Galveston Screwmen's Strike of 1882: Screwmen were powerful, highly skilled men whose job it was to use screw jacks to cram as much cotton as possible into the holds of ships. An expert crew could increase a ship's cargo by as much as 15 percent.
Twice members of the Screwmen's Benevolent Association struck because Negro workers had been hired to perform the same task. The union was successful in keeping their trade a white man's monopoly.
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Prior to the industrial revolution, virtually all work was agricultural work. People worked from sunup to sundown, 12 to 14 hours per day. Agricultural work was varied and intermittent, but industrial work was incessant. Nevertheless, the bosses tried to keep all workers on the old agricultural schedule. Unions fought hard to win the 12 hour day, then the 10 hour and the 8 hour. American workers are still celebrated the world over for having carried out the great 8-hour day struggle around May 1, 1886.
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Reconstruction Was a Horror in Texas!
When I first began to study and ask questions about Texas during the Reconstruction Period, I received the impression that all went rather smoothly. Texans accepted the federal troops, freed the slaves, and continued with their business, I was told.
What an incredible lie! The following book has the facts:
Richter, William L., Overreached on All Sides. The Freedman's Bureau Administration in Texas 1865-1868. Texas A&M Univ Press, College station, 1991. For forty months, the Freedman's Bureau attempted to enforce the ideals of political liberty, and, to a lesser extent, economic liberty for African Americans in Texas. This book details their failure to stop lynchings, continued slavery, torture, rape, robbery, and illegal exploitation. The victorious North lacked both the material resources and the commitment to carry out these ideals.
Texans resisted mightily. For those seeking to document the racist atrocities perpetrated by white Texans during Reconstruction rather than believe the glossed-over histories we are usually offered, there are plenty of descriptions here. In fact, there is more blood than ink on these pages. Blacks and their grossly outnumbered white supporters were vilified, terrified, driven out, and murdered throughout the book while the tiny force of reconstructionists hurried from one part of the state to another seeking justice.
Northeast Texas was particularly bad.
But the book also contains many stories of men who made a great effort to bring justice to Texas. Their failure does not diminish their commitment nor valor.
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William Sylvis, Pioneer of American Labor
The first national labor union federation was formed in 1866 by William Sylvis of the Molders’ Union. He made the molders a great union 1859-1868.
He was the main force in establishing the National Labor Union in Baltimore, August 1866. First national labor federation. He became its president 1868. Sylvis sacrificed his personal income and his health to unionism. His concept of unionism was far ahead of its time, and possibly ahead of ours. Here are some of the things that Sylvis advocated: end of convict labor, labor party, political action, restrictions on immigration, international cooperation of labor, 8 hour day, cutting hours to overcome unemployment, International labor unity, unity of races & nationalities, currency reform, universal suffrage, housing reform, ending tax exemptions for the wealthy, opposition to slavery, opposition to war, opposition to agribusiness and other monopolists, favored organizing the South. He had some successes with these demands during his own lifetime.
In 1864 he said, “I love this union cause. I love it more dear than I do my family or my life. I am willing to devote to it all that I am or have to hope for in this world!” Another excellent quote: “Man is a progressive animal. Progress is destined to go forward until… all mankind shall be free.”
Died 5:35 AM July 27, 1869. He was 41 years old and lacked money for a funeral or a burial plot, since he had always spent his meager income for union causes or loans to the unemployed. He was buried Laurel Hill Cemetery in Phila. Born 11/28/28. In his 41 years, Sylvis made himself the greatest contributor to the great American labor heritage. For more, click here
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Dubofsky, Melvin, and Van Tine, Warren, editors. Labor Leaders in America. Univ of Illinois. Urbana and Chicago, 1987. Has section on Sylvis by David Montgomery: "William H Sylvis and the Search for Working Class Citizenship."
Sylvis: "It is not what is done for people, but what they do for themselves, that acts upon their character and condition." (1865)
Pg 15: "What is wanted then is for every union to help inculcate the grand, ennobling idea that the interests of labor are one; that there should be no distinction of race or nationality; no classification of Jew of Gentile, Christian or Infidel; that there is but one dividing line -- that which separates mankind into two great classes, the class that labors and the class that lives by others' labor." --Conclusion of the Address of the National Labor Congress to the Workingmen of the United States (1869)
From: INTERNET:Janette357@aol.com, INTERNET:Janette357@aol.com
Date: 10/08/1999, 5:13 AM
Re: Re: Silvis, not Silvus
No matter how the name is spelled we all come from the same family. The name
is German and when my ancestors came to america in the mid 1700's the
americans spelled the name phonetically. This was the practice for many
years resulting in many different variations.
