 1884. 44. The Boycotter, December 5, 1885, and January 23, 1886. 45. Ibid., July 31, 1886; Peter Speek, “The Single Tax and the Labor Movement” (University of Wisconsin, 1917), p. 63. 46. The Boycotter, August 7, 1886; The World, October 10, 1886; Post and Leubuscher, An Account of the George Hewitt Campaign, p. 6. 47. Post and Leubuscher, An Account of the George-Hewitt Campaign, p. 29; The Boycotter, October 23, 1886. 48. Henry George Scrapbooks, Number 18, Main Research Branch of the New York Public Library (Economics Division); The New York Star, October 11, 1886; The Leader, October 29, 1886. 49. The Boycotter, October 9, 1886, and November 6, 1886; New York Star, September 26, 1886; The World, October 24, 1886. 50. New York Star, September 24, 1886; Rhonda Hellman, Henry George Reconsidered (New York, Carlton Press: 1987), pp. 22–24. 51. Henry George to John Archibald, August 26, 1886, in Post and Leubuscher, An Account of the George-Hewitt Campaign, pp. 9–10.

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52. Ibid. 53. Friedrich A. Sorge, The Labor Movement in the United States: A History of the American Working Class from Colonial Times to 1890 (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1977), pp. 219–220; Post and Leubuscher, An Account of the GeorgeHewitt Campaign, pp. 12–15. 54. Henry George Scrapbooks, Number 17 (September 24, 1886). 55. The Leader, November 2, 1886. 56. The Sun, October 6, 1886. 57. The Leader, October 23, 1886. 58. John Swinton’s Paper, October 31, 1886. 59. The Leader, August 1, 1886. 60. The World, October 11, 1886. 61. The Tribune, October 2, 1886; The World, October 5, 1886; The Journal, October 31, 1886; William Leiserson, “The History of the Jewish Labor Movement in New York City” (Unpublished B.A. Thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1908), p. 28; Henry George Scrapbooks, Number 18. 62. Post and Leubuscher, An Account of the George-Hewitt Campaign, pp. 152–154; Melech Epstein, Jewish Labor in the U.S.A. (New York: Trade Union Sponsoring Committee, 1950), pp. 148–149. 63. See, for example, Thomas Condon, “Politics, Reform and the New York City Election of 1886,” New York Historical Quarterly 44 (October 1960), pp. 363–393, Peter Speek, “The Single Tax and the Labor Movement.” 64. See Steven Ross, “The Culture of Political Economy: Henry George and the American Working Class,” Southern California Quarterly LXV (Summer, 1983), pp. 145–166. In an otherwise insightful and stimulating piece, Ross overlooks parallels drawn between developments in working class politics in the United States and Europe by advocates of independent political action in the CLU which launched Henry George’s candidacy. 65. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac (1888), p. 174. 66. New York City Record, October 23, 1886 and Supplement Edition; Joel Silbey, “The Emergence of the Political Machine: An Alternative View,” in Willis Hawley, ed., Theoretical Perspectives on Urban Politics (Englewood Cliff, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1976), pp. 286–290, highlights the temporary shift of second generation Irish voters from Tammany Hall to George, a measure of the effectiveness of the labor-sponsored campaign. 67. The Sun, October 22, 1886; Phillips Thompson, The Politics of Labor (New York: Belford, Clarke and Company, 1887), pp. 79–90. 68. The World, November 3, 1886. 69. The Boycotter, November 6, 1886. 70. The Workmen’s Advocate, November 7, 1886. 71. The World, November 3, 1886; The Sun, November 3, 1886. 72. The Sun, October 22, 1886. Meanwhile, The New York Times, September 20, 1886 and The News, October 10, 1886, saw very little chance that George would dent the power of the Democratic Party machine. 73. Speek, “The Single-Tax and the Labor Movement,” pp. 92–100, 140–142. 74. The Leader, September 9, and 19, and November 6, 1887; The New York City Record (1887).

CHAPTER 3

Cooperative Unionism and the Printers’ Reassertion of Craft Labor

INTRODUCTION Printers worked in an industry marked by diversity. Individual businesses specialized in particular product lines. Similar to the cigarmaking and the clothing industries, smaller enterprises operated alongside large firms. Likewise, corresponding to the distinct branches in the industry, the intensity of competition varied, indicative of the ability of employers to capture niches in their respective markets. Accordingly, typographers’ wage rates and hours varied according to branch, employer, and specific type of work. Moreover, for printers the impact of mechanization was uneven. Diversified presses facilitated a redivision of labor among pressmen, but mechanical typesetting equipment did not de-skill typographers (also known as compositors). However, the introduction of linotypes did reduce the growth in the employment of typographers. If printers were not the only group of workers to confront employers resolved to reduce per unit costs and increase productivity, as the experience of cigarmakers and garment workers attested, printers were better positioned to meet this challenge than most of their cohorts in other occupations and industries. Typographers and pressmen built durable unions that weathered the storms of business cycles, industrial conflict, and internecine rivalries. Indeed, the unions representing the different crafts in the printing trades increasingly demonstrated their ability to forge closer ties to pursue common goals. Notwithstanding technological change and managerial initiatives, printers developed a cooperative unionism in the late nineteenth century that withstood volatile shifts in the business cycle, established job control, improved wages and working conditions, and

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challenged employers’ prerogatives. In the process, they demonstrated that craft labor was still viable even during a period of mature industrialization. AN OVERVIEW OF THE PRINTING INDUSTRY The most salient characteristic of the printing industry was its bifurcated structure. The printing industry consisted of two separate branches: newspapers and periodicals and book and job. The former included New York’s and Brooklyn’s daily and weekly press and popular magazines, and the latter included books, journals, and miscellaneous literature. Few printing firms or publishers produced both newspapers and books. Newspaper publishers, which, in the 1870s and 1880s, maintained book and job operations, turned exclusively to newspaper production in the 1890s. By 1900, one study estimates, only twenty percent of the income earned by newspapers came from book and job publishing.1 In fact, within each branch specialization prevailed. In the book and job branch publishers specialized in producing literature in particular fields. Many publishers contracted out the actual printing to book and jobbers who proved most capable of doing custom quality work, providing special attention to style and format. One such printing concern, Wynkoop and Hallenbeck, produced a number of periodicals, including Standard and Fashion, Ladies’ Standard, and Mission Monthly. Following the Civil War, general publishing houses began to appear, some of which, like Harpers and Appleton, owned and operated their own printing facilities and sought to diversify their line of products. Harpers and Appleton published both books and magazines in a variety of fields: fiction, travel, history, and popular science. Yet the publishing of professional material in law and medicine, technical and scientific literature, and religious tracts and books each remained specialized areas. In addition, surrounding New York’s City Hall, between Chambers Street and Fulton Street, scores of small specialty shops printed pamphlets, posters, handbills, blank books, and personal and office stationery.2 The publishing and printing of newspapers also tended to specialize. In New York and Brooklyn there were more than 600 newspapers, of which 28 were dailies. There were also local community papers and foreign language publications oriented to different readerships. Some papers appeared weekly or semiweekly and claimed an overlapping readership with the major dailies. This specialization modulated the competition in the industry, allowing firms to assume different places in the market. For example, the Harlem Herald and Once A Week, also a Harlem-based paper, may have competed with each other but not directly with The New York Times.3

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The demarcation between newspaper and book and job printing applied to the industry’s workers, too. Biographical sketches provided by The Union Printer suggested printers rarely moved from positions in newspaper production to book and job printing, and vice versa. Peter Finnen, Brooklyn-born charter member of Local 98 of the International Typographical Union (ITU), started his career as a compositor with The Brooklyn Daily Eagle before moving on to the Catholic Examiner and The Citizen. John Maxwell served his apprenticeship with the Hudson County Times in Bayonne, New Jersey, but then proceeded to work for such book and job firms as De Baun, Morganthaler, and Fless and Ridge. In 1893 and 1894 he served as vice president of No. 6 of the ITU, and during his term organized a book and job branch in the union. William P. Delaney began working at the age of 14 in the press room of Gildesleeve’s and then moved on to Hinds, Ketcham, and Company. When he lost his job with Hinds, he found employment with William Brown, and during his employment there served as the Vice President and then President of the Franklin Association of Pressmen affiliated with the Knights of Labor. Warren Browne, editor of The Union Printer, No. 6’s official weekly, between 1886 and 1896, worked as a roller feeder in the small town of Freedonia in upstate New York, and then drifted throughout the midwest before finding steady work in Pittsburgh, where he helped organize book and job printers into Local Assembly 1630 of the Knights of Labor. In New York he worked for two of the largest book and job firms—Burgoyne’s and Styles and Cash— during which time he served on the union’s executive committee.4 The printing industry was divided in other ways. In the 1880s and 1890s two tiers of employers emerged. Partly as the result of the industry’s specialization, firms both modest in size and capital reserves prevailed. In 1890 the average number of workers employed by book and job and newspaper companies was 16 and 17, respectively. Of the approximately 250 firms for which data is available, 60 percent employed fewer than 25 workers. Meanwhile, 80 percent of the printing and publishing concerns listed by R.G. Dun and Company, the mercantile credit agency, held capital assets of less than $50,000.5 Simultaneously, in both branches, concentration of business operations developed. Five printing and publishing companies amassed capital reserves of at least $500,000. These included Harpers, Peter Colliers, and J. Little and Company—all of which employed at least 200 workers—and Appleton and Company, the Brooklyn based publishing firm, which employed almost 500 workers. Technological advances in typesetting and printing permitted the production of larger newspapers at a lower per unit cost, and led to a 100 percent growth in per capita circulation from 1880 to 1900, with The New York World, in particular, boosting its circulation more than ten fold between 1883 to 1887.6

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The structural features of the industry had serious implications for employers and workers alike. The more-diversified book and job printing firms and the larger mass circulation newspapers, spurred by a rekindling of labor unrest and mounting management responsibilities, began to cooperate and pool resources. New York’s leading book and job publishers spearheaded a campaign to organize an employers’ association. In 1884, eleven years after the dissolution of the original New York Typothetae, Theodore De Vinne, Joseph J. Little, John Polhemus, and Howard Lockwood convened the first session of the reconstituted Typothetae, and three years later officially affiliated with the United Typothetae based in Chicago.7 Until 1887 newspaper and book and job publishers remained in the same employers’ association. However, economic pressures and recognition that there was a growing disparity between the demands of newspaper production and book and job printing led to a split. The growth of bigger newspapers accelerated the drive to enlarge the readership of each and to capture a healthier share of advertising revenue. Increased competition spurred companies to maximize economies of scale, which in turn encouraged publishers and editors to develop new forms of organization— dividing the production, circulation, advertising, and financial operations into separate departments. As most of the major papers tended to adopt similar business practices, the preconditions for the formation of an employers’ trade association emerged.8 In 1887, at Rochester, New York, Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of The New York World, William Cullen Bryant of The Brooklyn Times, and William Laffan of The New York Sun were instrumental in the establishment of the American Newspaper Publishers’ Association. They drew attention to the benefits of an employers’ association—a more reliable management of newsgathering, promotion of uniform advertising rates, and the development of a unified policy on copyrights and postage rates. In addition, they reminded the delegates at the founding conference, that the ANPA could offset printers’ unions which “think they can move the world” by providing a support network for newspapers hit by strikes and boycotts.9 Not only did the New York Typothetate and the American Newspaper Publishers’ Association derive its support from the major firms in their respective branches of the industry. Printers’ unions also were most prominent among the workforces of the larger employers. Compositors, machine operators and pressmen working at The Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Appleton and Company were members of No. 98 of the ITU, and almost all of New York’s leading dailies had become union shops by 1898. On the whole, however, printers were more successful in organizing unions in the newspaper branch than the book and job sector of the industry. Within the book and job sector, both typographical unions had managed to win contracts with some of the most prominent book and job firms such as De Vinne, J.J. Little, and Lockwood, but the majority of the publishers of books, periodicals and commercial literature did not honor a union scale.

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Not surprisingly, the leadership of No. 6 emerged from the newspaper branch of the industry. Virtually all of the union’s presidents between 1881 and 1900 were employed in one of New York’s major daily newspapers; in fact, seven of the 15 surviving presidents in 1895 had worked as typographers for The Herald, including three successive presidents between 1883 and 1885—John O’Donnell, Morris Geary, and James Duncan. Moreover, some union officers to use their positions in No. 6 as launching pads for careers in politics and public service. John O’Donnell, ten years after he resigned from the union’s presidency, ran for mayor of New York with the backing of contributors to The Union Printer. Samuel Donnelly, president of No. 6 between 1895 and 1898, won the presidency of the national union, the ITU, in 1898, and upon his unsuccessful re-election bid in 1900 was appointed to the National Civic Federation and New York’s Board of Education, the following year.10 The larger the size of the workplace, the more likely printers belonged to a union. 52 percent of the firms, for which data on the number of workers and degree of capitalization are available, employed more than a 100 workers. Of the 50 union so-called chapels (shop floor based organizations), for which the number of printers are known, 40 percent were formed within companies with at least 100 workers, and most of the remaining chapels consisted of 50 or more working printers. Concomitantly, No. 6 had established chapels in two-thirds of the most capitalized firms, valued at $1,000,000.11 The strength of unionism within the newspaper branch can be attributed to four characteristics of the industry: the particular inelasticity of demand, the perishability of the product, the degree of competition, and the physical concentration of workplaces.12 The demand for newspapers was relatively insensitive to fluctuations in price and generally consistent both during periods of economic expansion and contraction. A newspaper’s market value was severely time bound, since few consumers were interested in reading a paper if it was not an up-to-date issue. Therefore, a timely interruption in the production of a daily newspaper by printers could cost newspaper publishers an important share of the market. High-capital requirements which discouraged easy entry into the market restricted competition in the newspaper trade. Furthermore, since the demand for newspapers among readers and advertisers exceeded the publishers’ capacity to produce them, newspaper firms potentially possessed considerable influence over the price of the product, and consequently, passed on the costs of collective bargaining agreements to their customers. Lastly, most of the daily newspapers were either published in lower Manhattan between City Hall and the New York Stock Exchange, along the so-called newspaper row, or within a one mile radius in downtown Brooklyn. Some of these conditions were lacking in the book and job branch of the industry, while others were less salient. The demand for some products

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such as books, magazines, and trade publications was relatively inelastic, but publication of circulars, handbills, and promotional literature in general proved sensitive to both price fluctuations and general economic conditions. The shelf life of most its products was longer than those of newspapers, thereby reducing the possible impact of printers’ withdrawal of labor. The book and job trade was highly specialized and oriented to the specific needs of customers. In one sense, this channeled competition into several mini markets and thereby buffered publishers of books or magazines from specialists in commercial literature such as advertisements. However, within each specialized market competition intensified as demand for printed material rarely exceeded productive capacity. This process occurred particularly in the reprinting of cheap novels where the market was not local, and in the production of promotional material where demand was more volatile. In addition, the units of production in book and job publishing were more dispersed than in newspaper publishing, thereby complicating printers’ efforts to form unions.13 Notwithstanding these differences, it should be noted that both sectors were capital intensive where expenditures in machinery rose proportional to labor. By 1900 newspaper publishers and book and job employers were investing $1.25 on typesetting equipment and presses for every $1.00 spent on wages. This meant there was comparatively less pressure to reduce labor costs than in the construction industry, cigarmaking, and the garment trades, all of which were labor and not capital intensive. Therefore, printers could more readily share in the gains generated by higher levels of productivity. COMPOSITION OF THE LABOR FORCE: A MALE CORE AND A FEMALE PERIPHERY The composition of the labor force also corresponded to the size of the firm and the type of printing in which it specialized. In 1890, women represented only 7 percent of production workers in the newspaper branch and 18 percent of the book and job labor force. However, women were virtually absent from the workforce in firms with fewer than 25 workers, and since these shops predominated, women’s opportunity to gain entry into printing was severely restricted. In contrast, women constituted a significant minority of the workforces in McLaughlin Brothers, Trow’s, J.J. Little, and Fless and Ridge—each consisting of more than a 100 workers. These book and job employers usually maintained bookbinding departments where women predominated. The introduction of perforating machines in many book and job shops also provided more employment opportunities for women. Few of the larger newspapers, however, showed a similar propensity to hire women. In 1895, The New York Tribune had only ten, the New York Sun, two and The New York Times had no female production

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workers on their payrolls. Only The Brooklyn Daily Eagle employed a sizeable number of women, and even then they represented only 10 percent of the workforce.14 Furthermore, as in the book and job branch, women were relegated to certain positions. Most women in newspaper composing rooms worked as copyholders whose responsibility was to hold and read the copy for proofreaders, as assistants to proofreaders, and as distributors who helped to arrange type according to size and frequency of use so that it could be readily available to the compositor. The few who set type did straight matter, free of numbers, abbreviations, changing type sizes and advertising copy —all of which customarily paid a higher piece rate.15 Meanwhile, the newspaper pressroom became even more a male domain because of improvements in the machine technology. Where women formerly worked as press feeders, the introduction of more sophisticated presses led to the creation of a new job classification of pressman’s assistant, who not only fed the press but helped to prepare it for printing. By the turn of the century, women worked in the pressrooms of only the small nonunionized shops.16 Essentially then, although some employers sought to undermine union standards by setting in motion a “petticoat invasion,” the threat remained unrealized.17 Union policies influenced this process. In response to the employers’ rapid deployment of linotype machines, No. 6, with the backing of the ITU, insisted that manual compositors be given preference for new linotype operator positions. Even before the introduction of typesetting machines, the number of female compositors was low. Ironically, the union’s policy of admitting women under the condition that they be covered by the same pay scale as male compositors actually discouraged employers from hiring women, since the economic incentive had been eliminated. Under those circumstances editors and publishers could hire boys (young apprentices) to do miscellaneous tasks. Women also lacked the necessary training and experience to learn the full range of typesetting skills, as their access to apprenticeships remained limited. Employers were reluctant to admit women as apprentices since they expected women would soon leave their positions to marry and raise a family. Women, for their part, tended to opt for work which did not require a long training period and would allow them to earn at a reasonably high rate, such as distributing copy, assisting proofreaders, and setting straight matter. Moreover, although much of the evidence is fragmentary and impressionistic, women were not terribly welcome into the printers’ ranks. Reports from chapels published in The Union Printer boasted of a camaraderie among printers and rough and ready internal politics that was inappropriate to a workforce with a large proportion of women. Also union printers feared a general reduction in pay rates if women entered the industry in significant numbers.18

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Neither did the development of new technology in the printing industry open many doors for women, since typesetting machines and multiple presses did not allow employers to subdivide the production process and thereby substitute less skilled, routinized labor for skilled craftsmen. Unlike cigarmaking and the manufacturing of clothing, where the use of even the simplest technology promoted team work and tended to deemphasize the importance of skilled labor, the skills of compositors and pressmen were not diluted by the introduction of new technology. Highly skilled printers claimed the status of craftsmen which they deemed emblematic of self-respecting, independent individuals, customarily if not appropriately men—and not women. THE UNEVEN IMPACT OF MECHANIZATION If technological change did not expedite the substitution of women for male craft workers, it nevertheless underscored the transformation of the production process and the nature of the printer’s work. Stereotyping (the use of printing plates cast from moulds of preset type) grew more uniform, reliable, and flexible. Presswork became capable of handling a greater variety of functions and volume of matter, and photoengraving developed into a sophisticated process, capable of permitting the reproduction of color pictures.19 Of the four stages of printing, composition and presswork experienced the most sweeping changes. By 1895, the U.S. Patent Office had authorized 1,000 patents for a variety of typesetting machines. Most worked on a similar percussion principle whereby the pressing of the keyboard pushed type through narrow channels. What distinguished one from another was the method by which the type was released.20 The linotype, originally introduced by the Brooklyn manufacturer Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1885, paved the way for the transition from manual to mechanical composition. A keyboard operator released the typed matrices from their respective holders by selecting a key, and then the linotype automatically formed lines of brass matrices and spaces. Once a line was complete, the operator with a touch of a handle, waist high to his/her right, ignited the automatic progression of operations: from justifying to casting where a bar or slug of type was made, and then to depositing where the type was placed into a galley. The New York Tribune was the first newspaper to deploy the linotype in 1886, and within 10 years more than 3,000 were in use in newspaper composing rooms throughout the country.21 The introduction of typesetting machines increased the productivity of compositors and lowered labor costs. Representatives from No. 6 estimated that a linotype operator could on the average set 27,000 ems in an eight-hour day (an em is a unit of measurement for the number of spaces occupied by type; some characters were wider than others and, therefore,

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contained more ems). Varying by the skill and experience of the operator and the kind of copy he or she worked with, a compositor could set the same amount of type by machine in anywhere from one-fifth to oneeighth the time he/she could by hand. More importantly, from the employers’ perspective, accompanying this greater output in composition was a reduction of labor costs by more than one-half for every 4 pages.22 Simultaneously, modifications in older versions of presses and the development of new models expanded the capacity of the printing industry. The standard rotary press introduced in the 1850s underwent a series of refinements, including the addition of the double supplement press in 1882, which proved particularly valuable for newspaper production. The double supplement permitted the use of plates with four pages of matter and hence its name. The New York Herald, which originally used the press, could print in a hour 20,000 12-page papers and 10,000 24-page papers. Within the next 13 years, other presses were introduced which allowed for the printing of larger newspapers at a faster rate. For example, the quadruple press could generate in a hour 48,000 8-page papers or 24,000 16-page papers, and the octuple press, which contained 8 4-page cylinders, boasted a capacity of running off 24,000 32-page papers in one hour.23 In the 1890s some of the more unsettling effects of the industry’s rapid technological innovation became more readily apparent. A study of 19 shops by No. 6 in 1894 indicated that since the replacement of manual composition by machine methods, the number of regulars had declined from 1,327 to 823 and substitutes (better known among printers as “subs”) fell from 400 to 240. Some newspaper chapels reported an even more precipitous decrease. The New York Times chapel saw the number of compositors cut by half in a six month period from 1893 to 1894, and The New York Herald chapel indicated that in just one month’s time the introduction of linotypes had resulted in the replacement of 21 regulars by 27 “extras” who worked only on Saturdays.24 Yet what appeared to compositors as the beginning of a tidal wave of layoffs proved to be a temporary storm. By 1898 some newspapers showed an increase in the number of compositors, although the ITU held that each typesetting machine meant a loss of almost two jobs.25 This suggests that instead of widespread displacement a smaller growth rate occurred in the labor force than expected with the emergence of larger newspapers and the rapid expansion in circulation. A number of factors tempered the scale of displacement. In the 1890s newspapers still had not introduced linotypes in the composition of advertising copy, and therefore, retained the services of manual compositors. Because of the volume of work and unanticipated last minute additions and deletions, many editors and publishers retained a reserve of compositors on the payroll. In addition, the speed attained by linotype

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operators before 1900 remained relatively slow. Top speed was reached only after years of experience. Technical constraints stymied the efforts of newspaper and book and job publishers to establish a continuous flow of production, and thereby reduce the need for skilled labor. Monotypes, in particular, were delicate machines, subject to frequent foul-ups which slowed the pace of work. Operators, therefore, had to devote special attention to the machine’s quirks, thereby adding the skills of mechanics to typesetting. Moreover, takes, the handwritten copy to be set, had to be picked up, and the completed galleys had to be delivered to the pressroom. These tasks offered linotype and monotype operators a break from the monotony of typesetting, and partly lightened the pressures for greater output, which under different circumstances could have riveted operators to their machines.26 On the other hand, in the pressroom, the deployment of presses capable of doing faster and longer runs introduced a new division of labor and increased the number of responsibilities assumed by workers. Instead of the simple division between journeymen and apprentices, crews, varying in number according to the press, prevailed. A crew consisted of a head pressman or a headman with as many as 10 assistants or helpers named according to their specific tasks: tension or brakeman, oiler and plater, paper hustler and paper handler. Head pressmen oversaw operations, watched the ink flow and the rotation of the rolls of paper, or webs, and made the necessary adjustments. Brakemen operated the lever which controlled the movement of the web and especially checked for the danger of a web choking or breaking. The oiler/plater lubricated and otherwise prepared the presses for operation. With the improvements in stereotyping techniques and color printing, pressroom workers in particular devoted more time and care to the preparation and maintenance of equipment. Worn out stereotype plates had to be replaced, composition plates washed, ink fountains refilled, and dull knife blades changed.27 In short, as the printing technology became more sophisticated, diversified, and high powered, the production process became more intricate and interdependent, simultaneously offering greater possibility for efficiency and errors. The use of linotypes and monotypes in the composing room or quadruple and sextuple presses in the pressroom did not de-skill or devalue the printers’ labor. Compositors operating linotypes still needed to know the basic rules of grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and how to lay out copy; pressmen still needed to know how to prepare, load, and maintain the more elaborate presses being used by many of the daily newspapers. Indeed, the efficient running of machinery depended on the astute judgement and painstaking care of its operators. Pressmen verified if the equipment was in working order and diligently monitored its performance. If anything, printers not only retained many of their skills but learned others. Linotype operators, given the way the machine functioned, had to

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learn how to type and to minimally maintain the equipment. Even the advent of automatic justification features in typesetting machinery did not dispense with the compositors’ ability to know when to hyphenate a word at the end of the line. The timing of technological innovation also was important. Most of the printers working at the major daily newspapers and many employed by the larger book and job printing firms were members of No. 6 of the ITU. By the 1880s, when the linotype was introduced, the typographers could count on the resources of a local and national organization with a thirtyyear history of stability. In addition, because the ITU had established affiliates in virtually all of the country’s leading cities, employers could not readily find alternatives to union printers. For this reason, among others, printers possessed sufficient means to minimize the effects of technological displacement and insure the jobs created by new machinery be filled by former hand compositors at union rates of pay. THE DEVELOPMENT OF COOPERATIVE UNIONISM Since unions, in particular No. 6, had sunk extensive and deep roots in the industry, printers were relatively well-positioned to adjust to the employers’ determination to introduce new technology and assert their prerogative to manage the workplace. Before the use of the linotype became commonplace, and during the formative years of the American Newspaper Publishers’ Association and the United Typothetae, the union had been the most successful in pressing employers to accept its scale covering pay, hours, apprenticeship and work rules, and demonstrated an ability to reconcile the divergent interests and needs of its members who included linotype operators and manual compositors, regulars and subs, and journeymen as well as foremen. Joining No. 6 was the Brooklyn local, No. 98 of the ITU, which represented typographers at that city’s newspapers and some of the major book and job publishers, as well as the German-American Typographia which represented compositors working on German language publications. There also were three unions active among pressmen: the Franklin Association, the New York Pressmen’s Union No. 9, and the Adams and Cylinder Pressmen’s Association.28 The breadth of union membership simultaneously reflected the strength and the limits of trade unionism among printers. Union representation within all of the industry’s key crafts provided a solid base from which to contest the power of employers. Yet the multiplicity of organizations presented the risks of unruly sectionalism and internecine conflict that would prevent the printers from wresting concessions from employers and or defending previously won gains. Printers, led by compositors, recognized this potential vulnerability and sought to cultivate a cooperative unionism

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which promoted craft regulation and developed the basis of a modus vivendi with employers. Prompted by industrial change and encouraged by a record of success, printers in the 1880s and 1890s moved to amalgamate parallel organizations, develop a union label, and support each other’s strikes and boycotts. Cooperative unionism, however, did not develop smoothly; indeed the process was fraught with tension. While calls for amalgamation and closer ties among compositors, pressmen, and stereotypers became more common, rivalries among the pressmen’s unions persisted, and relations between two of the typographical unions—No. 6 and No. 7—remained strained until the early 1890s. In 1886, No. 6 and No. 98 of the ITU renewed an agreement negotiated the previous year that called for mutual recognition of each other’s jurisdiction. That same year the CLU created a Printing Trades Section which met weekly, consisting of delegates from No. 6 of the ITU, No. 7 of the German Typographia, the Adams and Cylinder Pressmen’s Association, and the Franklin Association of Pressmen and Press Feeders, among others. The formation of the Printing Trades Section raised hopes that printers’ unions could resolve their differences and garner support for their organizing campaigns, strikes, and boycotts.29 In its first full year in operation, nevertheless, the Printing Trades Section failed to live up to its expectations. The emergence of three unions representing pressmen forestalled attempts to establish a common ground. The specialization of work, especially with the introduction of web presses, gave rise to organizing unions by job title. The Franklin Association tended to concentrate its recruitment efforts on press helpers and press feeders, and rarely on pressmen. Meanwhile, the Adams and Cylinder Pressmen’s Association excluded press feeders because they were considered unskilled. In addition, the existence of distinct branches in the printing industry helped to promote the creation of separate unions for book and job and newspaper pressmen. Accordingly, the former represented the base of the Adams and Cylinder Pressmen’s Association, and the latter joined the New York Pressmen’s Union No. 9 or the Newspaper Printers Union No. 1, affiliated with the International Printing Pressmen’s Union (IPPU).30 Secondly, the compositors showed a propensity to act unilaterally and to cooperate reluctantly with other printing tradesmen. Despite, or because of, its repercussions for members of No. 7 of the German Typographia, No. 6 embarked on a campaign to increase pay scales without notifying the German language compositors and ignored the union’s offer of cooperation. While the Adams and Cylinder Pressmen and the Stereotypers Union supported each other’s drive for a nine-hour day through coordinated strikes, No. 6, other than making nominal financial contributions and voting for resolutions, held its distance. Nevertheless, this did not stop No. 6 from requesting the Printing Section’s and the CLU’s endorsement of its

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strike among the book and job printing and publishing firms in October, 1887.31 Efforts to confederate rebounded following the false start of 1887. Printers’ unions discovered that internecine conflict curbed the potential of their power and they, therefore, sought a new modus vivendi. No. 7 of the German Typographia and No. 6 forged closer ties, culminating, in 1891, in the chartering of the former as Local 274 of the ITU and the mutual recognition of each other’s jurisdiction. This agreement occurred after the two unions resolved potentially explosive disputes. In 1888, members of No. 7 struck Cherouny, a book and job firm, in pursuit of an eight-hour day and union pay scale. No. 6 claimed exclusive jurisdiction over all compositors setting type in English and refused to support No. 7’s strike on the grounds the German Typographia’s proposed pay scale with Cherouny was below standard. Following the strike, broken when No. 6 provided the employer with compositors, representatives from No. 7 approached No. 6’s Executive Committee to discuss how to avoid a recurrence of selfdefeating interunion battles. Both unions reached an agreement calling for all English language compositors at this shop to join No. 6 and all German language compositors to be subject to No. 7’s rules and standards.32 Two years later, both unions became entangled in another conflict when The New York Morning Journal began to publish a German edition and asked No. 6’s executive committee to provide the newspaper with compositors. No. 7 of the German Typographia, quite understandably, contended that since the work consisted of German language material their members should claim the positions, or, at the very least, that whoever set the type should be required to join the union. As an impasse developed, No. 7, enlisting the support of the United German Trades and German fraternal organizations, mobilized a boycott of The New York Morning Journal. In turn, the paper’s owners demanded that all members of No. 7 be compelled to join No. 6. This demand convinced Charles Dumar, President of No. 6, of the need for negotiations between the two unions.33 Consequently, in February 1891 union representatives finalized an agreement marking out the jurisdictional lines of each organization. No. 7 of the German Typographia, with No. 6’s backing, would apply for a charter from the ITU as Local 274. In the future, offices doing German language work exclusively would be in Local 274’s jurisdiction, and any office currently controlled by No. 6 where compositors were setting type in German would be required to join Local 274 as well.34 Simultaneously, No. 6 spearheaded the formation of a local confederation of unions in the printing trades. Consisting of the Stereotypers No. 1 and the United Bookbinders’ Division No. 1, as well as No. 6, the Federation of Printing and Kindred Trades aimed to promote union standards throughout the industry and to facilitate the amicable settlement of disputes between printers and employers. In 1894, printers formed the Allied

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Printing Trades Council, which included unions representing pressmen, press feeders, photo-engravers, mailers, stereotypers, bookbinders, and compositors. This new federation established a joint union label and began to explore ways to promote fraternity in the printing trades.35 Meanwhile, the pressmen’s unions made progress in overcoming their divisions. In 1896, seven years after its formation the International Printing Pressmen’s Union (IPPU) established itself as the uncontested labor organization in the industry’s pressrooms. In that year, the separate pressmen’s unions, including the Adams and Cylinder Pressmen’s Association and the Franklin Association, signed affiliation agreements, marking out the jurisdiction of each organization as locals of the IPPU.36 In brief, the ability of union printers to overcome internecine conflict and forge closer working relationships involved an accommodation of the different crafts’ distinct interests and a willingness to compromise on rival jurisdictional claims. Certain developments in the industry facilitated inter-craft cooperation and consolidation of unions. The rapid technological transformation of composition and presswork resulted in a growing specialization that sharply defined the crafts of typographers and pressmen. More basic, technological change encouraged a recognition of common interests. Mechanization at the very least redefined the labor of printers—calling on them to learn new skills while rendering some traditional skills obsolete—and potentially threatening their favorable conditions and terms of employment. Therefore, printers turned their attention to new issues and approached more persistent issues with a greater urgency. Typesetting machines and more sophisticated presses accelerated the printing process and thereby prompted printers to consider the merits of pay by time rather than the piece, as well as to insist on a clarification of the specific responsibilities of each grade of compositor and pressmen. The reduction in the relative demand for manual labor and the simultaneous increase in physical output attendant to mechanization pressured printers to pursue job security more vigorously and systematically, and to insure productivity gains would be equitably shared. Both compositors and pressmen, whether they worked for a newspaper or a book and job shop, regarded these concerns as important. CREATING UNION STANDARDS AND COPING WITH TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION Union scales stipulated different rates according to specific branches of the printing industry, types of work, and job categories. Newspaper typographers, pressmen, and press feeders earned at a higher rate than their book and job counterparts. Typographers, pressmen, and press feeders who worked at night on morning newspapers were paid at a higher

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rate than those setting type for evening newspapers. No. 6’s 1887 pay scale provided 50 cents per 1000 ems for newspaper compositors, with an overtime rate of 60 cents for night workers, and 43 cents for book and job compositors setting standard English matter. In 1890, the scale of New York Pressmen’s Union No. 9 included weekly rates of $20 for newspaper pressmen and $18 for book and job pressmen working days and $24 for night pressmen in both newspaper and book and job offices.37 Besides setting basic rates, union scales sought to promote stable earnings. Piece work compositors called in to work on morning newspapers who were without work any time between 12 and 2 a.m. would receive a minimum of 60 cents an hour and $1.20 if they were without work between 2 and 7 a.m. The 1887 scale required an equal distribution of fat and lean matter (the former containing more ems than the latter) to piece and time workers. Moreover, it required that compositors be paid for “all matter set, from their cases by the office” even if the final copy was not published.38 Both newspaper and book and job compositors went to great lengths to guarantee a fair wage for those setting intricate and demanding material. Compositors working on multicolumn newspaper copy, such as court calendars, accounting tables, stock prices, and baseball standings, earned at a rate 50 percent higher than the standard of 50 cents per 1000 ems. The piece rates of book and job compositors setting foreign language material ranged from 16 to 400 percent more than those working on English matter. Compositors who worked on dictionaries, spellers, and reading books received five cents extra per 1000 ems and ten cents more for setting mathematical matter.39 Compositors expressed particular concern about the impact of technological innovation on their craft. In the main, No. 6 accommodated to mechanization, in the belief that by not trying to block the introduction of typesetting machinery or to restrict output, the union would be in an advantageous position to defend the compositors’ livelihood. As early as 1887, when some of New York’s major dailies began to introduce linotype machines, No. 6 adopted pay scales especially for machine operators. The rates of compositors employed by the week (usually linotype operators) were fixed at a weekly minimum of $27 and $20 for night and day newspaper work, respectively, and at $18 for book and job work.40 The detailed delineation of pay rates signaled typographers’ determination to uphold union standards before rampant mechanization of composition made earlier standards obsolete and seriously challenge No. 6’s ability to protect its members’ interests. The introduction of typesetting machinery prompted printers to reconsider the standard methods of pay in their craft. Manual compositors customarily were paid by the piece, usually per 1000 ems. However, with the advent of linotypes, compositors found that employers either eagerly

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reduced the rates, or demanded more production for each dollar in wages. Therefore, printers began to call for hourly or daily rates of pay. In 1886 letters to The Boycotter and The Union Printer stressed the advantages of time over piecework. Time work provided a more reliable and higher rate of pay, an anonymous typographer argued, since compositors could avoid the penalties stemming from waiting for copy.41 The union in particular addressed the potential impact of technological change on printers’ job security. The union sought to guarantee that newspaper publishers and book and job employers using the new technology hire only journeymen printers, trained in the trade as a whole to work as linotype operators. The union stressed this requirement for two reasons, although the deployment of typesetting machines narrowed the responsibilities of operators and shortened their training period. First, it reaffirmed the printers’ self-image as craftsmen whose mastery of the trade depended on patient instruction and years of diversified on-the-job experience. Secondly, and more fundamentally, a broadly defined apprenticeship would protect members trained as manual compositors from technological displacement and maintain a demand (albeit artificial) for the skills of hand composition. As a prerequisite, journeymen were to serve four-year apprenticeships, during which time they could not work on linotype machines until the last six weeks. The 1891 scale established a ratio of one apprentice per ten journeymen and limited newspaper offices to retaining no more than six apprentices simultaneously.42 The onset of economic depression in 1894 impressed on printers that the introduction and enforcement of new standards or rules were not sufficient in stemming unemployment. Number 6 created an out-of-work fund, considered self-help experiments, and counseled members to seek alternative occupations. The formation of an out-of-work fund aroused vigorous debate. Opponents contended that relief would go into the wrong hands—pariahs who maintained large savings accounts and worked part time. They also argued that the benefit would attract out-oftown unemployed ITU members to enter New York’s already crowded labor market.43 Nevertheless, the arguments of benefits supporters, such as Eugene O’Rourke, prevailed. O’Rouke, a compositor at The World with 30 years of experience and a frequent delegate to ITU conventions, reasoned the outof-work fund would strengthen the union by integrating those not cradled in unionism into the life of No. 6. In 1896 the original temporary measure (enacted in 1893) was made permanent after being amended three times. The fund provided eligible members five dollars a week if they were married and three dollars a week if they were single, and was financed by an one percent assessment on members’ earnings.44 The union also operated a so-called house of call where printers fraternized and found out about job vacancies. The “cave,” as it was also

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known, because it was located in a basement, earned a mixed reputation. Some printers expressed satisfaction with the jobs they secured, while others complained that about an inadequate amount of work. Moreover, according to Warren Browne (the editor of The Union Printer, the union’s weekly paper), the cave was a magnet for the drunken and disorderly, prompting him to recommend that it be closed and replaced with a reading room.45 Despite the difficulties in coping with cyclical unemployment, the union’s efforts to promote job security bore some results. Although technological displacement occurred, both the growing demand for composition (a product of the new technology’s increased capacity) and specific contract provisions minimized its magnitude. By 1897, when virtually all the major daily newspapers and many of the largest book and job firms had mechanized the composition of type, the union had extracted a understanding with employers that union members who previously set type by hand would receive preference for assignments as linotype or monotype operators.46 Related to the issue of job security was the length of the workday and workweek. From 1886 through 1898, union compositors in general supported a reduction in hours, although frequently members expressed their concern that the union’s demands were too ambitious and potentially counterproductive. Therefore, the union moved cautiously after enthusiastically issuing calls for action. In general, No. 6 cooperated with the ITU’s campaign to introduce industry-wide standards, which from 1886 to 1891 included a nine-hour day and a 54-hour week. In 1891, encouraged by the success of the national union’s drive and challenged by the growing use of typesetting machines, No. 6 adopted a eight-hour rule for newspaper compositors.47 Although the rule was far from universally implemented, in 1893 the union’s board of delegates, consisting of representatives from each chapel, endorsed a proposal for a seven-hour workday for newspaper compositors operating typesetting machines. Some questioned the wisdom of this decision. Warren Browne argued the union’s priority should be the introduction of a nine-hour day in the book and job shops where ten hours prevailed. Members from The Herald and Recorder chapels contended that a seven-hour day would not create jobs, and argued what was needed was a strict ban on overtime. In an editorial supporting this position, The Union Printer denounced the “pernicious system” of overtime because it “robbed” unemployed printers of an opportunity to work. In response, the board of delegates approved a five-day work week in 1894, as well as reinstated a rule—first passed in 1890, but laxly enforced—prohibiting full-time compositors from working on both morning and evening newspapers and, another, barring members from holding positions with more than one employer.48

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Neither action, however, satisfactorily appeared to address the problem. The Union Printer reported compositors working twelve to sixteen hours a day, and for one newspaper during the day and another during the night. The five-day rule, both before and after its adoption, produced controversy. In May 1894, members were advised to consider the proposed rule’s probable harmful effects before voting. A five day work week would threaten the union’s ability to control the selection of floaters (substitutes filling in for regulars) and open the way for foremen to choose their own men for the positions.49 Two years later, letters to the editor of The Union Printer attacked the rule as “class legislation” since it applied to only one-third of the membership (compositors employed by daily newspapers), and charged that it ironically exacerbated the problem of unemployment because it made New York a more attractive job market for unemployed, out-of-town printers. When the rule proved ineffective and too difficult to enforce, it was overturned, and replaced by a requirement that any member earning the equivalent of a day’s pay in overtime take an extra day off. This rule helped to provide work for irregularly employed subs in newspaper composing rooms. However, its effectiveness was limited. Often printers worked only an hour or two of overtime, and therefore did not earn the equivalent of a full day’s pay. In addition, in the book and job branch the use of subs never systematically developed because work varied from one shop to the next.50 THE ENFORCEMENT OF UNION STANDARDS Regardless of the issue or problem, the litmus test of the union’s influence was its ability to enforce its standards, most clearly expressed in the scale of prices. The enforcement process underscored the union’s selfproclaimed owner of the members’ jobs, and as such its role as the mediator of different and, at times, conflicting interests. The responsibility of enforcement fell on the shoulders of the chapels which by the early 1890s, according to one observer, had become the bedrock of No. 6, and models of pure democracy. The chapels earned this description because of their growing power on the shop floor. Where foremen once assigned preferred work, such as advertisements and tables, to their favorites, chapel work rules specified the appropriate procedures. A compositor’s claim to a situation (or position) was the most fundamental rule. A regular (full-time) newspaper compositor reserved the option of when to work and could choose a sub to cover for him when he was not available.51 Foremen for their part often sought, with mixed results, to restrict the regulars’ prerogative. In the 1870s and early 1880s, foremen established sub-list from which regulars could choose their temporary replacements. In 1883, the ITU, with support from No. 6, established a rule that

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eliminated the sub-lists. Nevertheless, the issue of selecting substitutes remained very much alive. To accommodate the foremen, who in many of the chapels had assumed leadership positions, and to protect the integrity of the regulars’ situations, the union devised a new system. Foremen reserved the right to reject an incompetent substitute, but not before they gave the regular’s selection an opportunity to demonstrate his ability.52 However, as the capacity to publish larger newspapers grew, production schedules became more demanding; in turn, pressures on foremen to control hiring mounted. Consequently, No. 6 sought to oversee the behavior of foremen in recognition, they could, and did, abuse their authority. Foremen were taken to task for illegally and unjustly using their authority to discharge workers. For example, when a foreman at The Mail and Express dismissed four compositors, allegedly for political reasons, the union at a general membership meeting in January 1889 demanded his discharge and the reinstatement of the four. More common were disciplinary cases involving foremen who violated chapel and union wide rules pertaining to the hiring of regulars and subs, the use of apprentices and the distribution of work. The union punished these violations with fines, censure and, most drastically, expulsion from the union.53 These tensions between foremen and regulars indicate that, by the turn of the century, compositors could not unqualifiably preserve their customary rights, although few compositors expected less from their union. Because of the complexity and variety of typesetting, the enforcement of standards inevitably necessitated interpretation of union scales. Chapels often requested the union’s executive committee to clarify the scale and guide them on how to apply specific provisions to concrete work practices. Throughout 1886, the executive committee considered reports from chapel representatives of The New York Times, New York Journal, New York Herald, and Irish World about pay rates and job responsibilities. Of particular concern to these chapel delegates was the price to charge for advertisements, double column copy and illegible matter, and under whose jurisdiction advertisements should be set. The executive committee ruled that setting advertisements and double column copy should pay at twice the regular rate, and employers, at their own expense, should reserve time for the correction of illegible copy. Furthermore, the committee stipulated that advertising copy belonged to the compositor and any deletions and additions should be done within the office of origin, and not in the office where the advertisement might also be used. As a result of the frequency of queries about advertising and double column copy, the union revised its scale in 1887 to explicitly cover them.54 Such decisions highlight the difficulty New York’s union compositors had in maintaining a strict and universal application of their pay scale and work rules. At times union officials recognized that some standards

