Narratives Serially Constructed and Lived: Ethnicity in Cross-Gender Strikes 1887-1903

International Review of Social History

Volumn 44, Issue 7, 1999, Pages 33-52

  DeVault, Ileen A ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0033266231     PISSN: 00208590     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0020859000115184     Document Type: Review

References (68)

1. Unless otherwise noted, the story of this strike comes from coverage in the Lewiston Evening Journal (hereafter cited as LEJ), the Boston Globe, and the Shoe and Leather Reporter, vol. 56 (hereafter cited as SLR).
2. Unless otherwise noted, the story of this strike comes from coverage in the Lewiston Evening Journal (hereafter cited as LEJ), the Boston Globe, and the Shoe and Leather Reporter, vol. 56 (hereafter cited as SLR).
3. Unless otherwise noted, the story of this strike comes from coverage in the Lewiston Evening Journal (hereafter cited as LEJ), the Boston Globe, and the Shoe and Leather Reporter, vol. 56 (hereafter cited as SLR).
4. SLR, 5 October 1893 (vol. 56, no. 14), p. 798.
5. See Iris M. Young, "Gender as Seriality: Thinking about Women as a Social Collective", Signs, 19 (1994); Sonya Rose, "Class Formation and the Quintessential Worker", in John Hall (ed.), Reworking Class (Ithaca, NY, 1997); and Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique of Dialectical Reason (London, 1976), esp. vol. 1, book 1, ch. 4 and book 2, chs 1, 2, 6, and 7. In what follows, when I refer to Sartre's use of terms such as "serial", I will put them in italics. When this word, or others appear not italicized, then I am using them in their ordinary English usage.
6. See Iris M. Young, "Gender as Seriality: Thinking about Women as a Social Collective", Signs, 19 (1994); Sonya Rose, "Class Formation and the Quintessential Worker", in John Hall (ed.), Reworking Class (Ithaca, NY, 1997); and Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique of Dialectical Reason (London, 1976), esp. vol. 1, book 1, ch. 4 and book 2, chs 1, 2, 6, and 7. In what follows, when I refer to Sartre's use of terms such as "serial", I will put them in italics. When this word, or others appear not italicized, then I am using them in their ordinary English usage.
7. See Iris M. Young, "Gender as Seriality: Thinking about Women as a Social Collective", Signs, 19 (1994); Sonya Rose, "Class Formation and the Quintessential Worker", in John Hall (ed.), Reworking Class (Ithaca, NY, 1997); and Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique of Dialectical Reason (London, 1976), esp. vol. 1, book 1, ch. 4 and book 2, chs 1, 2, 6, and 7. In what follows, when I refer to Sartre's use of terms such as "serial", I will put them in italics. When this word, or others appear not italicized, then I am using them in their ordinary English usage.
8. Young, "Gender as Seriality", p. 728.
9. The further comprehension of such an encoding of genders into unions belonging to the early AFL is the goal of my larger study, tentatively titled United Apart: Sex, Gender, and the Rise of Craft Unionism (forthcoming, Cornell University Press). See also my essay, "'To Sit Among Men': Skill, Gender, and Craft Unionism in the Early American Federation of Labor", in Eric Arnesen, Julia Greene, and Bruce Laurie (eds), Labor Histories: Class, Politics, and the Working-Class Experience (Chicago, IL, 1998).
10. The further comprehension of such an encoding of genders into unions belonging to the early AFL is the goal of my larger study, tentatively titled United Apart: Sex, Gender, and the Rise of Craft Unionism (forthcoming, Cornell University Press). See also my essay, "'To Sit Among Men': Skill, Gender, and Craft Unionism in the Early American Federation of Labor", in Eric Arnesen, Julia Greene, and Bruce Laurie (eds), Labor Histories: Class, Politics, and the Working-Class Experience (Chicago, IL, 1998).
11. See Rick Fantasia, Cultures of Solidarity: Consciousness, Action, and Contemporary American Workers (Berkeley, CA, 1988), p. 16.
12. United Apart examines strikes in four broad industries: boots and shoes, clothing, textiles, and tobacco products. All but tobacco products are represented in the narratives given in this paper.
13. See Mary Blewett, Men, Women, and Work: Class, Gender, and Protest in the New England Shoe Industry, 1780-1910 (Urbana, IL, 1988), for a full description of the production process, its changing sexual division of labor, and the unions involved in nineteenth-century shoe production.