My great grandfathers name is spelled like mine, but his fathers name is
spelled differently. So could you please tell me what roll William Silvis
played in the union?
Thank you.
Janet
To: (unknown), labor
From: INTERNET:Janette357@aol.com, INTERNET:Janette357@aol.com
Date: 10/09/1999, 7:55 PM
Re: Re: Silvis, not Silvus
Thanks for the reply. I'm off to the library now to see if I can scrounge up
a picture. I have a picture that is not marked that I think is him, but I
need something to compare it with to confirm this.
I looked through all my old genealogy notes (what a mess) and thought you'd
like to know that the actual spelling of his last name was Sylvis. Like I
said, every generation had it's own spelling and it's gotten quite confusing.
My father was president of UAW for his local chapter (don't know the chapter
number). It was here in Kansas City, when he worked for the old Bendix
plant.
Grossman, Johnathan P., William Sylvis, Pioneer of American Labor. A Study of the Labor Movement During the Era of the Civil War. Columbia Univ, 1945-1973, 1986.**
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In the late 1980s, when they finally started widening Central Expressway in Dallas, they began to dig up bodies of African American people! It became evident that the original freeway had been put right through a graveyard with nary a word said! But, after years of civil rights strife, they couldn't keep their gruesome secret in modern times.
After considerable protests, the remaining bodies were moved out of the way as the freeway was widened. The process took a long time, and the bodies haven't found a final resting place even yet. The proposed "Freeman's Cemetery" is appealing to private donors for funding as this is written. It is supposed to get dedicated on Juneteenth, 1999.
The shameful history of segregation is well demonstrated at the site in mid-1998. As one walks westward from the unmarked African American grave sites, one encounters the Emmanuel Cemetery, for Jewish cadavers. Apparently they were regarded as one step up. Beyond them lie Catholics. Then, across a street, lie the remains of former great powers of the area.
One of them, visible from the street, shows a tall, proud, statue of a Confederate soldier. His back is toward the street. His epitaph gives his name and says, "Here lies one that was true to the teachings of the Old South."
Yes, true in death as well as in life!
To view the proposed new cemetery, exit off Central at Lemon, turn west, then come south (toward downtown) on the service road. Start turning right at the first turnoff to view the other three cemeteries.
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Train magnate Jay Gould made himself famous for all American labor historians by saying, "I can hire half the working class to kill the other half."
He proved his malicious intent by hiring gunmen to murder railroad workers during the Great Southwest Railroad Strike of 1886. The original call for the strike occurred in Sherman, Texas at a Knights of Labor meeting. Gould had been defeated by the union in 1885, but he triumphed in 1886.
Both strikes were led by Texas labor hero Martin Irons. After the big defeat, Irons was blacklisted from his trade as a railroad machinist. He eventually died in poverty in Bruceville, just south of Waco. They put him in a paupers' grave.
Fortunately, the AF of L in Missouri knew Irons and the heroic struggle of the railroad workers. They collected the money for a very nice monument which can be seen at the graveyard on Highway 35 outside Bruceville. It's the biggest monument in the graveyard and a very fine commemoration.
Also fortunately, an economist named Ruth Allen came across the graveyard. She did the research and wrote the only history of the Great Southwest Railroad strike, one of the bloodiest chapters in American labor history. Historians might find fault with Ms Allen's approach and conclusions. But without her, and without the tombstone that the Missourians dedicated, hardly anyone today would know how the Knights battled Jay Gould in Texas.
On November 8, 2002, at the University of Texas in Arlington, Dr Theresa Case of University of Houston did a short talk on her dissertation "The Rise and Fall of the Southwestern Knights of Labor 1885-86: The 1885-86 Gould Railway System Strikes." She said that all the Railroad Brotherhoods (I think there were 16 separate craft unions) were trying to recoup after the tragedy of the 1877 national strike. Railroad Machinists sympathized with industrial unionism as opposed to narrow craft unionism. They wanted everybody who worked for a given railroad to be in the same union so they would have more power against the boss. In 1885, there were cuts, speedup, and unsafe conditions. On March 7, 1885, 400 Gould employees walked off the Wabash in Missouri, and it spread to Texas. Charles Muir (sic) wrote about it. RR officials conceded in a week. The K&L increased membership "like wildfire."