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lacked the support of the membership. The union’s stricture barring printers with regular positions from seeking additional work often was ignored, although it was introduced to create work for underemployed and unemployed printers. Therefore, not only did the union increase the penalties for nonobservance, but it instructed member foremen to verify that prospective employees were not on the payroll of any other newspaper or book and job firm. Similarly, both the ITU’s six-day work rule instituted in 1891 and No. 6’s five-day work rule in 1894 encountered widespread rank and file resistance and eventually was dropped only two years after its introduction.55 Of equal importance were employers’ efforts to circumvent union standards. Compositors complained that newspapers contracted to do the composition for other publications and avoided paying the prevailing rate. Some compositors, in addition, disapproved the payment of bonuses to linotype operators to produce big strings (additional proofs of set type) beyond the regular hourly rate. Compositors also opposed the practice of sharing matrices (the molds in which type was cast). Newspapers, at the behest of advertising agents, shared the matrices for advertisements, and thereby reduced the need for labor since the copy had only to be set once and not each time it ran in another publication.56 The union’s response to these practices varied. It insisted that the payment of bonuses violated the spirit, if not the letter of its scale, and pressed for the cessation of the practice. However, the union did not directly contest the practices of contracting and the sharing of matrices. Instead, the executive committee contended that it lacked jurisdiction over contracting, and confidently predicted that the reduction of the workday would curb its growth. Moreover, it held that the sharing of matrices did not save time or reduce labor costs and therefore it posed no long-term threat to compositors’ jobs.57 In sum, the union tried to distinguish between the temporary expedients and permanent measures introduced by employers. No. 6’s leadership tolerated certain practices as long as they did not become pervasive and challenge the integrity of the union’s pay scale and work rules. Furthermore, when market conditions seemed to threaten a firm’s survival, the union became even more flexible, not only choosing to ignore the enforcement of particular standards, but also redefining the standards themselves. Competition in the book and job sector, in particular, led No. 6 to adjust the pace at which new standards were introduced. In the face of more work being sent to out-of-town firms, No. 6 had to accept the postponement of implementing a nine-hour day until the ITU could confidently introduce the same standard in other nearby states. Otherwise, it was argued, employers from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere would gain a competitive advantage, and thereby threaten the job security of New York’s book and job compositors.58

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In essence, then, enforcement involved a balancing act between the needs and expectations of the membership and the prosperity of the firm and industry upon which printers’ income and job security depended. The union’s responsibility for mediating among the often-divergent interests of machine operators and manual compositors, regulars and subs, and journeymen and foremen complicated matters. Above all, the union needed to be sensitive to the sectional tendencies within its ranks. If any group, be it manual typographers or linotype operators, prioritized its concerns at the expense of another group represented by the union, then fragmentation could ensue. In this respect, neither a shared sense of purpose nor a collective identity could be assumed; both required cultivation. TOWARD A UNION CODE OF BEHAVIOR In seeking to exercise some control over the industry’s labor market and regulate their craft, printers adhered to certain standards of conduct, which they hoped would promote more cohesive trade union organization. Indeed cooperative unionism rested upon the concept of reciprocity between rights and obligations. Union members were expected to act responsibly and with integrity, perform their duties conscientiously and skillfully, and honor calls for strikes and boycotts. No. 6 constitutionally required aspiring members to furnish proof of their workmanship and to provide witnesses testifying to their sound character to a select screening committee. Chronically shoddy work could result in expulsion. Members misrepresenting themselves in their requests for benefits were fined as well as denied aid for a specified period.59 At the heart of the union’s strictures lay a concept of manliness. However, in an era when manliness customarily was expressed within an industrial morality that celebrated rugged individualism, diligence and an unremitting drive to succeed, trade unionists advanced a labor morality that valued independent mindedness, mutual respect among practitioners of a craft, and labor solidarity. Union spokesmen called on their “brother” to “do your duty as a man, wage worker, and citizen” and join No. 6.60 When witnesses verified that an applicant for membership slept at the shop where he worked and received three meals courtesy of his employer, he was considered too servile to be accepted into the union. Printers guilty of backcapping—making disparaging remarks about the union and other union members—if not formally punished, were ostracized by their respective chapels, for engaging in cowardly and dishonorable behavior.61 Indicative of their emerging cooperative unionism, printers expressed a strong identity with the labor movement at large, as exemplified by their vigorous participation in Henry George’s candidacy for mayor, as well in their support of other workers and unions engaged in strikes. Printers

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assumed a prominent role in the CLU-sponsored campaign in the summer and autumn of 1886 by mobilizing legions that marched for labor’s candidate, canvassed voters, and staffed polling stations (See Chapter 2). Moreover, that same year when the Empire Protective Association struck the Third Avenue railway, the typographers’ union endorsed a boycott, publicized the names of members who rode the streetcar, contributed $50 to the strikers, and appealed to the chapels for more funds. In July, 1894 typographers passed a resolution supporting the Pullman boycott and endorsed a rally called by the CLU to protest the arrest of Eugene Debs and the use of federal troops to break the strike. The following January, members condemned the “unjust and unwarrantable action of the tyrannical corporations” which sought to make the conditions of striking Brooklyn streetcar workers “little short of serfdom.” In their resolution the printers attacked the use of the police and state militia and backed a boycott of the struck streetcar company. In addition, No. 6 loaned the streetcar men $1,000.62 The association of manhood with manual labor if not craftsmanship, political rights, and civic responsibility was central in the discourse of the labor movement. The triad of manhood, labor, and citizenship served to reassure trade unionists they assumed a legitimate position in an industrial capitalist society.63 The gender-weighted value system reaffirmed the tenets of republican ideology in the face of mounting inequality in power and wealth. Assaulted by a backlash from employers, the middle class public, and a repressive state apparatus following the Great Upheaval in 1886, especially the Haymarket Riot in Chicago, the assertion of a labor morality helped to win support for trade unionism from others who shared its values. INDUSTRIAL ACTION: A MEASURE OF LAST RESORT The degree and character of industrial action clarified in practice the significance of the cooperative unionism compositors and pressmen, among others, in the trade attempted to forge. Between 1886 and 1894 there were slightly more than 100 reported strikes in New York City’s printing industry. This was one-sixth the number waged by garment workers and one-fifteenth the number conducted by building tradesmen during the same period. Few of the printers’ strikes involved more than one employer or large numbers of workers. Only one strike from 1886 to 1898 could be called industry-wide, and that one against book and job employers in 1887 covered one branch of the industry and lasted less than two weeks.64 The comparative absence of strikes in the printing trades reflected the strength of the unions representing compositors and pressmen. Strikes were infrequent because union printers achieved their aims by other means. An informal collective bargaining process short-circuited any

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latent militancy among union members. No. 6 won acceptance of its pay scale, hourly provisions, and work rules by first demonstrating to the key publishers of daily newspapers that union or closed shops could serve their interests also. By guaranteeing a steady supply of dependable and skilled workers who lacked any compelling reason to interrupt production, the union offered employers the prospect of industrial stability. This was particularly pertinent in newspaper publishing because of its extremely perishable product. Even a one-day strike could prevent an issue from being printed, costing a newspaper sales and advertising revenue. Once a closed shop was in place, it was possible for the union to influence the contours of the specific labor market, not only by regulating supply but by affecting demand as well. That foremen in most composing rooms were also union members and often chapel officers, facilitated the enforcement of union standards. A similar process occurred in the case of the pressmen. However, its development proceeded more slowly because of a multiplicity of unions, at least until 1889, when the amalgamation of the different unions began with the creation of the International Printing Pressmen’s Union. Strikes and boycotts by printers had mixed results. In general, the shorter the strike, the broader its base of support, and the more vulnerable an employer was to a cessation of production and reduction in sales, the greater the likelihood that a strike would succeed. In 1889, the prompt and comprehensive strike of compositors forced publishers of The Herald, The Sun, The World, The New York Times, and The Mail and Express to retreat from their plans for a reduced scale of wages on the same day they announced them. As a result of the compositors’ decisive response, the newspaper publishers agreed to an upgraded pay scale, that provided an eight-hour day for linotype operators and weekly minimums of $22 and $24 for day and night workers, respectively.65 The length of a strike often was related to the breadth of support it received. No. 6’s dispute with Drummond and Company lasted only a week, largely because of timely sympathy strikes by pressmen. Consequently, the firm reinstated the five discharged compositors—the original cause of the strike—and agreed to recognize the workplace as a union shop. The concerted campaign by book and job compositors in 1887 to gain a union shop and a clearly defined pay scale ended after two and a half weeks with them gaining most of their demands, again because of the solidarity of other printing tradesmen.66 Broad support for a strike, however, did not guarantee unqualified success for strikers. Despite the participation of printers from a variety of the departments in J. J. Little and Company, typesetters won only their demand that the union’s scale for linotype operators be honored, and were forced to accept an arbitrator’s ruling against the creation of a union shop and the union’s claim that set copy was the typesetter’s “property.” No. 6’s

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attempt to make the Globe Printing Company a union shop and press the firm to pay at the union scale ended in a truce with striking printers returning to their jobs in a shop that retained nonunion and union compositors. Similarly the strike and boycott of The Irish World, lasting three months, ended somewhat inconclusively, as the publisher agreed to hire only union compositors but refused to accept No. 6’s scale of prices in its entirety.67 Equally important was the vulnerability of the employer to job actions. The strike against Wynkoop, Hallenbeck, and Crawford succeeded not simply because every compositor employed by the company stopped working in defense of proofreaders discharged for refusing to refund overtime pay, but because the employer faced an impending production deadline. In contrast, J.J. Little and the Globe Printing Company withstood the strikes of compositors and other printing tradesmen because they received the backing of the Typothetae, whose members temporarily helped the struck firms fill their customers’ orders.68 During No. 98’s strike against three Brooklyn newspapers the same tactics produced different results. The Brooklyn Standard Union, which extensively used typesetting machines, could not readily recruit replacements, and, therefore, settled with the union in less than a week after the strike began. In contrast, when The Brooklyn Times stood firm against a strike and boycott more than half of the strikers unconditionally returned to work. Between the extremes of a quick victory and protracted defeat, was the experience of The Brooklyn Citizen. The effects of a strike and boycott required almost eight weeks to take their toll on the newspaper. Because The Brooklyn Citizen realized it could not find experienced linotype operators to replace strikers, further resistance at the risk of losing advertising revenue was considered too costly. Consequently, the newspaper reached an agreement with the union.69 A closer look at two of the larger and more important strikes illuminate some of these observations regarding the dynamics of industrial conflict in the printing industry. The first of these strikes pitted more than 1,500 compositors against approximately 100 book and job printing firms, many of whom were represented by an employers’ association, the Typothetae. No. 6 sought the introduction of a pay scale calling for 43 cents per 1000 ems for standard composition and a minimum rate of 53 cents for foreign language work, as well as the establishment of card offices requiring all compositors to be union members and be paid at union scale. When talks between officials of No. 6 and the Typothetae, through the auspices of New York’s Mediation and Arbitration Board, failed to resolve differences between the two parties, the union ordered a strike on October 11, 1887.70 From the beginning the union’s demand for a card office constituted the major bone of contention. Theodore De Vinne, the president of the Typothetae, felt it was unconstitutional and against the law to compel composi-

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tors to join the union. Edward Glacklin, President of No. 6, in response cited the precedent of hundreds of card offices. As the strike grew, eliciting the participation of pressmen, pressfeeders, stereotypers and electrotypers, over half the firms agreed to an upgraded pay scale, but only a few acceded to the demand for a card office. A week into the strike, hopes for a settlement were raised when the union modified its demand for a card office or closed shop, accepting in its place a pledge by employers to hire union men. Divisions in the ranks of the employers’ association, however, forestalled agreement on the proposal. Most of the larger book and job firms welcomed the union’s revised position as the basis of a compromise, but the “small fry,” the name No. 6 assigned to the small specialty print shops, remained unimpressed. The split in the Typothetae led Theodore De Vinne to contend that the association lacked the authority to act on the issue, which threatened to leave matters at a complete impasse.71 The deadlock was broken when members of the Typothetae decided to settle as a group if not as an organization. Accordingly, 33 employers, with Theodore De Vinne leading the way, signed a detailed contract setting piece rates for different types of work, a minimum weekly pay rate, and apprenticeship rules. In addition, the signatories promised to hire only union compositors provided that No. 6 recognize this did not require the discharge of any compositor currently not in the union.72 The second conflict involved members of Brooklyn Typographical Union No. 98 and three newspapers—The Brooklyn Ties, The Brooklyn Citizen, and The Brooklyn Standard Union. The strike erupted on March 31, 1894, after negotiators from the union and the Publishers’ Association failed to reach a settlement on a new pay scale, effective April 1. The publishers’ insistence on a cut of five cents per 1,000 ems and the printers’ relinquishing of all rights to advertisements, tables, and fat matter in general blocked a settlement. Union spokespersons argued that if these demands were granted, compositors’ pay would be reduced by as much as twenty percent, and any semblance of control they had over the distribution of work would be eliminated. The union, in recognition of depressed economic conditions, was prepared to accept a 10 percent pay cut for the next six months provided that the employers committed themselves to renegotiate an upgraded scale thereafter. Meanwhile, the publishers announced an unilateral 15 percent cut in rates to run indefinitely.73 The strike escalated quickly. At The Standard Union all 37 typographers left their jobs and were joined by machinists who installed and maintained the linotypes. At The Brooklyn Citizen virtually all of the 75 typesetters respected the strike call, and all but one of the 47 member composition office at The Brooklyn Times struck. Initially the strikers had the upper hand, as all three newspapers were forced to publish abbreviated issues.

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During the first week, The Standard Union, whose composition operations were almost completely mechanized, found it difficult to recruit reliable replacements, and consequently reached an agreement with No. 98 which resembled the union’s original position. Meanwhile, the other two newspapers attempted to outlast the strikers. The Brooklyn Citizen, with the help of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which since 1891 was nonunion, managed to publish regularly. At The Brooklyn Times, the return of nine original strikers and the recruitment of new compositors permitted the least” mechanized of the three papers to publish.74 To overcome the waning of support among the strikers at The Brooklyn Times and to combat the resolve of The Brooklyn Citizen, the union organized a boycott. In a circular, the striking printers appealed to businessmen, labor, and the general public to appreciate their position: while the costs for rent, fuel, and food did not decline, printers faced the prospect of lower incomes and endured the injustice of “importing” out-of-town workers to displace Brooklyn residents. Other union printers responded enthusiastically to No. 98’s appeal. The membership of No. 6 endorsed the boycott and formed a committee to request merchants not to advertise in either newspaper. In addition, No. 6 voted to support the strikers’ application to the ITU for relief, and pending the national union’s decision, began a fund raising drive among its chapels.75 The effects of this support were dramatic. After eight weeks the strikers’ unity remained intact and the circulation of The Brooklyn Citizen fell by almost one-third. In June, a breakthrough appeared imminent when John Delmar, who rejected all offers to compromise, resigned as president and was replaced by Thomas Kenna. Union officials confidently predicted that as long as the strikers held out, “The Citizen must give in or go out of business.” However, not until late August, in the wake of growing losses in advertising revenue and increased difficulty in finding dependable linotype operators, did The Brooklyn Citizen finally settle with the union. The newspaper agreed to rehire all the strikers and discharge their replacements.76 Conspicuously absent were any references to the union’s pay scale, an issue both sides evidently postponed considering. In short, a stalemate resulted in a strike against The Brooklyn Citizen. The union mounted considerable pressure, but the paper was able to publish, albeit shorter editions, with the assistance of the nonunion Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Meanwhile, The Brooklyn Times, had little difficulty overcoming the effects of industrial action by union printers. Far less dependent on linotype machines, the newspaper’s publishers could recruit local and out-of-town nonunion compositors. Consequently, after an initial period of effective mobilization, the strike lost its momentum as the majority of union members unconditionally returned to their jobs.77

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CONCLUSION Notwithstanding the unsatisfactory results of some strikes, cooperative unionism had proved instrumental in the improvement of printers’ conditions of employment and the consolidation of union power. By 1897, No. 6 had established card offices in about 150 newspapers and book and job firms which agreed to pay the union scale of wages and hire exclusively union members. The union claimed 5,000 members, an increase of 2,000 since 1891, and represented the flagship of the ITU. Following the merger of rival organizations, union pressmen in 1896 and 1897 gained a reduction in their work week from 54 to 45 hours, increases in pay, and extended the union scale to previously unorganized offices, such as The New York Tribune and McClure’s. Less dramatic was the experience of the No. 7 of the GermanAmerican Typographia. Eight shops observed its union scale (the same as in 1886) and its membership held at 300. Its most significant achievement during the 1890s was the restoration of the pay rate sacrificed to attain an eight-hour day in 1886.78 Brooklyn’s Typographical Union No. 98, in contrast, faltered. In 1895, a year after a bitter and protracted conflict with three of the city’s largest daily newspapers, the union reported less than a 100 members in good standing. In only two of Brooklyn’s newspapers did the union maintain a presence, and even at that, its pay scale remained lower than No. 6’s and often went unenforced. These conditions prompted No. 98 and No. 6 to merge in 1896, and laid the foundation of the growth of the union in Brooklyn’s printing industry. By 1899, a new scale set compositors’ weekly rate at between $22 and $23, raised overtime rates, and prohibited the hiring of additional apprentices.79 Between 1886 and 1898, New York’s book and job compositors made the greatest strides. In 1887, as the result of a two week strike by 1,500 compositors and other printing tradesmen, they established the first comprehensive scale of wages and work rules, and in 1891 won additional pay concessions. During the next four years wage rates remained steady despite the onset of a depression. These gains and others stemmed from the ability of book and job compositors to make their interests the union’s priority. In 1895, they organized a chapter whose leaders won seats on the union’s executive committee. Indicative of the chapter’s influence, within six months of it’s formation, No. 6 adopted two of its strategic proposals: the appointment of a walking delegate to foster coordination among the book and job shops, and the endorsement of the union label being promoted by the Allied Printing Trades Council. Three years later, following a campaign of internal education, base building, and the forging of closer ties with other printing trades’ unions, No. 6 successfully pressed book and job printing firms for a nine-hour day without’ having to resort to a strike or boycott.80

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The contrast between the hard won breakthroughs in 1887 and the rather painlessly achieved gains in 1898 symbolized the ability of union printers to seize the opportunities created by certain developments in their industry. Greater investment in machinery raised the stakes of production, thereby making labor-employer conflict potentially more costly. Higher capital requirements also strengthened the market position of the firmly established newspapers among which No. 6 of the ITU was based. In the book and job branch the ability of larger firms, such as Theodore De Vinne and Trow’s (both union shops), to invest in the latest typesetting equipment swayed New York’s leading publishing houses not to contract out work to printing concerns in upstate New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, since the new technology facilitated the cheaper production of books and magazines.81 Above all, the gains scored by the book and job compositors epitomized the maturation of the printers’ trade unions. Competition among rival unions representing pressmen and stereotypers had been curtailed if not eliminated. As exemplified by the Allied Printing Trades Council’s efforts to gain passage of a convict labor bill and other measures in the state legislature and promotion of a joint union label, cooperation between union compositors and other printing tradesmen became more common. By not emphasizing strikes and boycotts union printers avoided alienating the public at large and provoking employers to challenge the existence of unions in the industry. Because of their adaptability to technological change printing trades’ unions won the loyalty of their members as well as the respect of employers. Job security measures, pay rates that recognized the different demands on the skills of printers, and provisions for an equitable distribution of work offered union printers some protection from unemployment and opportunities for higher and steadier earnings. Rules covering hiring, promotions, firing, and apprentices curbed the potentially arbitrary power of foremen and office managers. Union standards of conduct, aiming to discourage backcapping and ratting fostered organizational cohesion. Mutual aid, such as sickness, death and out-of-work benefits, a pension plan and the maintenance of a retirees’ home, demonstrated that union printers took care of their own in times of need. In essence, printers had forged a cooperative unionism that enabled printers to exert considerable control over their work and jobs even in the face of sweeping technological change and management initiatives to reorganize production. Cooperative unionism challenged the employers’ claim to determine labor’s share of the surplus. Implicitly this intervention raised questions of institutional power and the character of relations at the workplace. As argued by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, unions sought to impose a common rule on conditions and terms of employment, and thereby offset the insecurity endemic to a competitive labor market.82 Yet the impetus to

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“legislate” in this context was not purely economically motivated. Issues related to manly respect between employer and employee and the integrity of craft labor also were significant. These spoke to printers’ position within the labor process as much as the employment relationship itself. In light of the experience of skilled workers in the steel, textile, and shoe and boot manufacturing industries,83 who found their position on the shop floor increasingly precarious, the achievement of union printers was impressive. Under the leadership of the New York Typographical Union (No. 6) printers also demonstrated the pragmatic ethos of craft unionism. They acknowledged the trades’ sectional interests and developed a bargaining strategy to improve the pay, hours, and conditions of the different crafts within the printing industry. Towards this end the union vigorously expanded beyond the newspaper composition rooms and organized the book and job sector. The formation of the Allied Printing Trades Council and its increasingly central role in the pursuit of printers’ collective aims, indicates that sectional and solidaristic trade union activity readily could co-exist. Indeed the printers’ experience suggests that an emphasis on the particular interests of one craft could be best advanced with the support from other workers in the industry. Moreover, since mutual support, both in principle and in practice, underpinned cooperative unionism, printers showed that a craft-based strategy of labor organizing could be inclusionist and not necessarily exclusionist in its orientation.84 By the turn of the century, trade unions were more firmly established in the printing industry, notwithstanding the growing mechanization of the production process. Printers, through their unions, retained some autonomy in the labor process, restricted the scope of managerial prerogative on the shop floor, and exerted considerable influence in defining the terms and conditions of employment. As printers sought to perfect their vision of cooperative unionism, they pointed to the promise of craft unionism and not its limits. NOTES 1. Robert Max Jackson, The Formation of Craft Labor Markets (New York: Academic Press, 1984), p. 137. 2. Charlotte Morgan, The Origin and History of the New York Employing Printers’ Association (New York: Columbia University, 1930), pp. 12–14; The Union Printer, March 30, 1895; Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Lawrence C. Wroth, and Rollo Silver, The Book in America: A History of the Making and Selling of Books in The United States (New York: R.R. Bowker, 1952), pp. 212–215; New York State. Inspection Bureau, Seventh Annual Report (1892), pp. 113–211; Ibid, Thirteenth Annual Report (1898), pp. 177–215. 3. John Tebbel, A History of Book Publishing in the United States, Volume 2: The Expansion of an Industry, 1865–1919 (New York: Bowker and Company, 1975), pp. 26, 27.

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4. The Union Printer, April 13, 1893, and August 15, 1896. 5. Inspection Bureau, Seventh Annual Report, pp. 71–90, 113–211, 301–318; Thirteenth Annual Report, pp. 177–215; United States. Eleventh Census (1890) Manufacturing in Cities, pp. 88–97, 394–407; R.G. Dun and Company, Reference Book Containing Ratings of Merchants and Manufacturers and Traders Generally Throughout the United States (1895). 6 Dun and Company, Reference Book Containing Ratings of Merchant’s and Manufacturers and Traders; Edwin Emery, The History of the American Newspaper Publishers Association (University of Minnesota Press, 1950), pp.13, 14. 7. Morgan, Origin and History of the New York Employing Printers’ Association, pp. 10, 11, 72. 8. Emery, History of the American Newspaper Publishers’ Association, pp. 13, 14. 9. Ibid, pp. 16, 23, 24. 10. The Union Printer, October 28, 1893, and October, 1899. 11. Ibid, passim, 1892, 1896, and 1898; Inspection Bureau, Seventh Annual Report (1892), pp. 113–211; Thirteenth Annual Report (1898), pp. 177–215; R.G. Dun and Company, Reference Book Containing Ratings of Merchants and Manufacturers (1895). 12. On the importance of market structures and the degree of competition on labor activity, see Dunlop, “The Development of Labor Organizations,” pp. 175–178; Jackson, Formation of Craft Labor Markets, pp. 27–29; Royden Harrison and Jonathan Zeitlin, eds., Divisions of Labour: Skilled Workers and Technological Change in Nineteenth Century England, pp. 10–14. 13. On some of the structural features of the book and job sector that discouraged unionization, see Ava Baron, “Women and the Making of the American Working Class: A Study of Proletarianization of Printers,” Review of Radical Political Economics, 14 (Fall, 1982), p. 28. 14. United States. Eleventh Census (1890) Population, Part II, pp. 640, 641, 704, 705; Inspection Bureau, Seventh Annual Report (1892), pp. 113–211; Tenth Annual Report (1895), pp. 375–389; The Union Printer, November 10, 1894, and June 29, 1895. 15. The Union Printer, June 23, 1891, and March 23, 1895; Edith Abbott, Women and Industry (New York: D. Appleton, 1909), p. 254; Elizabeth Baker, Technology and Women Workers (New York: Columbia University 1964), p, 45; Richard Huss, The Development of Printers’ Mechanical Typesetting Methods, 1822–1925 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 1973), p. 82. 16. Elizabeth Baker, Printers and Technology (New York: Columbia University, 1957), pp. 174, 175. 17. Given the fact that women represented fifteen percent of the printing trades’ workforce in the United States in 1900, and that there were only 500 female linotype operators nationwide, whatever growth occurred in women’s participation in the industry did not come at the expense of male compositors. United States. Eleventh Census (1890) Population, Part II, pp. 640, 641, 704, 705; Twelfth Census (1900) Occupations, p. 634. 18. George Barnett, “The Printers,” American Economic Association Quarterly, 10 (October 1909), pp. 316–319; The Union Printer, passim, especially October 21 and 28, 1893, November 4, 1893, and February 3, 1894; The American Craftsman, November 13, 1897. The introduction of women printers had its compensatory features, according to the editor of The American Craftsman: “Men grow gross when they

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herd too much by themselves, and the restraining presence of a bright girl . . . has put a stop to much profanity. . . . ” Moreover, the entry of women, he contended, “induced proprietors to make the composing rooms more like offices than workshops.” The American Craftsman, November 13, 1897. [Note: The Union Printer changed its name to The American Craftsman in 1895.] 19. United States. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Special Bulletin Number 475 (Washington, D.C., 1929), pp. 244, 245; Victor Strauss, The Printing Industry (New York: Printing Industries of America, 1967), p. 66. 20. Strauss, Printing Industry, p. 40; The Union Printer, June 1, 1895. 21. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Special Bulletin Number 475, pp. 42, 43; Richard Huss, The Development of Printers Mechanical Typesetting Methods, 1822–1925 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1973), pp. 82, 83, 105, 106, 117; Strauss, Printing Industry, pp. 64–73; Alfred Lee, The Daily Newspaper in America (New York: MacMillan, 1937), pp. 121, 122. 22. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Special Bulletin Number 475, pp. 5, 50, 51; United States. Commissioner of Labor, Thirteenth Annual Report (1898), p. 69. 23. Lee, Daily Newspaper in America, pp. 120–122. 24. New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Thirteenth Annual Report (1898), Volume I, pp. 370–372; Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, p. 477; The Union Printer, February 3, 1894. 25. Commissioner of Labor, Thirteenth Annual Report (1898), p. 69; Jackson, Formation of Craft Labor Markets, p. 175. 26. Special Bulletin Number 475, pp. 53, 56. 27. Ibid, pp. 31, 137, 138, 139, 160. 28. George Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6: A Study of a Modern Trade Union and Its Predecessors (Albany: New York State Department of Labor, 1913), pp. 500, 504–505, 533–534; Hugo Miller, Zu Schutz and Trutz: 25 Jahrige Geschite der Deutsch-Amerikanischen Typographia (Indianapolis, 1898), pp. 31–35; New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eighth Annual Report (1890), pp. 231, 232; The Union Printer, January 8, 1887; A History of the 100 Years of Unions on the New York Tribune, pp. 11, 12. 29. New York Typographical Union No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, September 6, 1885, and August 18, 1886; The Boycotter, October 9, 1886; The Union Printer, January 8, 1887; The Leader, October 5, 1887. 30. Elizabeth F. Baker, Printers and Technology: A History of the Printing Pressmen and Assistants Union (New York: Columbia University, 1959), pp. 70–72, 155–159. 31. Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, pp. 556–558; A History of the 100 Years of a Union on the New York Tribune, p. 12; The Leader, October 11 and 17, 1887. 32. No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, June 3, 1888; Miller, Zu Schutz and Trutz, p. 35. 33. No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, September 6, 1890; Miller, Zu Schutz and Trutz, pp. 37, 38; Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, pp. 551–552. 34. Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, pp. 552–555; No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, December 7, 1890. 35. No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, June 1, 1890; Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, pp. 512–514; The Union Printer, August 1, 1894.

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36. Baker, Printers and Technology, pp. 157–159. 37. No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, April 17, 1887; Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, pp. 316–317; Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eighth Annual Report (1890), p. 239. 38. No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, September 4, 1887. 39. No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, August 28, 1887, September 4, 1887, and March 7, 1891. 40. Mediation and Arbitration Board, First Annual Report (1887), pp. 292, 293. 41. The Boycotter, October 2, 1886. 42. No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, March 7, 1891. 43. The Union Printer, September 16, 1893 and, July 11, 1896. 44. Ibid, August 25, 1894 and May 18, 1895; Stevens, The New York Typographical Union, No. 6, pp. 478–479. 45. The Union Printer, January 18, 1896, and July 11, 1896; No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, September 2, 1894. 46. United States. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Special Bulletin Number 475, (Washington, DC, 1929), p. 8; Jackson, Formation of Craft Labor Markets, pp. 174, 175. 47. Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, pp. 371–375; No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, April 17, 1886; Minutes of Board of Delegates Meeting, May 2, 1886. 48. The Union Printer, July 29, 1893, April 21, 1894, September 15 and 22, 1894, October 6, 1894, and April 13, 1895; No 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, February 2, 1890. 49. The Union Printer, May 12, 1894. 50. Ibid, December 26, 1896; Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, p. 481; Barnett, “The Printers,” pp. 221–225. 51. The Union Printer, August 26, 1893; Arthur Porter, Jr., Job Property Rights: A Study of Job Controls of the International Typographical Union (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1954), pp. 47–51. 52. On the evolving and, at times, troublesome relationship between journeymen printers and foremen, see Elizabeth Baker, “The Printing Foreman-Union Man: A Historical Sketch,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 4 (1951), pp. 223–235; and George Barnett, “The Printers,” pp. 212–221. 53. No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, January 6 and 13, 1889; passim, March through December, 1894. 54. No 6, Minutes of Executive Committee Meeting, passim, 1886; Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, p. 515. 55. No 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, July 2 and 19, 1891, and January 3 and 10, 1897. 56. The Union Printer, October 7, 1893. 57. Ibid, May 16 and 23, 1896. 58. No. 6, Minutes of General Membership Meeting, November 3, 1898; Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, p. 541; Mediation and Arbitration Board, Twelfth Annual Report (1898), p. 163, 164. 59. No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, August 2, 1891, March 3, 1895, and May 5, 1895. 60. The Union Printer, August 9, 1890. 61. The Union Printer, 1894, passim, especially November 2, 1895, and March 7, 1896; No. 6, Constitution and By-Laws, 1888, 1896.

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62. No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, May 2 and 9, 1886, July 8, 1894, August 5, 1894, and January 27, 1895; The Boycotter, May 15, 1886; The Union Printer, February 2, 1895. 63. Normative views of manhood often appeared as a sub-text in the Knights of Labor’s culture, especially after 1882. Permeating its rituals, songs, and poetry was a religiosity that revered Christian brotherhood, republican fraternity, and the dignity of labor. See Robert Weir, Beyond Labor’s Veil: The Culture of the Knights of Labor (University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996). 64. New York State. Labor Statistics Bureau, Seventh Annual Report, 1889, pp. 141–180; U.S. Commissioner of Labor, Tenth Annual Report (1894) Volume II, pp. 1560–1567; Eighteenth Annual Report (1903), pp. 38, 39. A comparatively low propensity to strike evidently was not limited to New York’s printers, for between 1881 to 1900 the United States Commissioner of Labor recorded approximately 760 work stoppages nationally (less than four a year) in the printing trades. 65. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Third Annual Report (1889), pp. 281, 282; The Tribune, July 23, 1889; Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, pp. 323–326. 66. Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, pp. 318–321; The Union Printer, August 29, 1896. 67. The Union Printer, July 18, 1896; Mediation and Arbitration Board, Eleventh Annual Report (1896), pp. 458–461; Thirteenth Annual Report (1898), p. 166; No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, October 6, 1895. 68. The Union Printer, February 29, 1896. 69. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Ninth Annual Report (1894), pp. 240–243. 70. Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, pp. 316–318; The Sun, October 11, 1887. 71. The New York Herald, October 18 and 19, 1887; Morgan, The Origin and the History of the New York Employing Printers’ Association, pp. 80, 81. 72. Mediation and Arbitration Board, First Annual Report (1887), pp. 290–291. 73. Ibid, Ninth Annual Report (1894), p. 240; The New York Tribune, April 1, 1894; The Union Printer, April 7, 1894. 74. The Union Printer, April 7, 1894. 75. Ibid, April 21 and June 9, 1894; No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, April 1, and June 3, 1894. 76. The Union Printer, June 9, June 16, June 23, July 14, and August 25, 1894. 77. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Ninth Annual Report (1894), p. 243. 78. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Sixteenth Annual Report (1898), p. 868; A History of the 100 Years of Unions on the Tribune, p. 12; No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, November 1, 1891; New York Typographical Union No. 6 and Typographia No. 7, List of Offices Paying The Scale (1897 and 1898). 79. The Union Printer, June 1, 1895; No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, December 4, 1898; Stevens, New York Typographical Union No. 6, p. 541. 80. The Union Printer, March 23 and 30, 1895, April 20, and May 11, 1895; George Barnett, “Collective Bargaining in the Typographical Union,” in Jacob Hollander and George Barnett, eds., Studies in American Trade Unionism (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1906), pp. 162–172; Mediation and Arbitration Board, Twelfth Annual Report (1898), pp. 163, 164. 81. John Tebbell, A History of Book Publishing in the United States Volume 2, (New York: Bowker and Compnay, 1975) p. 659.

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82. Beartrice and Sidney Webb, Industrial Democracy (London: Longmans, 1897). 83. For influences on the skilled workers’ ability to adapt to technological change, especially to modulate its effects on their conditions of employment, see Irwin Yellowitz, Industrialization and the American Labor Movement 1850–1900 (Port, Washington, New York: Kennikat Press, 1977); and Jonathan Zeitlin, “Engineers and Compositors: A Comparison,” in Harrison and Zeitlin, eds., Divisions of Labour, p. 236–241. For the impact of technological change on skilled workers, focusing on displacement, see Blanche Hazard, The Organization of the Boot and Shoe Industry in Massachusetts Before 1875 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1921); David Brody, Steelworkers is America: The Non-Union Era (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1960), chapter 2. 84. This duality was not unique New York’s skilled workers. In his history of plumbers and pipefitters in Columbus, Ohio Richard Schnerov convincingly argues that building tradesmen expressed both a craft and class identity as trade unionists. The plumbers’ and pipe-fitters’ twin loyalties signified that their strategic position within the production process as skilled workers nurtured a craft identity but simultaneously their experience as wage workers within an unequal set of power relationships enduced a class identity. See Richard Schnerov, Pride and Solidarity: A History of the Plumbers and Pipefitters of Columbus, Ohio, 1889–1989 (Ithaca, New York: ILR Press, 1993), especially pages 5–11. Kim Voss’s study of the Knights of Labor in New Jersey downplays the creative tension between inclusionist and exclusionist orientations at the expense of the competition between these approaches, arguing that as the Knights attempted to organize both skilled and unskilled workers they were overwhelmed by insurmountable obstacles that ultimately meant the loss of craft workers’ loyalty. See Kim Voss, The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1993).

CHAPTER 4

Cigarmakers at the Crossroads: Defending a Craft or Organizing an Industry?

In the autumn of 1886, New York’s and Brooklyn’s cigarmakers had sound reasons to view the future optimistically. Internecine conflict between the Progressive Cigar Makers and the Cigar Makers International Union (CMIU) ended with four affiliates of the Progressive Cigarmakers joining the latter as Locals 10, 90, 149, and 254. Membership approached 8,000 and was becoming more broadly representative of a workforce in terms of gender and ethnicity. Henry George’s bid for mayor of New York, propelled by the efforts of the city’s Central Labor Union, aroused the hopes of cigarmakers and other workers that the days of court-imposed injunctions on unions would soon end, and the state would respect their right to organize. Yet certain developments in the industry cast a shadow over the cigarmakers’ achievements. Tenement house production, considered a scourge by Samuel Gompers, Adolph Strasser, and other union leaders for over a decade, continued to thrive. The emergence of factories, which began to mechanize production, threatened the position of handicraft cigarmakers. The prospect of competition from out-of-town plants, owned by New York-based firms, which benefited from a surplus of labor in rural areas, further tested the ability of New York’s and Brooklyn’s cigarmakers to uphold union standards on pay, hours, and conditions. By the turn of the century, factory production and capital mobility as well as a protracted economic slump, had taken its toll on even the most sanguine union members, as the CMIU struggled to maintain its base in New York and Brooklyn.

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THE CHECKERED INDUSTRIALIZATION OF CIGARMAKING: THE “FEMINIZATION” OF THE LABOR FORCE, TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE, AND A NEW DIVISION OF LABOR In the 1890s between 15,000 and 20,000 workers, all but 1,200 in Manhattan, claimed cigarmaking as their occupation. First generation immigrants from Germany, Bohemia (the Czech Republic), and Eastern Europe constituted the overwhelming majority of cigarmakers. In 1890, men comprised almost two-thirds of the labor force, but, by 1900, the labor force was divided nearly equally between men and women. Nationally, women as a proportion of the industrial workforce steadily rose from 1870, and stood at 37 percent in 1900.1 In particular, Bohemian immigrant women played a significant role in cigarmaking. Many learned cigarmaking in their original homeland and taught the trade to their husbands who often could not find work in their chosen occupation after settling in New York. At the turn of the century, more than half of the city’s adult Bohemian immigrant population derived their livelihood from cigarmaking.2 The influx of experienced Bohemian cigarmakers, which began in the early 1870s, gave impetus to New York City’s cigarmaking industry, contributing to the emergence of a new division of labor, called team work and to the growth of tenement house production. Manufacturers, seeking to minimize labor costs and to utilize the skills of women, hired them to perform specific tasks. Most Bohemian women cigarmakers stripped tobacco or made bunches in preparation for rolling. Some also worked as so-called bookers, smoothing the leaves and compactly rolling them. In the tenement house system women worked alongside their fathers, husbands, and children doing many of the cigarmaking tasks, including rolling.3 The composition of the cigarmaking workforce was closely related to the scale and location of production. Women found employment in the larger uptown factories and tenement house shops, and, in 1895, were virtually absent from the smaller downtown shops.4 Conversely, the proportion of men to women decreased as the size of the workplace increased. For example, in 1895 men outnumbered women in shops employing between 26 and 50 workers by three to one, but in shops with over 100 workers there were four men for every five women.5 The relationship between workplace size and the gender composition of the labor force also reflected the existence of different forms of production. Most shops employed fewer than 25 workers, and averaged about 11 workers. These workplaces, dispersed throughout lower Manhattan, especially to the east and west of City Hall, were owned by entrepreneurs, many of whom were former cigarmakers. They employed craftsmen who used traditional manual methods of production, even, in some cases, eschewing the simplest technological innovation such as the mold.6

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Although most of the 1,800 establishments listed by the U.S. Census Bureau inconspicuously blended into New York’s manufacturing landscape, some stood out. In 1900, 41 companies based in Manhattan employed more than 100 workers, 25 of which were located above 42nd Street and 20 above 59th Street. At least five cigar manufacturing firms were capitalized at $500,000 or more, of which two, M.W. Mendel and Brothers and the Owl Cigar Company were valued at more than $1 million. The median number of workers employed by the five wealthiest firms, most of whom were located between 14th and 34th streets, was 650.7 While the large downtown companies maintained integrated factory facilities where most if not all the production was completed, those above 59th Street oversaw both factory and tenement shop operations. Some of these included employers who formed the hub of the United Cigar Manufacturers’ Association, which locked horns with the CMIU in 1886 and 1887, and remained nonunion in the 1890s. Manufacturers, seeking to take advantage of lower land costs further uptown and a pool of labor, supplied predominantly by recently arrived immigrants, began to establish tenement shops in the 1870s. They either bought or rented a row of tenement houses to accommodate tenants with whom they contracted to produce cigars. To confuse cigarmakers and factory inspectors alike, manufacturers maintained tenement house shops under a different name from their central factory. Tenement house production usually focused on the bunching and rolling phases, while the stripping of the tobacco as preparation for cigarmaking and cigar packing were done in the central factory. Agents of manufacturers usually visited the apartments with a fresh bunch of tobacco every week, when they collected the finished cigars and carefully weighed them to determine if tenement house workers used any tobacco to make cigars they later sold independently. Many settled up with their contracted households every two weeks —paying them for what they produced after deducting for rent.8 The emergence of larger production facilities signaled changes in production methods, technological innovation, and a new division of labor. Cigarmaking consisted of five specific phases: stripping, backing, bunchmaking, rolling, and packing. Stripping involved the removal of the large middle rib found in a tobacco leaf. Backing included straightening of the leaves and arranging them in pads. Bunchmaking consisted of shaping the filler tobacco from pads and covering it with a binderleaf. Rolling demanded two sets of tasks: (1) selecting certain sections of the leaf and rolling the inner sections and (2) cutting the wrapper and rolling them around bunches according to a designated style.9 In the small manual shops apprentices or helpers did the stripping and backing, rollers (alternately called cigarmakers) handled the tasks of bunchmaking and rolling, while specialists, aptly named packers, packed the finished product. Among the three basic types of cigars—clear Havana,

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seed Havana, and cheaper grades—traditional handicraft methods prevailed in the production of the first, survived in the making of the second, and virtually disappeared in the third. The making of clear Havana cigars was a highly specialized branch of the industry which established an enclave in New York. Skillfully deploying the Cuban blade, a thin knife two inches wide and five inches long with a curved blade, and a nine-byfifteen inch cigar board (both of which they owned), cigarmakers meticulously measured the sections of tobacco to be rolled into their distinctive style.10 During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, however, the introduction of new technologies transformed cigarmaking. To supplement the Cuban blade, manufacturers provided the tuck cutter—a stationary knife attached to a block of wood which could cut cigars at a standard size. Also, to encourage standardization, employers vigorously promoted the use of molds—rows of cups that held fresh bunches of tobacco which, through the use of a hand lever press, uniformly shaped the bunches.11 In the 1880s, the first mechanized changes in production appeared with the advent of the bunching machine which combined many of the cigarmaking operations. Operatives fed tobacco into the machine and then spread the binder which facilitated the shaping process. Once activated, the machine fed leaf tobacco from a hopper in measured proportions and placed it in molds where it was pressed and prepared for wrapping.12 In the 1890s two other technological advances altered production methods: stripping or stemming machines, which removed the mid-rib from the leaf; suction tables, which used air drawn suction, operated by a pedal, to stretch the wrapper leafs; and a hand operated circular knife, fixed along a grove, to produce uniform wrappers. Refinements facilitated a more reliable stretching of the tobacco wrappers and facilitated the rolling of tighter cigars.13 Taken together, these technological innovations increased productivity and lowered labor costs. Cigarmakers manually could produce on the average anywhere from 150 to 225 cigars per day depending on the style, perfectos being the most demanding and straights being the least time consuming. Cigarmakers working with molds could roll a third more cigars in the same time. Even the most skilled manual rollers capable of rolling 325 straights and 250 perfectos a day could not match the output of cigarmakers working with molds. Bunchmakers who worked without molds averaged 2,000 cigars per week, half the amount produced with molds. Productivity gains were even more impressive with the use of bunching machines. By the late 1890s, one bunching machine operator could turn out 20,000 to 30,000 bunches a week at a cost of less than eight dollars for wages, while under manual methods the same number of bunches required ten workers earning about $80 a week.14

