Tag: Textile Workers

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for April 1901, Part I: Found Threatening Mill Owners with Arrest for Crime of Child Labor

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Stt Dly Tx p3or5, Feb 23, 1901———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 9, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for April 1901, Part I
Found Threatening Silk Mill Owners of Scranton with Arrest

From the Wilkes-Barre Daily News of April 1, 1901:

SILK OPERATORS TO BE ARRESTED
———-
“Mother” Jones Gives Out
Important Statement
———-

STRIKE NOT SETTLED
———-
Strikers Bluntly Refuse Ten Per Cent.
Increase Offered.
———-

HELD CONFERENCE YESTERDAY WITH SECRET BALLOT
-“MOTHER” JONES OFF FOR CLEVELAND
TO STUMP THE STATE.

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

SCRANTON, Pa., March 30-“I leave for Cleveland. Ohio, at once to seek financial aid for silk strikers.” was the statement given me to-night by “Mother” Jones, the noted labor leader.

I will stump the State and when I return I expect to arrest every mill owner who has in open defiance of the State law, employed children under 14 years of age in their factories. Warrants will be issued for parents also.

The strike has not yet ended. At the conference to-day of the leadership the silk workers it was decided by almost an unanimous vote to reject the offer of the operators of a 10 per cent, advance and the bitter struggle which last night seemed to be nearing a satisfactory settlement has been renewed under a new coupe which will carry the greatest battle of feminine labor into the courts…..

[Drawing added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: Partial Victory for Striking Textile Workers of Ludlow, Mass.

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, re Ruling Class, AtR p2, Jan 23, 1909———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 5, 1910
Ludlow, Massachusetts – Textile Strikers Achieve Partial Victory

From the International Socialist Review of March 1910:

PARTIAL VICTORY AT LUDLOW.

Ludlow MA Textile Strike 1909 to 1910, Evictions 1, ISR p853, Mar 1910

Announcement was made Feb. 6th in a meeting of the Central Labor union that a complete understanding on the wage scale question had been reached between the Ludlow Manufacturing Associates and their 1,700 employes who struck in September because of a cut in wages.

The wage scale on which the State Board of Arbitration has been at work since the strikers returned to work has been settled by the acceptance by the strikers of a proposition from the associates.

The strike of the Polish employes, now at an end, is regarded as one of the greatest battles between labor and capital which has occurred in some time, not only because of the element of paternalism in it, but also because of the principles involved in the strike.

Ludlow MA Textile Strike 1909 to 1910, Evictions 2, ISR p854, Mar 1910

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Hellraisers Journal: Miss Fanny Cochran and Miss Florence Sanville Investigate Child Labor in Pennsylvania Silk Mills

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones Quote, Suffer Little Children, CIR May 14, 1915———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 13, 1909
Silk Mills of the Pennsylvania Anthracite Region Investigated

From the Everett Labor Journal of February 11, 1909:

DISGUISED AS FACTORY GIRLS

National Consumer League Label, 1899

That actual knowledge might be obtained of the conditions in the factories two graduates of Bryn Mawr College prominent in social circles in Philadelphia, Miss Fanny T. Cochran and Miss Florence L. Sanville, found employment in silk mills of the anthracite region of Pennsylvania.

In the itinerary of three weeks these college girls visited sixteen towns, and when the days’ work was done went home with the girls with whom they toiled and got glimpses into their life and the influences that surround them. The project was planned by Miss Cochran and Miss Sanville without consulting their friends.

This work was performed in the interest of the child labor bill, which has been prepared at the instance of the Consumers’ League, of which both young women are members and, of which Miss Sanville is executive secretary.

[Said Miss Cochran:]

What we wanted to get at was these four things: First, the workers; second, the wages paid; third, the hours of employment, and fourth, the environment of the girls in the factory. We visited twenty-eight factories, and in many of them the conditions were very bad.

About 60 per cent of the silk throwing mills are in the Pennsylvania anthracite region, and this is due to the cheap labor obtainable. I could not help being impressed by the youth of most of the girls. Most of them were under twenty years of age.

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Hellraisers Journal: Chicago IWW Trial: Fellow Worker Francis Miller on Early Death in the Textile Mills of New England

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday August 6, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – Francis Miller on Textile Mills and Early Death

Report on the Chicago I. W. W. Trial from Harrison George:

WWIR, In Here For You, Ralph Chaplin, Sol Aug 4, Sept 1, 1917

The first witness to take the stand on Monday, August 5, was Francis P. Miller, defendant and member of the General Executive Board. Miller was born in France in the region known as the Department of the Seine, where the great textile mills were before the war. He came to America in 1892, and has worked continuously in the textile mills of the east, and at the time of his arrest was employed by the American Woolen Company as inspector on government goods.