The union was open to everybody except Chinese, Ms Case said. They called for excluding Chinese, but they accepted Blacks. However, there were a lot of segregated locals, Dr Case said. Incidentally, I read elsewhere that they were open to all occupations except lawyers.
District Assembly 101 was headed by Martin Irons. They called a strike because an officer was fired in Marshall in 1886. They tended to ingnore the National K&L and its Master Workman, Terence Powderly. The railroad bosses, under Jay Gould, had reneged on many of their agreements from the 1885 settlement.
Instead of using moral suasion, as strikers had done in 1885, DA 101 relied on taking over roundhouses and killing the steam engines. It took a long time to get them fired up again. The public did not know about Gould's Unfair Labor Practices and did not support the strike. State and federal troops quickly crushed the strike on Texas & Pacific. The Brotherhood of Engineers did not honor the strike to begin with. K&L turned more & more to violence and dangerous physical sabotage of tracks and facilities, Ms Case said.
By March 1886, the strike was over and the K&L was in decline. It never recovered.
Albert (left) and Lucy (right) Parsons are honored on this full-wall mural outside a Teamster Local in Chicago.
The Illinois Labor History Society can lay legitimate claim to Lucy and Albert Parsons. They both gave most of their best contributions in Chicago and both died there. I think Albert was originally from Montgomery, Alabama, and was living with his brother in Waco when he met the beautiful Lucy Gathings.
If you wander around the basement at the Texas State Capitol, you can still find a photo of a Parsons who was a state legislator during Reconstruction. He was Albert's older brother.
But Lucy was from Johnson County, just south of Fort Worth. I heard Dr George Green, respected labor historian from the University of Texas at Arlington, say so.
Ashbaugh's book says that Lucy and Albert claimed to have been married in Austin, but that there is no record of it. I've often wondered if a person might find some record in Johnson County if they looked....
Albert was a great labor organizer and was eventually hanged for having made a speech in Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886. Lucy went on to be a champion of the workers' cause until her death on March 7, 1942! Few people can claim to have lived so well.
For info on the Haymarket martyrs, contact the Illinois Labor History Society, 28 E Jackson, Chicago 60604 (312) 663-4107. They are buried in Waldheim Cemetery outside Chicago. It's an excellent little labor history tour.
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May 1st Is International Labor Day
We probably won't be celebrating Labor Day with the rest of the world, even though it was "Made In The USA". Two Texans had a major part in its creation. Perhaps because they lived nearby, I feel very close to them.
A Confederate war veteran named Albert Parsons came to live in Johnson County. He wooed and married Lucy Gonzalez there. He had a snappy little mustache and sideburns; she was breathtakingly beautiful. They were a dashing young couple. Albert was a young Waco journalist; Lucy was probably the daughter of Texas slaves.
Racism achieved the ascendant hand as America's Reconstruction Era was overcome; that may be why the Parsons moved to Chicago. Albert organized typographical workers; Lucy organized in the needle trades. Both were popular trade union leaders and public speakers.
Naturally, they became spokespersons for the "8 hour day" movement that culminated in a giant demonstration on May 1, 1886. It is that movement and that day in Chicago that are celebrated throughout the world, but not in its homeland.
The American workers were eventually victorious in leading the world to the 8 hour day.
Oh, how I wish the story ended there . . .
But Chicago police shot down some of the May 1st demonstrators. A few days later, another meeting was organized in Haymarket Square in order to protest the shootings. Albert was one of the many speakers. For some reason, the meeting went on and on; consequently Albert and Lucy retired to a nearby restaurant. The police decided to break up the meeting and one of them was killed in the fighting.
In November of 1887, Albert Parsons and several other leaders of the 8 hour day movement were hanged even though no attempt was ever made to connect them with the policeman's death. Lucy was stripped naked and thrown into a jail cell when she tried to see Albert alive for the last time.
Labor unions were divided over the defense of the Haymarket martyrs. Eventually, the side that wanted to condemn them won out and American labor went on to celebrate a Labor Day in September. But most of the world still remembers the 8 hour day movement in Chicago in 1886 on Mayday.
As for me, I always will remember Albert and Lucy Parsons. Every May 1.
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