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What appeared as a blessing to employers, loomed as a curse to cigarmakers. Technological innovation from the mold to the suction table threatened the autonomous position of the skilled manual roller in the labor process. Where in the handicraft mode of operation apprentices, rollers, and packers completed the many different phases of cigarmaking; the introduction of bunching machines, stripping machines, and suction tables generated a detailed division of labor. Machine-oriented production created specific job classifications for each phase—casers, strippers, backers, bunchmakers, rollers, and packers. Furthermore, it encouraged the development of team work, especially in bunch making, as teams of three, consisting of a leader and two assistants, performed specific tasks. Some manufacturers paid workers as teams who in turn shared their earnings among their members.15 The task-oriented division of labor signified a devaluing of cigarmaking as a craft. For example, handicraft cigarmakers served anywhere from a three to five year apprenticeship before being deemed competent. However, with the advent of molds the time to develop the skill of bunch making fell on the average to one year, and to as little as three months, according to some employers. The emergence of the suction table proved even more of a challenge. The period to master the art of cigar rolling and wrapping (traditionally two years) became just two months during which time cigarmakers learned how to operate equipment which completed the work formerly done by skilled hands.16 While new technology helped to redefine the work of cigarmakers, certain factors militated against the erosion of their status as craftsmen. Union cigarmakers who originally resisted the use of molds, by the 1880s, had adapted to their permanent place in the production process. This stemmed from the recognition that cigarmakers’ earnings based on a piece rate could be increased with the use of molds, since there were fewer delays at the press where tobacco leaves were prepared for bunching,17 and that the device itself did not represent as great a threat to the cigarmakers’ position as did the growth of nonunion tenement house shops and factories. In a highly competitive industry even the smaller entrepreneur-owned shops, where the New York City locals of the CPU had established their base, had to introduce molds to protect their market position.18 Equally relevant, the industry’s technological development remained uneven and some work skills could not be incorporated within equipment or machinery. Molds, for instance, while expediting the bunching of tobacco leaves could not disguise shoddy work. Cigars could be filled with too little or too much filler, and their wrappers were more likely to unroll because they were excessively hard or too dry. Experienced cigarmakers working without molds could avoid such errors, thereby reducing waste. The highly acclaimed power-driven bunching machine was limited

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to short filler cigars of four and one-half to five inches in length, until the first decade of the twentieth century. Suction tables, despite their tendency to reallocate work of crafts-men/-women to semiskilled operatives, did not comprehensively subdivide the work of rollers. They still retained skills which only came with experience—judgement and timing in the placement, cutting, and wrapping of leafs.19 Moreover, the improvements in production offered by technological innovation in the late nineteenth century were primarily relegated to the making of the cheaper grade cigars. In an age where manufacturers revered machine technology for its efficiency, they, nevertheless, recognized the superiority of hand-made cigars. Even in some of the larger factories deploying the most sophisticated equipment, manufacturers employed cigarmakers who rolled the more expensive grades of cigars in the traditional manner.20 Less ambiguous than the impact of technological innovation was the growth of larger workplaces where women assumed a more prominent role in the labor force. In 1890, less than 60 establishments employed 50 or more workers, and by the end of the decade 76 did.21 Meanwhile, the number of women cigarmakers jumped from 6,500 to 8,500, an increase of nearly one-third.22 On two counts the higher proportion of women among cigarmakers, however, was not simply a direct result of increased mechanization of production. First, some manufacturers preferred to hire women because they were purportedly pliant and nimble, less likely to be absent, and were less likely to consume alcoholic beverages.23 Secondly, while the more elaborate stripping machines, bunching machines and suction tables required higher capital outlays that were beyond the means of smaller firms which still predominated in the industry, the use of molds necessitated minimal capital investment. The new division of labor which tapped the skills of women, although encouraged by the development of machine technology, found a home in a less mechanized environment. The employment of women represented a key element of manufacturers’ quest for lower costs and greater productivity. Despite a slight increase in the number of cigarmakers between 1890 and 1900, the wage bill of employers actually declined eight percent.24 Meanwhile, investment in machinery and tools constituted a small share in the increase in fixed capital investment from 1890 to 1900, thereby indicating that cigarmaking remained a relatively labor intensive industry. Yet, during the same period, the sales value of goods produced per worker increased by slightly more than 10 percent.25 Lower aggregate labor costs in a growing labor force, combined with greater output per worker, indicated lower-paid workers were being substituted for the higher-paid handicraftsmen. The persistence of tenement house in which women constituted anywhere from about 50 to 80 percent of the workforce and the growth of factory production revealed a femi-

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nization of the labor force and, in turn, a transformation of the cigarmaking trade. This shift in the composition of labor also signified a widening diversity in cigarmakers’ conditions of employment that proceeded increasingly along a gender divide between female operatives and male craftsmen. CIGARMAKERS’ DIVERSIFIED WORLD OF WORK Cigarmakers’ pay rates and weekly earnings varied by type and length of cigar. Cigarmakers producing long filler Havanas earned at twice the piece rate than they did making the long seed variety. In general, perfectos paid more than shaped cigars, which in turn paid more than the simple straight style. The diversity in piece rates reflected differences in the prices received for certain types of cigars, and the degree of difficulty and time required to roll them. For example, clear Havana cigars sold for 15 cents to 25 cents, and long seed cigars sold for 10 cents or 15 cents depending the shape and tobacco used. Perfectos needed more skill and time to roll than shaped and straight cigars.26 Cigarmakers working on the same type or style of cigar earned at different rates according to specific job classification and production methods. In the handicraft shops where the functions of bunching and rolling were integrated, the cigarmakers’ piece rates far surpassed the rates of those employed where the functions were separated. Under the team work format, the distinct tasks of rollers and bunchmakers were recognized with a higher pay scale for the former. The deployment of new technology also influenced pay rates. Cigarmakers (typically nonunion) working on suction tables earned $5.00 per 1,000, while those employed by large manufacturers using molds earned $6.00 per 1,000.27 The sharpest differences in pay scales emerged between union and nonunion cigarmakers. By the late 1890s, the pay gap ranged from $2.50 to $3.00 per 1,000. Among the identifiable nonunion shops were some of the largest manufacturers, employing more than 500 workers of which women represented more than two-thirds. Meanwhile, few of the unionized shops had a workforce of more than a hundred, and rarely did women constitute a majority.28 While unionized cigarmakers enjoyed relatively higher wages and shorter work days, tenement house workers experienced considerably less attractive conditions of employment. In the mid 1890s the most generous estimates put the pay rates of tenement house workers at $4.50 to $5.50 per 1,000 based on style or type of cigar. More sobering reports indicated rates as low as three dollars. Meager weekly earnings resulted from low piece rates. A tenement house family with two members working sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, could produce 2,500 cigars a week, yielding between nine and eleven dollars, although witnesses at the New

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York State Assembly Committee investigating the conditions of women workers held the daily output of a quality worker ranged from 250 to 300.29 Tenement house workers also suffered from an erratic flow of production. Often they received unprocessed tobacco which had to be stripped before rolling could commence. Moreover, tenement house workers were not provided with enough tobacco leafs to maximize their earnings.30 Consequently, since their housing remained contingent on their ability to produce cigars, as many members of the family were put to work as possible. A not-uncommon sight was a woman rocking an infant in a cradle with her feet while she rolled cigars. Alongside her, children, eyes swollen and inflamed from being rubbed with tobacco stained hands, stripped tobacco. Secondly, when the amount of work slackened to the extent that their livelihood was threatened, many simply vacated their apartments without paying their rents.31 An unhealthy work environment was not peculiar to tenement house cigarmakers. In large workshops and factories cigarmakers’ workbenches were so pressed against each other there was little room to walk. These cramped quarters and a chronic lack of ventilation exacerbated the effects of odors from tobacco and coal stoves. Consequently, cigarmakers incurred a number of maladies, ranging from indigestion to life-threatening respiratory illnesses, including tuberculosis, pneumonia, and consumption. Tuberculosis in particular became a scourge; almost half of the cigarmakers’ deaths in 1890 could be traced to the disease that contributed to the occupation’s low life expectancy of 37 years.32 Almost equally universal were long workdays. Most cigar manufacturers ran their factories and shops six days a week, during which time nonunion cigarmakers could expect to work more than 50 hours. Not coincidentally, those manufacturers who showed a propensity to hire young women maintained the longest work weeks. For example, almost 20 percent of Kerbs, Wertheimer, Schiffer’s workforce—all required to work 59 hours a week in 1898—were women under the age of 21, and about 25 percent of McCoy and Company’s workforce, putting in 59 hours, were women under 21.33 Extensive workdays, a feature of large scale manufacturing and tenement house production, represented a negative benchmark for union cigarmakers. Accordingly, in the early 1880s, locals in the CMIU vigorously began to pursue a reduction in the workday. While most union members in 1883 were compelled to work 10 hours Monday through Friday and eight hours Saturday, by 1887 virtually every local had secured a eighthour day Monday through Friday and a six-hour day on Saturday.34 This improvement even survived the depression in the 1890s. While union membership spared cigarmakers long workdays, it did not provide them with immunity from unemployment. Much of the unemployment flowed

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from the seasonal shifts in production. Production peaked in September and October and then dropped steadily, reaching its nadir in January and February. In the early spring production picked up, expanding continually until June, when it again began to level off before resuming its annual autumnal resurgence.35 Cigarmaking’s wide diversity in pay rates and working conditions highlighted the predicament faced by CMIU members. Technological change, new production methods, and larger scale of operations threatened craft workers and the institution they created to defend their position. Especially alarming in this context was the persistence of tenement house shops which represented the antithesis of dignified and appropriately renumerated labor. In short, during the 1880s and 1890s a fragmented world of work—between the unionized and the non-unionized; between handicraft production and machine production; and among small shop, factory, and tenement house manufacturing—suggested a shared experience necessary to sustain collective activity was tenuous. THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF CIGARMAKER TRADE UNIONISM Under these circumstances cigarmaker unionism in New York not surprisingly developed unevenly; indeed, for most of its history prior to 1886, it struggled to survive. Promising initiatives in the 1870s fell victim to cyclical unemployment and strike defeats, and in the first half of the next decade internecine conflict threatened to undermine the organizational gains made by CMIU affiliates. By the summer of 1886, however, the pressure of events paved the way for a rapprochement between the breakaway Progressive Cigar Makers and the CMIU. Consequently, a reconstituted CMIU could claim a membership of more than 7,000, the largest in its brief history.36 But dramatic as the growth of the CMIU was in New York and Brooklyn, 1886 proved to be the apex. Between 1886 and 1889 membership precipitously declined. In 1890 a temporary resurgence occurred, to be followed by a period in which membership hovered around the 5,000 mark. Union density, which stood at over 30 percent in 1890, fell to 25 percent by the end of the decade. During this period New York’s and Brooklyn’s affiliates claimed a smaller share of the national union’s membership. The three locals constituting the original source of the union’s growth, Locals 144 (Gompers’s base), 90 and 10 (consisting of former Progressives) encountered the most serious erosion in membership (see Table 4.1). The uneven development of cigarmaker unionism in New York originated from specific characteristics of the industry. Women represented a higher proportion of the workforce than they did in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis, where the CMIU won higher wage rates. The pro-

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Table 4.1 Membership in New York and Brooklyn Locals of Cigar Makers International Union (1886 to 1898)

* All figures rounded off to nearest ten. Packers not included for this year. Sources: Calculated from figures provided by The Cigar Makers Official Journal, 1887–1898; and Willis Baer, The Economic Development of the Cigar Industry in the United States (Lancaster, Pennsylvania: The Art Printing Company, 1933), p. 98.

portion of women rose from 31 percent in 1890 to 43 percent in 1900, while during the same period men continued to outnumber women in Philadelphia’s cigarmaking workforce by 2 to 1; in Boston’s by 3 to 1; in Chicago’s by 4 to 1; and in St.Louis’s by 10 to 1.37 A growing proportion of women in the cigar manufacturing was significant since they were less likely to be recruited by organizers or join unions than their male counterparts. At the turn of the century one-fifth of women employed in the tobacco trades (cigarette making and tobacco processing as well as cigarmaking) were union members, compared to one-third of male tobacco workers. Nevertheless, the gender gap in union membership among cigarmakers was not as great as that among workers in the ready-made women’s clothing industry where, in 1899-1900, only 7 percent of women employed were unionized, compared to 40 percent of men.38 Women were under-represented in the CMIU in large measure because of the union’s ambivalent position on the efficacy of recruiting women. While the union, under Gompers’ urging, officially upheld a nondiscriminatory policy towards the admission of women, the thrust of its practices suggested that cigarmaking was an occupation meant for craftsmen (emphasis on men) and that skilled rollers were the union’s natural constituency. Adolph Strasser, addressing delegates at the union’s convention in 1879, articulated what became the guiding principle of the union’s atti-

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tude about women’s proper place. In making the case for protective legislation, he argued: We can not drive the females out of the trade, but we can restrict their daily quota of labor through factory laws. No girl under 18 should be employed more than eight hours per day; all overwork should be prohibited; while married women should be kept out of the factories at least six weeks before and after “confinement.”39

Editorials in the Cigar Makers Official Journal voiced similar sentiments, as the influx of women into the occupation simultaneously provoked expressions of paternalistic concern for the so-called weaker sex and fears their growing numbers represented a threat to union standards as understood by cigarmaking craftsmen.40 The employment of women was inextricably bound up with the everpresent tenement house system and the growth of large scale manufacturing firms, both of which inhibited the development of trade unionism. Tenement house shops fed on the exigencies of recently arrived immigrant families who risked losing their sources of livelihood as well as their homes if they joined a union.41 Furthermore, because the CMIU associated tenement house production with low wages, excessive hours, and the general degradation of the trade, the union vigorously campaigned for its elimination. The result of this policy was that tenement house workers became conflated with tenement house production itself, and therefore remained beyond the pale, notwithstanding the dissenting voices of former leaders of the Progressive Cigar Makers who advocated a more inclusionary approach to organizing. The growth of large manufacturers who also maintained factories outside of New York and produced for a national market posed a different type of challenge to union cigarmakers. Such firms as Ottenberg and Company, M.W. Mendel and Brothers, L.E. Kaufmann, and Kerbs, Wertheimer, and Schiffer among others commanded considerable resources which allowed them to prevent inroads by the CMIU. Companies with capital reserves of a million dollars and more had ready access to credit that enabled them to expand production, invest in new machinery, and widely advertise their products. THE PROMISE AND THE INROADS OF THE CIGARMAKERS’ “NEW MODEL” UNION The achievements of New York’s and Brooklyn’s locals evidently confirmed the logic of the new model unionism the CMIU adapted from British trade unions. All of the nine locals had achieved the eight-hour day by 1887, and retained it in the 1890s even during the depression years. Vir-

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tually every local, with the exception of Local 90 in New York, also experienced an increase in piece rates during the 1880s, and only one of the cigarmaker and two cigar packer locals had a reduction in its pay scale from 1891 to 1895.42 Crucial to the new model unionism was the emphasis on building a stable organization run on sound financial practices and supported by those, who, by virtue of their skills and position in the production process, most appreciated the worth of their labor and demonstrated the willingness to organize. Acting upon the first precept, the CMIU instituted high dues and initiation fees and adopted strict financial procedures, centrally enforced and locally administered, to account for the expenditure of union funds. Following the second precept, the union adopted a series of benefits, starting with a travelers’ loan in 1879. Dues paying members of one-year standing could borrow up to eight dollars at a time, including 50 cents towards defraying transportation costs. Then in 1880 the CMIU introduced sick and death benefits—the latter paying $40 towards a member’s burial expenses. In 1887 the union expanded the death benefit to include life insurance for members in good standing for five years, ranging from $200 to $500 depending on a member’s tenure, and to provide burial expenses for a member’s spouse. Two years later, the union established an out-of-work benefit which provided three dollars a week for a sixweek period. To discourage a dependency on the benefit and to avoid overburdening the union’s financial resources, payments were limited to $54 a year per member and were not distributed during the seasonal slack periods—from June 1 through September 23 and December 16 through January 15.43 An emphasis on benefits highlighted three key aspects of the CMIU’s approach to trade unionism. First, it demonstrated the union’s sensitivity to certain conditions which eroded its base among the skilled but yet insecure rollers and packers. For example, notwithstanding the concern an out-of-work benefit might be abused by members and drain the union’s finances, arguments that chronic unemployment drove otherwise dyedin-the-wool union members to seek work in scab shops prevailed.44 Similarly, the travelers’ benefit served as a safety valve for members embroiled in long strikes, for instead of succumbing to the pressure of returning to work on the employers’ terms, they could move to a city or town where the union had established a foothold.45 Secondly, the benefits helped members cope with the anticipated as well as the unexpected traumas of daily life in an era when the state assumed a negligible role in promoting the social welfare of workers. Cigarmakers, facing the seasonal downturns in the trade and experiencing personal problems such as alcoholism and broken marriages, could turn to the travelers’ loan in search of a more promising environment. Rollers and bunchers, afflicted with the respiratory illnesses endemic to the occupation, had

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recourse to another source of income through the sick benefit. Cigarmakers lying on their death beds were comforted by the knowledge their families would not be forced into debt or imminent poverty because a union fund covered funeral expenses. Concomitantly, the provision of assistance in the most urgent situations fostered a loyalty to the union that translated into a strong endorsement of its objectives, an acceptance of its authority and a greater involvement in its activities. The last of these features spoke to the shared recognition by full-time union officials and rank and file members that trade unionism involved relationships based on reciprocity—between rights and responsibilities, and entitlements and obligations. Therefore, the union went to great lengths to define the specific conditions under which members could claim benefits and to implement measures to prevent members from abusing them. Those members working in nonunion shops were not eligible for an out-of-work benefit, and women members were specifically excluded from coverage under the sick benefit during the final eight weeks of pregnancy and for five weeks after giving birth. Most locals required members to attend a minimum number of meetings of year to be eligible to claim benefits. The CMIU also instituted penalties for abusing the travelers’ benefit, including fining members failing to repay loans, receiving loans unauthorized by the local’s financial secretary, or doctoring loan books.46 OLD CHALLENGES AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES: PURE AND SIMPLE UNIONISM AND BEYOND The efforts to instill discipline among the rank and file took on special significance in light of the issues union cigarmakers confronted. Tenement shop production remained a scourge of New York’s locals. Drives to establish and enforce union standards collided with the manufacturers’ use of economic pressure and slight of hand. Machine technology and team work continued to transform the cigarmakers’ trade, and in the process, weaken the union’s foothold in the industry. The cigarmakers’ experience with tenement house work, most dramatically illustrated in the 1877 strike, dominated the union’s attention. New York locals with the assistance of national leaders agitated for the prohibition of tenement shops, which they regarded as the source of squalor, vice and crime that stunted the mental and moral development of children as well as threatened union cigarmakers’ conditions of employment. Gompers in particular scored the tenement house system as a danger to a healthy family life and the prevailing ideal of domesticity within the home. John Swinton, a prominent labor reformer, felt a victory over tenement house production would strike a blow against servility and thereby elevate the cigarmakers’ “manhood.”47

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Rebuffed by judicial decisions which nullified bills passed by the New York State Legislature (People v. Jacobs in 1885, for example, held interference with a person’s right to work was unconstitutional),48 the union continued to make tenement house legislation a prerequisite for political endorsements of candidates and to pressure public health authorities and factory inspectors to concentrate their efforts on tenement house manufacturers. Samuel Gompers, testifying at the New York State Assembly’s Committee which studied the conditions of women workers in 1895, admonished New York City’s Board of Health for its conservatism and its lack of cooperation with union efforts to highlight the tenement house system’s perpetuation of infectious diseases. By the end of the decade these lobbying efforts met with some success, as the state legislature enacted stricter standards on ventilation, sewage and building maintenance.49 Union members also decried the pernicious spread of team work, which virtually supplanted handicraft work. Jacob Sinn, Edward Behnke, and E. Brinkmann from Local 90 charged team work resulted in inefficiency, since rollers often had to rebunch the tobacco handled by bunch makers. Letters regularly appeared in the Cigar Makers Official Journal, singling out the use of bunching machines and suction tables for driving down pay scales and displacing union members. One attacked employers for using women as strike breakers and union busters, while another listed fifteen manufacturers who deployed bunching machines but yet palmed off their products as handmade, and thereby defrauded the consumer who paid a higher price for a spurious article.50 Union cigarmakers fought these developments primarily by advancing their union label, which to them represented the observance of union rules and the endorsement of union standards for pay, hours and working conditions. Advocates of this strategy believed it would reduce the need for strikes, which all too often proved financially costly and organizationally damaging. Moreover, the union label provided a bridge to civic leaders, social reformers, businessmen, and middle class citizens who associated trade unionism with disruptive industrial conflict. New York locals provided manufacturers with the label, which was to accompany every cigar produced by union members, so long as manufacturers did not deploy bunching machines or suction tables, operate tenement house shops, hire women under 15 years of age, or employ women for more than eight hours a day. Locals formed a Joint Label Committee which maintained a list of manufacturers who did not qualify for a union label and monitored the employers’ attempts to use counterfeit labels. Representatives targeted other unions, appealing to them not to purchase any cigar lacking the blue label, or to frequent any restaurant, bar or store that sold nonunion-made cigars. Special efforts were made to convince saloon keepers and owners of groceries only to carry cigars with the union label. By 1888, two years after intensifying its efforts, the CMIU could

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claim 113 union label shops, and had won pledges to honor its union label from 55 unions in New York and Brooklyn, mostly representing building tradesmen.51 Throughout most of the 1880s and 1890s the CMIU gained legal recognition of the blue label—indicative not only of the legitimacy of its approach, but also signifying a validation of the union itself. In 1887, New York State’s Superior Court issued an injunction against Moonelis and Company, a reputed tenement house manufacturer, for using counterfeit labels, and in the process upheld the union’s label as a trademark, signifying the quality of the product. In 1889, the union’s persistent lobbying paid off with the passage of the Trade Mark Act, which recognized a union’s right to seek injunctive relief and sue unscrupulous employers for damages.52 Strict work rules, which defined cigarmakers’ relationship with employers and with one another, also figured prominently in the defense of union standards. The locals’ Bill of Prices delineated the cigarmakers’ pay scale, stipulated work responsibilities, and in the process restricted the employers’ authority. Cigarmakers were not to reroll cigars deemed inadequate by foremen unless paid for doing so. Shoddy work was not grounds for dismissal, although it might warrant a foreman’s reprimand. Cigarmakers were not to prepare tobacco for rolling and not to pack them as long as unionized packers were on the premises.53 New York locals sought to prevent members from becoming dependent on their employers and from developing a servile attitude toward them. Local 90 waged a campaign against S. Jacoby and Brown and Earle who discriminated against workers refusing to rent housing from the firm by denying them choice job assignments. The Central Labor Union’s Tobacco Trades Section, upon the local’s urging, passed a resolution expressing its outrage at the manufacturers attempting to introduce a quasi-boardinghouse system similar to the one in New England’s cotton textile industry.54 Such appeals to resist employers’ threats to union standards often promoted cooperation among locals. In January, 1887 Local 144 at the request of sister Local 141—called so because of the role of women like the Bohemian immigrant, Mary Hausler, in its recruiting efforts—agreed to initiate a conference to combat the reported plans of Kaufman Brothers and Bondy and Lederer to expand tenement house operations. In May, 1887 CMIU’s New York locals and the Cuban Confederation of Cigarmakers mobilized a rally attended by 400 members to protest the pay cut announced by Lozano, Pendas and Company.55 This spirit of cooperation extended beyond other CMIU locals. Brooklyn Local 132 in 1887 endorsed a boycott against W.L. Douglas, a Massachusetts shoe manufacturer, in support of the New England Lasters Protective Union. Local 90 in New York sponsored an amendment authorizing the union’s International President to allocate $1,000 to assist American Rail-

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way Union officers, including Eugene Debs, who were facing trial for their role in the Pullman Boycott in 1894. In 1897 New York’s and Brooklyn’s locals sent Michael Raphael as their emissary to San Francisco to assist cigarmakers in that city organize against tenement house production.56 These expressions of solidarity indicated a broader vision than that suggested by advocates of pure and simple unionism. Some cigarmakers held views, which, although not prevalent within the CMIU, were representative of a significant proportion of the membership, especially in Locals 10 and 90, which, until the summer of 1886, had constituted the socialist-led Progressive Cigarmakers. Michael Raphael, in a series of letters to the union journal, put forward his case for producer cooperatives. Cigarmaker cooperatives, he argued, would alleviate economic insecurity and “wring more concessions from employers in one month . . . than we could at present in ten years.”57 By forming cooperatives, he continued, cigarmakers could eliminate tenement house shops, child and female labor, degrading machine work, convict labor and coolie labor of all kinds—in short, restore the world of the male craftsmen.58 Raphael made cooperatives the center piece of his platform when he challenged George Perkins for the presidency of the CMIU in 1892–1893. Cooperatives, he claimed upon accepting the nomination, would reduce the need for out-of-work benefits, a feature better suited to fraternal societies than unions, and would allow members to defend themselves against the “encroachment of capital.” Although Perkins was re-elected, Raphael did very well in the election. He carried two of Brooklyn’s locals, ran neckand-neck in another, and amassed 38 percent of New York’s and Brooklyn’s vote—about twice the proportion he managed throughout the national union.59 Raphael’s strong showing in Brooklyn and New York may have resulted from a number of factors not directly related to his advocacy of cooperatives. Yet, his campaign and the substantial vote for him drew attention to the potential benefits of cooperatives. RELUCTANT STRIKERS: THE BITTER SWEET EXPERIENCE OF INDUSTRIAL ACTION Notwithstanding their support for producer cooperatives, which suggested a less confrontational strategy, cigarmakers found it necessary to prepare for industrial action. Typically, strikes that broke out at individual shops, involved few workers and lasted less than a week. Some, in fact, were quickies—lasting a day or less, when cigarmakers ceased working in protest against an unpopular foreman, or in response to a threatened elimination of a customary practice.60 The level of strike activity also varied year by year, indicative of shifting economic conditions and internal union dynamics. During a two year period, beginning on October 1, 1885, and ending September 30, 1887, (the CMIU maintained data for two-year peri-

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ods) there were 20 authorized strikes by New York and Brooklyn cigarmakers, while from October 1889 through September 1891 there were 72 strikes, of which half involved Local 90.61 The disparate nature and relative paucity of strike activity occurred for numerous reasons. First, the structure of the industry discouraged the widespread outbreak of strikes. Despite evidence of some concentration and consolidation, the industry featured an open market with firms entering and exiting frequently. Most cigarmakers worked for employers who owned only a single shop or factory and who specialized in a certain type or style of cigar. Consequently, efforts by cigarmakers to upgrade their conditions usually began, and ended, with targeting their immediate employers. Only when employers themselves—either informally through the expansion of tenement house production, or formally through the creation of a manufacturers’ association, as in 1886 and 1890—showed signs of introducing some uniformity to a checkered economic terrain, did the preconditions for a broader field of battle exist. The particular pattern of strike activity also reflected CMIU policy. On the premise that strikes could be debilitating and self-defeating, the union established regulations and procedures which discouraged industrial action. Shop strikes needed the sanction of the local; failing that the local president was required to order strikers back to work, and, if they disobeyed, to advertise for nonunion cigarmakers. A local president refusing to implement this procedure faced removal from office by the International Executive Board. The CMIU also strictly prohibited the authorization of any strike for a wage increase from November 1 to April 1, during cigarmaking’s slack season.62 Union leaders, such as Adolph Strasser, strenuously defended the strike authorization guidelines as a means to “keep the organization intact” and allow cigarmakers to “defend advances of wages and other improvements gained during revivals of trade against the onslaught of employers . . . in time of depression.”63 Whatever the cause, strikes called by a local required the authorization of other locals and the national union as well. Without official approval, expressed in a local by local referendum, no strike benefits could be distributed. Another factor influencing the ability of locals to call strikes was the not-uncommon practice of union members to work in nonunion shops. The CMIU, understandably, adopted a cautious approach whenever union members did not constitute a majority of the workforce. Prudence particularly appeared imperative during an economic slump when members might be pressured to find employment wherever they could. In 1895, for instance, the CMIU pursued a policy of wage restraint, strongly urging its affiliates to defend current standards and seek no increases. This did not go unchallenged among New York’s cigarmakers. An open letter to the Cigar Makers Official Journal called for the authorization of strikes in

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nonunion shops, contending, to retain union wage rates in some shops, it was necessary to strike for an increase in others. Proponents of a more aggressive posture urged the union to target the unorganized and raise their wage scale “to our level” so they could not drag us down to theirs.64 The union leadership rigorously enforced the constitutional restrictions on the calling of strikes. In 1891, Local 13 opposed the application of Locals 10, 90, 141, and 144 to authorize a strike against Samuel Joseph and Company, which announced a reduction in pay rates, on the grounds their members were employed in tenement house shops in violation of the union’s constitution. Adolph Strasser, as President upheld Local 13’s challenge, emphatically declaring, “no member working in a tenement house factory can be allowed any benefits, or enjoy and perform the rights of a member.”65 Locals 90 and 141 promptly filed an appeal of the decision. Local officers, Anton Adele, Josef Wocel, and John Zapotocky argued the union constitution did not expressly prohibit tenement house workers from membership and maintained locals had the option to accept others besides craftsmen, including bunchers, leaf selectors, and strippers. They also stressed the need to organize tenement house workers who, without union protection, would incur additional wage cuts and thereby provide a greater incentive to manufacturers to expand tenement house work. Josef Wocel took the occasion to advance a strategy that represented a radical change in the union’s anti-tenement shop approach: The system is an old one and cannot be abolished with a simple decision. It takes time. But by having them (tenement house workers) organized and having control over them, we eventually would, when favorable opportunity offers, abolish the system.66

Nevertheless, the Executive Board unanimously supported Strasser’s decision. Gompers conceded a point made by the appealing officers of Locals 90 and 141 that tenement house workers could join the union, but quickly added, once they did, they would be obligated to cease working for a tenement house shop. More unequivocally he argued, “it is inconsistent for the CMIU to protest against the continuance of the obnoxious tenement house system if we are to allow members to work in tenement houses.”67 Significantly, a secret ballot vote among CMIU members rejected the appeal filed by Locals 90 and 141 (Locals 10 and 144—original parties in the dispute—did not appeal the Executive Board’s decision) by almost a threeto-one margin, although among New York and Brooklyn members the appeal attracted 1,163 votes (carrying Local 141 unanimously and Local 90 by a more than ten-to-one ratio). Every small local voted against the appellants and the two remaining larger locals, 10 and 144 did likewise by nine to one.68

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Much of the constitutional attention and internal debate over the strategy of strikes emanated from cigarmakers’ concrete experience. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, cigarmakers participated in four major strikes. The first, in 1877, as previously discussed (see Chapter 2), failed in its attempt to eradicate tenement house production and left the union weaker but still intact. The next serious conflict developed in the winter of 1886 with employers in the United Cigar Manufacturers’ Association against union cigarmakers divided between the CMIU and the Progressive Cigar Makers. In anticipation of renewed industrial activity, manufacturers and representatives of both unions reached an agreement in December 1885 which produced an improved pay scale and a pledge to restrict the making of cigars in tenement shops until May 1, 1886, with the ultimate goal of total abolition soon after. In one particular contract with Kerbs and Spies, Local 144 of the CMIU made important breakthroughs. Besides gaining a new minimum rate of 7 dollars per thousand, members secured an understanding that employers would reduce the cigarmakers’ hours before laying off anyone during the slack season and, if layoffs proved unavoidable, distribute layoffs proportionally between those working on expensive and cheap cigars. The agreement also stipulated only members of Local 144 of the CMIU would be hired, and thereby resulted in the discharge of 80 members from the Progressive Cigar Makers.69 In early January, some of the higher paying firms in the United Cigar Manufacturers’ Association, led by Levy Brothers, announced they could not afford the rates negotiated a month earlier. Accordingly, they began posting notices of piece rate reductions. Workers at Levy Brothers almost immediately walked off their jobs. The CMIU then called on leaders of the Progressive Cigar Makers to wage a strike against John Love and Company, one of the 14 manufacturers it named as part of the tenement house ring. Instead, to the disgust of Local 144, the Progressives targeted Brown and Earle, not a member of the ring. In turn, the manufacturers declared a lockout in solidarity with Levy and Brothers which they promised to enforce until the strikers accepted the cut in their pay scale.70 Recognizing the split in the cigarmakers ranks, the manufacturers pursued a divide-and-conquer strategy, not only pitting the CMIU affiliates against the Progressives but union cigarmakers against tenement shop workers. In a drive to equalize labor costs, manufacturers operating tenement shops offered a 25 percent piece rate increase to their employees while simultaneously seeking to slash the rates of union workers employed in their other shops. Furthermore, they allotted the piece rate cuts into three tiers, ranging from an 80 cents reduction for those employed in the highest paying union shops to 35 cents for those employed in the lowest paid union shops.71

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In early February, the Progressives rejected the manufacturers’ approach, and, apparently with financial contributions from the Brewers Union and other labor organizations, prepared for a long fight. A week later, however, the Progressives reversed their position. Upon the recommendation of the CLU, the Progressives accepted the multi-tier pay cuts in recognition their members would be hard pressed to hold out through the winter and in the hope a settlement with the manufacturers might provide them with a foothold against the rival CMIU. Meanwhile, members from Local 144 of the CMIU dug in, reiterating their position that until the pre-lockout rates at Levy Brothers and McCoy and Company were honored, they would not return to their jobs. Other members, not direct parties to the conflict, paid 10 percent of their earnings to the union’s strike fund, which during the course of the strike/lockout distributed $10,500 in weekly strike benefits.72 Despite the combativeness of Local 144’s members, the manufacturers prevailed. They introduced piece rate reductions in all 14 shops, and in March reached an understanding with the Knights of Labor, which had taken the Progressives under its wing, that in return for recognizing the Knights’ white label and gradually eliminating tenement house work, they would deploy bunching machines with no union interference. In addition, the Knights agreed to supply the manufacturers with cigar packers, among whom the CMIU lacked a strong base, thereby taking the steam out of Local 144’s resistance. This pact drew the fire of the CMIU. Strasser and Gompers pressed the Knights’ General Executive Board in Philadelphia to investigate the activities of District Assembly 49, and when no satisfactory action followed, they decried the “white washing of scab manufacturers.”73 The alliance between the Progressive Cigar Makers and the Knights of labor, however, failed to survive the summer of 1886. The former discovered that District Assembly 49 permitted the introduction of bunching machines for a royalty and realized the Knights’ failure to furnish an adequate number of packers jeopardized its relationship with the employers. The coup de grace occurred in July, when Master Workman, Jacob Wolf, of Local Assembly 2814, led a delegation to manufacturers demanding the establishment of a Knights of Labor union shop. Under this format the Progressive Cigar Makers would be required to renounce their union and apply for membership in the Knights, or face losing their jobs. After workers at Sutro and Newmark and Levy Brothers voted to remain members of the Progressive Cigar Makers, an open war for control of the union shops ensued.74 The Progressive Cigar Makers, consequently, began exploratory merger talks with the CMIU, and then launched coordinated strikes against manufacturers who considered agreements with the Knights of Labor. Support for the Progressive Cigar Makers began to mount, as the CLU officially criticized District Assembly 49 for sabotaging the strike and appealed directly to Local Assemblies within the Knights not to undermine the Pro-

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gressive Cigar Makers Union. The CMIU contributed $20,000 to the strikers and voted to assess its working members 10 percent of their earnings to sustain the strike. Emboldened by this support, the Progressive Cigar Makers demanded all 14 member firms of the United Cigar Manufacturers’ Association agree to a one dollar rate increase and to hire only members of their union or their allies, the CMIU.75 Meanwhile, the pact between the manufacturers and the Knights began to unravel. The former, confronted by the unprecedented and unexpected unity between the Progressives and the CMIU, pressed the Knights to provide more rollers and packers, but the Knights insisted they were only contractually obligated to cooperate with employers exclusively hiring members of their organization. Oscar Hammerstein, President of the American Cigar Manufacturers’ Association, fearing an industry wide ripple effect if the strikers succeeded, pledged his organization’s support of the 14 struck manufacturers. Nevertheless, all but two acceded to the unions’ demands during the third week of August.76 The strikes had a serious impact on New York’s union cigarmakers. Membership in the local CMIU affiliates doubled since the beginning of the year. The unqualified victory of the July and August strike contributed to a growing sense of confidence and combativeness, culminating in the cigarmakers’ enthusiastic participation in Henry George’s candidacy for mayor. The wage gains made by cigarmakers in the summer helped to establish a new pay structure. For the rest of the decade most locals build on the 1886 minimum pay rates, and preserved them in the 1890s. The admission of the Progressive Cigar Makers into the CMIU invigorated the larger union. Local 90, led by Ludwig Jablinowski and Anton Frank, Secretary and Treasurer of the Progressive Cigar Makers, respectively, and Local 10, led by Frederick Haller, also an official in the Progressive Cigar Makers, contributed to the debate about the union’s future. At union conventions and in the pages of the Cigar Makers Official Journal, members from these locals introduced proposals on organizing strategies, electoral politics, and cooperatives, some of which differed from the views of Gompers, Strasser, Perkins, and other leaders of the national union.77 The fourth and last major strike of the period erupted in 1890. On the heels of strikes in January and February, which successfully repelled attempts by employers to cut piece rates, the New York locals of the CMIU began an ambitious organizing drive among cigarmakers, mostly Bohemians, who worked in nonunion shops. On March 9, 200 delegates representing about 100 shops met at Hester Hall to assess the state of the trade and discuss how to improve conditions. Three union officials chaired the meeting, each reflecting the ethnic composition of the cigarmaking workforce—Daniel Harris (London-born and an old associate of Gompers in Local 144), German-born Anton Frank of Local 10, and Edward Scheider of Local 13 which had a substantial Bohemian membership. Following tes-

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timony of repeated wage cuts since 1887 and the chronic lack of work, the delegates called for a campaign around the restoration of the 1886 minimum rate of six dollars per thousand and recommended a one dollar initiation fee to facilitate the admission of women and other nonunion cigarmakers.78 As the delegates met, two strikes were underway at Kaufman and Company and Seidenberg and Steifel, identified by the CMIU as tenement house manufacturers. Yet despite the aroused enthusiasm among cigarmakers for concerted action to increase wages, the New York locals made no attempt to extend the strikes. Instead, for the next month and a half union organizers patiently sought to recruit new members. Then in early May both unionized and unorganized cigarmakers walked off their jobs, demanding increases in their pay scale. By the second week of May, more than 1,000 cigarmakers had struck 20 manufacturers in quest of pay rate increases ranging from 60 cents to $3.50 depending on the firm.79 This flurry of activity, evidently an expression of strike contagion, prompted union organizers to develop a more coordinated strategy. Locals formed an ad hoc joint strike committee which oversaw the mobilization of detailed strikes, targeting the larger manufacturers who operated tenement shops and maintained a “cheap floor” system whereby they circumvented the union’s minimum scale. The locals activated shop committees and instituted an assessment on working members to supplement the strike benefit fund. By the end of the month, more than 2,000 rollers, bunchers and packers, including those in Brooklyn, had joined the ranks of the strikers.80 The strikers quickly intensified the pressure. Local 87, with the assistance of Brooklyn’s Central Labor Union and the socialist newspaper, The Volkzeitung, organized a boycott against cigars produced in tenement shops, sold under the name of Climax. New strikes erupted, mostly among smaller shops, with the exception of Kerbs, Wertheimer and Schiffer, where 700 ceased working.81 As the cigarmakers’ spring offensive peaked, the gains continued to mount. All but 10 of the 55 strikes waged since May resulted in wage rate increases: $1.50 for mold work; $2.00 for hand work; and from $3.00 to $5.00 dollars for Havana cigars. Furthermore, each local expanded, adding 3,200 to New York’s and Brooklyn’s membership. This represented more than a 150 percent increase since the beginning of the organizing drive in March.82 LESSONS AND PROPSECTS The aftermath of these events proved as illustrative of the cigarmakers’ position as did the 1890 strike wave. Cigarmakers, both union and nonunion, showed an ability to mobilize to resist efforts of their employers to cut pay rates. Yet, strike action became more problematic and less

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desirable, at least among union cigarmakers. The larger manufacturers, targets of the strikes in 1890, reorganized the Cigar Manufacturers’ Association, adopting a number of reforms, including a provision that no member firm could raise wages without the association’s consent. In addition, the association vowed to prevent any interference by workers in the employers’ right to hire and discharge, and declared its readiness to shortcircuit worker dissatisfaction by meeting with appropriate parties83 For their part, union officials seemed prepared to seek an accommodation with the manufacturers. Union membership dropped to 5,100 in 1891 and remained at the 5,000 mark for most of the decade. More importantly, cigarmakers found it difficult to establish union shops; at the onset of an economic depression in 1894, they could lay claim to only 12. Even before the full force of the Panic of 1893 was felt, cigarmakers had difficulty in defending union standards. In that year N. Ecks and Company locked out 88 union members in a drive to replace handwork with team work and accordingly reduce prevailing pay rates. Denied full strike benefits because the dispute involved a pay cut in the midst of the slack season, a split developed between the shop committee and leaders of Locals 10, 90, 141, and 144 which left the union seriously weakened in the face of a determined employer. Not surprisingly the pay cut was unsuccessfully resisted.84 In a dispute which epitomized the shifting tides of power between the manufacturers and cigarmakers, 300 workers struck Hilson and Company in 1895 to establish a union shop. As the strike persisted for weeks, the union agreed to the intervention of New York State’s Board of Mediation and Arbitration. At a conference held under the board’s auspices, union leaders sought to assuage the company’s fears of a union shop by emphasizing the union’s peace keeping role, citing instances where the local agreed to a lower pay scale than demanded by the rank and file. Union negotiators, recognizing the impasse, indicated their readiness to accept an arrangement whereby a shop committee and not the local would handle any proposed changes in the pay scale. However, even this concession did not dent the employer’s opposition, although a truce of sorts was reached whereby striking union members returned to their jobs with the understanding they would be not discriminated against.85 In the 1890s the CMIU found it difficult to enforce its union label. Blue Diamond cigars affixed with a label purportedly from Local 144 flooded Hartford, Connecticut in the summer of 1893. Two years later, the problem of counterfeit union labels became even more pervasive. Manufacturers, some of whom operated tenement house shops as well as large factories, marketed machine-made cigars as genuine handmade products. Accordingly, the union pressed for a comprehensive boycott through the CLU and the state federations of labor in the Northeast, drawing support from The New York Sun, which called the goods of tenement house manufacturers the “cigars of death.”86

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In the face of dramatic economic shifts and the manufacturers’ counterattack, New York and Brooklyn locals doggedly fought to defend union standards. Despite their limited power pay rates held firm, and the eight hour workday remained intact. Moreover, what appeared as a stagnated growth rate in membership, under the circumstances represented the union’s relative stability. Whereas previous depressions and employer offensives usually seriously weakened unions, if not decimated them, the CMIU affiliates survived with no signs of erosion at the base. Union membership at the turn of the century stood at 27 percent of the cigarmaking workforce, comparable to the carpenters and the printers, and considerably higher than the 11 percent for garment workers.87 However, certain developments threatened the CMIU’s long-term prospects for growth. New York’s cigar industry was declining, as its relative share of the number of firms, workers, capital, and sales value in the United States fell between 1890 and 1900.88 New York cigar manufacturers diversified as well, maintaining production facilities in lower wage areas in upstate New York and rural Pennsylvania, and accelerated their introduction of machine technology and team work. As factory production became the norm, a union predominantly of craftsmen risked being marginalized. Union cigarmakers had shown an ability to adapt to changing circumstances when the leaders of Progressives and the CMIU put aside ideological, ethnic, and personal differences to consolidate into a single union. Under the guidance of Samuel Gompers and Adolph Strasser, the CMIU introduced many innovations that promoted financial security, organizational stability, and members’ allegiance to their union. In recognition that a specialized division of labor had emerged, the CMIU welcomed bunchers and strippers along with rollers into its ranks. Notwithstanding these initiatives, union cigarmakers faced a daunting strategic challenge that tested their adaptability and resourcefulness. The CMIU remained oriented to the trade’s craft workers. Its core constituency still resided among skilled rollers employed in small shops; its policies continued to uphold standards closely associated with craft production in which mechanization scarcely had made any inroads; and its entire modus operandi rested on the premise that trade unionism expressed a craft identity nurtured in the male craftsmen’s world of work. This engendering of trade unionism reinforced many cigarmakers’ attachment to a strategy based on craft organization.89 The craftsman purportedly was independent minded, self respecting, aware of his self worth, and proud of his skills and expertise—all of which were reaffirmed by membership and participation in a community of craftsmen, viz, a trade union. Notions of manliness infused the language of craft unionism. Craft work rules, the eight-hour day, and a fair and living wage rate were not only emblematic of union labor but also indicative that male workers remained true men.