Testifying upon conditions in the textile mills of New England, Miller said:

The development in the textile industry has been both a development of machinery and the process of ‘speeding up.” In the cotton industry the looms and other machinery have been improved so that the worker produces 300 or 400 per cent more than he did a generation ago. In the woolen mills the machinery has not been improved to any great extent, but the workers usually have to run two machines where they ran one twenty years ago. The pay has increased a little, but not in keeping with the cost of living at all. Factory owners and trade papers say that production has increased one thousandfold, that is, over hand production. It has certainly increased 300 or 400 per cent in the last twenty-five years.

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Industrial Union Bulletin: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks for I. W. W. in Philadelphia

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Friday February 28, 1908
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks

From The Industrial Union Bulletin of February 22, 1908:

Propaganda in Philadelphia

EGF, Girl Socialist, DEN, Sept 21, 1907

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was the speaker at the regular Sunday night meeting of the I. W. W., February 9th, in Philadelphia. Every seat in the large hall was taken and extra seats had to be arranged to accommodate those who were anxious to hear the eloquent advocate of industrial unionism.

Miss Flynn’s subject was “Socialism from a Woman’s Standpoint.” She began by stating that there is no difference between the man’s standpoint and the woman’s, as industrial development had forced the woman into the same position as the man-wage slavery. In the course of her address she rapped the craft unions and the pure and simple political Socialists impartially, and pointed to industrial unionism as the salvation of the workers, the highest and most enlightened expression of Socialism as embodied in the I. W. W. Her points were generously applauded throughout the address.

The progress made in Philadelphia is most encouraging. There are now eight locals in that city, the latest acquisition being the Independent Union of French Textile Workers, who by unanimous vote, have joined the I. W. W.

———-

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Hellraisers Journal: “Suffer Little Children” Does Not Mean to Crush Their Souls & Grind Their Bodies into Profits

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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But the young, young children, O, my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly.
They are weeping in the playtime of others.
In the country of the free.
-Anon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Wednesday January 19, 1898
In United States of America: Grinding Up Children for Profit

From the Appeal to Reason of January 15, 1898:

Suffer Little Children, AtR, Jan 15, 1898Hear the Children Weeping, AtR, Jan 15, 1898

IN addition to the above it might also be stated that improved labor-saving machinery is rapidly, and at an increasing ratio, forcing children into the shops and factories, displacing the women who had previously displaced the men. In New England textile papers you will see advertisement after advertisement for help: “Spinners wanted; only those with large families, whose children are old enough to work in the mill.”

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Hellraisers Journal: Women, Children, and Elderly Driven from Their Homes in New York and Illinois

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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The bosses ride fine horses
While we walk in the mud,
Their banner is the dollar sign,
Ours is striped with blood.
-Aunt Molly Jackson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday October 31, 1916
Immigrant or American-Born, Neither Matters When Workers Strike

Today’s Hellraisers presents two stories of striking workers driven from their homes by company gunthugs. The strikers in Utica, New York, are mostly Polish immigrants. In Hardin County, Illinois, there are very few immigrants, most of the strikers are second or third generation Americans. But we find from these two stories that neither the striker of foreign birth nor the native-born striker can expect any mercy from the gunthugs hired by the companies and deputized by the county sheriff.

From the Duluth Labor World of October 28, 1916:

2,700 POLISH TEXTILE STRIKERS DRIVEN
FROM HOMES IN NEW YORK
—–

BRUTAL GUARDS ASSAULT WOMEN
TEXTILE WORKERS
—–
By DANTE BARTON.
Member Industrial Relations Committee.

A. D. Juilliard (1836-1919), wiki

NEW YORK, Oct. 26.-Right in the heart of central New York, prosperous and boasting of its wealth, there is now an example of cruelty, incompetence and lawlessness against striking workers which rivals the things done in Colorado by the Rockefeller interests, or on the Mesaba range or in Pittsburgh, by the Steel trust.

Just outside of Utica, in the little town of New York Mills, 2,700 Polish men and women, industrious and peaceful, are being thrown out of company houses, terrorized and assaulted by armed thugs and guards, their children sickened and in many instances killed by the diseases of exposure; themselves and their families subjected to starvation and sickness.

These things are being perpetrated against them by their employer, the New York Mills corporation, of which A. D. Juilliard, New York city, is the responsible president, because they have struck for a 10 per cent increase of wages that are too low, by any standard, for decent living.

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