14. LEJ, 25 August 1893, p. 7.
15. SLR, 31 August 1893 (vol. 56.9), p. 493.
16. LEJ, 29 August 1893, p. 5.
17. LEJ, 16 September 1893, p. 16.
18. LEJ, 23 September 1893, p. 7; Boston Globe, 24 September 1893, p. 7.
19. LEJ, 23 September 1893, p. 7; Boston Globe, 24 September 1893, p. 7.
20. LEJ, 25 September 1893, p. 7.
21. LEJ, 26 September 1893, p. 7.
22. SLR, 28 September 1893 (vol. 56, no. 13), p. 745.
23. LEJ, 5 October 1893, p. 5. Spelling aside, this may be a reference to the Social-Democratic Hnchagian Party, founded in 1887. See Robert Mirak, Torn Between Two Lands: Armenians in America, 1890 to World War I (Cambridge, MA, 1983), pp. 88-89, 207-209.
24. LEJ, 5 October 1893, p. 5. Spelling aside, this may be a reference to the Social-Democratic Hnchagian Party, founded in 1887. See Robert Mirak, Torn Between Two Lands: Armenians in America, 1890 to World War I (Cambridge, MA, 1983), pp. 88-89, 207-209.
25. Boston Globe, 7 October 1893, p. 7.
26. Boston Globe, 8 October 1893, p. 1.
27. Samuel Gompers to AFL Executive Council, 5 February 1894, in Stuart B. Kaufman and Peter J. Albert (eds), The Samuel Gompers Papers vol. 3: Unrest and Depression, 1891-04 (Urbana, IL, 1989), p. 460. The LEJ reported Auburn shoe factories to be operating at two-thirds of their capacity as of early January, 1894. United States Bureau of Labor, Tenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, vol. 1: Strikes and Lockouts (Washington DC, 1896) (hereafter referred to as Strikes and Lockouts), reported 1,106 new workers in the factories as of 1 January 1894.
28. Samuel Gompers to AFL Executive Council, 5 February 1894, in Stuart B. Kaufman and Peter J. Albert (eds), The Samuel Gompers Papers vol. 3: Unrest and Depression, 1891-04 (Urbana, IL, 1989), p. 460. The LEJ reported Auburn shoe factories to be operating at two-thirds of their capacity as of early January, 1894. United States Bureau of Labor, Tenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, vol. 1: Strikes and Lockouts (Washington DC, 1896) (hereafter referred to as Strikes and Lockouts), reported 1,106 new workers in the factories as of 1 January 1894.
29. Samuel Gompers to AFL Executive Council, 5 February 1894, in Stuart B. Kaufman and Peter J. Albert (eds), The Samuel Gompers Papers vol. 3: Unrest and Depression, 1891-04 (Urbana, IL, 1989), p. 460. The LEJ reported Auburn shoe factories to be operating at two-thirds of their capacity as of early January, 1894. United States Bureau of Labor, Tenth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, vol. 1: Strikes and Lockouts (Washington DC, 1896) (hereafter referred to as Strikes and Lockouts), reported 1,106 new workers in the factories as of 1 January 1894.
30. Pray, Small and Co. was still on the "We Don't Patronize" list in the American Federationist, vol. 2, no. 6, August 1895.
31. Unless otherwise noted, this strike story is taken from the New York Times (hereafter cited as NYT) and the Newark Daily Advertiser (hereafter cited as NDA).
32. Unless otherwise noted, this strike story is taken from the New York Times (hereafter cited as NYT) and the Newark Daily Advertiser (hereafter cited as NDA).
33. US Department of the Interior, Census Office, Report on Population of the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890, Pt. 11 (Washington DC, 1897), pp. 698-699; Fourth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1888: Working Women in Large Cities (Washington DC, 1889), pp. 236, 274-275. The statistics in these sources also indicate a large number of German male workers among the "cotton, woolen, and other textile mill operatives", but Clark's was known for hiring "Scotch or North country Englishmen". See The New York Daily Graphic, 25 January 1888, p. 617.
34. US Department of the Interior, Census Office, Report on Population of the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890, Pt. 11 (Washington DC, 1897), pp. 698-699; Fourth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1888: Working Women in Large Cities (Washington DC, 1889), pp. 236, 274-275. The statistics in these sources also indicate a large number of German male workers among the "cotton, woolen, and other textile mill operatives", but Clark's was known for hiring "Scotch or North country Englishmen". See The New York Daily Graphic, 25 January 1888, p. 617.