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Advocates of a more inclusive organizing strategy had yet to develop a language to confront the gender-specific ethos of craft unionism, or to redefine the link between gender and trade unionism. The arguments advanced on behalf of organizing tenement house workers, predominantly women, rested on an appeal to mutual interest and a recognition that legislative prohibition of tenement house shops would not be upheld by the courts. These views expressed by some officials from locals which once constituted the Progressive Cigar Makers not only ran against union policy but implicitly raised questions about the CMIU’s relationship to women workers. During the organizing campaign in 1890 Gompers and others welcomed the participation of Bohemian immigrant women in the planning and mobilization of strikes. In contrast, Strasser especially expressed a discomfort with the increase of women in the industry, which, he felt, symbolized a degradation of the trade. Although the union lacked the power to drive women out altogether, he asserted, they could regulate their employment by striving for the enactment of factory laws which protected women. This paternalism only thinly disguised normative assumptions about women’s presence in the industry. Those engaged in tenement house and factory work were unmanly instruments of unscrupulous employers who were chipping away at the position of male craftsmen. These conflicting perspectives—couched in terms of realism and expressed in a language of gender—suggested the debates about the union’s strategic options would center not only on what was feasible but what was appropriate. Union cigarmakers took pride in their adaptability and pragmatism which helped them to survive during hard times. They faced previous challenges by developing a new unionism in the 1870s and 1880s. As the twentieth century approached, they were confronted with a fundamental strategic question: could they defend a craft without organizing an industry? NOTES 1. United States. Twelfth Census (1900), Manufactures, Part III, p. 556. By 1920, women constituted a majority of the industry’s labor force. See Patricia Cooper, Once a Cigar Maker: Men, Women and Work Culture in American Cigar Factories, 1900–1919 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), p. 161. 2. United States. Eleventh Census (1890) Manufacturing in Cities, pp. 92, 93, 404, 405; Thomas Capek, The Czech (Bohemian) Community of New York (New York: Czechoslovak Section of America’s Making Incorporated, 1921), p. 24; United States. Industrial Commission, Volume XV (1901), p. 467. 3. United States. Industrial Commission, Volume XV, p. 385; Edith Abbott, Women and Industry (New York: D. Appleton, 1909), pp. 189, 198, 199; and Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (New York: Scribner, 1890), p. 106. 4. Accordingly, in 1900, women held 57 percent of the cigarmaking jobs north of 59th Street and 43 percent of those south of 59th Street. Lucy Killough, The

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Tobacco Industry in New York and Its Environs (New York: Regional Plan of New York, 1924), p. 33. 5. Calculated from New York State. Department of Labor, Inspection Bureau, Fifth and Tenth Annual Reports, pp. 321–330 and pp. 150–625, respectively. 6. Ibid, 32; and Dorothea Schneider, “The New York Cigarmakers Strike of 1877,” Labor History, 26 (1985), p. 343. 7. Of the 22 firms for which data on net worth and the size of the workforce could be collected, all but four showed an increase in the percentage of women workers between 1892 and 1898, and two-thirds showed an absolute gain in the number of women workers. Killough, Tobacco Industry in New York, pp. 32, 33; R.G. Dun and Company, Reference Book Containing Ratings of Merchants and Manufacturers and Traders Generally Throughout the United States (1895); New York State. Inspection Bureau, Fifth Annual Report (1890), pp. 321–330; The Cigar Makers Official Journal, January, 1894. 8. New York State. Legislature, Assembly, Report of the Special Committee to Investigate the Condition of Female Labor (1895), pp. 16, 831, 832, 838, 876, 877. 9. United States. Bureau of Labor, Eleventh Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor (1900), pp. 559 and 565; Abbott, Women and Industry, p. 187; Willis Baer, The Economic Development of the Cigar Industry in the United States (Lancaster, Pennsylvania: The Art Printing Company, 1933), pp. 80, 81. 10. Baer, Economic Development of the Cigar Industry, pp. 80, 81; Cooper, Once A Cigar Maker, pp. 15, 16. 11. Baer, Economic Development of the Cigar Industry, pp. 81, 84. 12. Ibid, pp. 81, 83–86. 13. Ibid, pp. 86, 87; Eleventh Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor, pp. 572, 573. 14. Eleventh Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor, pp. 566, 567; Baer, Economic Development of the Cigar Industry, p. 86. 15. Baer, Economic Development of the Cigar Industry, pp. 82–85; Eleventh Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 559. 16. Baer, Economic Development of the Cigar Industry, p. 83; Cooper, “From Handicraft to Mass Production,” p. 219; Report of the Committee Investigating the Conditions of Female Labor (1895), p. 757. 17. Cooper, Once a Cigar Maker, p. 55. 18. Eleventh Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor, p. 565. 19. Ibid, p. 566; Baer, Economic Development of the Cigar Industry, p. 86. 20. Eleventh Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor, pp. 569, 574, 575. 21. Rillough, Tobacco Industry in New York, p. 33; New York State Inspection Bureau, Fifth Annual Report, pp. 321–330. 22. United States. Eleventh Census (1890) Manufacturing in the Cities, pp. 649–681; and Twelfth Census (1900) Statistics of Manufactures Part II, pp. 620–628. 23. Cooper, Once a Cigarmaker, p. 162. 24. United States. Eleventh Census (1890) Manufacturing in the Cities, pp. 649–681; Twelfth Census (1900) Statistics of Manufactures, Part II, pp. 620–628. This development led John R. Commons to conclude machine technology came into cigarmaking, “not as labor saving, but as wage saving, devices.” John R. Commons, Labor and Administration (New York: MacMillan, 1913), p. 128.

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25. In 1890, expenditures on tools and equipment alone amounted to $840,000, or 41.2 percent of fixed capital outlays (tools, equipment, land, and buildings). 10 years later, expenditures on equipment and tools marginally rose to $900,000, but fell to 36 percent of fixed capital investment. This suggests employers emphasized expansion of production facilities—opening new factories, renovating existing ones, or establishing tenement house shops. United States. Eleventh Census (1890) Manufacturing in the Cities, pp. 649–681; Twelfth Census (1900) Statistics of Manufacturing, Part II, pp. 620–628. 26. New York State. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Fourth Annual Report (1890), pp. 241, 242. Diversity in pay rates according to the type of cigar prevailed in other cigarmaking centers, including Boston and Philadelphia. See Cooper, Once A Cigar Maker, p. 50. 27. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Fourth Annual Report, p. 242; United States. Industrial Commission, Volume XV, p. 386. 28. Eleventh Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor, pp. 560–562. 29. Report of the Tenement House Committee (1895), pp. 254, 255; Report of the Special Committee Investigating the Condition of Female Labor, pp. 926, 927. 30. Report of the Special Committee Investigating the Condition of Female Labor, pp. 919–921. 31. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Thirteenth Annual Report (1895), p. 549; Report of the Tenement House Committee, p. 254; Report of the Special Committee to Investigate the Condition of Female Labor, pp. 920–921; Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives, pp. 102–103. For an examination of the dynamics of tenement house cigarmaking, see Eileen Boris, Home to Work: Motherhood and the Politics of Industrial Homework in the United States (Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 21–47. 32. Cooper, Once a Cigar Maker, pp. 44, 45; Bureau of Labor Statistics, Thirteenth Annual Report, p. 549; Cigar Makers Official Journal, September, 1900. 33. Inspection Bureau, Thirteenth Annual Report, (1898), pp. 224–358. 34. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eighth and Fourteenth Annual Reports, pp. 322–325, 336–339, respectively. 35. Cigar Makers Official Journal, November, 1887 and September 1898. The ebb and flow of unemployment followed almost as predictably. In 1897, for example, almost 12 percent of union cigarmakers were out of work from January through March, 7 percent in the early spring, 10 percent during the summer months, and less than 7 percent during the last three months of the year. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Fifteenth Annual Report (1897), p. 423. 36. For discussion of early history of the CMIU see Chapter Two and for detailed examination of strikes involving the CMIU and Progressives see infra. 37. United States. Eleventh Census (1890), Manufacturing Industries, Part II, Statistics of Cities, pp. 92, 93, 404, 405, 808–81; Twelfth Census (1900) Statistics of Manufactures, Part II, pp. 1089–1093. By 1900, women represented the overwhelming majority of the cigarmaking labor force in Pittsburgh, a development that became an industry-wide pattern later in the twentieth century. See Cooper, Once a Cigar Maker, p. 17. 38. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Seventeenth Annual Report (1899), pp. 106, 136–139; United States, Twelfth Census (1900), Statistics of Manufactures, Part II, pp. 1089–1093.

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39. Cigar Makers Official Journal, September 15, 1879, quoted in John Andrews and W.D.P. Bliss, A History of Women in Trade Unions, Volume 10 of Report on the Condition of Women and Child Wage-Earners in the United States, Senate Document 645, 61st Congress, Second Session (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1911). 40. See, for example, Cigar Makers Official Journal, October 1887; Andrews and Bliss, History of Women in Trade Unions, p. 155. 41. United States. Industrial Commission, Volume XV, p. 385; Abbott, Women and Industry, p. 203; Cooper, Once a Cigar Maker, p. 18. In addition, Boston cigarmakers evidently did not work in tenement house operations. The Annual Reports of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor conspicuously omitted any mention of the cigarmaking industry in their examination of the subject. 42. New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eighth Annual Report (1890) and Fourteenth Annual Report (1896), pp. 322–325, 736–739, respectively. 43. Cigar Makers Official Journal, January and October, 1887 and July and October, 1891; Helen Summer, “The Benefit System of the Cigarmakers Union,” in John R. Commons, ed., Trade Unionism and Labor Problems New York: A.M. Kelly, (1905, 1967), pp. 527, 528, 533, 537, 538. 44. See, for example, proposal by “William Shakespeare” in Cigar Makers Official Journal, January 1887. 45. Patricia Cooper, Once a Cigar Maker, pp. 75–77, makes similar observations, adding in turn the travelers’ benefit provided cigarmakers the means to adapt personally to hostile employers and offered them the opportunity to broaden their experience beyond one shop, factory, or locality. 46. Sumner, “Benefit System,” pp. 534, 537, 538; Cigar Makers Official Journal, passim, especially 1887 and 1888. 47. New York State, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Thirteenth Annual Report (1895), pp. 550–553. 48. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Thirteenth Annual Report, pp. 550–562. 49. Report of the Special Committee Investigating the Condition of Female Labor, pp. 16, 920– 922; Report of Tenement House Committee, pp. 250–253. 50. Cigar Makers Official Journal, October 1895 and April 1887. 51. Ibid, April, October and December, 1887 and April 1888; Baer, Economic Development of the Cigar Industry, p. 95; New York Tribune, April 1886; Commissioner of Labor, Eleventh Special Report, pp. 582, 583. 52. Cigar Makers Official Journal, November 1887, November 1889, and September 1897; Baer, Economic Development of the Cigar Industry, p. 96. 53. Cooper, Once a Cigar Maker, pp. 130–133; Commissioner of Labor, Eleventh Special Report, pp. 568–569. 54. John Swinton’s Paper, April 3, 1887; The Leader, May 18, 1887. This code of independence evidently persisted into the twentieth century, according to Pat Cooper, Once a Cigar Maker, pp. 123–124 55. The Leader, January 4 and 5, 1887; Samuel Gompers Papers, Volume 1, p. 433. 56. Cigar Makers Official Journal, October 1887, August 1894, and April 1897. 57. Ibid, January 1887. 58. Ibid, February 1887. 59. Ibid, October and November 1892 and March 1893.

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60. New York State. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Seventh Annual Report (1893), Ninth Annual Report (1895) and Tenth Annual Report (1896), pp. 95, 96, 98; 105, 106; and 148–150, respectively. Patricia Cooper in Once a Cigar Maker, p. 134 observed a similar pattern among cigarmakers in Detroit, Chicago, and other cities at the turn of the century. 61. Cigar Makers International Union, Proceedings of the Seventh Session (1887), Eighteenth Session (1889), Nineteenth Session (1891). 62. Glocker, “Structure of the Cigar Makers’ Union,” p. 49; Cigar Makers Official Journal, October 1891. 63. Cigar Makers Official Journal, January 1891. 64. Ibid, October 1895. 65. Ibid, January 1891. 66. Ibid, June 1891. 67. Ibid, June 1891 and August 1891. 68. Ibid, August 1891. 69. Ibid, January 1886; and Samuel Gompers Papers, Volume I, p. 373. 70. The Boycotter, January 23, 1886; Ware, The Labor Movement in the United States, pp. 272, 273; Cigar Makers Official Journal, February 1886. 71. John Swinton’s Paper, February 7 and 14, 1886; Samuel Gompers Papers, Volume 1, pp. 365, 366. 72. John Swinton’s Paper, February 7 and 14, 1886; U.S. Tobacco Journal, February 20, 1886, reprinted in Samuel Gompers Papers, Volume I, pp. 377–379. 73. Samuel Gompers Papers, Volume 1, pp. 366; Cigar Makers Official Journal, May 1886; Ware, The Labor Movement in the United States, pp. 273, 274. 74. Samuel Gompers Papers Volume, 366; John Swinton’s Paper, August 1,1886. 75. John Swinton’s Paper, August 15, 1886; Ware, The Labor Movement in the United States, pp. 110–112. 76. John Swinton’s Paper, August 1 and 15, 1886. 77. New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eighth Annual Report (1890), pp. 322–325; Fourteenth Annual Report (1896), pp. 336–339; Cigar Makers Official Journal, passim, especially October 1887, October and November 1892, March 1893, and August 1894. 78. New York State. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Fourth Annual Report (1890), p. 243, 244; New York Tribune, March 10, and 17, 1890; and New York Herald, March 10, 1890. 79. New York Tribune, May 2, 7, and 8, 1890; Cigar Makers Official Journal, May 1890. 80. New York Tribune, May 9, 10, and 27, 1890; Cigar Makers Official Journal, May and June 1890. 81. New York Tribune, June 18, 1890; Workmen’s Advocate, June 28, 1890. 82. Workmen’s Advocate, June 21, 1890. 83. Cigar Makers Official Journal, August 1890. 84. Cigar Makers Official Journal, January 1894. 85. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Ninth Annual Report (1895), pp. 76–85, 100–101. 86. Cigar Makers Official Journal, August 1893 and May 1895. 87. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Seventeenth Annual Report (1899), p. 82.

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88. United States. Eleventh Census (1890) Report on Manufacturing Industries, Part I, pp. 110, 111; Part II, Statistics of Cities, pp. 677, 678; Twelfth Census (1900) Manufactures Part II, Statistics of Manufacturing, p. 628; Part III, Special Reports on Selected Industries, p. 645. 89. Ilene Devault examines how “different constructions of gender” promoted unity among male AFL members and thereby strengthened a skilled craftsmen’s unionism which relegated women to “a second class category of membership.” See “‘To Sit among Men’: Skill, Gender, and Craft Unionism in the Early American Federation of Labor,” Eric Arnesen, Julie Greene, and Bruce Laurie eds., Labor Histories: Class, Politics and the Working-Class Experience (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), pp. 259–283.

CHAPTER 5

Building Tradesmen: Labor’s Militant Pragmatists

INTRODUCTION Building tradesmen, just as printers and cigarmakers, were sensitive to how the changes in their industry might adversely affect their position as skilled workers. Although technological innovation was not as pervasive as it was in the printing and cigarmaking industries, bricklayers, carpenters, painters, and plumbers could not afford to be complacent about the development of new production methods and the introduction of new building materials and equipment. More pressing was the employers’ emphasis on gaining greater control over the hiring and allocation of labor, which they sought to accomplish through an elaborate system of subcontracting. As did typographers and cigar rollers, building tradesmen organized to preserve what they considered were the prerogatives and entitlements of craft labor. Indeed their unions’ raison d’etre was the reaffirmation of their identity as craftsmen who, by virtue of their knowledge and skills, claimed a significant degree of autonomy in the production process. Accordingly, unions legislated work rules which defined the responsibilities of practitioners of each specialized craft, and sought to oversee the recruitment, training, and deployment of apprentices. In the process unions contributed to the creation and maintenance of craft labor markets in which the supply of labor was heavily influenced by the unions’ ability to pressure employers to hire exclusively their members. Concomitantly, building tradesmen showed more inclination, and through their unions, a greater capacity to mobilize for industrial action than did printers and cigarmakers. The more marked propensity to strike

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in part stemmed from the dynamics of the production process and structural features of the construction industry. Construction at the building site could be brought to a halt even if one group of craft workers downed their tools. Since building tradesmen might be employed at scattered sites throughout New York and Brooklyn by contractors or subcontractors who did not honor union work rules or respect union pay rates, strikes became prompt means of enforcing union standards. Equally important was the development of an institutional network to call strikes and solicit the support from other craft unions within the industry. Thereby, any strike initiated by one union potentially could spark a cascade of sympathy strikes from other unions whose members were not parties to the original dispute. In sum, building tradesmen’s militancy reflected an awareness of their leverage at the point of production, and simultaneously expressed and reinforced the power of their unions. A PROFILE OF THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY Building tradesmen labored in an industry filled with anomalies. Few industries demonstrated the application of scientific principles more transparently than the builders of skyscrapers and suspension bridges. Probably no other industry reflected more clearly the economic expansion and growth of cities during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. As the population of New York and Brooklyn grew from 1.8 million in 1880 to 3.4 million in 1900, the construction of residential and nonresidential buildings, as measured by the number of permits and their market value, rose steadily.1 Few if any industries mirrored the health of the overall economy more than the building trades. A vigorous period of construction meant businesses planned to expand their operations; individuals, banking on higher property values, were prepared to invest; and local authorities, anticipating higher tax revenues that accompanied prosperity, sought to improve the city’s infrastructure and develop its urban landscape. Conversely, a period of stagnation indicated businesses found markets glutted and credit tighter, potential speculators were scared off by declining property values, and government had less revenue to spend. Accordingly, upswings and downswings of the construction industry paralleled changes in the business cycle.2 Yet few industries deviated more from the patterns of late nineteenth century industrialization. Firms, as indicated by the number of workers and capital reserves, were extremely small. Only two firms, the Jackson Architectural Iron Works and the Pelham Hod-Hoisting Company, commanded sufficient assets to warrant evaluation by R.G. Dun and Company, and both held capital reserves of less than $100,000.3 Specialization by a particular craft became more pronounced. Contractors responsible for the

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carpentry work in a building tended to specialize in the laying of floors, the building of stairs, or the installation of windows and doors. Likewise, masonry firms concentrated on the setting of foundations, the construction of chimneys, or the making of cornices.4 This specialization attenuated, to a certain extent, the intensity of competition, since few employers directly competed with each other unless they specialized in the same type of work. Specialization in the trades, as well as low capital requirements, facilitated easy entry into the industry and prevented any one or a handful of employers from capturing a dominant market position. The industry was labor intensive, and highly dependent on the skills of workers who mainly used hand tools and not machinery. Proportionately few of the industry’s resources were invested in fixed capital (land, physical plant, equipment, and tools). Only in masonry was there significant outlays on equipment and tools. For example, during the 1890s pneumatic caissons and excavating machines were being introduced into the masonry trade. Nevertheless, masons and other building tradesmen still had relative autonomy on the job as well as claimed higher pay, shorter workdays, and more job security than most manual workers. Unlike the cigarmaking industry where labor costs fell as output and employment increased, outlays for labor among the various construction costs (raw materials, equipment, credit, and taxes) rose in the 1880s and 1890s. While the tax rate on new buildings in New York City fell 22 percent and the price of building materials declined almost 10 percent between 1886 and 1894, wage rates increased by 25 percent during the same period. Within the residential housing sector, one contemporary observer estimated, labor costs climbed by more than 30 percent during the 1890s.5 THE SCOPE AND IMPACT OF ORGANIZATIONAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION Despite relatively low capital expenditures, the building trades was an innovative industry. In the late Gilded Age, employers introduced new building materials, developed creative engineering techniques, and deployed machinery in parts of the production process. Builders increasingly used iron and steel at the expense of wood and applied electric power in ways that permitted the erection of taller and larger buildings. In 1885, a technique developed by E.L. Ransome permitted the insertion of twisted steel bars to reinforce concrete so that the concrete used in foundations could withstand more tension. The invention of the pneumatic caisson also facilitated the laying of foundations. Using compressed air, it allowed for the substitution of brick for concrete in the laying of foundations for piers and bridges.6 The application of motive-power also was important. Steam powered shovels and excavating machines expedited the clearing of ground, a pre-

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requisite for all construction. Hod-hoisting machines and cranes, first introduced in the 1890s, permitted engineers to lift heavy iron and steel beams, bulky stones, and all sorts of material. These complemented the development of elevators which inspired the construction of elevator buildings and later, at the turn of the century, skyscrapers.7 Other forms of technology focused on specific types of work. Inventions, such as the brick cleaner, paint spray gun and floor finishing machine, simplified the tasks of building tradesmen and increased their productivity. Others, particularly in the inside branch of the carpentry trade, involved the use of highly adaptable saws to produce prefabricated doors, closets, and windows, and left outside carpenters with the responsibility of installation.8 Since technological innovation had not developed to the extent that machinery could be readily substituted for labor and thereby reduce per unit costs, employers pursued other strategies to meet the challenge of escalating wage bills. When strong enough, employers tried to escape the reach of unions, and failing that, tried to circumvent union standards concerning pay, hours, apprentices, and work rules. Employers’ attempts to gain a measure of control over the workplace provoked strikes by building tradesmen, some of which involved members of other trades beside those who initially began the strike. In this context organizational innovation proved significant. Employers in the 1870s and 1880s gradually developed a new means of allocating labor and organizing production called subcontracting. Subcontracting worked as follows: a developer investing in the building of residential housing came to terms with a building contractor who agreed to complete the project with all its specifications in a given period of time and at a specific price. Contractors turned to middlemen, sometimes operators of a plumbing or carpentry firm, but usually outright agents of the contractor, to supply the labor within the cost stipulated by the contractor’s agreement with his client. Generally, contractors provided subcontractors with the necessary material, although in plumbing they left this responsibility to subcontractors who knew much more than general contractors about the specific types of pipes, washers, nuts, bolts, and miscellaneous paraphernalia of the trade.9 This system proved advantageous to employers because it lowered their financial risks, simplified the responsibilities of overseeing production and managing the workforce, and promoted the supply of skilled labor, trained and experienced in a specialized branch of the building trades. The impact of subcontracting and technological innovation was uneven on building tradesmen. The growth of subcontracting did not adversely affect plumbers, plasterers, and bricklayers/masons. In these trades “respectable bosses” paid at rates that conformed to union standards. Only masonry laborers expressed a concern about those who built for “specula-

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tors by paying as little as they can.”10 In contrast, carpenters and painters found their trade plagued by those who specialized in recruiting the cheapest available labor for contractors. Union carpenters in particular found this practice, commonly called lumping (because middlemen assumed the responsibility of fulfilling orders for carpentry and in turn sublet the work), objectionable.11 Lumping resulted in lower pay rates, greater work loads, dilution of skills, and shoddy work. Because the 1umper, or subcontractor, secured his business by underbidding his competitors, carpenters in his employ faced the pressure of piecework and speedup. Carpenters working by the piece earned 20 cents for fitting and hanging a pair of sash, and 25 cents for hanging a door. A carpenter performing such tasks in a six-room house could expect to earn no more than $15 for 60 hours of labor.12 The threat lumping posed to the integrity of their craft most irritated union carpenters. Subcontractors expected carpenters to carry their own material (customarily laborers or hod-carriers did so), and make their own mitre boxes (these contained bevel-shaped blocks of wood and facilitated the planing of surfaces) at their own expense and on their own time. Letters and articles in The Carpenter viewed these practices as symptomatic of a degradation of labor in that employers unilaterally sought to redefine how carpenters should work and determine their rate of pay. This attempt to overturn customary practice and union standards meant carpenters faced the prospect of “losing his independent principle, his mental energy, self-respect, and even his very manhood.”13 The introduction of new equipment, construction methods and building material likewise had mixed effects. Such innovations made the work of hod-hoisting engineers, responsible for the lifting of material, and structural ironworkers and housesmiths, whose tasks included the building of architectural frames and arches, more critical in the production process. The development of creative ways to use tile, cement, brick, and marble increased the need for tile layers, masons, and varnishers among others. For carpenters, technological change, especially the introduction of machine produced prefabricated wooden parts, meant a decline in the need for all-purpose craftsmen and an increase in the demand for specialized workers such as millwrights, shinglers, and ceiling workers.14 THE CENTRALITY AND AUTONOMY OF CRAFT LABOR Although technological innovation did change how building tradesmen worked, it did not erode their position as craftsmen. They worked with hand tools which required the utmost training, experience, and skill to master. As craftsmen they applied the principles of science and mechanics to construct durable and sound buildings. They demonstrated a practical knowledge of equipment and material, including knowing what

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tools and supplies to use in given situations, and how to improvise in the absence of parts and material. Their responsibilities demanded they take exact measurements and perform their work with precision-like accuracy. Moreover, some building tradesmen, such as bricklayers, plasterers, and painters, had the opportunity to display their artistic talents in the course of creating ornamental walls, ceilings, columns and cornices. Even carpenters, who had encountered, mechanization in inside work, as in the making of doors, panels, and window frames, remained highly skilled workers. Outside, or on-site, carpenters still deployed hand tools to cut beams and pillars, construct roofs, and carve ornamental moldings. Some carpenters had developed the skills of draftsmen, capable of drawing detailed diagrams of elaborate roofs, columns, porches, and fences.15 Handbooks written by carpenters who had become builders and regular advice columns in the monthly union journal, The Carpenter, assisted carpenters. These kept them up-to-date with the latest techniques and the newest material and tools. In one edition of the journal, carpenters learned how to lay floors more efficiently, remove gusty nails, and make glue from rice powder and boiled skimmed milk.16 Carpenters were reminded, as craftsmen who took their pride in their work, that they were expected to carefully maintain the tools of their trade and replace inadequate ones, since “it is only the slipshod workman who will be content to use rusty tools of antiquated design and out of order.” A carpenter not respecting the tools of his craft was “analogous to a really superior musician drumming away on an old and worn out instrument.”17 Bricklayers also assumed a broad rage of responsibilities, including the erection of walls, the making of footpaths and sidewalks, the construction of chimneys and fireplace, and the laying of foundations. The last task proved especially demanding. Bricklayers were required to build continuous trenches and shafts which could accommodate many layers of bricks or stones. They had to consider the thickness of each layer and the distribution of weight and pressure—factors requiring accurate calculations and painstaking care. Bricklayers’ work consisted of a blend of artistry and mechanical skill as well. For instance, they created cornices for the facades of buildings whose ornamental appearance belied their technical exactness.18 Although less specialized than bricklaying, plastering was nevertheless an intricate process. Minimally plastering required two coats, with hotels and office buildings requiring three, and each coat involved a number of steps. For example, during the application of the first coat, known as pendering, plasterers had to sweep the surface thoroughly with a wet, hard broom to remove the residues of lime. After spreading the plaster, commonly made of Portland cement and sometimes stucco (an Italian blend of lime, plastic, and cement), plasterers scratched the coat in preparation for the next coat. The second coat involved a set of procedures called floating

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or browning which required special care to ensure that the surface was smooth and straight. The third coat (setting) called for the use of floats (blocks or boards with rectangular shaped surfaces and one or two handles on the other side) which allowed plasterers to produce a surface with a uniform and even texture. Then to complete the third coat, plasterers used polishing trowels and stock brushes to eliminate any blotches or dull spots. The entire process, especially work on cornices and moldings with their ornamental designs, combined artistic talent, and technical proficiency.19 The work of painters was even less specialized than that of plasterers. Most painters doubled as paperhangers, and some also performed the tasks of varnishers. At a time when many painters processed their own paints in paint mills, they needed to appreciate the subtleties of pigments and to understand the “relation of color to paints and color harmony.” Fresco painters (those working with watercolors on undried plastered walls and ceilings) learned how to draw and design, and, in the truest sense of the term, were artists. Painters who doubled as paperhangers determined how much paste to use on ceilings and sidewalls, and adjusted the paste’s strength for burlap which was heavier than paper. Painters who varnished faced the painstaking challenge of removing all dust from hard wood surfaces before they applied the appropriate type of varnish.20 None of the building trades encountered greater demands than plumbing. The building codes of New York and Brooklyn delineated procedures for the installation and testing of plumbing, and stipulated what material and the size of pipes to use in specific circumstances. For example, New York’s plumbers were required to use a three-inch pipe when connecting drains to sewers and a four-inch one when installing main soil pipes; to insure that water closets were waterproof with marble, slate, or tile; and to test carefully all sewers, watermains, and gas connections.21 Because of a greater sensitivity to public health criteria and the development of improved material, most of the work of plumbers involved repairs and alterations. In the construction of new housing, installation of sinks, baths, water closets, and drains claimed most of the plumbers’ attention. Some plumbers, specializing as steamfitters, connected a building’s water tank to the city’s supply system and installed its hot water boiler, paying close attention to the pressure necessary for its efficient and safe operation.22 In short, plumbers’ work emphasized exactness, thoroughness, and quality control. In the widest sense, the organization of production within the building trades was worker-directed. Carpenters and plumbers among others worked with little supervision. Supervision was not the responsibility of nonproductive personnel, but instead of other craftsmen.23 Bricklayers and painters occasionally doubled as workers and managers, making decisions over labor requirements and work assignments. Even those

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craftsmen who did not assume supervisory roles were expected, as experienced practitioners of their trade, to complete their tasks without frequent instructions and persistent oversight. If problems arose, craftsmen customarily would first seek assistance from coworkers and not foremen. Within construction work another feature of the production process fostered craft autonomy. Quality control or assessment of performance usually depended on the completion of the product, since there was no mechanism allowing for frequent feedback. If the work of plumbers was faulty, or if bricklayers laying a foundation botched the job, the damage might not become visible until after the occupation of building. For this reason, contractors and subcontractors sought to hire the most reliable workers and building tradesmen recognized the importance of maintaining the strictest standards if they aimed to exercise any control over the supply of labor. In fact, building tradesmen attempting to create viable unions exploited this aspect of construction work, convincing employers union workers were the best in their trade and thereby helped to shape a craft labor market to their advantage.24 The production process also promoted relationships that more closely bounded members from the same craft and brought together practitioners of related crafts. Most building tradesmen worked in small groups, consisting of less than 10 workers. Because of the crews’ size and the demands of the work, building tradesmen developed intimate ties. Workers within a specific craft often knew each other and came to rely on each other for assistance in the routine performance of their jobs. Newcomers to a building site were easily identified, and if they failed to integrate themselves into the work group, they would find it difficult to work effectively. Nonunion building tradesmen encountered ostracism from union coworkers and the likelihood of being unable to work at all. In addition, the sequential and interdependent quality of the production process created the conditions for mutual support in labor disputes.25 For example, painters needed to wait until plasterers completed their tasks before beginning to work, so if the latter walked off their jobs, the former employed at the same building site could not proceed working. Framers, responsible for laying out roofs, also would find it difficult to perform their duties if carpenters withdrew their labor before they finished erecting the walls, floors, and ceilings. If hod-hoisting engineers or derrickmen struck, virtually all construction work would grind to a halt. Relative craft autonomy and a degree of mutuality, engendered by the production process, provided building tradesmen with leverage against their employers, and in turn made trade union membership more attractive since the benefits were immediate and tangible. Construction work placed a high premium on the labor of craftsmen who combined the abilities of a mechanic and the talent of an artist—skills in short supply. Consequently, contractors and subcontractors had reason to adjust to the

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presence of unions and attempt to establish amicable relations with them. Those who failed to do so could expect work stoppages which would prevent building contractors from meeting production deadlines and threaten the ability of subcontractors to secure future business from contractors. Moreover, builders had very flexible labor needs, which varied seasonally as well as to the size of the project and the type of work. For example, the demand for labor rose in the spring and summer. The number of workers needed in the construction of office buildings far surpassed that of single-dwelling homes, and the need for decorative wallpapering or ornamental plastering was greater in a plush Fifth Avenue hotel than in a downtown tenement building. To fulfill their multiple and flexible labor requirements, many contractors and subcontractors turned to the unions’ walking delegates (in essence business agents) who supplied the required number of workers if the employers agreed to hire only union members at union rates.26 TRADE UNION DEVELOPMENT: FROM FRAGMENTATION TO COHESION By 1890, affiliates of national unions, which only emerged the previous decade, had made considerable inroads into the building industry. In the four major trades—carpentry, masonry, painting, and plumbing—one in every four workers was a union member. Bricklayers constituted the most unionized (35 percent), and painters, the least unionized (17 percent), while union density among carpenters and plumbers stood between these two extremes at 25 percent.27 Certain structural features of the industry influenced the pattern of union development. These included the type of product market, the high levels of demand for specialized, skilled labor, and the dispersal of work places. Although construction costs per square foot declined by more than 200 percent in New York between 1879 and 1897, wage rates rose. Meanwhile, the sales price for housing and commercial space per square foot rose dramatically.28 The combination of lower production costs and higher prices resulted from improvements in architectural techniques, more versatile building materials, and technological innovation that expanded the industry’s capacity, as well as from the booming demand for buildings in a growing city. Moreover, as production costs could easily be passed on to clients even if the buildings remained unoccupied or unsold, contractors could expect healthy and steady profits. These aspects of the construction industry provided unions with more leverage since contractors could grant building tradesmen higher wages and shorter hours without jeopardizing their market position. Secondly, the very magnitude of construction meant work was often dispersed over many sites. As outlying areas in Brooklyn (for example,

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Brownsville and Flatbush) and in New York (such as Harlem and Morrisania) developed, small crews of building tradesmen found employment working on one- and two-family houses. Since many of these construction sites were scattered and managed by newly founded contracting and subcontracting firms, established unions found it difficult to monitor who was hired and under what conditions they worked. Consequently, unions tended to concentrate their organizing efforts on contractors and subcontractors involved in larger projects such as commercial and industrial buildings, hotels, apartment houses, and public offices where greater numbers of building tradesmen would be employed. Notwithstanding the different rates of unionization among particular crafts, unions industry wide became less fragmented and more cohesive. In New York and Brooklyn virtually all the building trades unions participated in each city’s Central Labor Union (CLU) and a joint Board of Walking Delegates—a coordinating body whose representatives had the authority to call strikes. Membership in these organizations was particularly significant in light of the competition among unions in some of the building trades. At least four different carpenter unions vied for influence, and even with the merger of two of the largest—the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and the United Order of Carpenters—in 1888, vestiges of the other unions survived well into the mid-1890s. Among painters some of the unions coexisted with little friction. Fresco painters formed a separate union in recognition of their specialized work. The German House Painters, consisting of no more than 500 members at its height, represented those who primarily worked on already constructed and occupied homes rather than on newly built houses. In contrast, the Brotherhood of Painters, affiliated with the AFL, and the Progressive Painters, members of the Knights of Labor, fought jurisdictional battles. This tension between the AFL and Knights of Labor also appeared among plumbers, marble cutters, tile layers, and stone masons. In general, the affiliates of the Knights of Labor did not fare well; of the 36 local assemblies in New York and Brooklyn representing building tradesmen in 1886, only 15 survived beyond 1888, and less than one-third existed in 1893 on the eve of a severe depression.29 Since particular immigrant groups had maintained enclaves in the building trades, trade union membership became linked with ethnicity in certain crafts. German immigrants and their native-born sons were prominent among carpentry and painting, while first- and second-generation Irish represented a plurality of plasterers, plumbers and masons. Italians constituted a significant proportion (approximately one-fifth) of New York’s and Brooklyn’s masons and bricklayers. In the main, Italian building tradesmen worked as hod-carriers or common laborers who carried tools and material, or otherwise performed the tasks assigned to them by their skilled counterparts. Russian Jewish immigrants represented almost 10

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percent of house painters, but otherwise were virtually missing from the industry. Commensurate of their relatively isolated position, they formed the Hebrew Painters Union based in New York’s Lower East Side.30 In addition, Italian building tradesmen, such as marble and mosaic workers, plasterers’ helpers, and hod-carriers, found it necessary to organize separately because the established unions, mainly dominated by first- and second-generation Irish and British workers, did not welcome the Italian newcomers whom they felt crowded the labor market. Even when separatism did not prevail, building trades unions acknowledged the ethnic diversity of their membership. For instance, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters organized six German locals in New York and two in Brooklyn and one each for Scandinavian and Hebrew carpenters, and the Fresco Painters had a branch for their German members.31 On balance, nevertheless, an ethnically diverse workforce did not fragment the unions formed by building tradesmen. Structurally most of the unions displayed a capacity to accommodate a multiethnic membership. Participation in the Board of Walking Delegates and the CLU fostered a pragmatic modus operandi among unions representing workers from different cultural backgrounds, political orientations, and occupational experiences. This achievement hinged not only on a sensitivity to organizational matters but also to the cultivation of core principles concerned with trade unionism’s central aims, strategic focus, and tactical emphasis. Peter McGuire, who along with Samuel Gompers from the CMIU, provided the fledgling AFL with farsighted and firm leadership, articulated these principles forcefully and systematically, especially during the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners’ formative period. As illustrated by the Knights of Labor’s difficulties, local autonomy and central authority did not readily coexist. The experience of unions in multi-craft industries such as printing and construction attested to the difficulty in fostering cohesion within unions and synergy among unions in kindred trades. For their part, building tradesmen energetically strove to curtail, if not eliminate, the competition among their unions as well as to accentuate the common interests which transcended craft boundaries and the ethnic identities of the membership. Between 1886 and the turn of the century there were roughly three periods of trade union consolidation: mid-1880s, 1889–1894, and 1895–1902. The carpenters made the steadiest progress; significant strides towards amalgamation followed the initial tentative steps, and culminated with the emergence of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners (UBCJ) as the dominant union. The plumbers began impressively to eliminate competition between rival organizations, but then slipped back into a period of internecine conflict in the early 1890s. The later half of the decade saw continued rivalry and then signs of an easing of tensions. Not until the early 1900s did a single union representing New York’s and Brooklyn’s plumbers become firmly established.

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The different painters’ unions coexisted in a pluralist environment for most of the 1880s, but during the first half of the 1890s an intense rivalry developed between the AFL affiliate and nonaffiliated counterpart organizations. This conflict ebbed towards the end of the decade, but not until 1902 did the unions reach a settlement. The movement to consolidate carpenters’ unions followed shortly after the formation of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners in 1882. For five years the Brotherhood had great difficulty establishing a base, as three other unions competed for members: the United Order of Carpenters, the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters, and the Progressive Carpenters.32 However, faced with the common problems of coping with an influx of out-of-town carpenters and the growth of lumping, where subcontractors employed nonunion workers at lower wage rates, these unions recognized the shortcomings of trying to reach contracts with employers who would guarantee employment only to members of one organization. Accordingly, in 1888 representatives of the four unions created the United Trade Committee, which agreed to recognize each other’s union cards and issued a uniform scale of wages and work rules. Then at a conference in Philadelphia delegations from the Brotherhood and the United Order, led by Peter McGuire and Henry Trener, respectively, negotiated a formal merger, that, in the words of The Carpenter, “demolished the Chinese wall” separating the two organizations. The merged UBCJ recognized the autonomy of locals and districts over the administration of benefits, the collection of dues; the selection of officers; and extended benefits covering illness, disability and funeral expenses to former members of the United Order.33 Less than a year after the merger, the United Trade Committee broke up as some of the remaining smaller unions formed a rival coalition to protect their respective jurisdictions. Undeterred by this development, the UBCJ succeeded in bringing a number of organizations under its banner. Locals of the German Cabinet Makers joined in 1889 and 1890, and, under the pressure of economic depression, the House Framers Union affiliated in 1894. In the following year, the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and the UBCJ agreed to mutually recognize each other’s union cards and to block the recruiting efforts of other carpenters unions, thereby effectively isolating the Knights of Labor’s Progressive Carpenters. By the end of the decade, the process of consolidation was essentially completed, as the UBCJ claimed virtually all of New York’s and Brooklyn’s 7,800 unionized carpenters.34 Efforts to overcome divisions among plumbers’ unions were less productive. New York’s and Brooklyn’s plumbers, many of whom were organized within the Knights of Labor, in 1884 led a drive to establish the National Association of Plumbers, Steam Fitters, and Gas Fitters. Not to be outdone, the Knights’ General Executive Board formed National Trade Assembly 85, exclusively open to plumbers. Two years later, most of the

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New York and Brooklyn locals in the National Association bolted and joined National Trade Assembly 85. Initially the two groups cooperated. They held a joint convention to explore the possibility of the mutual recognition of each other’s union cards, and Local Assembly 1992, the largest in the National Trade Assembly, contributed money and supplies to striking members of the National Association who set up a cooperative in Milwaukee.35 Cooperation between the two organizations stemmed from the perception that regardless of union affiliation plumbers faced similar problems, especially a difficulty in controlling entry into their craft in the face of the employers’ unilateral attempt to revise apprenticeship regulations. The willingness to cooperate also reflected the specific areas where each organization had influence: the National Association’s growth in the midwest, and the National Trade Assembly’s confinement to the New York metropolitan area.36 Over the next three years, however, disunity plagued the unions representing plumbers. The steam fitters broke away from Local Assembly 1992 to form a separate organization, and a group of New York members of the National Trade Assembly 85 formed the 59th Street Society with the hope of affiliating with the National Association. In 1889, in order to overcome organizational fragmentation and to cope with an increasingly crowded labor market, representatives from the local assemblies in the National Trade Assembly and the National Association negotiated the terms of a merger and called the union the United Association of Plumbers, Steam Fitters, and Gas Fitters.37 Where the relative weakness of the plumbers’ unions in New York and Brooklyn encouraged a movement towards amalgamation, its subsequent resurgence resulted in another secessionist drive. In 1895 Local 2 of the United Association, with 1,250 members and a contract with the employers that recognized a closed shop to its credit, formed the Amalgamated Society of Journeymen Plumbers and Gas Fitters. The underlying reason for the split was Local 2’s desire to control the influx of out-of-town plumbers, a development apparently encouraged by the fact the national union was unable to maintain a uniform fees structure. In some mid-western cities, for example, members of the United Association were paying as much as $40 less in initiation fees than their counterparts in Local 2. In addition, many in Local 2 felt the benefits did not compensate for the costs of affiliation with the national union. The Amalgamated Society became the leading union among plumbers in New York, Brooklyn, Newark, and Jersey City, and retained this position until 1902 when it merged with the United Association. The merger followed an intense three-year battle between the two organizations for exclusive closed shop agreements which convinced leaders of both unions their rivalry had became too costly.38

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Painters encountered even greater difficulty in amalgamating their unions. In the 1880s the Progressive Painters, affiliated with the Knights of Labor and officially recognized by the CLU in both New York and Brooklyn, held claim as the leading painters’ union. In 1889 a national union, the Brotherhood of Painters and Decorators, was formed and soon after won a charter from the AFL. Attempts to build a strong base in New York and Brooklyn met resistance not only from its rivals within the Knights of Labor but other unions as well, including the UBCJ of the AFL. Opposition to the Brotherhood of Painters stemmed from its establishment of Local 182, which represented paperhangers and its quest for recognition from the employers and the CLU. In turn, the Progressive Painters alleged that the new local admitted paperhangers who were expelled by the Paper Hangers Union which sat on the Board of Walking Delegates. Despite the appeals of Jack Elliot (General Secretary of the Brotherhood of Painters) to Samuel Gompers to intervene in the union’s behalf, and the mediation of the Central Labor Federation, formed by the New York unions with close ties to the Socialist Labor Party in 1891, Local 182 remained isolated.39 In 1891, at the urging of leaders of the UBCJ and the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters, the Board of Walking Delegates sanctioned strikes to pressure the employers to dismiss members of Local 182. Three years later, Local 161 of the Brotherhood of Painters was the target of a series of strikes by carpenters, plasterers, and varnishers among others. In both instances the employers yielded to the strikers’ demands in order to avoid additional costly delays in construction. The widespread opposition to the Brotherhood of Painters among the building trades unions reflected the influence of John Archibald, President of the Paper Hangers’ Union and Chairman of the Board of Walking Delegates, as well as the respect earned by the Progressive Painters as a result of their consistent participation in sympathy strikes in support of carpenters and plasterers. Not until 1902 did the Brotherhood of Painters gain the support of other building trades unions when its president paid $17,000 to obtain representation on the Board of Delegates.40 UNION REPRESENTATION AND THE VITALITY OF CRAFT LABOR Although their efforts to amalgamate competing unions were not uniformly effective, building tradesmen consistently improved their conditions of employment. Between 1886 and 1894 wage rates steadily rose, and, even during a depression that followed the Panic of 1893, they remained relatively stable. Wage rates among these unionized building tradesmen ranged from $3.00 to $3.50 per hour, with bricklayers, carpenters, painters, plasterers, and plumbers from New York generally earning more than their

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Brooklyn counterparts.41 Almost without exception building tradesmen covered by a union contract had attained a nine-hour workday by 1890, while some, including carpenters, framers, fresco painters, plasterers, and plumbers had won an eight-hour workday. The ability of unionized building tradesmen to claim high wages and short workdays assumed special importance in light of chronic unemployment stemming from the seasonal nature of much of the work and the industry’s sensitivity to cyclical downturns in the economy. Even during expansionist phases of the business cycle, a significant proportion of building tradesmen were out of work. For example, in 1890 one-fourth of New York’s and approximately one-fifth of Brooklyn’s building tradesmen were unemployed at some time during the year (frequency of unemployment). The average proportion of workers out of work at the same time (unemployment rate) was about seven percent in New York and five percent in Brooklyn (See Table 5.1). The average length of unemployment was three and a half months. However, about a third contended with periods of unemployment lasting between three and six months, and almost 10 percent were out of work for more than six months,42 although this did not mean that building tradesmen were continuously unemployed for this period. More likely, building tradesmen experienced more than one spell of unemployment during the year. If unemployment was an occupational fact of life, its occurrence varied by individual trade. Both during prosperous and hard times, bricklayers

Table 5.1 Unemployment Rates and The Frequency of Unemployment in New York’s and Brooklyn’s Building Trades (1890)

Note: Frequency of unemployment (the proportion of workers unemployed in a given year) was calculated by dividing the number of workers unemployed in 1890 by the total number in the workforce. The unemployment rate (the average number out of work at the same time) was calculated by multiplying the frequency of unemployment by the average length of unemployment and then dividing by twelve. Sources: Concepts and methods of calculation were drawn from Alex Keyssar, Out of Work (Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 51, 53, 357 and 358. Data is from United States Eleventh Census (1890) Population, Part II, pp. 640, 641, 704 and 705.

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had the highest unemployment rates and frequency of unemployment. Because bricklayers and masons labored almost exclusively outdoors, the weather could disrupt work. Moreover, harsh winters could hold up manufacturing and transportation of the brick and stone required by bricklayers. In contrast, plumbers, who experienced unemployment not nearly as often, performed their jobs inside and therefore were relatively unaffected by the weather. Equally important, the demand for plumbers remained strong. Repairs due to faulty installation and renovations because of the upgraded standards of building codes produced a constant flow of work for plumbers. The experience of unemployment spurred building tradesmen through their unions to exert more control over their jobs and work. Foremost was the creation of closed shops, which required contractors and subcontractors to hire exclusively members of a specified union. When closed shops proved unfeasible, as in the case of the Housesmiths, the union obtained pledges to grant union members hiring preference. Concomitantly, unions required their members not to work with building tradesmen who had not joined a bona-fide union, meaning one recognized by the Board of Walking Delegates. The Fresco Painters extended this rule even further, as it called on members to withdraw their labor if a coworker had been fined or suspended by his union. Such a requirement also applied to building tradesmen who acquiesced to their employers’ failure to abide by a union’s standards on pay or hours. Carpenters, framers, and fresco painters, therefore, were obligated to refuse to work with any one in their respective trades not paid time and a half after eight hours.43 Unions also legislated rules which aimed to define the terms of apprenticeships. These addressed eligibility requirements, the length of apprenticeships, the number of apprentices, and who was responsible for their training. Most unions required new apprentices be no older than 21, and some like the Operative Plasterers set an age limit of 17. In principle unions felt they should help select apprentices, but in practice few did. The Journeymen Plumbers sought a veto power over the employers’ choice of apprentices, but were rebuffed in a strike in 1886. Only locals of the BMIU had any authentic control over the selection process, as they reserved the majority of apprenticeships for members’ sons.44 Unions had mixed results in determining the ratio between apprentices and journeymen and the length of apprenticeships. Local Assembly 1992 of the Knights of Labor, representing plumbers, stipulated a ratio of one apprentice for every four journeymen, but in more than half of the plumbing shops surveyed in 1886 apprentices outnumbered journeymen. In contrast, the Operative Plasterers enforced its rule limiting each employer to three apprentices regardless of the number of journeymen. Even with the growth of specialization and the introduction of machine technology, unions retained lengthy apprenticeships. The UBCJ set a four-year period

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while the BMIU and the Amalgamated Society of Journeymen Plumbers established a five-year apprenticeship.45 The responsibility of training apprentices varied by craft. In plumbing and bricklaying employers and journeymen shared the responsibility, while in carpentry either foremen or employers oversaw the instruction of apprentices. In either case, building tradesmen found fault with the apprenticeship system. Plumbers risked damage to their tools at the hands of inexperienced apprentices. Therefore, the International Association of Journeymen Plumbers in the mid-1880s and the Amalgamated Society in the 1890s, expressly prohibited journeymen from providing apprentices any tools. Moreover, as evidenced by union carpenters’ complaints about the haphazard training of apprentices, frequently subcontractors exclusively supervised apprentices and deployed them as they saw fit.46 Building tradesmen, either through rules officially sanctioned by their unions or through practices made legitimate by the demands of their craft, exerted a measure of control over the labor process. An elaborate agreement between the Operative Society of Plasterers and the Employing Plasterers’ Society stipulated the number of coats required in different types of rooms and surfaces, established the size of work crews in relation to the amount of work, and indicated the length of time expected to complete each phase—scratch coating, browning, and hard finishing. Although not formalized into a contract, plumbers had attained de facto influence over their work pace and work methods. This autonomy emanated from two aspects of the plumbers’ work experience. First, plumbers’ responsibilities in many cases were defined by city building codes which became more comprehensive in the 1880s and 1890s. Consequently, the fitting of pipes, the connection of gas mains, and the testing of steam and gas equipment required methodical care. Secondly, plumbers had to demonstrate their competency to a Board of Examiners and thereby earned the necessary credentials of craftsmanship, a status that both employers and journeymen acknowledged.47 For their part, employers consented to closed shop provisions, union work rules, and codetermination of apprenticeship regulations to ensure a steady supply of workers and minimize the possibility of work stoppages. Unions representing plumbers, plasterers, and bricklayers signed pacts that obligated their members to work only for those contractors or subcontractors belonging to employers’ associations which accepted a closed shop. Many agreements explicitly required unions to resolve alleged violations of the contract by conferring with employers. For this purpose, the BMIU, the Operative Plasterers’ Society, and the Enterprise Association (representing steam fitters) formed joint arbitration committees with their respective employer associations.48 Nevertheless, this method of adjudicating disputes did not preclude strike action. For example, the bricklayers and masons, relatively quiet

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since 1884 when the arbitration scheme was introduced, joined members of the Lathers’ Union, the UBCJ, and the Stone Masons’ Union in a sympathy strike to pressure master framers in Brooklyn to honor union standards. In addition, the standard language of contracts included recognition of the right of the union’s walking delegate to visit work sites to verify if employers were honoring the agreement. This was an important concession, since most building trades unions empowered their walking delegates with the authority to call strikes.49 Higher wages, shorter hours, job autonomy, and regulated apprenticeships signified the privileged position of craft labor. For many building tradesmen they were synonymous with union membership: the results of militancy, group discipline, and effective organization. The ability to secure exclusive union recognition and gain exclusive hiring rights for its members became a union’s raison d’etre and a powerful incentive for others to join. As the stakes of trade unionism mounted, building tradesmen looked warily at employers’ attempts to circumvent, if not violate, union standards which they associated with their craft. TRADE UNIONISM’S ETHICAL CODE Building tradesmen articulated a creed of camaraderie, mutuality, and individual responsibility that deepened the meaning of trade unionism. The Carpenter, the monthly journal of the UBCJ, stressed these values most poignantly through the poems of T.C. Walsh, President of New York Local 63, and the writings of Peter McGuire, the union’s General Secretary. In one of his most evocative poems, Walsh appealed to the building tradesmen’s sense of manliness, pride, and fraternity: I long to meet my fellow man And greet him as a “brother” And know his thoughts as mine, doth plan Success for one another. When sickness comes, my brother nigh A helping hand to give His goodness quiets my children’s cry And bids one hope to live. That I for him might do the same Thus brotherhood thy very name If sickness should him smite Gives friendship’s true delight. What a fool is he who will doth stay In one path of dire disgrace Without a friend to cheer his way But “Scab” stamped on his face.

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Scab How foul that wretch appears To us on unions’ roll Nor scorn nor derisive jeers Can weaken his foul soul. O why will he not be a “man” And join us as a “brother” And lend his aid to our great plan “Success for one another.”50

The Carpenter also stressed an ethical code of behavior in editorials, articles and advice columns. One selection entitled, “What Labor Men Say,” told readers “not to backbite each other,” “not to identify themselves with any political party of the capitalists,” and “to agitate with a view to the membership’s general enlightenment.” A reprint from The Painter, published by the New York Painters’ Union, identified the duties of a union man. These included an obligation to attend meetings and discuss issues in a friendly spirit, a responsibility to help unemployed members find work, and the duty to assist other building tradesmen organize unions. Purportedly a commitment to trade unionism uplifted the participant, for by asserting a high sense a union man’s position, a building tradesman would develop mental vigor and strength and “raise the union in the opinion of others.”51 In short, the conscientious fulfillment of the duties of union membership promoted self-respect and character which enabled unions to gain acceptance from employers and the general public. To Peter McGuire, the nurturing of trade union values meant preparing workers to advance labor’s cause in more self-referential terms. Cooperation and solidarity—the antithesis of the “egoism and spirit of submission” which capitalist relations of production engendered sustained trade unionism. Sharing common goals promoted a consciousness that transcended the boundaries of craft, trade, and industry. Expressions of solidarity through boycotts, union labels, and sympathy strikes prefigured a class-based movement of workers. Above all, by helping members to develop new skills, such as public speaking and organizing meetings, and by encouraging the discussion of political, economic and social issues, unions equipped workers for self-government, the sine qua non of an authentic democracy in which workers exercised their full citizenship rights: freedom from exploitation, ignorance, want, and insecurity.52 Most concretely, unions prepared workers to assert their rights against employers who were not persuaded by labor’s moral claims to an eighthour day and livable wages. This educational and agitational role took on a greater urgency, for “avaricious employers,” McGuire noted, “are resorting to lockouts and the blacklist and taking undue advantage of dull times in the building trades.” McGuire felt building tradesmen and their unions needed to “combine their forces” and recognize their common interests.53

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Towards this end, following the successful merger of the United Order of Carpenters and the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, he urged the formation of local and regional Building Trades Leagues. In a pamphlet, originally distributed at the 1891 Labor Day parades in New York and Chicago, he generalized from the carpenters’ experience to advocate the principle of inter-union cooperation and labor solidarity: When one is attacked all are alike ready to rush to the rescue. The more complete and perfect the chain of distinct trade organizations, the less will be the resistance offered in time on the part of the employing builders and contractors.54

However, building trades’ unions discovered admonitions, words of advice, and forceful appeals to shared values were in themselves insufficient to develop the group discipline necessary for effective labor activity. Consequently, building trades unions established strict standards of conduct and enforced them vigorously. The UBCJ and the BMIU maintained rules against drunkenness, slandering of officers, fraudulent claims for benefits, and the misuse of funds. In 1890, when the UBCJ in New York was preparing for a possible strike to secure the eight-hour day, the chairman of the union’s strike committee urged members to avoid drinking and reject violence to prevent the “monopolists the chance to say carpenters committed unlawful acts.” Bricklayers singled out the behavior of “union wreckers” who “deliberately, and with evil intent,” ignored the union’s strike call and levied fines against the guilty parties.55 Building tradesmen also demonstrated their camaraderie and fraternity with other union members. On May 1 and in early September they joined other workers in what contemporary newspapers described as festivals and parades. Both May Day and Labor Day celebrated the workers’ rightful place in American society and reaffirmed organized labor’s determination to secure the eight-hour day, the benchmark of workers’ economic and social rights for many in the movement. Building tradesmen played prominent roles in these activities in 1890 and 1891, during the crest of a wave of sympathy strikes. During the May 1 festival of 1890, 15,000 members of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, Fresco Painters, German Painters’ Union, United Framers’ Union and Local 11 of the Bricklayers’ and Masons’ International Union marched up Broadway to Union Square behind banners which read “The Toilers Produce, the Idler Enjoys,” “1,000,000 Unemployed,” “a Handful of Millionaires Own Half the Country,” and “Eight Hours for Work, Eight for Rest and Eight Hours for What We Will.” On September 1, 1890, 17,000 joined the Labor Day march endorsed by the CLU. Charles Rogers, Chairman of the Board of Walking Delegates and President of the Marble Cutters’ Union, served as the march’s Grand Marshall and led contingents from the Housesmiths’ Union, the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters, the

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Granite and Stone Cutters’ Association, and the Empire Association of Steam Fitters.56 THE AMBIGUOUS LEGACY OF INDUSTRIAL ACTION Building tradesmen’s organizational strength and creed of trade unionism was most sharply expressed in militant industrial action. Between 1887 and 1894, 37 percent of the approximately 4,000 reported strikes in New York State occurred in New York’s and Brooklyn’s construction industry. A significant proportion of these strikes were sympathy walkouts. Of the 1,450 strikes involving building tradesmen, 35 percent elicited the participation of workers who were not direct parties in the dispute. The number of sympathy strikes peaked at 350 from 1890 to 1892, when they surpassed wages, employment of nonunion men, and the reduction of hours as causes of labor disputes.57 Moreover, the building tradesmen’s strikes enjoyed a high rate of success. From 1887 to 1894, 80 percent of the strikes in New York City’s building trades ended with the strikers winning some, if not most, of their demands. During the same period, about two-thirds of all strikes in New York State and slightly more than half of all strikes in the United States ended successfully for strikers. Meanwhile, 70 percent of sympathy strikes in New York City’s building trades were successful compared to a rate of less than half for sympathy strikes in all industries throughout the state.58 The successful record of New York’s building tradesmen in their strikes largely resulted from the extensive network of trade union organization and collaboration as well as the industry’s vulnerability to industrial action by strategically placed workers who could bring construction to a halt. Few major strikes erupted between 1886 and 1898, but those that did illustrate the dynamics of building tradesmen’s labor militancy. In 1886, when many unions waged a concerted drive to gain a reduction in the workday, the plumbers launched a strike over the issue of apprenticeship regulations. The issue became urgent since the number of apprentices was growing at so alarming a rate that in many plumbing firms they equaled the number of journeymen. William Flood, Recording Secretary of the Journeymen Plumbers, argued, if the growth rate of apprentices continued for another five years, an overabundance of plumbers would result and leave a plumber “unable to decently support a family on the pittance which he can only expect when supply and demand are so unevenly balanced.”59 Consequently, the union sought a greater role in the selection and evaluation of apprentices, hoping that the plumbers could more closely regulate and thereby restrict entry into the trade. Union representatives contended, since journeymen trained the apprentices they should set the rules, including eligibility requirements, the length of apprenticeships, the

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basic content of training, the method of judging apprentices’ competency, and the ratio between apprentices and journeymen. The Master Plumbers’ Association agreed with portions of the journeymen’s apprenticeship guidelines, but they disagreed with the more critical aspects of the journeymen’s regulations. They rejected the ratio of only one apprentice for every four journeymen, the journeymen’s claim to veto the employers’ nominees for apprenticeship, and the union’s right to sit on a board of examiners that evaluated apprentices after their five-year training period as infringements on the employers’ ability to run their businesses.60 In late August, when talks between the two groups failed to resolve these differences, the Journeymen Plumbers began the strike. Three months later, with no break in the impasse in sight, the Board of Walking Delegates endorsed sympathy strikes at some of New York’s largest construction projects where scab plumbers worked. Yet despite the support of carpenters, steam fitters, and masons, the plumbers failed to make much headway. By Christmas about half of the 1,000 strikers had returned to work without any tangible gains except the assurance that they would not have to forfeit their union membership as a condition of employment. The strike limped along through February with scattered outbreaks of sympathetic action occurring at building sites in the Wall Street area. In essence, the strike petered out without the union or the Board of Walking Delegates officially calling it off.61 However, the plumbers’ defeat did not result in irreparable damage to the union. Both during and after the strike there was no bitter wrangling between the two parties or any erosion of mutual respect, leading one observer to report that the strike was fought “almost with good humor.”62 In the next few years union plumbers regrouped, forming the largest locals in the United Association of Plumbers, and slowly began establishing closer relations with the Master Plumbers, culminating in exclusive closed shop agreements. In the following decade, the joint lobbying effort of union representatives and employers resulted in the New York State Legislature’s introduction of a formal examination to assess the practical and theoretical knowledge of junior plumbers upon completion of their apprenticeships. In addition, the Journeymen Plumbers gained seats on the Plumbers’ Board of Examiners, which the Master Plumbers’ Association had controlled exclusively during the 1880s.63 Between 1887 and 1889 no large building trades strikes occurred, and in general the level of industrial conflict ebbed. In that three-year period less than 400 strikes broke out of which approximately 25 percent were sympathy walkouts. In 1890, however, strike activity became more widespread and intense, with one-third of the slightly more than 300 walkouts, sympathy strikes. This resurgence of conflict continued for another two years with the number of strikes each in 1891 and 1892 surpassing that of any year in the previous decade.64 The growth in labor militancy occurred

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in large part because of an upswing in the construction industry which reduced the risk of unemployed workers taking strikers’ jobs and a more finely tuned network of trade union organization which facilitated the use of sympathy strikes. In the early 1890s the Housesmiths’ Union figured prominently in three of the largest of sympathy strikes. In April 1890, 50 members of the union struck the Hecla Architectural Bronze and Iron Works in Williamsburg, Brooklyn because the owners Paulson and Eger resisted the union’s demands for a closed shop, a nine-hour workday, and recognition of the walking delegate’s right to visit work sites. When two walking delegates inspecting for nonunion men were denied access to the Williamsburg premises, the Board of Walking Delegates authorized a general sympathy strike. More than 1,000 carpenters, framers, gas fitters, painters, plumbers, and stairbuilders respected the strike call, and consequently, the following day, the employers promised not to withhold permission to walking delegates visiting construction sites.65 The next year an even larger strike erupted, involving the building trades unions against the Boss Roofers’ Association and the Iron Manufacturers’ Association. At issue was the Housesmiths’ demand that the eight-hour day be put into effect on May 1. The Iron Manufacturers’ Association, consisting of 60 firms, claimed New York and Brooklyn housesmiths earned 25 percent more in 9 hours than Housesmiths in other cities did in 10 hours, and contended that brisk regional competition prevented them from reducing hours at the same daily rate of pay. In addition, J.M. Cornell, one of the leaders of the Iron Manufacturers’ Association, charged that the Housesmiths’ Union demanded the firing of members of the Architectural Iron Workers’ Union, an AFL affiliate. To the Housesmiths these claims were a subterfuge for the employers’ unwillingness to consider the justice of the eight-hour demand.66 Accordingly, on April 30, 3,000 Housesmiths walked off their jobs, interfering with work at a number of large construction projects in Manhattan, and the next day the strike swelled to 4,500 participants. Nevertheless, as the strike continued, support from other building tradesmen did not immediately materialize. The Board of Walking Delegates announced it would authorize a general walkout only if other firms besides the Jackson Architectural Iron Works hired nonunion men. This caution emanated from the rivalry between the Architectural Iron Workers’ Union, and the Housesmiths’ Union (both members of the Board). It also reflected the balance of forces on the board where representatives from AFL affiliates, such as the UBCJ, sat alongside officials from the Progressive Painters’ Union, the Progressive Varnishers’ Union and the Paper Hangers’ Union among other affiliates of the Knights of Labor.67 Consequently, most of the building trades unions granted only limited support to the Housesmiths as sympathy strikes took place at only a few

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work sites. However, when it appeared that the union’s survival, and the members’ jobs, were at risk, the Board of Walking Delegates intervened to help the Housesmiths reach a settlement that stipulated that the employers would rehire all the strikers they could accommodate on the old terms—without an eight-hour day. Those Housesmiths unable to secure employment would be compensated through a strike fund augmented by contributions from member unions.68 In 1892 the Housesmiths again stood at the center of an industry-wide dispute. What began as a job action at the Criminal Court Building in late May over the hiring of nonunion men by the Jackson Architectural Iron Works became a showdown a month later between the Housesmiths, the Public Cartmen’s Union, and the Building Material Handlers’ Union against the Iron League and the Building Material Dealers’ Association. When the Jackson Architectural Iron Works refused to dismiss the nonunion Housesmiths, the Board of Walking Delegates threatened to call strikes wherever Jackson’s products were used.69 This decision only strengthened the employers’ resolve. The Iron League passed a resolution signed by 40 firms declaring that all members of the Housesmiths’ Union would be fired and only faithful Housesmiths would be considered for rehiring. The Iron League scrupulously kept a blacklist aimed at weeding out leaders of the Housesmiths’ Union and authorized foremen to determine who was eligible for reinstatement. Furthermore, when the Public Cartmen’s Union pledged not to deliver any building material to contractors with whom the Iron League had contracts, the employers took punitive action. Accordingly, 13 members of the Building Material Dealers’ Association signed a resolution requiring cartmen to abide by the orders of only the dealers, and when the Cartmen ignored this policy, 23 who refused to handle material used by two of the struck companies were fired.70 Largely because of the employers’ resolve, the sympathy strike in support of the housesmiths lost momentum. Members of the UBCJ refused to honor the Housesmiths’ picket lines, recalling the latter’s lack of support for the carpenters’ strike against John Downey and Company earlier in the year. Instead, the strike’s focus shifted from the Architectural Iron Works and the Iron League to the Building Material Dealers’ Association. 15,000 building and allied tradesmen, including carpenters, framers, and plasterers among others at more than 100 building sites joined the strike in support of the cartmen and building material handlers.71 As the strike wore on for two more months, the employers gained the upper hand. In early August a united front of building material dealers, brick dealers, and building contractors began to recruit replacements for striking cartmen and material handlers. By early August, sympathy strikers from the building trades unions returned to work in the hundreds, leaving the strike on the verge of collapse. Consequently, on August 9 the

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Board officially ordered an end to the strike, although no formal settlement had been signed with the employers. In brief, the employers simply outlasted the strikers who faced the prospect of losing their jobs if they persisted. As a result, after six weeks virtually all of the striking Housesmiths applied for reinstatement with their previous employers, deserting the union in the process.72 If the Housesmiths represented the weak link in the chain of mutual support, the carpenters constituted the strongest link. For instance, in 1892, after John Downey disavowed an agreement, which required the payment of cabinet makers doing the work of carpenters at the latter’s wage and hour scale, the Board of Walking Delegates ordered all member unions to support the carpenters by striking all work sites where Downey employed men. Representatives from the UBCJ, the Progressive Painters and the Steam Fitters’ Union coordinated the picketing at the Hotel Waldorf and Hotel New Netherlands, and convinced officials of the Building Material Drivers’ Union not to deliver any material to the two hotels until the strike was settled. Construction on the two hotels, as well as the Metropolitan Life Insurance Building and the Criminal Court Building, stopped. As a result on March 3, less than two weeks after the strike began, John Downey and Company acceded to all of the carpenters’ demands: that the cabinet makers work at the carpenters scale of $3.50 for an eight-hour day and nonunion men be discharged.73 Over the next two years, even before the economic depression seized the construction industry, the level and intensity of strike activity fell. In 1894, however, the carpenters flexed their muscles in two strikes. The first, waged by 2,000 carpenters and sympathetic building tradesmen, halted work at 50 construction sites. Two weeks after the strike started the Board of Education and contractors, under pressure to complete work on the buildings before the school term began, agreed to honor the pay scale of the UBCJ and rehire all the strikers.74 Then in early September, less than a month after the school strike, union carpenters mounted a coordinated campaign against the lumping system. In an unprecedented show of cooperation among the AFL-affiliated UBCJ, the independent Amalgamated Society of Carpenters, and the Knights of Labor—affiliated Progressive Society of Carpenters, declared a joint strike. Faced with the disruption of work at 250 mid-Manhattan construction sites, eight of the largest contractors pledged to hire carpenters directly and to sever their ties with the subcontractors. As scattered sympathy strikes by plasterers, steam fitters, and elevator builders broke out in the Wall Street area, many more contractors settled on the unions’ terms. By the end of the month, the carpenter unions had secured agreements with virtually all of the contractors.75 The wave of industrial conflict in the early 1890s led both unions and employers to seek an alternative to strikes and lockouts. Walkouts easily

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became wars of attrition and thereby raised the stakes for both for employers and workers; therefore, pressures mounted for a modus vivendi. Indicative of this shift in attitude, from 1895 to 1898 New York’s District Council of the UBCJ reached understandings with contractors and architects which excluded the use of nonunion and out-of-town prefabricated wood products. Capping this achievement, the union signed a pact with the leaders of the General Contractors’ Association, including Otto Eidletz and P.J. Walsh, and the Builders and Master Carpenters that required all employers to use only union made material. These agreements encouraged Otto Eidlitz to propose an arbitration plan, which included conciliation boards at the trade and industry level.76 CONCLUSION As building tradesmen approached the turn of the century, their unions retained their powerful position in the industry. By 1899 union density among bricklayers, carpenters, painters, plasterers, and plumbers collectively stood at 28 percent.77 Building tradesmen’s interdependency in the labor process and a network of interlocking relationships through the Board of Walking Delegates increased the capacity for mutual support, most directly expressed in sympathy strikes. Over time building tradesmen refined their pragmatic acumen. Militantly vigilant in defense of union standards on wages, hours, and work rules, they were equally adept at adjusting to changing power relations. Building tradesmen were provoked to strike because contractors or subcontractors hired nonunion workers, failed to pay accrued wages at a specified date, ignored overtime provisions, or threatened the autonomy of a particular craft. Since most of the recorded strikes, especially those officially sanctioned by unions, aimed to reassert customary privileges and uphold contract provisions formally accepted by employers, militancy disciplined wayward contractors and subcontractors and bring others into the industrial relations fold. In this context, then, mutual support was essentially instrumental: a tactical exploitation of circumstances endemic to the craft system of production and inelastic market structure which simultaneously increased the demand for skilled labor and permitted employers to pass on the costs of higher wage settlements to their customers. Union rules, procedures, literature, and participation in marches and rallies that stressed identification with a cross-occupational labor movement underscored the importance of cooperation. Yet cooperation resonated with the most meaning among building tradesmen when striking members of one craft could count on the support of their cohorts in another craft. Second, strikes were part and parcel of industrial relations practices which codified union regulations and employer prerogatives as well as

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defined procedures to resolve the inevitable tensions between the two different interests. Consequently, the unions representing bricklayers, framers, plasterers, and housesmiths negotiated agreements with employers that established closed shops; clarified the work responsibilities of a craft; and recognized the right of contractors and subcontractors to dismiss incompetent, intoxicated, and insubordinate workers. Moreover, beginning with the agreement reached between the locals of the Bricklayers’ and Masons’ Union with the Mason Builders’ Association in 1885, nonconfrontational methods of resolving disputes were introduced. By the mid-1890s it was a standard feature of wage scales and union recognition agreements to contain provisions for conference committees to adjudicate grievances. The unions’ display of a more accommodationist orientation underscored their pragmatic acknowledgement that neither they nor the employers were sufficiently strong to force the other to bend to their will. The exercise of trade union power remained constrained by the persistence of competitive unionism within the same trade. Two plumbers’ unions existed—one affiliated with the national organization and the other stubbornly independent—and union painters continued to be plagued by internecine conflict. More significantly, the unions faced more closely knit employers’ associations which enabled construction firms to withstand sympathy strikes. Yet it would be reading history backwards to infer from the apparent creation of a detente with employers, New York’s and Brooklyn’s building tradesmen rapidly and inexorably were becoming defensive-minded business unionists. Their show of mutual support in disputes with employers and participation in May Day and Labor Day celebrations underlined building tradesmen’s contribution to the ethos of an inclusive and aggressive labor movement. Although in subsequent decades some trade union practices sustained critics’ castigation of organized labor as being corrupt and oligarchic,78 in the Gilded Age, at least, building tradesmen acted more as militant pragmatists than as self-seeking business agents or labor racketeers. NOTES 1. United States. Tenth Census (1880), Population, p. 521; Twelfth Census (1900), Population, Part I, pp. clxxxviii; The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac (1898), p. 331; Clarence Long, Jr., Building Cycles and The Theory of Investment (Princeton University, 1940), appendix. 2. One study showed during the rising phases of long building cycles covering 10 years on the average, there were five times as many periods when the economy expanded rather than contracted, and during falling phases of the cycles, three times as many periods when the economy contracted rather than expanded. John R. Riggleman, “Building Cycles in the United States, 1875–1932,” Journal of the

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American Statistical Association, XXVIII (1933), pp. 63–71; Asher Achinstein, “Economic Fluctuations,” Seymour Harris, ed., American Economic History (New York: McGraw and Hill, 1960), p. 40. 3. R.G. Dun, and Reference Book Containing Ratings of Merchants and Manufacturers and Traders Generally Throughout the United States (1895). 4. Robert Christie, Empire in Wood: A History of the Carpenters Union (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1956), pp. 25, 26. Robert Max Jackson, The Formation of Craft Labor Markets (New York: Academic Press, 1984), p. 137; Frederick Hodgson, Encyclopedia of the Building Trades, Volume I (Chicago: American Building Trades School, 1907), pp. 88–99; Practical Bricklaying, Self-Taught (Chicago: American Building Trades School, 1907), pp. 2, 3. 5. Clarence Long, Jr., Building Cycles and The Theory of Investment (Princeton University Press, 1940), appendix; Hodgson, Encyclopedia of the Building Trades, Volume 5, pp. 115, 116. 6. William Haber, Industrial Relations in the Building Industry, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1930), pp. 16, 19–24; Carl Condit, American Building: Materials and Techniques from the First Colonial Settlements to the Present (University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 233–236. 7. Haber, Industrial Relations in the Building Industry, pp. 16–19, 29–32; John W. Oliver, The History of American Technology (New York: Ronald Press, 1956), p. 408, 409; James Fitch, American Building: The Forces That Shape It (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), pp. 170–174. 8. Christie, Empire in Wood, pp. 27, 79–81; Oliver, The History of American Technology, p. 408. 9. John R. Commons, Trade Unionism and Labor Problems (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1905), pp. 65–67; Christie, Empire in Wood, pp. 26, 27; Haber, Industrial Relations in the Building Industry, pp. 59, 60. 10. New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eight Annual Report (1890), pp. 123–124. 11. Richard Schneirov and Thomas Suhrbur, Union Brotherhood, Union Town: The History of the Carpenters’ Union of Chicago, 1863–1937 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988), pp. 8–9, 185–186 found a drop in the number of complaints about lumping in the union journal, The Carpenter, from 1881–1890, although the criticism of the practice remained as intense at the end of the decade as it was at the beginning. 12. John Swinton’s Paper, February 17, 1884; Christie, Empire in Wood, p. 27; The Carpenter, May 1894. 13. The Carpenter, May 1894, November 1896. 14. Ibid, January 1894. 15. The Carpenter, March 1893, March, May, July, and August 1896; Haber, Industrial Relations in the Building Industry, p. 37. 16. Ibid, May and June 1881, August 1882, April 1884, May 1896. 17. The Carpenter, December 1885. 18. Hodgson, Encyclopedia of tie Building Trades, Volume I, pp. 59–76, 82–85, 88–99. 19. Hodgson, Encyclopedia of The Building Trades, Volume III, pp. 99–117, 140–163. 20. Frederick Hodgson, Modern Painters’ Encyclopedia (Chicago: American Building Trades School, 1907), pp. 43–53, 313–342, 429–430; Haber, Industrial Relations in the Building Industry, p. 42.

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21. New York City Record and Building Trades Directory (1887); The Plumbers Trade Journal, Gas, Steam and Hot Water Fitters’ Review, September 15, 1897. 22. The Plumbers Trade Journal, Gas, Steam and Hot Water Fitters’ Review, February 15, 1897; Labor Compendium, March 21, 1897. 23. See Arthur L. Stinchcombe, “Bureaucratic and Craft Administration of Production,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 4 (September 1959), pp. 168–187 for a discussion of the technical and market factors in the building trades which fostered craft-centered modes of organizing production. 24. Stinchcombe, “Bureaucratic and Craft Administration,” p. 170; Haber, Industrial Relations in the Building Industry, p. 375; Jackson, Formation of Craft Labor Markets, pp. 24–26. 25. For a succinct explanation of why the building trades were susceptible to sympathy strikes see, Frederic Hall, “Sympathetic Strikes and Sympathetic Lockouts,” Studies In History, Economics and Public Law, Columbia University, 10 (1898), pp. 52, 53. 26. Mark Erlich, “Peter J. McGuire’s Trade Unionism: Socialism of a Trade Union Kind?” Labor History, 24 (Spring 1983), pp. 181, 182, makes similar observations about the pressures on employers as well as the incentives to accept trade unions. 27. United States. Census Bureau, Eleventh Census (1890) Population, Part II, pp. 640, 641, 704, 705; New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eighth Annual Report (1890), pp. 141, 142; The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac (1891), pp. 144–146; Martin Segal, The Rise of the United Association: National Unionism in the Pipe Trades, 1884–1924 (Harvard University Press, 1970), p. 48. 28. Real Estate Record Association, A History of Real Estate, Buildings, and Architecture in New York City During the Last Quarter of a Century (New York, 1898), pp. 113, 123. 29. New York Sun, May 2, 1886; Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac (1891), pp. 144–146; Haber, Industrial Relations in the Building Industry, pp. 276–305; Gary Fink, ed., Labor Unions (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1977), pp. 44–46, 49–51, 285–286, 289–291; Jonathan Garlock, Guide to the Local Assemblies of the Knights of Labor (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1982), pp. 313–338. 30. Calculated from U.S. Eleventh Census (1890) Population, Part II, pp. 640, 641, 704, 705; Twelfth Census (1900), Occupations, pp. 634–641. 31. The Carpenter, January and March 1897; Walter Galenson, The United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners: The First Hundred Years (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1983), p. 17; Brooklyn Daily Eagle Almanac (1891), p. 146; Edwin Fenton, “Immigrants and Unions: A Case Study, Italians and American Labor, 1870–1920” (unpublished PhD diss., Harvard University Press, 1957), 141–142, 207, 382. 32. See Chapter 2. 33. The Carpenter, May 15, June 15, and July 15, 1888. 34. Ibid, April 15, 1889, November 1894, August 1895, and January and March 1897; and Galenson, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, pp. 77, 78. 35. Martin Segal, The Rise of the United Association: National Unionism in the Pipe Trades, 1884–1924 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 20–26; John Swinton’s Paper, August 29, and September 19, 1886. 36. Segal, Rise of the United Association, pp. 28–30; New York State. Mediation and Arbitration Board, First Annual Report (1886), pp. 156, 157.

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37. Segal, Rise of the United Association, pp. 36–40. 38. Ibid, pp. 48, 101, 102; The Plumbers’ Trade Journal, Gas. Steam and Hot Water Fitters’ Review, November 1, 1898, p. 282. 39. American Federation Records, Jack Elliot to Gompers, September 15, 1890, December 26, 1890, and February 5, 1891; The Workmen’s Advocate, August 23, 1890 and February 28, 1891. 40. The Workmen’s Advocate, March 14, and 21, 1891; American Federation of Labor Records, Elliott to Gompers April 27, 1891; New York State. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Ninth Annual Report (1895), pp. 37, 38, 39, 41; Haber, Industrial Relations in the Building Industry, pp. 297, 298. 41. New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eighth Annual Report (1890), pp. 114–118, 127–132, 149, 155, 156, 159, 160–162; and Fourteenth Annual Report (1896), pp. 724–779. 42. U.S. Eleventh Census (1890) Population, Part II, pp. 640, 641, 704, 705. 43. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eighth Annual Report, pp. 145, 158; Ninth Annual Report, pp. 814–818, 854–857; Segal, Rise of the United Association, pp. 28–30. 44. Haber, Industrial Relations in the Building Industry, pp. 131, 136, 137; The Carpenter, March 1887; Bureau of Labor Statistics, Fourth Annual Report (1886), pp. 119–126, 136, 156, 477. 45. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eighth Annual Report (1890), p. 157; James Motley, “Apprenticeship in the Building Trades,” Jacob Hollander, ed., Studies in American Trade Unionism (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1906), pp. 283–285. 46. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Fourth Annual Report, pp. 119–126, 156. 47. The Plumbers’ Trade Journal and Gas, Steam and Hot Water Fitters’ Review, February and March 1898; Segal, Rise of the United Association, pp. 15, 16; Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eighth Annual Report (1890), pp. 156–157. 48. Segal, Rise of the United Association, p. 48; Bureau of Labor Statistics, Eighth Annual Report (1890), pp. 145, 158; and Ninth Annual Report (1891), pp. 814–818, 854–857. 49. John Swinton’s Paper, March 3, and April 10, 1887; Clarence Bonnett, The History of Employers’ Associations in the United States (New York: Vantage Press, 1956), pp. 350–352. 50. The Carpenter, October 20, 1890. 51. Ibid, December 15, 1888 and December 1891. 52. Ibid, October 1892; Erlich, “Peter J. McGuire’s Trade Unionism,” pp. 193, 194. 53. The Carpenter, September 1891. 54. Ibid, April 1891. 55. Lloyd Ulman, The Rise of the National Trade Union (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University, 1955), pp. 127–133; The Herald, May 3, 1890. 56. New York Tribune, May 2, 1890; The Evening Telegram, May 2, 1890; Central Labor Union, Official Handbook, September 7, 1891. 57. Calculated from United States. Bureau of Labor, Tenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor (1894) Strikes and Lockouts, Volume I, pp. 618–642. 58. Calculated from the Tenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, Volume I, pp. 618–942 and Volume II, pp. 1700–1708. 59. New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Fourth Annual Report (1886), p. 115. 60. Ibid, pp. 158, 159, 477.

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61. John Swinton’s Paper, November 14, 1886 and April 12, 1887; The Leader, November 8, 10, 12, 1886. 62. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Fourth Annual Report (1886), pp. 198, 199. 63. Segal, Rise of the United Association, p. 46. 64. Tenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, Volume II, pp. 1700–1708; Bureau of Labor Statistics, Seventh Annual Report (1889), pp. 287–299. 65. The Sun, April 12, 1890; The New York Tribune, April 12, 1890; The Herald, April 12, 1890; The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 13, 1890. 66. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 1, 1891; The Sun, May 1, and May 2, 1891. 67. The Sun, May 3, May 5, and May 6, 1891; The Herald, May 5, 1891. 68. The Herald, May 16, 1891; The Sun, June 12, 1891; The New York Tribune, June 13, 1891. 69. The New York Tribune, February 18, 1892; The Herald, February 19, 1892. 70. The Sun, June 25, and 28, 1892; The New York Tribune, June 26, 1892 and July 19, 1892; Mediation and Arbitration Board, Sixth Annual Report, pp. 30, 31; The Journal of the Knights of Labor, June 30, 1892. 71. The New York Tribune, July 20, and July 22, 1892; The Sun, June 23, 1892, June 26, 1892, and July 31, 1892; The Journal of the Knights of Labor, June 30, 1892. 72. The New York Tribune, August 5, and August 9, 1892; Mediation and Arbitration Board, Sixth Annual Report, p. 31. 73. The New York Tribune, February 24, 25, and 26, 1892 and March 3, and 4, 1892; The Sun, February 26, 1892. 74. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Ninth Annual Report (1895), pp. 44, 45. 75. New York Tribune, September 4, 1894; The Herald, September 5, 8, and 15, 1894; Mediation and Arbitration Board, Ninth Annual Report, p. 52. 76. The Carpenter, November 1895, July 1895, April 1896, August 1896, May, June and October 1897, and May 1898; Otto Eidlitz Papers, Box 1, Folder 2 and Folder 3 (1897). Eidlitz not only seized on the opportunities presented by the recent negotiations with the UBCJ, but also raised the spectre of sympathy strikes, which, he argued, “diverted capital from the building industry,” to urge employers to establish arbitration boards. 77. Calculated from New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Seventeenth Annual Report (1899), pp. 96–159; U.S. Twelfth Census (1900) Statistics of Manufactures, Part 2, pp. 620–628; Special Reports: Occupations, pp. 634–641. 78. For example, Melvyn Dubofsky, When Workers Organize (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1968), stresses how some business agents “transformed the strike from a means of improving labor’s condition into an instrument for enriching” themselves (p. 3). This view receives even more embellishment from Philip Foner, A History of the Labor Movement in the United States Volume III (New York: International Publishers, 1964). For a fictionalized account of the unscrupulous trade unionist, see Leroy Scott, The Walking Delegate (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1912). In contrast, Michael Kazin, Barons of Labor: The San Francisco Building Trades and Union Power in the Progressive Era (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987) shows that the self-aggrandizement and careerism, not to mention corruption, often associated with business unions, was not the norm in a city where organized labor exercised political as well as economic influence.