35. US Department of the Interior, Census Office, Report on Population of the United States at the Eleventh Census: 1890, Pt. 11 (Washington DC, 1897), pp. 698-699; Fourth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1888: Working Women in Large Cities (Washington DC, 1889), pp. 236, 274-275. The statistics in these sources also indicate a large number of German male workers among the "cotton, woolen, and other textile mill operatives", but Clark's was known for hiring "Scotch or North country Englishmen". See The New York Daily Graphic, 25 January 1888, p. 617.
36. See Mary H. Blewett, "Deference and Defiance: Labor Politics and the Meaning of Masculinity in the Mid-Nineteenth-Century New England Textile Industry", Gender & History, 5 (1993), pp. 398-415.
37. NYT, 9 December 1890, p. 2.
38. NYT, 10 December 1890, p. 9.
39. NYT, 11 December 1890, p. 2.
40. NYT, 17 December 1890, p. 3.
41. NDA, 20 December 1890, p. 1.
42. NYT, 11 December 1890, p. 2. This statement also implies that there were important divisions by age as well as by sex and ethnicity in the mills.
43. NDA, 27 December 1890, p. 1, and 26 December 1890, p. 1.
44. NDA, 27 December 1890, p. 1, and 26 December 1890, p. 1.
45. SG to AFL Executive Council, 4 February 1891, Samuel Gompers Letterbooks, microfilm reel 4, vol. 5, frame 408; SG to Henry A. Woods, Kearney, NJ, 5 February 1891, reel 4, vol. 5, frame 413. AFL's boycott circular found in The Tailor, 2.20 (April 1891), p. 6. Most of the comments about Walmsley's treatment of women referred back to an 1888 strike of women workers at the mills. See The New York Daily Graphic, 25 January 1888, p. 614.
46. SG to AFL Executive Council, 4 February 1891, Samuel Gompers Letterbooks, microfilm reel 4, vol. 5, frame 408; SG to Henry A. Woods, Kearney, NJ, 5 February 1891, reel 4, vol. 5, frame 413. AFL's boycott circular found in The Tailor, 2.20 (April 1891), p. 6. Most of the comments about Walmsley's treatment of women referred back to an 1888 strike of women workers at the mills. See The New York Daily Graphic, 25 January 1888, p. 614.
47. SG to AFL Executive Council, 4 February 1891, Samuel Gompers Letterbooks, microfilm reel 4, vol. 5, frame 408; SG to Henry A. Woods, Kearney, NJ, 5 February 1891, reel 4, vol. 5, frame 413. AFL's boycott circular found in The Tailor, 2.20 (April 1891), p. 6. Most of the comments about Walmsley's treatment of women referred back to an 1888 strike of women workers at the mills. See The New York Daily Graphic, 25 January 1888, p. 614.
48. NYT, 4 January 1891, p. 16.
49. NDA, 5 January 1891, p. 1.
50. Ibid.
51. NYT, 12 January 1891, p. 2.
52. NYT, 12 March 1891, p. 1.
53. NYT, 19 April 1891, p. 8.
54. Unless otherwise noted, the story of this strike is taken from the Baltimore Sun (hereafter cited as Sun).
55. Maryland, Bureau of Industrial Statistics, Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Industrial Statistics of Maryland, (Baltimore, MD, 1894), p. 81.
56. Susan A. Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl: Life and Labor in the Immigrant Generation (Ithaca, NY, 1990), p. 134.
57. Sun, 9 July 1892, p. 8.
58. Sun, 16 July 1892, p. 8.
59. Sun, 20 July 1892, p. 8.
60. Sun, 28 July 1892, p. 8.
61. Sun, 29 July 1892, p. 8.
62. Sun, 16 August 1892, p. 8.
63. Unless otherwise noted, the story of this strike is taken from the American Wool & Cotton Reporter, vol. 16, and the Wilkes-Barre Times (hereafter cited as WBT). Information on the workers' ethnicity and households comes from the 1900 Manuscript Census for Wilkes-Barre, PA. The list of ethnicities includes both immigrants from the country indicated and those who could be identified as having parents or grandparents from the given country.
64. Unless otherwise noted, the story of this strike is taken from the American Wool & Cotton Reporter, vol. 16, and the Wilkes-Barre Times (hereafter cited as WBT). Information on the workers' ethnicity and households comes from the 1900 Manuscript Census for Wilkes-Barre, PA. The list of ethnicities includes both immigrants from the country indicated and those who could be identified as having parents or grandparents from the given country.
65. R. Fillipelli (ed.), Labor Conflict in the United States: An Encyclopedia (New York and London, 1990), pp. 17-19.
66. Of the women who lived with miners, forty-seven per cent lived with a coal-mining brother and fifty-seven per cent had coal-mining fathers.
67. WBT, 15 July 1902, p. 8.
68. WBT, 11 August 1902, p. 6.