CHAPTER 6

Garment Workers and the Travail of Seasonal Unionism

INTRODUCTION Garment workers in late Gilded Age New York and Brooklyn faced a conundrum that persisted well into the twentieth century: the very conditions which signified the need for trade union organization simultaneously handicapped effective concerted activity. An intensely competitive market and highly decentralized system of production, featuring an abundance of small firms whose proprietors survived by paying low wages and maximizing the output of labor, fundamentally influenced garment workers’ ability to organize at the workplace. The garment trades consisted of two major sectors (both specializing in ready-made wear)—women’s clothing (cloaks and women’s suits) and men’s clothing (coats, pants, and vests)—and three minor branches: shirts, men’s furnishings (ties and suspenders) and children’s wear. Within the ready-made men’s and women’s clothing industries two systems of production coexisted: wholesale manufacturing in factories (also known as inside shops) and a network of contracting-subcontracting based in outside shops, including sweatshops and small contractor-managed shops.1 Sweatshops consisted of space rented in tenement houses, where entire families worked and lived together in the same quarters, and flat shops, where the families’ work and living quarters were marginally separated. Contractors also rented rooms above storefronts and in basements during the busy season. In 1895, according to New York State’s Assistant Factory Inspector, John Franey, and Charles Reicher of the United Garment Workers, as many as 6,000 sweatshops existed in New York, and, 900 in Brooklyn, which employed a minimum of 50,000 and 10,000 workers, respectively.2

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Despite the proliferation of outside shops, cloakmakers, coatmakers, pantsmakers, and shirtmakers among others formed loosely knit unions. Often these unions disappeared as quickly as they emerged, following the completion of strikes. Indeed, union organization pulsated to the rhythm of the garment trades’ business cycle. Anticipating the chance to secure wage hikes during the busy season, workers flexed their industrial muscle. However, as the slack period inevitably returned, layoffs and often wage cuts or increases in workloads followed. The seasonal unions seemed unable to prevent these harsh realities, and consequently union membership suffered. Yet if structural features of the industry provided the context for labor activity, it did not singularly determine either its character or scope. New York’s and Brooklyn’s garment workers, largely Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, drew on values and beliefs, cultivated in their original homelands and refined in their adopted homeland, to exert some control over their working lives. Stories from the Torah and parables from the Talmud (a centuries’ old collection of teachings from rabbis and scholars) infused a sense of dissatisfaction with a moral imperative to act. Secularoriented socialists combined this religiously inspired outlook with a belief in the historical mission of the working class to remind Jewish immigrant factory operatives and sweatshop laborers that collective redemption awaited them, and trade unions were instruments towards that end. JEWISH SOCIALISM AND IMMIGRANT CULTURE The unions formed by garment workers owed much of their breadth and depth to the involvement of socialists. Young worker-intellectuals contributed to the founding of newspapers, educational societies, propaganda groups, and political organizations in the hope of building bridges to the immigrant working class of both cities. Their most noteworthy efforts—the development and growth of the United Hebrew Trades (UHT) from 1889 to 1894—followed a decade of false starts, unrealized promises, and sobering lessons which failed to dim the movement’s optimism. Among the earliest attempts to promote socialist labor unionism among garment workers was the Yiddish Arbeiter Verein (Yiddish or Jewish Workers Union), which disseminated socialist principles through the New Yorker Yiddishe Volkzeitung. This Yiddish labor newspaper provided a forum for discussions on strategy, publicized union organizing campaigns by shirtmakers and tailors, and thereby paved the way for the UHT. Indeed in one of its last issues it argued for the creation of a central body among Jewish immigrant “green hands” that “could command the respect of the exploiters, as well as that of the American workingman, and thus shatter the Chinese wall which still separates the Jewish worker from his brothers.”3

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Accordingly, in October, 1888, at a meeting organized by members of the Yiddish-speaking Branch No. 8 of the Socialist Labor Party (SLP), the UHT was created. The founders of the UHT proclaimed that a central body overseeing the development of labor unions was necessary to assist the “Jewish proletariat . . . to free itself more quickly from the filth of the pig market and to throw off the yoke of the various contract systems. . . .”4 Jewish immigrant socialists seeking to “shatter the Chinese wall” dividing New York’s working class emulated the existing labor federations. From the United German Trades (UGT) they derived the very concept of an ethnically based body of labor unions. Since 1886 the UGT, consisting of unions representing brewers, bakers, cabinetmakers, and furniture makers among others coalesced to serve as a network through which strikes and boycotts could be waged. From the city’s Central Labor Union (CLU), the organizers of the UHT drew much of their programmatic inspiration. Its short-term objectives included the eight-hour day, the abolition of the contract and sweatshop system, health, and safety inspection of all workplaces, and the abolition of all class privileges and conspiracy laws.5 In 1889 and 1890, largely due to the tireless efforts of Bernard Weinstein, shirtmaker and SLP activist, and Morris Hillquit, a twenty-year-old shirtmaker who had only lived in the United States for three years, the UHT steadily grew. By the end of 1890, the UHT boasted of a federation of garment workers’ unions, led by the 7,000 strong Operators and Cloakmakers Union, and those representing tailors, pantsmakers, shirtmakers, children’s jacket makers, buttonhole makers and suspender makers. For the next two years, the UHT assisted in the formation of unions among pressers and overalls makers as well as many other workers in the apparel industry. At its zenith the UHT consisted of 40 unions, of which about onequarter were garment worker unions.6 What distinguished the UHT from its predecessors among Jewish immigrant workers was neither its openness to programs and modes of organization, nor for that matter, its commitment to socialist principles. Instead the UHT’s distinctiveness resided in its persistent and creative pursuit of fusing elements of Jewish immigrant culture to mobilize workers who endured the painful experience of proletarianization and the challenge of acculturation to American society. In January, 1890, the UHT founded the Arbeiter Zeitung, a daily workers’ newspaper written in Yiddish. At Abraham Cahan’s initiative, the paper expressed political and economic concepts in a popular idiom. His regular column drew parallels between the adversity of Jewish immigrants in New York and the biblical sagas of Moses, Joshua, and Queen Esther, and in the process raised hopes of an imminent deliverance from oppression.7 A religious impulse permeated the labor activity of Jewish garment workers as well as the writings of intellectuals. Men’s clothing pressers held union meetings in synagogues, in recognition of their observance of

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Orthodox Jewish practices. Coat cleaners organized their union meetings as celebrations of Simchas Torah (the day commemorating the completion of the weekly reading of the Torah), during which they toasted glasses of beer to cries of “long live the union” and danced to hasidic tunes. Orthodox Jewish coatmakers, veteran tailor Wolf Misselsky observed in 1899, customarily began their annual strikes in September, or to be more exact, on the ninth day of the month of Av, when observant Jews sat barefooted in the synagogue to mark the fall of the temple in Jerusalem to the Romans. UHT officials were considered representatives of the “Jewish Parliament, the tribunal of the Jewish workers in all the trades.” Union members freely quoted from the Torah and Talmud to reinforce their points. In one common reference, Moses’ leadership of Hebrews enslaved in Egypt, found a modern parallel in the union walking delegate that likewise promised an escape from bondage.8 This religious dimension of Jewish immigrant life especially resonated with meaning in light of the Jews’ experience in their original and adopted homelands. In the face of pogroms and other manifestations of anti-Semitism in Russia, and the material hardships and the psychological trauma of resettlement in an urban and industrial society, Judaic beliefs and practices comforted immigrants and provided them with spiritual strength. Although most Jewish immigrants did not devoutly observe the strictures of the religion—attend synagogue regularly, honor the Sabbath (in fact, many were expected to work on Saturday), or keep a kosher home—few failed to be influenced by Judaism’s emphasis on the individual’s responsibility to lead a moral life and the expectation that as a chosen people redemption would come. Undoubtedly, for some, moral sensitivity and a belief in redemption meant a retreat into the religion’s more insular world of studying the Talmud and strict adherence to its commandments.9 Yet others interpreted Judaism’s calling in a more engaging manner: they found that redemption required collective intervention in the secular world and discovered within the Torah the moral imprimaturs to act decisively. Garment workers and union organizers drew on these precepts while striking against low wages and onerous working conditions and thereby developed a language of protest that transcended the boundaries between religiosity and secularism.10 Abraham Cahan, who expressed the need for labor organizers—socialists included—to respect the religious traditions and loyalties of their landsleit (countrymen), bore witness to the moral urgency shared by striking garment workers when he quoted a vestmaker: Ours is a just cause. It is for the bread of our children that we are struggling. We want our rights and we are bound to get them through the union. Saith the law of Moses: “Thou shalt not withhold anything from thy neighbor nor rob him. . . . So it

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stands in Leviticus. So you see that your bosses who rob us and don’t pay us regularly commit a sin. . . .11

Although most socialists and anarchists were either indifferent to religion or antireligious, they had been intimately in touch with traditional Jewish culture as part of their upbringing before migrating to the United States. In The Prophetic Minority, Gerald Sorin traces the background of over 50 radicals active before and after 1900 and demonstrates a majority were significantly influenced by religious principles, especially those who were the sons and daughters of rabbis, cantors, and heder (hebrew school) teachers.12 Therefore, it was not incongruous that even those who scorned the doctrine and practices of Judaism as obstacles in the development of revolutionary consciousness could express the same intense messianism that characterized the religion. In fact, this shared messianism laid behind the ability of antireligious anarchists and socialists to assume leadership of unions in which a considerable proportion of the membership were devout Jews. No one testified to the power of a messianic belief in the future more than Marcus Ravage, who, as an anarchist in his youth, regarded it to be the soul of the ghetto: “ . . . was not this ancient dream of the prophets revitalized and recast into a modern mold, that had the magic power to transfigure the rotting slums into an oasis of spiritual luxuriance, and the gloomy, dust-laden factory into a house of light and hope?”13 Socialists and anarchists helped to instill a greater sense of purpose to garment workers’ labor activity, both borrowing from and enriching the Jewish immigrant culture. Through the Arbeiter Zeitung, one of the most widely read newspapers among Jewish immigrants, a journalism consisting of fiction and poetry blossomed, and in the process served to render the principles of socialism more accessible to untutored or uninitiated readers. As a credit to Abraham Cahan’s innovative use of traditional religious imagery and symbolism to develop a new literary genre, one Lower East Side worker recalled with delight his discovery of a Yiddish socialist newspaper: “Although till then I never heard about socialism and its doctrine, still I understood it without any interpretation. I liked it because its ideas were hidden in my heart and in my soul long ago; only I could not express them clearly.”14 This relationship between the paper and many of its readers became more intimate as the Arbeiter Zeitung devoted more of its energy and space to portray the life of Jewish immigrants. Young aspiring Yiddish writers such as Zalman Libin and Leon Kobrin—both with experience in the garment trades—composed colorful sketches, some accentuating the pathos of ghetto life and others satirically mocking the idiosyncrasies of Jewish immigrants. In one vignette by Libin, a tailor bemoans to his wife the coming of the new law (the ten-hour day) as a bitter law because it prevented

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him from working the long hours necessary to earn more money. In another by Kobrin, entitled “The Pig Story.” a sweatshop boss brags about how well he is doing in New York, since he is in a position to grasp the opportunities presented by other Jewish immigrants, especially young women, seeking work. If some of their characters were essentially caricatures, the stories nevertheless were sufficiently true to life to strike a familiar chord among many readers.15 Less concerned with conforming to any standard of realism was the work of such worker-poets as Morris Rosenfeld, David Edelstadt, and Yossef Bovshover. Rosenfeld’s poems, published in the Arbeiter Zeitung, expressed the despair of machine operators who endured a seemingly unending life of exacting toil, but occasionally the poetry sought to arouse workers’ latent anger in order to reaffirm their humanity. Edelstadt and Bovshover wrote poetry for the readers of Freie Arbeiter Stime, an anarchist newspaper also written in Yiddish. Their work above all was inspirational in its intent and blunt in its tone, castigating the narrow-mindedness and timidity of sweatshop workers but simultaneously appealing to their sense of self-worth and urging them to fulfill their potential.16 By enthusiastically adopting Yiddish as their language, socialist intellectuals found a more authentic voice with which to speak and write. Moreover, by contributing to Yidiahkayt, a distinctively Eastern European immigrant blend of literature, theatre, and song, they began to bridge the social-psychological gaps between themselves and Jewish immigrant workers. Therefore, it was not surprising to discover socialist principles as part of the garment workers’ rhetoric of protest even if most garment workers did not declare themselves socialists, and to find socialists at the helm of many of garment workers’ strikes even if they were not always dominant among the garment worker unions.17 A GENDERED DIVISION OF LABOR Gender differences, rooted in the division of labor, significantly influenced the development of trade unionism. In the men’s clothing industry, women were relegated to the position of finisher (the lowest position within the team), sewing buttons, felling armholes, and pulling bastings. In coatmaking, women were also hired as edge-basters (further up the industrial scale), working in tandem with basters, traditionally men. In cloakmaking, at least in the production of cheaper grades, women encountered less job segregation, performing the tasks of pressers in addition to those of finishers, although men predominantly claimed the higher paid positions of operator and tailor. The distribution of jobs varied according to the employer’s ethnicity as well. One contemporary study found Russian and Lithuanian Jewish proprietors in the men’s clothing industry rarely hired women as sewing machine operators, but their German, Bohemian, and Scandinavian counterparts customarily did.18

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As a gendered division of labor developed, the composition of the labor force changed. In the men and women’s ready-made clothing industries, the role of women proportionately declined. In the women’s clothing industry, although the number of women workers expanded by 80 percent between 1890 and 1900, their share of labor force fell slightly from about 59 to 57 percent.19 Recent studies of shifts in the composition of the workforce in the ready-made clothing industry have assessed the relative importance of women in the context of how skill and technology were configured. Nancy Green, for example, argues male tailors by the late nineteenth century had identified the sewing machine as a female tool associated with less skilled work. Consequently, claims by factory inspectors at the turn of the century that women were being driven from readymade dressmaking proved to be exaggerated, as by 1910 women still constituted 54 per cent of the industry’s workforce.20 In the men’s clothing trade, the decline of women was both absolute and relative. In 1900, there were almost 40 percent fewer women employed in coatmaking than there were 10 years earlier, and whereas women constituted 39 percent of coatmakers in 1890, they represented less than one-third of the trade’s workers in 1900.21 Edith Abbott, studying employment patterns in the clothing industry throughout the United States, observed that the relative decline of women in the men’s clothing labor force began in 1860, when the proportion of women stood at 63 percent, and dropped steadily to 46 percent in 1900.22 In New York City, this decline was sharper due to two interrelated factors: the influx of Eastern European Jewish and Italian immigrants, in the main, men23 and the growth of the task system in the men’s clothing industry, especially in coatmaking, which lowered per unit labor costs while increasing output per worker. In short, an alternative pool of labor and a new system of production increased the employment opportunities for men and reduced the incentives to hire women. The decline of women in the industry’s workforce, it has been argued, actually represented their displacement within the expanding sweating system. Sweating allowed immigrant male workers to become controllers of labor and continue to meet their obligations to those left behind in Eastern Europe.24 While this interpretation is plausible, it should not be overlooked that women played a more prominent role in the labor force of larger inside shops, especially factories, where they were concentrated in lower paid positions and worked under the direction of male tailors. The growing presence of men in the garment trades dovetailed with other trends in the industry. In the 1890s the size of workplaces remained modest. The average number of workers in a men’s clothing establishment was 17, while for the women’s clothing industry the mean size of the workplace was 30 workers. Moreover, between 1890 and 1895 the proportion of workplaces with more than 25 workers declined in coatmaking from 20 percent to 6 percent and in cloakmaking from 43 percent to 13 per-

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cent.25 The growth in small workplaces reflected the prevalence of shops run by contractors who obtained their business from wholesale manufacturers by offering the lowest price possible, which in practice meant keeping labor costs low. Furthermore, the dramatic decline in the proportion of larger workplaces was directly related to women’s role in the labor force, for the larger workplace, the greater women’s employment opportunities were. Taking 1895 as an illustrative year (the respective samples consist of hundreds of workplaces), the ratio of women to men in cloakmaking, men’s apparel and coatmaking shops increased almost as steadily as the size of the workplace rose. For example, in small cloakmaking shops (employing 1 to 25 workers) men outnumbered women six to one, but in medium sized shops (26 to 50 and 51 to 100 workers) the ratio shrank to three men to one woman, and in larger shops (more than 100 workers) a virtual parity between men and women existed. In men’s apparel shops the relationship between the proportion of women in the labor force and workplace size was even more transparent; where women were outnumbered by men three to one in small shops, in large factories they outnumbered men by four to one.26 The correlation between the sex ratio of the workforce and workplace size resulted from both employers’ hiring practices and the preferences of workers. The largest manufacturers of cloaks, making up the core of the Cloak Manufacturers’ Association, were first- and second-generation Germans who had few reservations about hiring women, deeming them less likely to join unions and more likely to work at lower rates. Meyer Jonasson, Chairman of the Cloak Manufacturers’ Association, employed 250 women in a workforce of 600 at his Grand Street factory. Albert Freidlander and Company, whose chairman also served as an officer in the employers’ association, had an equal number of men and women in an workforce of 250.27 Young immigrant women between 16 and 25 found working in the larger shops and factories advantageous, since they provided opportunities to be free of parental supervision and to socialize with their peers. It appears women working in factories and other larger inside shops were treated with more consideration and could earn more largely because they were less subject to the industry’s seasonal shifts in demand for labor. Cloakmakers told interviewers for the Commissioner of Labor that some of the major manufacturers—Jews of a better class—were among the kindest proprietors who did not dock pay for lateness. A historian studying immigrant workers concluded that second generation Russian Jewish women in particular regarded employment in clothing factories as a form of cultural mobility, an escape from the immigrant ghetto.28 In contrast, Jewish immigrant men tended to consider employment in clothing factories as less desirable since, it provided fewer opportunities for

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economic independence and the higher social status associated with selfemployment. Smaller shops, especially those run by contractors, were less inclined to employ women because there were fewer incentives to do so. Outside shops had no difficulty recruiting the necessary labor among newly arrived immigrants, of whom the majority were men. Cultural forces also served to minimize the need to hire women. Russian Jewish immigrants who became the core of the men’s and women’s clothing industries in the 1890s sought out employers whom as landsmen they knew personally or were recommended by relatives and friends who knew them. Likewise, contractors hired friends and fellow townsmen as personal favors and payments of old debts, or simply, in recognition the recently arrived immigrant, driven by the urgent need to find a job, would work cheaply.29 Women’s position in the garment trades bore a similarity with that of their counterparts in cigarmaking. In both industries women were more likely to be employed in larger workplaces, where virtually all phases of production were integrated. These factories used more sophisticated equipment to reduce labor costs and increase output. Even in the garment trades where mechanization was less pervasive, in those cloakmaking establishments owned by wholesale manufacturers, machine technology was deployed in the cutting and notching of cloth, sewing of seams, the making of buttonholes and the pressing of garments.30 Likewise, there existed evidence of job segregation. In both industries men claimed the more technically skilled, higher paid, and more prestigious positions. In cigarmaking factories men were employed as packers and rollers of more expensive cigars such as clear Havanas, while women were hired as bunchmakers and rollers in the production of cheap cigars. In cloakmaking and coatmaking, cutters and tailors (the latter serving as leaders of teams producing the garments) were virtually without exception men. The organizational dynamics of unions reflected the intimate connection between skill and gender. The formation of the United Garment Workers (UGW) in 1891, for example, accentuated the distinctions between men and women, and those between entrenched tradesmen and immigrant newcomers. Created in part because of dissatisfaction with the UHT’s socialist orientation, the UGW organized where the UHT was most active. Within two years the UGW expanded its base by establishing the United Brotherhood of Cloakmakers. Within the UGW a hierarchy according to craft and sex existed. Cutters, in the main of Irish and German descent, and tailors (coat operators) established the largest locals and provided the union with most of its leaders. Meanwhile, women tailors (basters and finishers) constituted the smallest locals, and characteristically were excluded from union shop provisions negotiated by the UGW from 1891 through 1895 and under-resourced despite appeals to integrate them fully into the union’s activities.31

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SEASONAL UNIONISM AND AD HOC MILITANCY Garment workers, inspired by socialism’s broad and ennobling social spirit,32 nevertheless experienced difficulty in organizing viable labor unions. In 1899, after a decade of intense labor activity, marked by widespread strikes and the formation of new, and often, competing labor federations, only a small minority of garment workers belonged to unions. Approximately 30 garment worker unions claimed 20,000 members. Cloakmakers constituted the largest group of organized workers (9,800), followed by the pantsmakers (3,400). Unionized garment workers represented approximately 20 percent of the industry’s workforce in the readymade sector (women’s clothing, men’s clothing, and men’s furnishings), and about 11 percent if those employed in dressmaking, shirt and collar making, buttonhole manufacturing, and custom made men’s clothing are included. Only 10 percent of union members were women although they made up over 40 percent of the men’s clothing workforce, and over half of those engaged in the production of women’s clothing.33 This contrasted with the experience of female cigarmakers who, despite the CMIU’s ambivalence to the growing numbers of women in the industry, represented one-third of the union’s membership in 1899. The greater numerical significance of women in the CMIU probably reflected the increasing importance women assumed in the industry as factory production became more pervasive. The structure of the clothing industry discouraged trade union growth. Outside shops often employing fewer than 25 workers proliferated, and home work in the finishing phases of some products survived even the arrival of wholesale manufacturing in factories or inside shops. The relationship between manufacturer and contractor in particular challenged garment workers’ organizing abilities and tactical skills. In the men’s clothing industry, manufacturers paid contractors a fixed price from which they were to purchase the necessary labor to complete the manufacturers’ orders. Many garment workers had contact only with contractors who hired them and not with the manufacturers who actually determined wage or piece rates. Therefore, outside shop workers dissatisfied with their weekly earnings and working conditions turned immediately to the contractors for redress, only to be rebuffed by the cry that they were helpless victims of the manufacturers. When the more determined garment workers took their case to the manufacturers, all too often they received a self-serving response that the issues in question were the contractors’ responsibility. Because of their minority status unions found it extremely difficult to enforce whatever gains they wrested from employers. Contracts, or trade agreements, negotiated in the midst of strikes often went unobserved by employers once the pressure ceased. In fact, broken agreements repre-

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sented a constant cause of strikes, leading unions to press contractors, manufacturers to post bonds, and to lobby for legislation making the agreements enforceable in courts.34 Meyer Schoenfeld, on behalf of the Executive Board of the United Brotherhood of Tailors (UBT), an UGW affiliate, expressed this dilemma most forcefully in an open letter to employers, declaring the union’s intention to eliminate the contracting system: On four occasions, after a heroic struggle, we forced the contractors to grant the ten-hour day and a minimum wage scale. We even induced them to give security for the faithful performance of the agreements entered into. Although successful in each count, the terms of the agreement were ignored as soon as the busy season was over and old conditions again restored.35

In most cases, however, no formal union existed to enforce agreements. Garment workers formed seasonal unions at the beginning of the busy season when pay rates could be altered, but lost interest when the slack period approached. As ad hoc formations they served as instruments to gain immediate improvements in the conditions of employment rather than to codify relations between labor and employer. To many historians this seasonal feature underscored the fragility of garment workers’ unions, indicative of an immature labor movement that acted more out of desperation rather than from a clear-headed purpose.36 This judgement does not adequately acknowledge the environment that spawned seasonal unions. During the industry’s slack period garment workers endured unemployment, which unions appeared powerless to change. Owners of small inside shops and contractors came and disappeared at a staggering pace. A considerable part of the workforce seemed as mercurial as their employers. Women often entered the industry usually at a young age and left before they reached 21 years of age or when they married. Some were temporarily pressed into wage work because their fathers or husbands were incapacitated or had died. In any event, both industrial conditions and family circumstances encouraged garment workers to value unions’ potential ability to maximize their income. Whether paid by the piece or by the day, they worked in teams and had to complete a certain number of tasks. Each worker’s earnings by necessity was predicated on the efforts of his or her team. The fact that operators earned at a higher rate than basters, who in turn received more per piece or day than finishers, did not alter the mutuality of interests in production. Despite the proliferation of job classifications, the basic conditions of employment converged. Lower pay rates and the increase in the number of tasks became the experience of most workers in both ready-made clothing industries. As instruments of direct action, unions, even if they remained seasonal, assumed a significant role in the working lives of garment workers.

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Undoubtedly seasonal unions had their limitations: they lacked a clearly defined mechanism to enforce agreements and did not provide out-ofwork, disability, and death benefits to protect workers from economic insecurity and hardship. However, for workers immersed in an industry characterized by instability and whose immigrant experience prepared them for adversity, seasonal unions represented a reasonable response to employers bent on controlling wages and squeezing labor. Furthermore, the moral urgency and religious fervor animating seasonal unions, could, and did, lead to the emergence of more durable unions. For example, cloakmakers, in 1889, tired of low wages, twelve-hour workdays, and the lack of respect shown them by employers, formed the Cloakmakers and Operators Union to conduct a strike. Rather than disbanding after their victory, they joined the UHT, and over the next three years became the largest of the UHT’s 40 constituent organizations. THE PENDULUM OF INDUSTRIAL ACTION The earliest garment worker unions had to prove their mettle under the rapid fire of strikes. Fresh on the heels of their August 1885 strike in which 10,000 inside and outside shop workers won a wage increase and a pledge from employers to arbitrate future disputes, the Dress and Cloak Makers Union faced a more severe test in the spring of 1886. Joined by members from three other unions they waged a frontal attack on the contracting system. In this system wholesale manufacturers paid a fixed amount to contractors who assumed responsibility for establishing production sites and hiring labor. The manufacturers provided contractors with cut cloth; the rest of the material and equipment contractors furnished themselves. Some enterprising contractors sublet the work to subcontractors who acted as the middlemen, deciding on whom to hire and overseeing the actual production of garments.37 Intense competition flourished among contractors vying for business with wholesale manufacturers. The premium lay with cost cutting, especially the price for labor. “The sweater’s price,” observed Jacob Riis, the journalist who studied life in New York’s Lower East Side, “is not what he can get, but the lowest he can live for and underbid his neighbor . . . The manufacturer knows it, and is not slow to take advantage of his knowledge.”38 In mid-March union representatives presented the Cloak and Suit Makers’ Association with a demand that that manufacturers employ cloakmakers directly, thereby ending contracting to outside shops. Meyer Jonassen, in behalf of the association, contended the manufacturers lacked the capacity to accommodate the existing cloakmaking workforce. Moreover, he held, the cloakmakers’ demand conflicted with their religious practices, since manufacturers traditionally remained open on Saturdays when Jews observed the Sabbath.39

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Undeterred by such arguments, 6,000 cloakmakers struck on March 20, and pressured 11 firms to accede to their demands. Most manufacturers, nevertheless, maintained their position, offering as a compromise to send their work only to properly ventilated outside shops and cooperative enterprises. When the cloakmakers rejected the manufacturers’ proposal, the strike headed to an apparent deadlock. Consequently, on March 29, CLU representatives acting on behalf of the Independent Cloakmakers Union, proposed to the manufacturers they gradually phase out the contracting system by August 1. After the manufacturers vetoed the proposal, the cloakmakers attempted to broaden the strike. Finishers, buttonhole makers, and cutters began to walk off their jobs, and by April 2, 9,000 had joined the strike.40 However, despite interruptions in production, the manufacturers had gained the upper hand. The number of summer orders fell, thereby minimizing the impact of the strike. Once again, the CLU’s Arbitration Committee intervened, indicating that the cloakmaker unions were prepared to accept the manufacturers’ previous offer. Bargaining from strength, the manufacturers withdrew their offer, leaving the unions with no room to negotiate. On April 15, the unions called off the strike, and the cloakmakers returned to work with an understanding that the manufacturers would try to prevent the contractors from exploiting the strikers’ defeat.41 There were no comparable strikes in the garment trades until 1890 when cutters and cloakmakers scored a resounding victory in the Triple Alliance strike. In May the firing of workers at two inside shops precipitated a strike and lockout that mushroomed into an unprecedented united front of cloakmakers, cutters, and contractors against the Cloak Manufacturers’ Association. On June 9, 10 days after the lockout of 2,000 cloak operators began, cutters at Meyer Jonassen’s manufacturing firm, whose Grand Street factory employed 600 workers, walked off their jobs in sympathy. On June 14, the Cloak Manufacturers’ Association, under the initiative of Meyer Jonassen, declared a lockout of all cutters in the United Cloak and Suit Cutters’ Association, with the intention of preempting a general strike. Two weeks later, the Cloak Operators and Makers No. 1, the Cutters, and the Contractors’ Union forged their triple alliance, and answered the manufacturers’ preemptive action with a massive counterattack.42 The cutters’ support of the cloakmakers, in particular, disrupted the manufacturers’ strategy. Assuming that cloakmakers would be reticent to strike with the slow summer season approaching, manufacturers adopted an aggressive stance. The withdrawal of the cutters’ labor when they normally began preparations for the fall orders, however, raised the risks of a showdown.43 As the confrontation escalated, union representatives—two each from the cloakmakers, cutters, and contractors—and the manufacturers met to reach a settlement. Two issues remained unresolved: payment for the time

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lost during the lockout and the discharge of workers without a contract. On the first, the manufacturers argued that cutters and operators were not permanent workers, but instead hired only by the week, while union negotiators asserted manufacturers in practice hired them for indefinite periods. On the second, the employers declined to discharge qualified, experienced cutters and operators simply because they were not union members. For their part, the cutters’ representatives emphasized that this constituted a principled issue, since their unions’ bylaws barred members from working with nonunion workers, while Thomas Garside on behalf of the cloakmakers told the manufacturers, “ . . . you have no right to ask our men to associate with those who were robbing, starving and dishonoring strikers.” Meanwhile, the contractors continued to press the manufacturers for an increase in the contract prices to cover any wage increases granted to the cloakmakers.44 On July 15 the unions and employers reached a tentative agreement. Both the cutters and cloak operators won union recognition and a pledge to arbitrate future disputes. In addition, the manufacturers yielded to the cutters’ demands that they be rehired and compensated for the time lost during the lockout. The cloakmakers, on the other hand, neither gained a pledge to rehire all strikers nor to pay them for their lost time.45 The cloakmakers’ responded quickly and dramatically at a mass meeting the following day. After Abraham Cahan translated the proposed agreement, point-by-point from English to Yiddish, a heated discussion ensued. Joseph Barondess, an unofficial strike leader, denounced the agreement for expecting union cloakmakers to work with nonunion cloakmakers, while Garside argued that the manufacturers made serious concessions to the union. Cahan urged the Jewish immigrant cloakmakers to disassociate themselves from a man “who doesn’t speak your language and doesn’t follow your trade, and therefore is unfit to hold union office.” By a three to one proportion the 2,000 cloakmakers voted to reject the proposed agreement and resume striking.46 Even without the participation of the cutters, the strike lost none of its vigor. Operators and contractors organized pickets in front of the larger manufacturing firms for the next week, hooting the cutters who returned to work. On the July 24 the manufacturers relented at an all day bargaining session at which Barondess had replaced Garside as the union spokesperson. They signed a ten-point agreement, far more extensive than the July 15 one rejected by the cloakmakers. Member firms of the Cloak Manufacturers’ Association agreed to hire only operators and contractors from their respective unions, to reinstate union strikers, and to discharge any worker hired after June 6. Moreover, the manufacturers established a new wage structure, providing tailors and pressers with minimums of $15 and $14, respectively. Most conspicuously, however, the terms of the

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agreement explicitly excluded women, although they had participated in the strike and the victory celebration later that evening.47 Four years after what Alexander Jonas, editor of the New Yorker Volkzeitung, called a historic strike, cloakmakers waged a series of walkouts. In late August cloakmakers from New York and Brooklyn launched scattered strikes for wage increases. These strikes, advantageously timed, achieved in just two days higher rates for 1,500 pressers and finishers, mainly because of the intervention of manufacturers who assured the contractors they would be reimbursed for lost income. In September, the cloakmakers aimed their strikes at the manufacturers and organized shop meetings at Blumenthal Brothers, Popkin and Company, Freedman Brothers, and their old foe, Meyer Jonassen.48 While cloakmakers appeared ready for a strike, strikes had already erupted in the men’s clothing industry, involving between 10,000 and 15,000 coatmakers against 500 contractors. The coatmakers—members of the UBT—pressed for the abolition of the task system, which by September included a production quota of 26 coats, an increase of ten since the previous year. At a meeting of UGW locals 27, 55, and 83 in Brooklyn, tailors and pressers demanded action to reduce their excessive workdays and end the exploitation of women and children. Other locals met on August 31 and September 1, and on September 2 the strike began.49 As the strike progressed, the battle lines became sharply drawn. Contractors belonging to the Clothing Contractors’ Mutual Protective Association endorsed the coatmakers’ cause, and signed a joint resolution with the UBT, calling for a ten-hour workday and regular weekly payment of wages. Clothing cutters represented by the UGW resolved not to cut any cloth for any contractor refusing to pay the union scale and establish a tenhour day.50 In the meantime, workers from other garment trades, such as jacketmakers, shirtmakers, and knee pantsmakers, initiated their own strikes, also pressing for wage increases and a reduction in hours. When manufacturers, confronted with spreading strikes, began to open their shops, contractors rushed to reach terms with the coatmakers. By midSeptember, about two weeks after the strike’s inception, more than half of the industry’s 500 contractors, employing 10,000 workers, acceded to the union’s demands. These included new minimum weekly rates for all job classifications and the introduction of a ten-hour day.51 As the disputes in the men’s clothing industry closed with settlements favorable to the strikers, discontent among the cloakmakers boiled over. What began as isolated walkouts in a handful of workplaces became an industry wide strike, pitting the cloakmakers against a united front of manufacturers. Most historians, including Louis Lorwin, Benjamin Stolberg, and Melech Epstein, have held the cloakmakers’ strike started in sympathy with the coatmakers, indicating the cloakmakers returned to

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work once the UBT reached a settlement. Although several thousand cloakmakers had supported the coatmakers, the strike in the cloakmaking industry that followed in October 1894 occurred in reaction to poor conditions. Indeed, the job actions were an expression of strike fever that characterized garment worker strikes during the busy season. Two sets of factors influenced the timing and scope of the cloakmakers’ action. In some shops agreements regarding wage rates and workloads were not being honored. Internal union dynamics focusing on the leadership of Joseph Barondess also played an important role. In the summer of 1894 the socialist-led International Cloakmakers Union and the Operators and Cloakmakers No. 1 negotiated terms of a merger which included the resignation of Barondess as union manager. Less than a month later, however, at an emotional meeting, members pleaded with Barondess to reassume his position. To cries of “if you don’t stay they’ll starve us again,”52 Barondess agreed to become union manager, raising the hopes that the cloakmakers could repeat the coatmakers’ victory of the previous month. No single issue initially provoked the cloakmakers to strike. In early October, approximately 100 makers of ladies’ cloaks and suits employed by S.F. Rothschild struck because the manufacturer failed to honor a provision calling for an increase in piece rates. At four other establishments—Caller and Company, Julius Stein, Julius Gramer and Heller and Dinkelspiel, employing more than 500 cloakmakers among them—the manufacturers’ refusal to recognize the union precipitated walkouts. The strikes against the four manufacturers touched a nerve among cloakmakers working in shops covered by a union contract. On October 6 the Cloakmakers’ Union called an emergency meeting to consider waging a sympathy strike in support of the cloakmakers at the four nonunion shops. Barondess counseled caution to the more than 4,000 in attendance. Samuel Gompers echoed this advice, telling the cloakmakers not “to waste your powder now” since the strikes against Baller and the other manufacturers had only recently started.53 Nevertheless, the cloakmakers’ combative mood prevailed, as the Cooper Union assembly voted by acclamation to call a general strike. Soon the character of strike changed, for, on October 10, the union adopted its so-called ten commandments which obligated the manufacturers to replace piece work with time work, abolish home and night work, and adopt a nine-hour day for inside workers and a ten hour day for outside workers. Other commandments established union shops, affirmed the union’s exclusive control of its members, and required employers not to discharge any worker without sufficient cause and without consulting the union.54 The manufacturers who had resuscitated the cloak Manufacturers’ Association virtually ignored these demands. Some claimed nothing needed to be negotiated and declared their readiness to accept unconditionally the strikers’ return to work. Others rejected this attitude of benign

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neglect, showing their distrust of unions. Daniel Richman, the target of one of the strikes preceding the outbreak of the industry-wide strike, attacked the cloakmakers for violating contracts that did not expire until December: “How are you going to make a contract with such an organization as that? . . . with these men there is nothing tangible, we can not hold them.”55 Meanwhile the strike peaked in a war of force and not words. Strikers frequently fought non-strikers, and the police were called in to restore order. When strikers assembled for a march from Rutgers Square to mobilize support for their cause on October 11, they were met by club swinging police. Only Barondess’s production of a parade permit made the police relent. Eight-thousand, behind American and Italian flags, then marched up the Bowery to Union Square on 14th Street, and held a rally ringing with cheers for Barondess and the socialist movement’s anthem, the Marseillaise. In November, the Jefferson Market Police Court maintained a brisk pace with the arrest of Italian and Russian Jewish cloakmakers for threatening nonstrikers and forcibly entering workplaces looking for scabs.56 These confrontations expressed the strikers’ resolve to continue the strike. In November, strikers at Meyer Jonassen, Freedman Brothers and Julius Stein voted at shop meetings to carry the strike through the winter. Financial and in-kind contributions from other unions alleviated the hardships of a long strike. The UBT, the Tailors Progressive Union, the Marble Cutters’ Union, and Musicians Union gave from $150 to $600, while the Bakers Union prepared bread and the Actors Union performed for strikers and their families. Such support became even more critical in December when Jewish and other charitable societies began to withhold assistance from striking cloakmakers, maintaining to do otherwise would subsidize the strikers who “must be held responsible for their own sufferings.”57 The assistance from numerous unions notwithstanding, the protracted conflict took its toll. Hunger and eviction became too high a price to pay when it appeared the manufacturers would not concede. The privations of a slack season had become the ravages of an acute depression that showed scant signs of ending. What many expected to be a relatively brief contest of wills, in light of the coatmakers’ victory in September, had turned into a struggle for survival. While about 4,500 strikers had returned to their jobs after gaining promises to abolish piece work, to introduce weekly payments, and to establish a ten-hour day, most sought reinstatement without achieving tangible gains. Some, in fact, left for Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Chicago to find employment.58 In short, the strike ended in defeat, leaving the cloakmakers and their union with little leverage to enforce whatever gains some shops had made. The 1894 strikes and their aftermath underscored the dynamics of garment workers’ militancy. The scattered walkouts in August and Septem-

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ber grew out of impatience with employers who either failed to honor existing agreements or to renew them beyond their original expiration dates. The outbreak of the general strike in October was an expression of the widespread dissatisfaction with a deterioration of pay rates and working conditions and the hope cloakmakers could duplicate the coatmakers’ success. This strike contagion, while not unique to 1894, reached fever pitch with the coming of economic depression. The conflicts in 1894 also demonstrated the differences between the strikes. The coatmakers’ attack against the task system followed the path of a carefully organized campaign. The UBT, as part of a larger union—the UGW—which in turn was affiliated with the AFL, could count on the financial and political support of others in the labor movement. Samuel Gompers, Charles Reicher (UGW), and Meyer Schoenfeld (UBT) expressed their case for the abolition of sweatshops in the New York State Assembly and New York City’s major newspapers and thereby helped coatmakers gain sympathy from the general public. In contrast, the cloakmakers’ action in October was comparatively spontaneous. Union leaders, after counseling caution, acquiesced to the will of the rank and file who felt, if they struck in support of the cloakmakers employed in the four nonunion shops, they could improve their own conditions. The strikers, however, did not submit specific demands to the manufacturers until four days into the strike. The ten commandment resembled more a wish list than a set of realistic objectives that a union, faced with internal conflict and an industry-wide slump, could obtain. Consequently, it was not surprising that the cloakmakers failed to win much public sympathy or press the leading manufacturers to accept their demands. In one critical respect, the cloakmakers’ and coatmakers’ strikes were similar. The tangible gains workers achieved through industrial action could not simply be gauged by formal written agreements. What the UBT won in September 1894 proved harder to enforce in December, and the improvements in conditions reported in those cloakmaking shops which reached terms early in the strike were jeopardized by the weakening of the cloakmakers’ union following the strike’s overall defeat. In 1895 tailors again faced contractors, determined to nullify the agreement reached the previous September. In late July, contractors at 60 shops locked out 800 members of the UBT. In numerous others, workers applying for employment were informed they would be required to produce a certain number of garments a day, and if they failed to maintain that standard, pay deductions would follow.59 Perceiving this as part of a strategy to sap the union’s strength by forcing it into a long strike, the union’s executive board carefully considered what action it should endorse. In only six weeks the Jewish high holy days would be celebrated, customarily resulting in temporary layoffs. More importantly, September 15 marked the

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expiration date of the current agreement. If the union waited until then to start efforts to prevent contractors from reintroducing the task system, not to mention reaching a new agreement, it would be in a more tactically awkward position. With little delay the executive board authorized a strike in support of locked out union members and to defend the gains made the previous year.60 By the end of July, only three days after the strike’s inception, 180 contractors had signed agreements to abolish the task system. As the strike progressed, the union became even more aggressive. Charles Reicher, from the UGW, declared: “we want to drive the little contractors out of the field altogether.” After concentrating on the smaller independent contractors, the UBT set their targets on the larger contractors represented by the Clothing Contractors’ Mutual Association. On August 15, 200 member contractors settled and posted the bonds demanded by the union to promote compliance with the terms of the agreement.61 But just as in 1894, the victory of 1895 proved tenuous at best. In December, as sure as the coming of the slack season, the contractors counterattacked. Contractors in 60 shops announced that they had the exclusive right to hire and fire employees, no union walking delegates would be allowed on the premises, and a new lateness policy would be rigorously enforced. When the contractors sought to broaden their attack against the agreements signed the previous summer, the union, rather than launching a preemptive strike, pressured the manufacturers to assist in enforcing the contractual provisions. This strategy proved successful in at least stemming the tide, as some manufacturers informed contractors they would sever ties and operate their own shops unless the contractors abided by the terms of the August agreement.62 The strikes of cloakmakers and coatmakers in 1894 and 1895 represented the decade’s last wave of widespread labor militancy. While other garment workers, including knee pantsmakers, children’s jacket makers, and vestmakers subsequently organized strikes to improve their conditions of employment, their walkouts never achieved the breadth of the cloakmaker and coatmaker strikes. For their part, union coatmakers and cloakmakers were less inclined to strike after 1895. Coatmakers, represented by the UBT, concentrated on enforcing existing agreements through a union label. The cloakmakers, recovering from their defeat in 1894, found new ways to pursue their objectives. In 1895 they joined forces with the cutters and contractors, forming the Consolidated Board of the Cloak Industry against the manufacturers, and won minimum weekly pay rates and wage increases, ranging from 20 to 35 percent. Over the next three years the cloakmakers, represented by the Brotherhood of Cloakmakers, conducted selected strikes against employers not honoring, or refusing to renew, trade agreements.63

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THE DYNAMICS OF INDUSTRIAL ACTION Strikers displayed a tactical resourcefulness, a buoyant espirit de corps in the face of material deprivation and a tenacious sense of purpose. The UBT and the Pantsmakers Union, for example, created emergency strike funds that helped their members to hold out against the most recalcitrant employers. Many unions approached the UHT for organizing and financial assistance, while those unaffiliated with the UHT turned to other AFL locals or Knights of Labor assemblies for funds. More informally, strikers obtained in-kind contributions from merchants and peddlers in their community, and found landsmanschaften (the Jewish immigrant fraternal and mutual aid societies) generous benefactors. Shirtmakers and cutters, on strike against R.K. Davies in 1886, adopted a different tactic. Rather than depending on the financial support of other unions, they gained employment in shops willing to recognize the union and pay higher wages, and mounted a boycott with the help of the CLU.64 Strikes often assumed the air of festivals in which workers, released from the demands of daily labor, expressed their personalities. Union meeting halls became the second—and for those evicted from their tenements—the only home for strikers. Socializing with shop mates and neighbors was interwoven with the practical tasks of strike mobilization. Meetings were held frequently, being called at any time and often spilling into the streets where sidewalk discussions of strike strategy continued. Young women and men broke out into impromptu dance, while older strikers played cards, smoked their pipes, or stretched their tired legs. During the coatmakers’ strike in August of 1895, meeting halls reverberated with the voices of strikers urging each other in a Yiddish melody to “keep together and not fall apart.”65 Women strikers traditionally held their own meetings barring all men, except for invited union officials and newspaper reporters. Women members of the International Cloakmakers Union organized rallies of the strikers’ wives and daughters, who faced imminent evictions from their homes, calling on them to encourage their husbands and fathers to stand firm. The women’s branch of the UBT, representing felling hands and thread pullers, formed autonomous strike committees in 1895 and 1896. From their ranks rose three women, all under 20—Littie Persky, Minnie Rose, and Esther Freedman—to leadership positions. At one rally Esther Freedman made a familiar appeal to the assemblage, many of whom previously had never participated in a strike, establishing the links between male and female workers: “If the men are downtrodden, so will we be. We all must stand out to the end.”66 Most importantly, strikers displayed determination and a high morale. During a meeting of striking pantsmakers in 1898, employers were compared to “bad boys, who no matter how much you spank them, they [sic]

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do not mend their ways.”67 Meyer Schoenfeld, after the arrest of striking coatmakers, defiantly challenged the “big merchants of Broadway and Mercer Street,” threatening to “wipe them out at the polls,” if they tried to intimidate strikers, “by the influence of the saloon, politician or police.”68 Equally combative and self-assured, Yettie Miller, a member of the Vestmakers’ Executive Committee, declared, “strikes are anything but a temporary weapon. Until we have a cooperative commonwealth, however, they will be necessary to enable us to keep what we gained.”69 Somewhat self-effacing but yet clear sighted were the sentiments of Lettie Persky, who at 15 years of age became the first’ female delegate to the Central Labor Union in 1893: “I am no modern Joan of Arc. I am simply a working girl who is striking along with other girls to stop the descent, not to improve our present condition.”70 Evidently even a strike’s defeat did not result in a waning of zeal, as one contemporary observer noted: “ . . . a temporary defeat . . . acts only as a slight check to their growth and progress, while a total rout of their forces is followed by an immediate rally.”71 THE COMMON THREADS OF LABOR ACTIVITY Notwithstanding Lettie Persky’s modesty, garment workers and their unions pursued more ambitious objectives. Faced with an industry where competition was rampant and production segmented, they sought to exert some influence over their conditions of employment. Among coatmakers and others in the men’s clothing industry, this meant attacking the task system and the growth of outside shops run by contractors. Within the task system workers organized into teams were expected to complete a specific number of tasks, which, in turn, signified a certain amount of garments produced. This system originated in the 1870s in coatmaking shops run by Jewish immigrant contractors who aimed to increase output while keeping labor costs low. During slack seasons contractors took advantage of workers’ hunger for work to increase the number of coats per task, namely, raise the production quota. With the redefinition of tasks, labor intensified. Operators testified that improvements in sewing machines made in the late 1880s allowed them to produce 50 percent more coats in the same time than they could earlier in the decade. In 1896 teams were required to produce anywhere from 15 to 20 lower grade coats per task and from 12 to 14 higher-grade coats per task. Most coatmakers could not complete a task in a day unless they worked more than 12 hours. Therefore, rarely did a team produce more than five tasks per week, as compared to the average weekly output of eight or nine tasks only a decade earlier.72 In 1886 and again in 1894 coatmakers struck to pressure wholesale manufacturers to assume direct responsibility for wage rates and hours. Cloakmakers also targeted manufacturers for improvements in pay and terms of

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employment. Backed by cutters and contractors in the massive strike of 1890, they secured the agreement of the Cloak Manufacturers’ Association to establish new wage structure and to eliminate the inside contracting system. In 1898 the United Brotherhood of Cloakmakers No. 1 negotiated a pace setting agreement with Meyer Jonasson, owner of one of the largest manufacturing firms, that created a price list with detailed scales of pay for each job classification along with clearly defined workdays.73 Collective bargaining, nevertheless, remained tenuous at best through most of the 1880s and 1890s. Union-employer contracts, referred to as trade agreements, usually applied to individual shops, and rarely to a craft, not to mention an entire branch of the industry. Employers circumvented unions by sending work to nonunion shops. As a countervailing strategy unions adopted trade, or union, labels, hoping this would facilitate the establishment of union shops in which union standards on pay, hours and conditions would prevail. The UGW in particular campaigned for the introduction of union labels. Early in the 1890s the UGW considered the option of a state seal as well, so long as it certified that workplace standards regarding the location of production, the employment of children, and health conditions were enforced. Later in the decade, the union decided to agitate exclusively for a union label and refused to grant it to any shop with fewer than 25 workers, which thereby excluded the overwhelming majority of coatmaking and cloakmaking establishments. The UGW sought to make the union label more attractive to employers by linking it to a proposal for mediation of industrial disputes. One scheme called for the formation of a Board of Conciliation and Arbitration to consist of representatives of the garment worker unions, the Cloak Manufacturers’ Association, the Clothing Manufacturers’ Association, and the Contractor Mutual Protective Association.74 The priorities for some clothing workers laid with job security and the protection of a craft’s integrity. Clothing cutters, represented both by the United Cloak and Suit Cutters’ Association and the Gotham Knife Cutters’ Association, introduced rules which defined short knives and shears as the cutters’ tools, and outlawed long and Dagger knives. Any member using the outlawed tools faced a $50 fine. When compelled to work with long knives, cutters in Local 4 of the UGW set a limit on the number of suits they would cut. The United Cloak and Suit Cutters’ Association set strict rules governing apprenticeship, limiting apprentices to one per cutter for a three year period with a graduated wage scale, starting at $6 a week and culminating at $15. The Gotham Knife Cutters required members to gain permission from the Executive Committee to teach the skills of the craft and could be fined $5 if they ignored the rule.75 The impetus behind the cutters’ attempts to regulate their craft was similar to that behind the printers and building tradesmen’s efforts to modulate if not control the introduction of new technology and the deployment

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of apprentices. Concerns about deskilling, the devaluation of labor and dilution of craftsmanship were expressed at times in alarmist tones. Yet where printers accommodated to the use of monotypes and linotypes so long as union men secured the jobs at prevailing union rates of pay, cutters continued to resist what they viewed as a threatening form of technology. Where building tradesmen came to recognize that apprenticeship could only be defined and regulated jointly with their employers, cutters felt unilateral action in the form of union rules would provide more control over the hiring of apprentices. In practice, however, garment worker unions found it imperative to help their members cope with adversity as well as to devote their energies to introduce union standards. Needy members of the Gotham Knife Cutters could tap an out-of-work fund during periods of unemployment. The Gotham Knife Cutters, the Cloak and Dress Suit Cutters, and the UGW maintained regular strike funds. The various cloakmaker unions improvised strike assistance for their ranks, often drawing on the UHT and community based fraternal organizations. In fact, such mutual aid offered, for some garment workers, a union’s raison d’etre. Therefore, when unions lacked the necessary resources—more often than not the case—or simply dissolved, garment workers resorted to founding mutual aid societies. Following the demise of the United Custom Tailors Union in 1896, Italian tailors formed the Italian Tailors Society, inviting all regardless of nationality to contribute and use its sick and funeral benefits. Socialists, recognizing immigrant workers’ need for mutual aid, established the Arbeiter Ring (Workmen’s Circle) in 1892. The Workmen’s Circle provided sick and funeral benefits and through weekly forums sought to promote scientific secular culture as an alternative to Jewish religiosity.76 Unions not only provided practical aid during troubled times, but they also encouraged garment workers to consider alternatives to conventional employment relations and wage labor. The idea that workers collectively could organize production especially proved attractive. To their sponsors, cooperatives constituted not only a democratic system whereby the majority ruled and workers retained an equitable share of the product of their labor, but also a more efficient mode of economic organization, producing better quality goods at lower costs than those by capitalistic speculators. Shirt ironers held a dance to raise funds for a cooperative shop in 1886 after their efforts to improve working conditions were unsuccessful. In 1887, the Tailors Progressive Union held an exploratory conference to establish a cooperative association. Membership was contingent on one’s ability to make a coat, vest, or pair of pants. Members could buy more than one share at $10 a piece, but nevertheless each was entitled to only one vote. In 1890, when 800 members of the Pantsmakers Union faced a lockout by the Contractors’ Association, they established a cooperative to provide temporary employment.77

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Cooperatives remained exceptional, appearing usually in the midst of a protracted strike or lockout and when unions otherwise could not wrest concessions from employers. In addition, most were short-lived. However, even when cooperatives proved unfeasible, mutuality among union garment workers was not uncommon. Sometimes mutuality found expression in their informal social activity. Picnics became annual summertime fare for Knights of Labor affiliates within District Assembly 49, such as the Gotham Knife Cutters and Tailors Progressive Union. Strikes prompted workers to seek ways to spend their free time as well as raise financial support for their cause. Clothing cutters, engaged in a long dispute with Browning and King, held a benefit in December 1886 featuring a violin solo, a father and son banjo duet, and choral music. In 1890 the UHT sponsored a performance of a Yiddish play, entitled “Esther and Gedy,” to assist striking shirtmakers. Later that same year, the Shirtmakers’ Union helped to organize a concert and a play to raise funds for striking knee pantsmakers.78 This social-cultural dimension of unions was a source of strength to garment workers. Picnics, benefits and other social gatherings helped to integrate workers, many of whom possessed little trade union experience, into the life of the organization. In this way the responsibilities, demands, and the rights of union membership could be promoted. Moreover, during the trials and tribulations of strikes and lockouts, union sponsored social events provided a lift for sagging morale and offered practical assistance to the needy. CONCLUSION Strikes, successful or not, became emblematic of a union’s vitality. Without them garment workers fell prey to apparently invisible forces that produced frequent layoffs, wage cuts, and the intensification of work. Strikes enabled garment workers to win wage increases, shorter workdays, and a measure of protection from the capricious practices of employers. As it became evident that strikes could bring immediate concrete gains, they became a regular occurrence, giving inspiration to the creation or revival of unions. In this sense, seasonal unionism did not signify garment workers’ inability to organize effectively or a deficiency in their trade union consciousness. Instead the pattern of activity subsumed in seasonal unionism demonstrated the garment workers’ realistic adaptation to both the constraints and opportunities inherent in their world of work. In short, the union as a strike formation represented a means towards an end—to settle old scores, obtain a bit more when one could for his/her labor, or, as Lettie Persky observed, to “stop the descent” in workers’ conditions.

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In the 1890s, however, in recognition that the clothing industry’s structure often prevented workers from tasting the fruit of strike victories, some trade unionists sought to overcome the limitations of seasonal unionism. The deep depression following the Panic of 1893 also impressed on some the need for labor unions to survive in hard as well as prosperous times. Unions, therefore, paid closer attention to the details of internal organization, seeking ways to overcome any symptoms of fragmentation that might reduce their leverage with employers. The Gotham Knife Cutters stipulated that strikes required authorization of the executive board, a precondition for the release of strike pay. The UGW’s constitution penalized locals which called strikes without the sanction of the executive board by requiring them to defray the entire costs. The United Brotherhood of Cloakmakers, formed in 1897, stipulated that strikes only could be called by the General Executive Board after the shops of each local conducted votes. The Executive Board would consider a strike resolution only if 75 percent of the shop workers were union members, and even then the union required a two-thirds majority.79 Such measures closely resembled those adopted by the CMIU, which retained an increasingly tenuous position in New York, where tenement house manufacturing persisted and mechanized factory production expanded rapidly. Although the experience of cigarmakers and garment workers attest to the fact strikes were necessary to win improvements and defend them, under less propitious conditions they also could prove dangerous to a union’s long term survival. In short, clearly defined and rigorously enforced rules and procedures covering the calling of strikes were adopted to allow unions to act from a position of strength and not weakness. For some labor leaders, like Meyer Schoenfeld of the UBT and Charles Reicher of the UGW, strikes, even when successful, proved costly and the gains they yielded often were difficult to enforce. Consequently, Meyer Schoenfeld, following the victorious strike against the task system in 1894, recommended the formation of a Board of Conciliation and Arbitration to adjudicate the disputes. Although this proposal failed to win the contractors’ approval, the union continued to seek pacts with the larger contractors or those who bargained through an association, and otherwise pursue alternatives to strikes. The UBT, with the assistance of the UGW, pressured manufacturers to discipline contractors who did not honor collective bargaining agreements, and later in the decade waged a union label campaign in the hope of eradicating the small outside shops run by contractors where sweatshop conditions prevailed. By 1898, however, coatmakers represented by the UBT discovered while the bottles were new, the wine remained old. In an formal sense, the contracting system had declined, but in practice it reappeared under a different guise. In many shops manufacturers employed contractors as foremen to oversee

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production and paid them bonuses to drive workers to produce more than the daily quota. Throughout the Gilded Age the presence of trade unions remained extremely limited. Garment workers were more likely to unionize at larger workplaces and where a more detailed division of labor prevailed. The UGW, according to Charles Reicher, the union’s General Secretary, drew the majority of members in shops employing between 20 and 100 workers and where men outnumbered women by 2 to 1. The Operators’ and Cloakmakers’ Union, prior to its major strike in 1894, had organized some of the largest manufacturing firms, including leading members of the Cloak Manufacturers’ Association, whose workforces ranged from 150 to 600 employees (and where the number of women equaled if not surpassed that of men), while the average size of the four nonunion firms, the original targets of the strike, was about 100 workers.80 Although the evidence is fragmentary, it appears that the cloakmakers’ union also had more success in organizing the industry’s more highly capitalized firms. Of the four manufacturers with whom the union had agreements and for whom an R.G. Dun rating is available, two possessed assets valued between $100,000 and $500,000 and one at $1 million. Meanwhile, of the seven manufacturers which operated nonunion shops or prompted strike action by circumventing union agreements, only two were capitalized at $100,000 or more.81 This contrasted with the experience of the CMIU, which established a base among small shops and assumed relatively marginal position in the larger, highly capitalized, and more mechanized factories. Like the New York Typographical Union (No. 6), however, garment worker unions targeted those firms which assumed a prominent position in the market and thereby could afford to make concessions without jeopardizing their longterm economic performance. In the men’s and women’s clothing industries this involved manufacturers who had the power either to raise the price they paid contractors, thereby allowing outside shop workers the opportunity to win wage increases, or to eliminate contracting as a method of allocating work. In practice, in the early 1890s, the UBT and the Cloakmakers’ and Operators’ Union, and, later in the decade, the United Brotherhood of Cloakmakers pursued both approaches, although over time the emphasis shifted to the agitation for the abolition of the contracting system. As the 1890s drew to a close, the patterns of the garment workers’ labor activity remained intact. Strikes empowered workers who faced the vagaries of the marketplace and the industry’s chronic instability. Garment workers continued to demonstrate an ambivalence towards unions: in one sense, considering them temporary necessities when employers resisted pay raises and other improvements, only to be disregarded upon a strike’s completion; and in another sense, authentic institutions, devel-

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oped from their experience as workers and immigrants, which expressed deeper aspirations and not simply predicated on the expectations of immediate material gains. Yet garment workers in late Gilded Age New York and Brooklyn did not leave an ambivalent legacy to their successors. To the next generation of union builders they passed on a torch burning with an ennobling spirit of trade unionism and social reform even when hardship, sacrifice, and setbacks dimmed its glow. NOTES 1. For an incisive discussion of the diverse production systems in the garment trades, stressing such variables as product lines, firm size, and market position, see Steve Fraser, “Combined and Uneven Development in the Men’s Clothing Industry,” Business History Review 57 (Winter 1983), pp. 522–547. 2. New York Legislature, Assembly, Report of the Special Committee to Investigate the Condition of Female Labor (1896), pp. 278–282. 3. William Leiserson, “History of the Jewish Labor Movement in New York City” (unpublished BA thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1906), pp. 12, 15, 18, 32; Melech Epstein, Jewish Labor in the U.S.A. Volume I (New York: Trade Union sponsoring Committee, 1950), pp. 119–122. 4. Morris Schappes, “The Political Origins of the United Hebrew Trades, 1888,” Journal of Ethnic Studies, 5 (1977), pp. 14, 18. The expression, “pig market”, referred to an informal labor exchange in the Lower East Side where contractors found an abundance of willing Jewish immigrants, many desperate for employment, to work in their outside shops. See Epstein, Jewish Labor in the U.S.A., Volume I, p. 100, for a description. 5. Schappes, “Political Origins of the United Hebrew Trades,” pp. 23–24; Morris Hillquit, Loose Leaves from a Busy Life (New York: Macmillan, 1934), pp. 20–21. 6. Schappes, “Political Origins of the United Hebrew Trades,” pp. 18, 19; Hillquit, Loose Leaves from a Busy Life, pp. 18–19, 260–261; Ben Stolberg, Tailor’s Progress: The Story of a Famous Union and the Men Who Made It (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Doran, 1944), p. 37; 4th Annual Convention of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, Souvenir Journal, 8; Leiserson, “History of the Jewish Labor Movement,” p. 54; Epstein, Jewish Labor in the U.S.A., p. 170; Aaron Antonovsky, The Early Jewish Labor Movement in the United States (New York: YIVO Institute of Jewish Research, 1961), pp. 329, 330. 7. The Workman’s Advocate, January 18, 1890; Leiserson, “History of the Jewish Labor Movement,” pp. 36–38; Ronald Sanders, Downtown Jews: Portraits of An Immigrant Generation (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), pp. 109–112; Hutchins Hapgood, The Spirit of the Ghetto (New York: Schocken Books, [1902] and 1965), pp. 182–187. 8. Epstein, Jewish Labor in the U.S.A., pp. 173–174; Bernard Weinstein, “Forty Years in the Jewish Labor Movement,” in Irving Howe and Kenneth Libo, eds., How We Lived (New York: Marek, 1979), p. 172; The Commercial Advertiser, July 10, 1899 in Moses Rischin, Grandma Never Lived In America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), p. 380; Abraham Cahan, The Russian Jew in the United States, in Charles Bernheimer, ed., (Philadelphia: J.C. Winston, 1905), p. 139.

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9. On the theme of redemption and the messianic impulse in Jewish culture, see Will Herberg, “Socialism, Zionism and the Messianic Passion,” Mainstream, 2 (Summer 1956), pp. 65–74; Jonathan Frankel, Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism and Russian Jews, 1862–1917 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Gerald Sorin, The Prophetic Minority: American Jewish Radicals, 1890–1920 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), pp. 11–15. 10. Such concepts as tikkun olam, which literally means “repair the world,” and tzedakah, or righteousness and social justice, exemplified traditional Judaism’s moral activism. See Gerald Sorin, A Time for Building: The Third Migration, 1880–1920 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1992), pp. 119–121. Also see Hadassa Kosak, Cultures of Opposition: Jewish Immigrant Workers, New York City, 1881–1905 (Albany, State University of New York: 2000) for a discussion of the cultural sources of labor protest which stresses the importance of “historical memory and the language of enslavement.” 11. Cahan, The Russian Jew in the United States, in Bernheimer, ed., p. 40. 12. Sorin, Prophetic Minority, p. 26. 13. Marcus Ravage, An American in the Making (New York: Harper and Row, 1917), p. 158. 14. Cited in Sorin, Prophetic Minority, p. 91. 15. Hapgood, Spirit of the Ghetto, pp. 204, 215, 216, 217, 219, 221. 16. Epstein, Jewish Labor in the U.S.A., pp. 282, 283, 288–291. 17. Morris Hillquit, Socialism in the United States (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, [1903] 1965), while perhaps overstating the case, nevertheless recognized the pivotal influence of socialists in garment worker unions in the 1880s and 1890s: They organized the strikers into trade unions, collected funds for them, directed their battles and led them to victory. . . . It was therefore natural that there should have been at all times a strong bond of sympathy between the Jewish trade union movement and socialists. 18. Jesse Pope, The Clothing Industry in New York (Columbia: University of Missouri, 1905), pp. 74–75; Mabel Hurd Willett, The Employment of Women in the Clothing Trade (New York: Columbia University Press, 1902), pp. 54, 68–71. 19. In the women’s clothing industry the number of women rose from 14,000 in 1890 to 25,000 in 1900, but did not rise as sharply as the entire workforce which almost doubled in size (from 23,000 to 45,000). Data from United States. Eleventh Census (1890), Manufactures in Cities, pp. 88–97, 394–407; Twelfth Census (1900), Statistics of Manufactures, Part 2, pp. 620–628. 20. Nancy Green, “Women and Immigrants in the Sweatshop: Categories of Labor Segmentation Revisited,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 38 (1996), pp. 411–433; Ready-To-Wear, Ready-To-Work: A Century of Industry and Immigrants in Paris and New York (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1997), pp.15–17. 21. The number of women employed in the men’s clothing industry declined from 16,000 in 1890 to slightly less than 10,000 in 1900. During this period, the size of the workforce fell from 41,000 to 30,000. Eleventh Census (1890) Manufactures in Cities, pp. 88–97, 394–407; Twelfth Census (1900), Statistics of Manufactures, Part 2, pp. 620–628. 22. Edith Abbott, Women in Industry (New York: D. Appleton, 1929), pp. 233–244.

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23. For example, about sixty percent of adult Jewish immigrants entering the United States between 1886 and 1898 were men, and during the late Gilded Age four-fifths of all Italian immigrants were men. Salo Baron, Steeled by Adversity: Essays and Addresses on American Jewish Life (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1971), p. 281; United States. U.S. Industrial Commission, Volume XV, p. 295. 24. Kathie Friedman Kasaba, “A Tailor is Nothing Without a Wife, and Very Often a Child: Gender and Labor-Force Formation in the New York Garment Industry, 1880–1920,” in Joan Smith et al. eds., Racism, Sexism and the World System (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1988), pp. 85–93. Kasaba’s focus on gender relations is provocative but open to criticism on two counts: first, it fails to consider the difference between the men’s and women’s clothing industries; in fact it assumes developments in the former represented those for New York’s garment trades as a whole, and secondly, it misconstrues the character of sweating. Yes, sweating hinged on exploitation—a self-exploitation—men, women, and children alike in the hope of escaping from the snares of deprivation and dependency. However, to hold that, as the tailor “sweated himself, his wife and particularly his daughters,” a gender hierarchy was reinforced is reductionist, since the process conceivably involved consent among family members. 25. United States. Eleventh Census (1890), Manufactures in Cities, pp. 649–681; Twelfth Census (1900), pp. 620–628; New York State. Inspection Bureau, Fifth Annual Report (1890), pp. 199–253; Tenth Annual Report (1895), pp. 150–625. 26. Inspection Bureau, Tenth Annual Report (1895), pp. 150–625. 27. Ibid, pp. 291, 335. 28. U.S. Bureau of Labor, Fourth Annual. Report of the Commissioner of Labor: Working Women in Large Cities (1888), p. 21; Susan Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl: Life and Labor in the Immigrant Generation (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 137–139, 154–159. 29. Ernest Poole, “Task Work Bowing to the Factory System,” reprinted in Allen Schoener, ed., Portal to America: The Lower East Side, 1870–1925 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967), p. 170. 30. Mechanization also played an increasingly important role in the production of cheaper grades of children’s jackets, overalls, and trousers. In contrast, coatmaking shops depended on mechanization only in the initial cutting phase and the sewing of seams. New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Thirteenth Annual. Report (1895), pp. 197–198; U.S. Bureau of Labor, Thirteenth Annual. Report of the Commissioner of Labor (1898), Volume I, p. 38. 31. The Garment Worker, December, 1895; Willett, The Employment of Women in the Clothing Trade, pp. 169–170; Carolyn D. McCreesh, Women in the Campaign to Organize Garment Workers, 1880–1917 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1985), p. 48; Mediation and Arbitration Board, Fourth Annual Report (1890), 259; Lewis Lorwin (Levine) The Women’s Garment Workers: A History of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (New York: D.W. Huebsch, 1924), pp. 52, 53, 71, 75; Joel Seidman, The Needle Trades (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1942), pp. 87–88. 32. Joseph Schlossberg, Documentary History of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union (1914–1916), (New York: Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union, 1920), pp. ix, x.

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33. Calculated from New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Seventeenth Annual Report (1899), pp. 106–109; U.S. Twelfth Census (1900) Statistics of Manufactures, Volume 8, Part 2, pp. 620–628. 34. For example, see Joseph Barondess’ pleas for legal reforms in New York State. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Eight Annual Report (1894), pp. 154–155. 35. Circular of the United Brotherhood of Tailors (1897), reprinted in Pope, Clothing Industry in New York, pp. 305–306. 36. Among those viewing garment worker unions in this light are Louis Lorwin, Benjamin Stolberg, and Joel Seidman. 37. Pope, Clothing Industry in New York, pp. 61–65, 276–279. 38. Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives, (New York: Scribner and Sons, 1890), pp. 88, 89. 39. Lorwin, Women’s Garment Workers, p. 37; The New York Sun, March 19, 1886. 40. The New York Sun, March 27, 1886; John Swinton’s Paper, March 28, 1886. 41. Lorwin, Women’s Garment Workers, p. 39; John Swinton’s Paper, April 11, 1886. 42. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Fourth Annual Report (1890), 245–246; Lorwin, Women’s Garment Workers, pp. 48–5 ; The New York Sun, June 15, 1890. 43. Sanders, Downtown Jews, p. 114. 44. The New York Sun, July 12, and 13, 1890. 45. Lorwin, Women’s Garment Workers, pp. 151–52. 46. Sanders, Downtown Jews, p. 120; The New York Sun, July 17, 1890. 47. The New York Sun, July 22, and 25, 1890; Lorwin, Women’s Garment Workers, p. 53. 48. The New York Sun, August 28, September 2, and 10, 1894. 49. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 1, and September 1, 1894; and Mediation and Arbitration Board, Fourth Annual Report (1894), pp. 14–16. 50. The New York Sun, September 6, and 10, 1894; The New York Tribune, September 6, 1894. 51. The New York Sun, September 7, 9, and 15, 1894; The New York Tribune, September 9, 1894; The American Federationist, October, 1894, pp. 177–181. 52. New York Sun, September 10, 1894. 53. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Eighth Annual Report (1894), pp. 118, 155–156, 167, 180–181; The New York Sun, October 9 and 10, 1894. 54. Lorwin, Women’s Garment Workers, pp. 79–80; Mediation and Arbitration Board , Eighth Annual Report (1894), pp. 163–164. 55. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Eighth Annual Report (1894), pp. 109–110 56. The New York Sun, October 12, 13, 17, and November 9, 1894. 57. Ibid, November 10, 11, 14, and December 18, 1894. 58. The New York Tribune, November 16, 1894; Mediation and Arbitration Board, Eighth Annual Report (1894), p. 16; Lorwin, Women’s Garment Workers, pp. 80–81. 59. The New York Sun, July 27, 1895; Mediation and Arbitration Board, Ninth Annual Report (1895), pp. 224–225. 60. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Ninth Annual Report (1895), p. 237; The New York Sun, July 28, 1895. 61. The New York Sun, July 30, 31, August 1, 1895 and August 2, 1895; Mediation and Arbitration Board, Ninth Annual Report (1895), pp. 229–230, 232–234. 62. The Garment Worker, December 1895 and January 1896.

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63. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Ninth Annual Report (1895), pp. 162–167; Twelfth Annual Report (1898), pp. 121–125, 128, 131; The American Craftsman, November, 20, 1897. 64. The Leader, July 22, 26, 28, August 30, and October 25, 1887. 65. The New York Sun, November 17, 1894 and August 15, 1895. Also see Kosak, Cultures of Opposition, pp. 113–114, for a description of the festive spirit that prevailed in the Jewish immigrant community during strikes. 66. Ibid, October 10, and November 10, 1894, July 29, 1895, and July 25,1896. 67. The Commercial Advertiser, August 12, 1898 in Rischin, Grandma Never Lived In America, p. 322. 68. The New York Tribune, September 4, 1894. 69. The New York Sun, August 7, 1896. 70. The New York Sun, July 27, 1896. 71. Jewish Messenger, 72 No. 9 (1892) cited by Rudolf Ganz, The Jewish Woman in America: Two Female Immigrant Generations 1870–1929, Volume I: The Eastern European Jewish Woman (New York: Ktav Publishing Inc., 1976). The leadership shown by Miller, Persky and other women casts some doubt on the conclusion that women played only minor roles in the attempts to organize cloakmakers during the 1890s. See McCreesh, Women in the Campaign to Organize Garment Workers, p. 44. 72. Pope, Clothing Industry in New York, pp. 128–136; and Eleventh Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor, pp. 545, 549. The task system developed in the men’s clothing industry in other cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. United States. Industrial Commission, Volume VII, 194. 73. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Fourth Annual Report (1890), pp. 255, 259; Lorwin, Women’s Garment Workers, pp. 52, 53; Agreement Between the United Brotherhood of Cloakmakers No.1 and Meyer Jonassen (1898) cited in Pope, Clothing Industry in New York, pp. 309–310. 74. United States Congress, House of Representatives, Report of the Committee on Manufactures and the Sweating System, 52nd Congress, second session, 1895, pp. 223–225; U.S. Bureau of Labor, Eleventh Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor (1904), p. 534; The New York Sun, December 9, 1894; Lorwin, Women’s Garment Workers, pp. 87, 90, 91. 75. James O’Neal, A History of the Amalgamated Ladies’ Garment Cutters’ Union Local 10 (New York: Local 10, 1927), pp. 14–17, 36–37; Gotham Knife Cutters Association, Minutes of Meetings, passim, especially October, 14, 1887; The Garment Worker, December, 1895; Eleventh Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor (1904), pp. 535–537. 76. O’Neal, History of the Amalgamated Ladies Garment Cutters’ Union, p. 19; Gotham Knife Cutters Association, Minutes of Meetings, March 9, 16, 23, 1888 and April, 13, 1888; Edwin Fenton, “Immigrants and Unions: A Case Study, Italians and American Labor, 1870–1920” (unpublished PhD diss., Harvard University, 1957), p. 477; Irving Howe and Kenneth Libo, The World of Our Fathers (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, 1976), p. 357; Maximilian Hurwitz, History of the Workmen’s Circle (New York: Workmen’s Circle, 1936), pp. 14, 15. 77. Gotham Knife Cutters Association, Minutes of Meetings, November 22, 1888; The Leader, November 9, 1886 and August 4, 1887; New York State. Mediation and Arbitration Board, Fourth Annual Report (1890), p. 583; The Garment Worker, January, 1896.

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78. Gotham Knife Cutters Association, Minutes of Meetings, July, 1887; The Leader, December 3, 1886; and Arbeiter Zeitung, March 14, and May 9, 1890. Citations from the Arbeiter Zeitung provided by Hadassa Kosack. 79. Gotham Knife Cutters Association, Minutes of Meetings, November 11, 1887; Pope, Clothing Industry in New York, pp. 217, 218; Constitution of the United Brotherhood of Cloakmakers No. 1. 80. R.G. Dun and Company, Reference Book and Key Containing Ratings of Merchants, Manufacturers and Traders Generally Throughout the United States (1895); New York State. Factory Inspection Bureau, Ninth Annual Report (1894). 81. R.G. Dun and Company, Reference Book.

CHAPTER 7

Labor and Electoral Politics in the 1890s: Trade Unionism by Other Means

In the 1890s organized labor assumed a lower profile in the political arena and generally advanced its interests through other avenues. Partially because of the fallout from the anticlimactic initiatives in 1887, trade unions intervened cautiously in electoral politics; instead they appraised the prospects offered by a reinvigorated competitive two-party system in local and state-wide elections.1 The unity within the trade union movement, as represented by a common sense of purpose and an ecumenical strategic orientation, which fueled the Henry George campaign, had given way to organizational, if not ideological, rivalry between socialist-led and nonsocialist unions, and between affiliates of the Knights of Labor and the AFL. In the early 1890s two organizations vied for influence as citywide umbrella groups: the Central Labor Union (CLU) and the Central Labor Federation (CLF), whose affiliates had allied with the Socialist Labor Party (SLP) or otherwise supportive of party’s independent forays in electoral politics. Indicative of this split, national spokesmen for the labor movement, such as Samuel Gompers and Peter McGuire, stressed the advantages of pursuing trade union objectives through trade agreements with employers, for example through the process of collective bargaining. Neither rejected the need for political action, especially to gain the state’s recognition of labor’s right to organize and in defense of the right to strike and boycott, but insisted on a nonpartisan approach which did not bind the house of labor to a political party and/or a far-reaching economic and social program. The advocacy of a nonpartisan and nonaligned position on electoral politics among many AFL leaders in particular became more adamant

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during the mid-1890s. In large measure this effected a heightened sensitivity to organized labor’s insecurity in wake of major defeats, such as the Homestead strike in which one of the most powerful craft unions, the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, was virtually driven out of Pittsburgh’s steel industry, and the Pullman boycott in which the efforts of American Railway Union to build an industrial union in the nation’s largest industry were thwarted by corporate power and the intervention of the federal government. Calls for a nonpartisan position stressed that unions’ close association with any political organization or ideology would compromise if not undermine its appeal as a broad church. Wholesale endorsement of a party’s political program, especially one agitating for root and branch change, could exacerbate divisions within the membership whose views on certain issues varied by ethnicity, religion, and gender. In short, partisan politics threatened to fragment the house of labor.2 As Peter McGuire argued at the AFL’s national convention in 1894: We are citizens as well as workers. Then let us join any party whether the SLP or any other . . . but don’t bring in this dissension where there are Prohibitionists, Democrats, Republicans and men of all kinds at your work. Organize outside the unions for political party purposes. We organize our unions, but do not meet for the purpose of being a cat’s-paw of the SLP.3

The recent experience of unions in the building trades and in the printing industry appeared to validate a workplace or industry-centered strategy. Even when the higher cost of living is acknowledged, New York’s and Brooklyn’s affiliates of the Bricklayers’ and Masons’ International Union (BMIU) and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners (UBCJ) claimed higher earnings than their counterparts in other major cities and than other manual workers nationwide. For example, in the 1890s the hourly earnings of New York’s carpenters were 20 percent greater than their counterparts in Chicago, San Francisco, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Boston.4 Likewise members of No. 6 (New York Typographical Union) and local affiliates of the International Pressmen’s Union could boast of the highest pay rates and shortest work days in the printing industry.5 Moreover, the unions representing New York’s printers had forged a close working relationship, and thereby overcame long-standing divisions which previously prevented typographers, pressmen, and stereotypers from acting on common concerns. Ironically, just as the Allied Printing Trades Council demonstrated the benefits of cooperation and suggested a greater organizational capacity for joint actions, its constituent unions appeared circumspect about electoral politics. Instead, printers, as well as building tradesmen, mounted campaigns to pressure the state legislature to enact laws that addressed issues which employers and unions could not

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agree upon (health and safety measures) or which directly involved the state or local government (the use of convict labor) It would be incorrect to infer from this brief description of the lobbying by two unions that a dramatic shift occurred in labor’s strategic orientation and trade unions simply acted as pressure groups within a pluralist political system. The printers’ diversified political activity is a case in point. In 1887, the union mobilized for a rally, called by the CLU, which launched a drive in behalf of a multi-plank reform program. At the rally, John O’Donnell, No. 6’s President, not only stressed the importance of such issues as convict labor, Sunday trading and the state printing office, but underscored the need to “invade the alleys and Mulberry bends” with small parks and bathhouses. Later that year, a delegation of representatives from New York’s and Brooklyn’s typographical unions as well as the Knights of Labor joined Brooklyn State Senator McCann, armed with a petition signed by 12,000, to press legislators to pass a bill establishing a state printing office which would be responsible for the production of all official state documents and literature. Despite this and other efforts, a Republican controlled State Senate repeatedly defeated the bill.6 The printers’ campaign to abolish convict labor suffered a similar fate. Provoked by a bill passed in 1889 that sanctioned the use of prisoners to do the typesetting, electrotyping, and press work in the reprinting of cheap novels, No. 6, along with New York’s pressmen’s unions and upstate branches of the ITU made the issue a priority. In 1890 the State Legislature enacted a proposal by Brooklyn Senator McCarren, only to see the Governor veto the measure. Seven years later, despite the formation of the Allied Printing Trades Council of New York State to coordinate the lobbying, printers still could not gain the abolition of convict labor.7 Union printers prided themselves on their political commitment and sophistication, even years after the Henry George campaign in which they played a pivotal role. After the demise of the United Labor Party they embraced a more explicitly bipartisan approach to electoral politics. Both Republican and Democratic candidates, based on their character, record and disposition, received the No. 6’s endorsement. At times the union showed a tendency to back anti-Tammany Hall Democrats and reform oriented Republicans. A case in point occurred in the 1890 race for District Attorney. Tammany Hall sponsored De Lancey Nicoll, a former Republican, whom The Union Printer described as a man whose “training, surroundings and associations are all such to preclude any sympathy with the industrial classes.” His opponent, John W. Goff, supported by the County Democrats and the Progressive Municipal League (a bipartisan urban reform organization), in contrast, was seen as a man of the people who by his “own efforts raised himself to his present eminent position.”8 As the Panic of 1893 became a full-blown depression, some printers called for more vigorous political action. The Union Printer took the occa-

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sion of a visit by John Burns, the British trade union leader, to stress the wisdom of his maxim: “politics should never be allowed to enter trade unions, but trade unions should immediately enter politics.” Accordingly, he urged No. 6 to form the “nucleus” of an organization that would encourage the nomination and election of labor’s candidates and articulate labor issues in the 1896 elections. Nevertheless, the union did not immerse itself in independent labor-oriented political campaigns in 1896 or during the rest of the decade. Instead, in the absence of a viable reform movement and the weakness of the city’s Republican organization, No. 6 did not hesitate to back candidates running on Tammany Hall’s ticket. This was especially important if the Union wanted to preserve its influence at City Hall and the state legislature.9 Amid the declarations of solidarity and commitment to social reform, union speakers and writers promoted the self-image of the printer as the bearer of the values and attributes off the respectable worker-citizen. The Union Printer, contrasted the “stalwart, prosperous and intellectual looking” typographers and other craft men who marched in the Labor Day parade in September 1890 with their less skilled “east side immigrant brethren.”10 Warrren Browne, the newspaper’s editor, described No. 6 and the ITU as simultaneously “conservative” and “radical”: We conserve among the masses the principles of fair play, good pay and a free man’s work day, and we uphold the principle thou shall earn thee bread by the sweat of thou brow. We are radical in that we aim at Justice down to the very roots of social organization and are sure that political and economic justice must come in good time.11

Building trades’ unions apparently showed less interest in political action, probably because most of their concerns could be, and were, addressed directly with employers. However, an alarming incidence of accidents resulting from inadequate safety procedures spurred some of the unions to become politically active. One hundred fourty-five members of building trades’ unions were injured and 3 killed at construction sites in 1894 and 1895. In testimony to the New York State Assembly union representatives cited the experience of framers falling between beams and the perils of working below uncovered windows. Consequently, locals of the UBCJ and the BMIU supported a scaffolding bill that required the erection of planks to protect workers from falling steel bolts, tools and miscellaneous material. The legislation held contractors responsible for ensuring that scaffolds were installed and subjected them to a fine of $500 and/or imprisonment for at least 30 days if they did not.12 Initially these attempts of building trades unions were thwarted, as Republican Governors vetoed the bill. However, in 1897 a scaffolding law was enacted and two years later it was amended. The new law went much further than the proposed bill of

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1895. Contractors were required to take a number of precautionary measures to avoid accidents, including the laying of underflooring not less than two stories below where work was in progress. Moreover, inspectors were authorized to order a halt in construction if ropes, pulleys, tackles, and ladders were not adequately secured, or if the scaffolding was faulty.13 If the experience of the mid-1880s had a sobering influence on what unions could expect from participation in the political arena, their interest if not commitment to a program of reform did not disappear in the 1890s. However, in the latter decade two significant differences stand out. First, reform politics increasingly became defined as the establishment of good (namely, clean) government. As understood by middle class voters, this meant curbing the power of New York’s political machine, Tammany Hall. Some candidates running under a reform banner such as Seth Low, who was backed by the Citizen’s Union in 1897, articulated some of organized labor’s concerns in his bid for the mayorality of New York. Although the trade union movement continued to assert itself in the political arena, its influence was manifested in a broader reform coalition unlike in 1886, when reform politics was labor-oriented if not labor-centered.14 Secondly, trade union involvement in reform politics during the 1890s did not entail full-scale mobilization of the membership; instead involvement meant the endorsement by individual trade union officials who often worked behind the scenes. For example, in 1890, efforts to launch a broadlybased campaign in New York’s elections by opponents of Tammany Hall within the Democratic Party, called the County Democracy, and a coalition of reformers, known as the People’s Municipal League (PML), attracted only negligible support from the city’s unions. John Archibald, President of the Paper Hangers’ Union and Chairman of the CLU, acted in an individual capacity, although the PML promoted him as the representative of labor’s interest. Despite the espousal of a program aimed at winning working class support, including conscientious enforcement of labor legislation, the construction of better housing in the city’s most congested neighborhoods, and improvements in mass transit, the PML failed to win the official approval of the city’s labor federation.15 Four years later, labor remained on the sidelines during Josiah Strong’s reform candidacy for Mayor. Running as a Republican with the support of an array of business and civic organizations, such as the City Club, Good Government Club, and the Committee of Seventy, which received the financial backing of J.P. Morgan and Cornelius Vanderbilt, Strong emphasized the waste and corruption of Tammany Hall government (exposed by the Lexow Commission’s investigation into graft by city officials and police officers). Conspicuously absent from Strong’s reform candidacy was any programmatic recognition of the economic depression engulfing New York and the nation at large.16

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As in 1890, however, some of organized labor’s primary legislative goals were either downplayed or ignored, including tenement house reform, more stringent factory regulations, and effective enforcement of public health codes.17 Tammany Hall in contrast had carefully courted labor’s support. By introducing the eight-hour day for municipal employees and requiring employers awarded city contracts to do the same, the Democratic Party’s leadership demonstrated its willingness to reward unions for rejecting the appeals of reform candidates. Perhaps, more fundamentally, Tammany Hall exhibited a relatively hands off approach to industrial relations at a time when judicial intervention in the form of injunctions upheld the sanctity of contracts and employers’ exercise of their property rights.18 In brief, by not deploying the police in labor-employer conflicts and not restricting unions’ pursuit of closed shop agreements, Tammany Hall implicitly affirmed labor’s institutional legitimacy at the work place if not within the community at large. Moreover, not coincidentally, the heightened competition for control of municipal government between the Democrats and Republicans encouraged organized labor to target their political activity primarily within the two-party system, where a trade union’s endorsement of a candidate could tip the scales in a close election, and reinforced its emphasis on bipartisan politics at the expense of independent political action and an alliance with the socialist movement. Although New York’s unions collectively showed scant interest in challenging the city’s political machine, and increasingly stressed a pragmatic approach to electoral politics, they nevertheless probed for opportunities to shape the political terrain. When the State Legislature laid plans for a constitutional convention in 1894, including the passage of a bill which provided for the election of five labor representatives, unions in the city and upstate New York vigorously pressed for a series of reform measures. Gompers ran unsuccessfully as a delegate from the ninth Senatorial District, and after his appeal to the Board of Aldermen to investigate electoral fraud was not upheld,19 he directed his energies to the Trade and Labor Conference, which consisted of the CLU and 20 other labor and reform organizations. Under the auspices of the Trade and Labor Conference the unions campaigned for the adoption of four amendments to the state constitution: nullification of conspiracy laws which were used to prosecute workers engaged in strikes and boycotts, provision of employers’ liability for workers inured on the job, the granting of home rule for New York Brooklyn and other cities, and the introduction of direct legislation in which the electorate could propose new bills and endorse or reject bills passed by the legislature.20 In an open letter signed by Gompers, Joseph Barondess (from the Cloakmakers and Operators Union), Henry White (from the United Garment Workers), and J.W. Sullivan (from No. 6) among others, local

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unions were called upon to organize membership meetings and to petition delegates to the constitutional convention. Union leaders also regularly consulted with the most sympathetic delegates to monitor the status of labor’s demands.21 At the close of the Constitutional Convention, the unions had little to show for their efforts. All four proposals had been referred to a legislative committee or, worse, rejected outright. Among the few tangible gains the unions could claim was the passage of an amendment outlawing the employment of convicts in penitentiaries, jails and reformatories to produce goods intended for sale or donation. The very limited success of New York’s unions at the convention underscored government’s noninterventionist orientation to employer-worker relationships in Gilded Age America. Even when state legislatures seemed amenable to labor’s reform agenda, the courts struck down the legislation.22 The next opening for labor’s reform agenda occurred during the 1897 municipal elections, when voters selected the first mayor of Greater New York (including Brooklyn). Under the auspices of the Citizen’s Union and the different Good Government Clubs active in the city, representatives from the New York Typographical Union, the International Association of Machinists, Paperhangers, the Gilders’ Union, and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners promoted the candidacy of Seth Low around the program that combined civic and labor reform measures. These included home rule for New York, reform of the civil service system, provision of rapid transit, and enforcement of the eight-hour law for municipal workers and those hired by contractors doing business with the city. A delegation of union leaders in behalf of the Citizen’s Union, including Henry White of the United Garment Workers, No. 6’s James Donnelly and Henry Weismann, editor of the Bakers’ Journal, appealed to Low to run for mayor as a Republican, and if necessary as an independent candidate. As the CLU did in 1886, the Citizen’s Union launched a petition drive to document the breadth of support for a reform candidate.23 Yet, unlike the case when the labor movement drafted George, union leaders acted in an individual capacity without the official backing, not to mention the mobilization of the membership. The activities of the Labor and Reform Committee, which included James Sullivan (No. 6) and Frank Ferrell (Eccentric Engineers), both veterans of the 1886 Henry George campaign, illustrated this distinction. In publicizing plans for a series of rallies in late May and early June at Cooper Union, the committee invited participation on an individual basis in recognition of “the established policy of trade unions not to take any political action as organizations.”24 At a rally on June 4, the chair, James Sullivan, reminded union officials considering resolutions about the public operation and ownership of railways and other franchises of New York City that they were not participating as delegates.25

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The cautious political approach expressed by James Sullivan and other trade union officials was not restricted to the Citizen’s Union electoral initiatives. Henry George’s attempt to rekindle the fires of labor’s interest in independent politics when he ran for mayor that same year likewise did not elicit a uniformly enthusiastic response. Denunciations of an industrial plutocracy and monied interests notwithstanding, George received the backing of only a handful of unions, and the CLU failed to reach a consensus on his candidacy. Even some of George’s long-time supporters had mixed feelings about his candidacy in 1897. One, in particular, Heber Newton, stressed the partisanship and narrowness of the campaign in a letter to George: “Your present movement has not, however, sprung from the labor organizations and boasts itself distinctly not upon being nonpartisan, but upon being a party action.”26 George, or more accurately his son (George died during the last week of the campaign), won only four percent of the vote, a far cry from his showing 11 years earlier. Low’s independent bid failed too, as Benjamin Tracy, the Republican candidate, attracted anti-Tammany support as well, allowing Robert Van Wyck to prevail with only a plurality of the vote. In the aftermath of their defeat supporters of Low and George began systematically to build a fusion movement, uniting the Citizen’s Union, the City Club, and Single Tax Clubs behind a single mayoral candidate. In 1901, their efforts bore fruit with Low’s victory over Edward Sheppard, Tammany Hall’s choice.27 During the 1890s other third party initiatives and independent candidacies fared no better than Low’s and George’s. In 1892 the overtures of the People’s Party received a relatively tepid response from the labor movement. The CLU did not endorse any candidate or party in the presidential and congressional elections, although some delegates applauded the Populists’ courage. In September 1894, with the teeth of the depression biting hard, the People’s Party attracted more interest, even among some AFL leaders. For example, John B. Lennon, from the Journeymen Tailors and a member of the AFL’s Executive Council, chaired a meeting of 35 delegates from a variety of labor organizations which laid plans to mobilize working class voters behind the party’s call to abolish the contract system of labor recruitment, employ only citizens on public works projects, enact a eight-hour with strong enforcement provisions and establish a central library system. However, as in 1892, there was scant evidence of any significant trade union endorsement of the party’s candidates. In 1896 the CLU withheld its support of William Jennings Bryan—the Populists’ candidate running for President as a Democrat—in large measure because of the party’s emphasis on the silver issue.28 The campaigns waged by the SLP in the 1890s generated more support, at least among some unions and workers. Constituent unions of the United German Trades (UGT) and the United Hebrew Trades (UHT) maintained close links to the SLP. Officials from the Furniture Workers, the Bakers, Local 90 of the CMIU (all in the UGT), and leaders of the Cloakmakers’ and

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Operators’ Union, the Pantsmakers, and Pearl Button Makers’ union among others in the UHT were open members of the SLP. In 1890 Adolph Jablinowksi from Local 90 of the CMIU and William Ehret of the Brewery Workers Union ran for aldermen as SLP candidates in the twelfth district (in the Lower East Side) and the twenty-second district (the Upper East Side which contained a substantial German-American population). That same year the SLP’s candidate for mayor of New York (August Delabar, Secretary of the Journeymen Bakers’ and Confectioners’ International Union) received 4,600 votes (2.1 percent of the total), and the following year Daniel DeLeon, the party’s leader garnered 13,000 votes when he ran for governor of New York State.29 During the depression years the SLP tried to capitalize on the discontent expressed by workers at public meetings and rallies called to protest unemployment and the government’s lackluster response to the problem. The party ran a slate of candidates in the 1894 citywide elections and again in the state elections of 1895. In both instances, SLP candidates netted less than 5 percent of the New York’s and Brooklyn’s vote, although in six New York Assembly Districts they gained at least 10 percent and in two Lower East Side districts, where East European Jewish immigrants and German immigrants constituted the bulk of the population, they polled 13 percent. The SLP’s performance in the 1894 elections was not unimpressive when compared with the efforts of other third parties. The total vote garnered by SLP candidates for Controller, Sheriff, and City Court Justices exceeded that earned by those running under the banners of the People’s Party and Prohibitionist Party combined, whose appeal did not extend to urban Catholic and Jewish immigrant voters.30 For the remainder of the decade socialist intervention into the electoral arena was virtually nonexistent. The SLP rapidly lost the backing of the older German immigrant based unions and the Jewish immigrant garment worker unions affiliated with the UHT. Under the leadership of Daniel De Leon, the SLP formed the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance to combat the influence of the AFL, and in the process launched a controversial campaign of dual unionism which was a significant factor in convincing Morris Hillquit, Abraham Cahan, and other socialists active in the labor movement to join the newly formed Socialist Party of America in 1897. The STLA lent its support to the organizing efforts of pantsmakers, suspender makers, and the children’s jacket makers and attracted within its orbit cigarmakers employed in tenement house production in the New York metropolitan area. Elsewhere it established a base among glassblowers and coal miners in Pennsylvania and cotton textile workers in New England.31 In general, both cities’ unions maintained no formal links to any political party and remained very selective about endorsing candidates, especially in elections to federal and state offices. In local politics, it appears that many unions recognized the advantages of supporting Tammany

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Hall who had cultivated a relationship with generations of Irish immigrants who composed a significant proportion of the membership in the unions representing printers and building tradesmen. In the mid-1890s Tammany also began to make overtures to recently arrived immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Irish workers, who found George’s critique of the concentration of wealth in American society and his advocacy of home rule for Ireland attractive in 1886, renewed their traditional loyalties to Tammany. In recognition that Tammany’s power brokers provided jobs and financial assistance in times of need, Irish workers among others supported its candidates. These economic benefits, identified with Tammany, became particularly meaningful in light of the depression following the Panic of 1893. Between 1886 and 1898 the thrust of labor’s intervention in the electoral arena changed. In 1886 its political activity expressed a strong sense of purpose and confidence that accompanied rapid organizational growth; significant gains in wages, hours, and working conditions; and increased workplace militancy. In 1897 the support some labor leaders gave to the Citizen’s Union reflected their lower expectations as the economy was slowly recovering from a deep and protracted depression. Although labor’s orientation to the power of capital had oscillated between resistance and accommodation during most of the Gilded Age, in 1886 the discourse of resistance, if not active resistance, held sway; by the turn of the century, both rhetorically and by deed, resistance had become less visible and accommodation more apparent. NOTES 1. One recent study of reform politics during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era views the political initiatives by New York’s trade union movement in 1886 and 1887 as a turning point in the AFL’s orientation to political action: “In the space of a few years the major difficulties attending labor politics had been revealed and AFL leaders would not forget the lesson.” See Elizabeth Sanders, Roots of Reform: Farmers, Workers and the American State, 1877–1917 (University of Chicago Press, 1999). Such a categorical statement overlooks the possibility that more than one lesson was learned from the experience of independent political action, and that the trade union movement had shown an ambivalence to electoral politics during most of the Gilded Age, as indicated by the assessment of the efforts of the National Labor Reform Party in 1872 and the Greenback-Labor Party in 1878 as well as the more successful interventions by the Knights of Labor in local elections between 1884 and 1886. 2. Other arguments against partisan and aligned politics appeared. Anarchists, such as Dyer Lum, considered trade unionism as a means to abolish wages system, and in the 1890s saw craft unionism in particular as a carrier of mutualist anarchism. Lum’s writings in The Carpenter and Baker’s Journal stressing the pure and simple character of trade union activity were published by the AFL as a pamphlet

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and reprinted until 1914. Lum’s thinking represented a refinement of the Chicago Idea as advanced by a group of Chicago anarchists led by Albert Parsons, who conceived the trade union as “the embryonic group of the future free society.” Frank Brooks, “Ideology, Strategy and Organization: Dyer Lum and the American Anarchist Movement,” Labor History 34 (Winter 1993), pp. 57–83; and The Alarm, April 4, 1885 cited by Michael Johnson, “Albert Parsons: An American Architect of Syndicalism,” The Midwest Quarterly 9 (Winter 1968), p. 204. 3. Stuart Kaufman and Peter Albert, (eds.), Samuel Gompers Papers, Volume 3, 1891–1894 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), p. 650. 4. United States. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin No. 499: Wages in the United States from Colonial Times to 1928, pp. 164–171. 5. Jacob Loft, The Printing Trades (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1944), pp. 286–289. New York’s pressmen claimed the clearest advantage in wages and hours compared to counterparts in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, and San Francisco. At the turn of the century, New York’s book and job compositors, although paid at a lower rate than newspaper compositors, held a consistent earnings differential over book and job compositors in other major cities. 6. The Union Printer, March 26, and May 7, 1887 and March 26, 1891; No. 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, March 4 and April 1, 1888. 7. The Union Printer, March 1, 1890; and Number 6, Minutes of Membership Meeting, April 5 and May 1, 1890, April 5, 1891, and February 7, March 7, and July 4, 1897. 8. The Union Printer, October 25, 1890. 9. Ibid., January 20, June 30, and December 8, 1894, and April 6, April 20, May 18, and November 2, 1895. 10. Ibid, September 6, 1890. 11. Ibid, December 7, 1895. 12. New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Thirteenth Annual Report (1895), pp. 489–493; 498–499. 13. New York State. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Seventeenth Annual Report (1899), pp. 1250, 1251. 14. For a thoughtful assessment of labor’s role in the creation of urban reform coalitions, see Richard Schneirov, Labor and Urban Politics: Class Conflict and the Origins of Modern Liberalism is Chicago, 1864–97 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998). 15. Richard Skolnick, “The Crystalization of Reform in New York City 1890–1917” (unpublished PhD diss., Yale University, 1964), pp. 138–141; David Hammack, Power and Society: Greater New York at the Turn of the Century (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1982), pp. 146–147; People’s Municipal League, Minutes of the Executive Committee, August 19, and 21, 1890. 16. Augustus Cerillo, Reform in New York City: A Study of Urban Progressivism (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1969), pp. 10–12; Skolnick, “The Crystalization of Reform,” pp. 168–170. 17. Hammack asserts that John Archibald and Louis Post (the latter an independent who assumed leadership in Henry George‘s mayoralty campaign and thereafter remained a firm advocate of labor reform) “no doubt gained influence over the appointments made by Mayor Strong” but in the next breath states that labor was “not pleased with Strong’s administration.” There is no evidence to substantiate the former claim, although by virtue of the lack of action by Strong on key issues stressed by organized labor, the latter represents a more plausible appraisal.

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18. See Victoria Hattam, Labor Visions and State Power: The Origins of Business Unionism in the United States (Princeton University Press, 1993) for a provocative appraisal of the influence of judicial activism on organized labor’s strategic orientation in the late nineteenth century. Martin Shefter, “Trade Unions and Political Machines,” in Ira Katznelson and Aristide Zolberg, eds., Working Class Formation: 19th Century Patterns in Western Europe and the United States (Princeton University Press, 1985) convincingly argues that unions deferred to the hegemony of party machines like Tammany Hall so long as urban bosses respected the unions’ autonomy in their relations with employers. 19. Gompers Papers, Volume III, pp. 410–411. 20. Cigar Makers Official Journal, May 1892; Letter from Samuel Kaufman to Andrew Green (n.d., 1894), Andrew Green Papers, New York Public Library, Manuscript Division Henry George Papers, Heber Newton to Henry George, October 6, 1897. 21. Letter, entitled “Labor’s Demands of the Constitutional Convention,” February 1, 1894, Andrew Green Papers; American Federationist September, November 1894. 22. Cigar Makers Official Journal, December 1894; Revised Record of the Constitutional Convention of the State of New York, Volume IV, pp. 514, 518–522, 525, 533. See David Montgomery, Citizen Worker: The Experience of Workers in the United States with Democracy and the Free Market During the Nineteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University, 1993), pp. 151–152; Hattam, Labor Visions and State Power, pp. 44–90; and William Forbath, Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University, 1991), pp. 177–187. 23. The New York Tribune, May 22, 1897. 24. Ibid, May 27, 1897 25. The New York Times, June 5, 1897. 26. On the lack of union support for George’s candidacy in 1897 see, Irwin Yellowitz, Labor and the Progressive Movement in New York State, 1897–1916 (New York: Cornell University Press, 1965), pp. 186, 187. 27. Tribune Almanac (1897), pp. 324–325; Cerillo, Reform in New York City, pp. 21–23; Hammack, Power and Society, pp. 153–155. 28. Samuel McSeveney, The Politics of Depression: Political Behavior in the Northeast, 1893–1896 (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1972), pp. 130–132, 282–283, 293–294; Eli Goldsmidt, “Labor and Populism in New York City, 1891–1896,” Labor History, 13 (1972), pp. 520–532; and The Herald, September 14, 1894. In most major cities the labor movement withheld its support from Populist candidates. During the local and state elections in 1894 a genuine labor-populist coalition made some headway in Chicago, Milwaukee and Minnesota, where Peoples’ Party candidates won over 10 percent of the vote. See Philip Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Volume II, pp. 321–326. Also see Schneirov, Labor and Urban Politics, pp. 343–348 for a discussion of labor-populism’s meteoric fortunes in Chicago. 29. The Tribune Almanac (1891), pp. 324–326; Frank Girard and Ben Perry, The SLP, 1876–1991: A Short History (Philadelphia: Livra Books, 1991), p. 14. 30. The Tribune Almanac (1895), pp. 324–325; McSeveney, The Politics of Depression, pp. 151–153; Hubert Perrier, “The Socialists and the Working Class in New York, 1890–1896,” in Dirk Hoerder, ed., Immigration and Labor History, 1877–1920: Recent European Research (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 111–134. 31. Girard and Perry, The SLP, pp. 19–22; Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Volume II, pp. 321–323.

Conclusion

The foregoing examination of the labor movement in late Gilded Age New York and Brooklyn underscores the need for an appreciation of historical specificity. Many of the conventional views of the labor movement in the late nineteenth century regarding the character of industrial conflict, the orientation of trade unionism and the scope of political activity have been derived largely from developments which occurred after 1898. For example, the AFL’s uncompromising hostility to socialism and social reform, the narrowness and conservatism of craft unions, and labor’s acquiescence to a minor role in a pluralist society—which to historians, labor economists, sociologists and political scientists have represented the hallmarks of American exceptionalism and the symptoms of institutional maturity—have been considered perpetual features of the labor movement or at the very least to have flown exorably from events in the nineteenth century. Students of American labor too often have painted with a broad brush. Robert Hoxie, writing at the height of the AFL’s battle with the insurgent syndicalistic Industrial Workers of the World, argued that craft unions were the natural byproducts of capitalism and served as the perfect breeding grounds of business unionism.1 Selig Perlman, taking a long view of trade union development in a period of precipitous decline, suggested the chronic insecurity induced by the business cycle created a job consciousness among workers and that class consciousness with all its political implications was the construct of intellectual outsiders.2 Gerald Rosenblum, in an attempt to explain why no viable labor party emerged in the United States and why business unionism flowered, instead, stressed the

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impact of immigration, which “muted or damped down labor force mobilization . . . and reduced, in the Marxist sense, the full formation of a working class.”3 In a similar vein, Gwendolyn Mink maintained unions constituted “a movement of workers but not a class” which represented distinct interests in response to the groundswell of social and economic change that the new immigration epitomized.4 Yet whatever insights these arguments might possess, they miss the richness of workers’ experience, and fall short of understanding the context in which events unfolded and workers tried to chart a course for their unions in the late Gilded Age. Trade unionists above all faced the challenge of how to foster institutional security under less than propitious circumstances. More intensely competitive market conditions, wider swings in the business cycle, and an emphasis on increasing labor productivity as well as employers’ greater capacity to combat workers’ militancy meant unions increasingly needed to demonstrate strategic and tactical resourcefulness. A more finely tuned focus on time and place reveals how flexible unions were in their attempts to adapt to changing conditions. In appreciation of specific industrial developments, some unions came to recognize the practical importance of labor solidarity and therefore forged closer working relationships, while in other situations they adopted a more sectional approach to address their members’ interests. The unions representing printers and pressmen, after years of noncooperation, if not distrust, formed the Allied Printing Trades Council to promote union shops and to lobby the New York State legislature more effectively. Yet the New York Typographical Union (No. 6), a prime mover of the council, maintained different wage and hour scales for compositors employed by newspapers from those working for book and job publishing firms, and granted waivers from a scale’s terms to financially beleaguered employers. Printers, who so ardently embraced the cause of labor reform in the Henry George campaign in 1886, subsequently took pride in their sober political realism and endorsed Republican and Tammany Hall candidates who supported legislation that protected the printers’ specific economic interests. The experience of the printers also calls for a reconsideration of the typology used to distinguish between the strategic orientations of unions. In one model used by Gary Marks, closed unions are contrasted with open unions; the former adopt a market-base strategy, and the latter show a disposition to focus on political action in pursuit of its objectives.5 Clearly, No. 6 as a craft union was closed in that it restricted membership to typographers. Yet its mixture of a market-sensitive approach with political pragmatism indicated that craft unions were flexible in light of shifting opportunities and constraints. Even allowing for the radicalizing potential of the twin threats posed by skill obsolescence and the collapse of product markets, the fact remains that the printers’ engagement with independent political action

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occurred before any manifest threat of mechanization or redefinition of the typographer’s role in the labor process. The coexistence of solidaristic and sectional approaches suggests another duality within the labor movement, between inclusionist and exclusionist orientations. However, rather than considering these as mutually exclusive, orientations to labor activity manifested in organizational rivalry and conflicting consciousness, they are best understood as historically contingent oscillating orientations not peculiar to any organization be it affiliated with the nights of Labor or AFL.6 Craft unions tended to display an exclusionist orientation in defining what belonged to the house of labor. Despite the fact union leaders upheld the virtues of mutuality and viewed themselves as spokespersons for the unorganized as well as the organized worker, individual unions regarded women workers with ambivalence and remained suspicious of recently arrived immigrant workers. Notwithstanding its open door policy towards women, the Cigar Makers International Union (CMIU) hesitated to organize bunchmakers and fillers (a significant proportion of them women) since many cigarmakers reared in traditional production methods saw these new job classifications as a threat to the integrity of their craft. In the garment trades the growth of job hierarchies where different levels of skill became associated with particular ethnic groups often meant Irish cutters from the Gotham Knife Cutters Association as well as German tailors from the United Brotherhood of Tailors were not immediately inclined to identify with Russian Jewish operators, basters, and finishers. However, when employers, backed by the state apparatus, threatened the legitimacy of union activity and the existence of unions themselves, all workers regardless of occupation, skill, ethnicity, and gender were summoned to take their places in the movement. To be sure, calls for working class unity and labor solidarity were expressed in a polyglot language drawing on Marxist, populist, and republican principles and images. In the main, they affirmed the rights of citizenship which native-born and immigrant workers alike duly claimed.7 In the 1880s a consensus was emerging between socialists and nonsocialists in the labor movement regarding the primacy of trade unions in the advancement of workers’ interests. Although differences existed between these political tendencies, both believed unions were institutions of, by, and for wageworkers exclusively. Furthermore, the emphasis on organizing around immediate workplace issues and the need to develop financial resources in order to provide benefits and promote stability transcended political and ideological boundaries. Interestingly, two labor leaders (both with roots in New York’s trade union movement) who contributed to the forging of this consensus traveled along different paths: one, Peter McGuire, a member of the Lasallean wing of the socialist move-

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ment in the 1870s, and the other, Samuel Gompers, whose ideas about trade unionism were developed as an activist in Marxist groups. Not surprisingly in this context, trade union practices displayed a tendency to converge. So that they could safeguard the achievements of collective action, officials and members ranging from the durable printers’ unions to the fledgling garment workers’ unions devoted more attention to the details of organizational practice and structure, especially the procedures and standards of conduct that promoted group cohesion. Above all, unions adopted an increasingly pragmatic approach to industrial action. Garment workers learned that strikes did not guarantee that employers’ concessions would translate into permanent gains. Building tradesmen came to realize that the same organizational network which magnified the disruptive effects of work stoppages through sympathy strikes could also entangle them into damaging conflicts which threatened their bargaining position. Printers selectively used the strike weapon, limiting it to situations when other less confrontational means of resolving an impasse were absent or ineffectual. Cigarmakers, who for almost two decades knew first hand of the risky nature of strikes, aimed to control their outbreak through rigorous enforcement of constitutional bylaws. That these practices predated the depression in the mid-1890s and evolved largely as an adaptation to local and specific industrial circumstances suggests labor historians have been attributing too much explanatory power to national developments or to individual events that apparently resonated with national significance. Measures to foster greater collective discipline, internal cohesion, and organizational effectiveness sprung from workers’ and unions’ direct encounters with employers in the four industries. Although the defeats of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers at Homestead in 1892 and the American Railway Union by the Pullman Car Company in 1894 had considerable impact on the thinking of such national labor leaders as Samuel Gompers and Eugene Debs, the lessons to be derived from such epic conflicts by New York’s trade unionists can not be viewed as axiomatic. Even without major confrontations pitting strikers against private armies or unions against the federal government, building tradesmen, cigarmakers, garment worker, and printers had began to weigh the costs against potential benefits of industrial action. Likewise, even when there was no severe cyclical downturn in the economy, workers expected their unions to help them cope with unemployment. Seasonal shifts in the demand for labor led unions representing building tradesmen, cigarmakers, and garment workers to emphasize the enforcement of wage rates, overtime provisions and work rules so that they could maximize earnings when trade conditions were buoyant and minimize the effects of economic insecurity when business activity was sluggish. The CMIU also offered out of work members a travelers’ loan so

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that they could seek employment in less crowded labor markets, as well as waged a tireless campaign against tenement house production, which, union spokespersons argued, exacerbated the problem of unemployment and depressed wage rates. Printers adopted, with mixed success, numerous measures to reduce the amount of structural unemployment resulting from the introduction of linotype machines and, failing that, to alleviate its effects. In short, the impact of the protracted depression of the 1890s on trade union practices and policies, as witnessed by the example of New York, should not be exaggerated. While some have argued the depression had a sobering effect on the labor movement as a whole, it should not be overlooked that such unions as the UBCJ, CMIU, and No. 6 of the ITU had demonstrated their ability to survive during hard times with only a marginal decline in membership. In large measure this organizational resilience was the result of realignment among trade unions as well as greater coordination of local affiliates within a union and among unions within an industry. The collaboration of No. 6 and the German Typographia within the ITU, and the establishment of a single uncontested union representing pressmen (the International Printing Pressmen’s Union) meant unions within the printing trades did not face the onset of an economic depression lumbered with internecine conflict. Likewise, by 1894, the UBCJ had so eclipsed any of its organizational competitors that it virtually claimed exclusive representation of unionized carpenters, and, equally important, cultivated a close working relationship with other building trades’ unions within the Board of Walking Delegates. For its part, New York’s and Brooklyn’s CMIU locals acted less as autonomous entities and more as integrated constituents of a larger organization when, during the 1890 strike, they coordinated efforts to recruit members and when they campaigned for the union’s blue label. The resiliency of trade unions, and especially of craft unions, in the face of economic downturns and employers’ hostility can be attributed also to the movement’s sense of purpose and workers’ shared experience. Participation in such political-cultural events as May Day and Labor Day marches and rallies dramatized the broader meaning of the labor movement. Here workers from a cross-section of occupations and a variety of labor organizations—some chartered by the AFL and others affiliates of the rival Knights of Labor—and whose political beliefs ranged from nonpartisan trade unionism to socialism and anarchism reaffirmed their collective self-image as the creators of society’s wealth. When the weather permitted it, these labor festivals culminated in picnics featuring a variety of games, sports, rounds of dancing, and a generous consumption of beer. These events helped to crystallize a movement culture that transcended in part craft distinctions, ethnic diversity, political tensions, and conflicting organizational affiliations which threatened to divide rather than unite labor.

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The broad and ennobling spirit of trade unionism particularly appealed to immigrant workers whose participation in the labor movement signified their acculturation to American society. German immigrant cigarmakers, furniture makers, bakers and brewery workers constituted the base for the United German Trades (UGT), a coalition of unions that promoted mutual support and independent political action. Members of constituent unions represented the core of the Progressive Labor Party in 1887 and the Socialist Labor Party in the late 1880s into the 1890s. Largely as the result of the efforts of German immigrants, many of whom were veterans of the 1848 Revolution and participants in the rapidly growing socialdemocratic movement in the 1870s, a vibrant, socialist subculture had developed in the United States by the 1880s.8 Jewish immigrant workers’ attraction to trade unionism emanated from their experience in their original and adopted homelands. Fleeing from anti-Semitism in Tsarist Russia, labor activity meant more than a struggle for survival or assertion of one’s rights. Efforts to form unions were deemed examples of moral courage and ethical responsibility. Workers regarded strikes as blows against injustice. Religious and nonreligious labor activists evoked traditional biblical images of heroism and sacrifice, and aroused the hopes of personal deliverance and collective redemption. The view that trade unionism was empowering and morally inspiring assumed greater weight with the cross-fertilization of the labor organizations formed by workers and their intellectual allies. The UGT provided the United Hebrew Trades (UHT) with a template of how a confederation of kindred labor unions could operate. In addition, the UGT set an example of mobilizing support for strikes and boycotts, which the UHT emulated when it tapped the Jewish immigrant community for material and moral assistance. In turn, the Central Labor Union (CLU), which in the 1880s set labor’s political agenda, significantly influenced programs of action adopted by both the UGT and the UHT. Cross-fertilization among labor organizations consisting of workers from different occupations and ethnic groups suggests that drawing hard distinctions about the character of labor activity based on skills level, income, and the cultural orientation of immigrant workers and their native-born offspring, as one recent study of Chicago’s labor movement in the late nineteenth century has, is overly schematic.9 The recognition of immigrants’ pivotal role in the labor movement of New York and Brooklyn should not overlook countervailing tendencies. For all their militancy, Jewish immigrant garment workers failed to build durable unions in the late Gilded Age. However, the primary sources of their difficulties laid with the dynamics of the industry itself rather than the lack of prerequisite attitudes, values, or consciousness. The inability of unions to defend workers from the seasonal tides of unemployment and

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reductions in piece rates endemic to the garment trades also weakened an allegiance to trade unions. Nevertheless, low union density was not peculiar to garment workers. In most trades, even printing, plumbing and bricklaying, where immigrant workers in general represented a relatively lower percentage of the labor force and new immigrants in particular were barely present, the majority of workers did not join unions. Other factors, including the extent of fragmentation in an industry’s market, the degree of centralization in business operations, the social relations of production, and the distribution of power between employers and workers exerted greater influence than the specific composition of the labor force. Workers’ efforts to build durable and adaptable unions in the face of many obstacles accentuates the significance of trade unionism in the late Gilded Age. Unions acted not as disparate institutions representing the interests of a select group of workers but as participants within a larger movement. Joint political efforts and support for other workers’ strikes and boycotts indicated that New York’s and Brooklyn’s unions recognized common interests. More consistent cooperation became essential in pursuit of legislative reforms as well as in the election of allies and spokesmen to office. Toward this end, the CLU served as a sounding board for programmatic proposals, an arena to identify shared objectives and priorities, and a mechanism to back the initiatives of individual unions. The CLU assumed a prominent role in launching the United Labor Party and Henry George’s candidacy in 1886; developed a legislative agenda that incorporated the concerns of cigarmakers, garment workers, and printers among others; and promoted the CMIU’s union label campaign. The importance of the shared experience of trade unionism calls for a reconsideration of the role assumed by skilled workers. Building tradesmen and printers constituted a labor elite whose economic interests did not necessarily distance themselves from less skilled, lower paid, and more insecure workers, and whose work experience, standard of living, or life style did not predetermine the character and form of their collective activity. Joined by cigarmakers, whose leaders stressed the importance of adopting financial measures and codes of conduct that promoted organizational stability and cohesion, this labor elite in the working class sought to show in practice how the unorganized could organize themselves. Convinced that trade unions made it possible to enjoy conditions of employment commensurate with their role as productive workers, or otherwise protect the privileges attendant to their status as skilled practitioners of a craft, their most articulate leaders emphasized the promise of trade unionism to the less skilled machine operatives, sweatshop hands, and casual laborers. The readiness of craft workers to accept the possibility that less skilled workers could embrace trade unionism, moreover, was

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not distinctive to the Knights of Labor, as studies by Connell, Fink, and Voss argue.10 During the late Gilded Age ardent advocates of craft unionism in the AFL also displayed a solidarity, which, as one historian observed, “reconciled class militancy with craft identity.”11 Craft unions, by striving to fend off threats to their members’ occupational position, set an example to unorganized workers. Customarily most craft unions sought to introduce and defend standards that aimed to control entry into a trade, define work practices and uphold craft solidarity. At first glance, this defensive posture indicated an exclusionist orientation vis-à-vis the less skilled and unorganized. In fact, the maintenance of union standards stressed a sensitivity to the encroachments by employers on the autonomy of craft workers and a defense against the competitive and acquisitive ethos represented by efforts to raise productivity and reduce costs at labor’s expense.12 If the organized workers of late Gilded Age New York and Brooklyn left a legacy to future generations, it can be identified by the types of unions they built, the tactical lessons learnt during industrial conflicts, and the underlying significance of union membership in an industrial capitalist society. Printers, building tradesmen, cigarmakers, and garment workers demonstrated craft unions were viable even in the face of mechanization, more sophisticated production methods, and a more detailed division of labor. However, craft unionism did not entail a separatist labor movement; networks of unions within a trade and across industries provided support for strikes, boycotts, and union label campaigns, and advanced a common legislative agenda. Craft unions demonstrated an impressive tenacity and resourcefulness in coping with a hostile economic and political environment and still maintained a broader vision for the labor movement. Above all, trade union membership in an age predating the advent of a welfare state provided comfort for workers facing the uncertainties of life and offered some protection against the vagaries of a market economy. Workers turned to unions as well as to mutual aid and benefit societies to cope with illness, injury, old age, and unemployment. Even with the social welfare reforms of the last 70 years, workers expect their unions to take care of their own, and it is still upon this role that much of their loyalty to trade unionism rests. In sum, workers in late Gilded Age New York and Brooklyn tried to ride the waves of industrialization without being drowned by its unpredictable and treacherous undertows. In the process they drew on traditions of protest whose sources included the original homelands of the nation’s immigrants as well as the indigenous labor reform and socialist movements which emerged after the Civil War. With an eye more on current circumstances and imminent possibilities, these union builders and mercurial movement participants alike developed an adaptive unionism that neither represented a sharp departure from the patterns of labor

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activity evident before 1886 and the growth of the AFL, nor merely a prefigurative form of business unionism—marked by caution, a defensiveness, and conservative outlook—which purportedly became ascendant during the Progressive Era. The resourcefulness, openness and pragmatism of adaptive unionism reflected workers’ ability to learn from their shared experience and tackle new challenges. In their own uncharted but hardly haphazard way, they attempted to solve the conundrum faced by trade unionists before and since the 1890s: what needs to be done to overcome American labor’s chronic minority position, and with it the lack of power that it signifies and the insecurity it perpetuates? NOTES 1. Robert F. Hoxie, Trade Unionism in the United States (New York: Appleton and Century Crofts, 1917). 2. Selig Perlman, Theory of the Labor Movement (New York: Macmillan, 1928). 3. Gerald Rosenblum, Immigrant Workers: Their Impact on American Labor Radicalism (New York: Basic Books, 1973), p. 29. 4. Gwendolyn Mink, Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union, Party and State, 1875–1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 5. Gary Marks, Unions in Politics: Britain, Germany, and the United States in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (Princeton University Press, 1989). 6. See for example, Gerald Grob, Workers and Utopia: A Study of Ideological Conflict in the American Labor Movement, 1865–1900 (Evanston: Northern Illinois Press: 1961) and Victoria Hattam, Labor Visions and State Power: The Origins of Business Unionism in the United Staets (Princeton University Press, 1993) which counterpose the Knights of Labor and producer consciousness, and the craft unions affiliated with the AFL and wage-earner consciousness. Even Kim Voss’s more nuanced conceptualization of inclusionist and exclusionist approaches, which both found expression in the Knights of Labor, ultimately stresses their underlying tension, as the Knights’ decline represented a “delegitimation of inclusive strategies of labor organizing” and in turn meant the elimination of an organizational base for a political revitalization of the trade union movement through a labor party. See Kim Voss, The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 249. 7. See Hartmut Keil, “The German Immigrant Working Class of Chicago, 1875–1910,” in Dirk Hoerder, ed., American Labor and Immigration History; “German Radicalism, 1870’s to World War I,” Dirk Hoerder, ed., Struggle a Hard Battle (De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1986); and Bruce Stuart Kaufman, Samuel Gompers and the Origins of the AFL (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1973), especially chapters 5 and 6. For some historians, the labor movement in Gilded Age America retained an allegiance to a republican ideology, whose origins predated industrialization. See, for example, Paul Buhle, “The Knights of Labor in Rhode Island,” Radical History Review (Spring 1978), pp. 39–73; Leon Fink, Workingmen’s Democracy: The Knights of Labor and American Politics (Urbana: Uni-

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versity of Illinois Press, 1982); Barry Goldberg, “Beyond Free Labor: Labor, Socialism and the Idea of Wage Slavery” (unpublished PhD diss., Columbia University, 1979); and Herbert Gutman, Work, Culture and Society in Industrializing America (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), chapter 1. 8. For studies that trace the influence of German-Americans on socialist politics and culture, see Paul Buhle, “German Socialists and the Roots of American Working Class Radicalism,” in Keil and Jentz, eds., German Workers in Industrial Chicago and Marxism in the USA From 1870 to the Present Day (London: Verso, 1987), chapter 1; and Carole Poore, “German-American Socialist Workers’ Theatre, 1877–1910,” in Bruce McConachie and Daniel Friedman, eds., Theatre for Working Class Audiences (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1985). Although not primarily concerned with the role of German-Americans, Hubert Perrier, “The Socialists and the Working Class in New York, 1890–1896,” in Dirk Hoerder, ed., American Labor and Immigration History, 1877–1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983), documents the relationship between the Socialist Labor Party and some of the city’s major immigrant groups. 9. Eric Hirsch, Urban Revolt (Berkeley: University of California Press: 1990). 10. See Carol Connell, “The Local Roots of Solidarity: Organization and Action in Late-Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts” Theory and Society 17 (1988), pp. 365–402; Leon Fink, Workingmen’s Democracy: The Knights of Labor and American Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1983); and Kim Voss, The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century. 11. Michael Hanagan, “Solidary Logics,” Theory and Society 17 (1988), pp. 309–327. For a provocative study of the role of skilled craft workers in developing an artisanal industrial unionism, see Michael Hanagan, The Logic of Solidarity: Artisans and Industrial Workers in Three French Towns, 1871–1914 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980). 12. Andrew Dawson, “The Paradox of Dynamic Technological Change,” Labor History, 20, (Summer 1979), pp. 325–351, discusses skilled workers’ dualistic craft consciousness. Those workers who formed the constituency of the AFL expressed a “laborist” consciousness that aimed to restrict management’s power to control the workplace, simultaneously manifested an exclusionist consciousness that sought to distance themselves from unskilled laborers and semiskilled factory workers. My reading of the labor activity of New York’s and Brooklyn’s skilled workers indicates that craft unionism’s exclusionist features were based on strategic considerations of power, i.e., the capacity to exert maximum pressure on employers and sustain effective organizations in the face of volatile swings in the economy and capital’s opposition to trade unionism, and not on a desire for social distance from lower status workers. For a discussion of the defense of union standards as an expression of the fraternal sense of mutual sacrifice and craft control, see David Thelan, Paths of Resistance: Tradition and Dignity in Industrializing Missouri (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).

Appendix A

Table A.1 Leading Manufacturing Industries in New York and Brooklyn (1890)

Source: United States. Eleventh Census (1890) Manufacturing Industries, Part II, pp. xxxii, xxxvi; Ibid, Manufacturing in Cities, pp. 88–97, 390–406.

198

Appendix A

Table A.2 Average Number of Workers per Establishment for Leading Manufacturing Industries in New York and Brooklyn

* Signifies that there was no data available for Brooklyn counterpart. Note: Figure in parenthesis shows number of workers in Brooklyn counterpart of New York industry ranked in descending order of total number of workers or New York counterpart of Brooklyn industry ranked in descending order. Source: Eleventh Census (1890) Manufacturing in Cities, pp. 88–97, 309–406.

Table A.3 Fixed Capital (Machinery, Tools, Land and Buildings) as a Percentage of Total Capital

Source: Eleventh Census (1890) Manufacturing in the Cities, pp. 88–97, 394–407.

Appendix A

199

Table A.4 Capital-Labor Ratios (Dollar for Dollar*) for the Leading Manufacturing Industries in New York and Brooklyn (1890)

* The capital-labor ratio should be read as follows: for every dollar spent on wages, the amount spent on capital. Note: First Group of Industries for each city includes those ranked among top 10 both for value of goods and employment; second group includes only leading industries per value of goods; and third group, only per employment. Source: Eleventh Census (1890) Manufacturing in the Cities, pp. 88–97, 394–407.

Appendix B

Table B.1 Male Workers (1890)—Percentage Each Nationality (First Generation) Constituted of All Workers Per Sector

† Swedish and Norwegian. * Not specifically enumerated in Census. Source: United States. Eleventh Census (1890). Population, Part II, pp. 640–641, 704–705.

202

Appendix B

Table B.2 Women Workers (1890)—Percentage Each Nationality (First Generation) Constituted of All Workers Per Sector

† Swedish and Norwegian. * Not specifically enumerated in Census. Source: United States. Eleventh Census (1890). Population, Part II, pp. 640–641, 704–705.

Table B.3 First-Generation Immigrants (Men and Women) By Nationality as a Proportion of All Wage Earners, Manufacturing Workers and Garment Workers in 1890

*Not specifically enumerated in Census. Source: United States. Eleventh Census (1890). Population, Part II, pp. 640–641, 704–705.

Appendix B

203

Table B.4 Women Wage Earners (United States) By Age and Marital Status—Percentage of Each Group Who Worked

Source: Compiled from United States. Twelfth Census (1900) Statistics on Women at Work, pp. 16, 19, 21, and 22.

Table B.5 Women Workers in Service Occupations—Percentage Service Work Represented of Employment for Immigrant Women and Their Offspring

Source: Computed from United States. Eleventh Census (1890) Population, Part II, pp. 640–641, 704–705.

Table B.6 Women Workers in Manufacturing (1890)—Manufacturing Work as a Percentage of Employment for Immigrant Women

Source: Computed from United States. Eleventh Census (1890) Population, Part II, pp. 640–641, 704–705.

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Index

Allied Printing Trades Council, 59–60, 74, 176–78, 188 Amalgamated Society of Carpenters, 122, 124, 135 American Federation of Labor (AFL), xiv, xxii, 120–21, 133, 135, 191 Arbeiter Zeitung, xxvii, 145–47 Archibald, James (John), 35, 179 Barondess, Joseph, 156, 158–59, 180 Benefits provided by unions, 92–93, 98 Board of Walking Delegates, xv, 27, 120, 124, 130, 132. See also Building tradesmen; Strikes Bovshover, Yossef, 148 Boycotts, against The Brooklyn Citizen and The Brooklyn Times, 72; organized by the Cigar Makers International Union, 103; among Irish immigrants, xxvi; against the New York Tribune, 23–24. See also Strikes Bricklayers’ and Masons’ International Union (BMIU), xxii, 29, 126–27, 130, 176, 178 Brooklyn, industry in, 1–6 Brooklyn Citizen, 70–72. See also Boycotts

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 71–72. See also Printing trades; Strikes Brooklyn Standard Union, 70–72. See also Printing trades; Strikes Brooklyn Times, 70–72. See also Boycotts Brotherhood of Painters and Decorators, 124 Building Trades: apprenticeships, 126–27, 131–32; craft labor, 115–19; overview of construction industry, 112–13; subcontracting and “lumping,” 114–15; technological innovation, 114–15; unemployment, 125–26. See also Strikes Building tradesmen: architectural iron workers, 133; bricklayers, 28–29, 116; carpenters, 115–16; housesmiths, 130, 133–35; painters, 117, 124, 126, 130; paper hangers, 124; plasterers, 116–17, 126–27; plumbers, 117, 122–23, 131–32; unions, development of, 27–29, 119–24. See also Board of Walking Delegates Cahan, Abraham, xxvi, 145–47, 156. See also Arbeiter Zeitung The Carpenter, 116, 128–29

224 Central Labor Federation (CLF), xxiv, 124, 175 Central Labor Union (CLU), xxii, 12–13, 19–20, 27, 32–36, 120, 124, 130, 155, 162, 175, 177, 179–82, 192–93. See also Labor and Electoral Politics Cigar Makers International Union (CMIU), xxiii, xxiv, 20, 24–27, 33, 81, 81, 89–104, 189–92; women in, 89–91, 105. See also Samuel Gompers; Adolf Strasser Cigarmakers: political action by, 35; strikes by, 24–27, 96–102. See also Cooperatives; Henry George; Strikes Cigarmaking: production, 83–84; technological innovation, 84–86; tenement house manufacturing, 83, 93; wage rates and working conditions, 87–89; women in labor force, 82, 86, 106–7 Citizen’s Union, 181–82 Clarendon Hall Platform, 36. See also Henry George Cloakmakers, 30, 150, 154–59. See also Cloakmakers and Operators Union; Strikes; Triple Alliance Strike; United Brotherhood of Cloakmakers Cloakmakers and Operators Union, 154–56, 158–59, 168, 182–83 Clothing Cutters, 30–31, 155–57, 164. See also Gotham Knife Cutters Association Coatmakers, 30, 149, 157–58, 160–61, 163. See also Strikes; United Brotherhood of Tailors; United Garment Workers Commons, John, xiv Cooperatives: among cigarmakers, 96; among garment workers, 165–66

Index Forbath, William, xviii Garment trades: contracting, 143; division of labor, 148–52; sweatshops, 143, 149, 154; task system 163; technological innovation, 151; union development, 29–30, 152–54; women in unions, 152, 162–63. See also Cloakmakers; Clothing Cutters; Coatmakers; Seasonal unionism; Strikes Garside, Thomas, 156 George, Henry, xiii, xxviii, 13, 19, 21, 34–40, 175, 182. See also United Labor Party German-American Typographia, 57–59, 191 Gompers, Samuel, xiv, 24–27, 38, 81, 93–94, 98, 105, 121, 175, 180, 190. See also American Federation of Labor; Cigar Makers International Union Gotham Knife Cutters Association, 30–31, 164–65, 167, 189 Gutman, Herbert, xxiii Hattam, Victoria, xviii Hillquit, Morris, 145, 170 n.17, 183 Immigrants: Bohemian, 9, 24, 35, 38, 82, 101; German, xxii, 7–10, 13–14, 17, 120, 183; Irish, xxii, xxv, 7, 12–13, 120; Italian, 10, 38, 120–21; Jewish, xxii, 7, 10–12, 120–21, 144–48, 183. See also United German Trades; United Hebrew Trades International Typographical Union Brooklyn, Number 98, 57, 70–73; New York, Number 6, xv, 22–24, 34, 53–55, 57–75, 176–78, 181, 188 Journeymen Plumbers Association, 131–32

Dubofsky, Melvyn, xviii Edelstadt, David, 148 Eidlitz, Otto, 136 Epstein, Melech, 157

Knights of Labor, xiv, xxii, 36–38, 100–101, 120, 123, 133, 135, 166, 191 Labor and electoral politics, 33–41, 175–86. See also Citizen’s Union;

Index Henry George; People’s Municipal League; Peoples’ Party; Progressive Labor Party; Scaffolding law, Socialist Labor Party; United Labor Party Lorwin, Lewis, 157 Manliness and trade unionism, xxvi, 104–5, 128–29 McGuire, Peter, xv, xxiv, xxvi, 28, 121, 128–30, 175–76, 189 National Trade Assembly (Knights of Labor), 30, 124 New York, industry in, 1–6 Olson, Mancur, xix People’s Municipal League, 179 Peoples’ Party, 182 Perlman, Selig, xiv Persky, Littie, 162–63. See also Garment trades, women in unions Printers: political action, 34–35, 38, 176–77; pressmen, 53, 56; typographers (compositors), 56–57, 60–63; union development, 21–24, 57–60. See also Allied Printing Trades Council; German-American Typographia; International Printing Pressmen’s Union; International Typographical Union Printing trades: base of unions, 50–52; branches of the industry (book and job and newspaper publishing), 48–50; composition of labor force, 52–54; strikes, 58–59, 68–73; technological innovation. 54–57 Progressive Cigar Makers, 24–26, 33, 81, 89, 99–101 Progressive Labor Party, 40–41 Progressive Painters, 124 Ravage, Marcus, 147 Reicher, Charles, 143, 161, 168. See also United Garment Workers Rosenfeld, Morris, 148

225

Scaffolding law (1897), 178–79 Schoenfeld, Meyer, 153, 160. See also United Brotherhood of Tailors Seasonal unionism, 152–54. See also Garment trades Socialism, among Jewish immigrants, 144–48. See also Socialist Labor Party; Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance; United Hebrew Trades Socialist Labor Party, xxiv, 38, 40–41, 124, 145, 182–83 Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance, xxiv, 183 Sorin, Gerald, 147, 170 n.10 Strasser, Adolph, 25–26, 81, 90–91, 97–98 Stolberg, Benjamin, 157 Strikes, in building trades, 131–36; in cigarmaking, 24–27, 96–102; in garment trades, 154–63; in printing trades, 58–59, 68–73. See also Boycotts Swinton, John, 31, 34, 37, 40, 93 Sympathy strikes, 131, 133–36 Taft, Philip, xiv Tammany Hall, 39, 177–80, 182–84 Triple Alliance Strike (1890), 155–57. See also Cloakmakers United Association of Plumbers, Steam Fitters and Gas Fitters, 123, 132 United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners (UBCJ), xv, 121–22, 124, 128, 130, 134–36, 176–81. See also Building tradesmen, unions, development of United Brotherhood of Cloakmakers, 167–68. See also Cloakmakers United Brotherhood of Tailors, 153, 157, 162; 167. See also Coatmakers United Garment Workers (UGW), 143, 151, 151, 157, 164–68, 181–82, 192. See also Charles Reicher United German Trades, 13–14, 145, 182

226 United Hebrew Trades (UHT), xxiv, 13, 143–46, 151, 154, 162, 182, 192 United Labor Party, 13, 33, 40–41. See also Henry George United Order of Carpenters, 122

Index Walsh, T. C., 123 Weinstein, Bernard, 145 Women: in cigarmaking, 82, 86, 89–91; 105–7; in garment trades, 148–52; in manufacturing, 8–10; in printing trades, 52–54

ABout the Author RONALD MENDEL is Senior Lecturer in American Studies at University College, Northampton. He has held previous positions at Rutgers University and the City University of New York.