An Eight-Hour Day Or a Big Strike,” the 1903 Operative Millers’, Nailers’, Packers’

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An Eight-Hour Day Or a Big Strike,” the 1903 Operative Millers’, Nailers’, Packers’ UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY “An Eight-Hour Day or a Big Strike,” The 1903 Operative Millers’, Nailers’, Packers’, and Loaders’ Strike in the Minneapolis Flour Mills by Shannon Elizabeth Murray A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY CALGARY, ALBERTA SEPTEMBER, 2008 © Shannon Elizabeth Murray 2008 ISBN: 978-0-494-44650-8 ABSTRACT On September 21, 1903, men in the operative millers’, nailers’ and packers’, and loaders’ unions left the Minneapolis flour mills where they worked. On the 22nd, they returned as strikers walking a picket line, to support the eight-hour workday for the loaders. The three unions united under the International Union of Flour and Cereal Mill Employees (IUFCME) in 1902, and this was the first test of their solidarity. Throughout the strike divisions like age, birthplace, marital status, wage, and skill among the men were clear. The millwrights’ union, also IUFCME members, did not strike. The men who were married and had ties to the area were the most militant during the strike. The mill owners, members of the Citizens’ Alliance (CA), fought to undermine worker solidarity and establish the open shop. The strike failed, resulting in a strengthened CA and an open shop principle in Minneapolis. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my advisor, Dr. Elizabeth Jameson, for her guidance and aid during my research and writing period. Also thanks to Dr. Kurt Hackemer, whose guidance and supervision during my undergraduate career has led me to where I am today. I would like to thank my friends and family for supporting me during my thesis writing and research. Thank you to Gretchen, Amy, and Pernille for all of your support and help and to Kris and Robyn for bouncing ideas around. Thank you Ryan who was patient with my schedule and helped in every way he could. Thanks to Becky for being there always. Thanks to my mom, dad, and sister for supporting me and giving me a place to stay while I researched. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………....ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………....iii Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………iv CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF LITERATURE………………1 CHAPTER TWO: INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT…………………………………...30 CHAPTER THREE: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CAPITAL AND LABOR………………………………………………………….…………….....50 CHAPTER FOUR: THE STRIKE…………………………………………………….....71 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION…………………………………………………….119 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………..……..124 List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………..iii Table 2.1: Nativity of Minneapolitans, Ward Five Inhabitants, and Mill Employees Studied ………………………………...…………………………….43 Table 4.1: Number of Married Heads of Household With and Without Boarders ………………………………………………………………………..108 Table 4.2: Mill Employees In Enumeration Districts Fifty through Fifty-Six Birthplace ………………………………………………………...…………….110 Table 4.3: Marriage Rates of Mill Employees Studied by Occupation ………………………………………………………….………….112 Table 4.4: Marriage Rates of Mill Employees Studied by Occupation and Birthplace ……….…………………………………………………...................114 iv Table 4.5: Average Weeks of Unemployment Among Minneapolitan Laborers and Mill Employees Studied, 1900…………………………………...115 List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………….iv Fig 1.1: Map of Minneapolis’s Ward Five, Including the Mill District……………………………………………………………………………28 Fig 1.2: Enumeration Districts Fifty through Fifty-Six in Minneapolis’s Ward Five Defined, 1900………...……………………………………....29 Fig 4.1: Minneapolis Mill District and Location of Prominent Boarding Homes for Millwrights and Mill Operatives……………………………………………107 v 1 Chapter One: Introduction and Review of the Literature At the turn of the twentieth century, just over 200,000 men, women, and children called Minneapolis, Minnesota home. Three of them, who represented many more, were Ward Ormmond, John Rung, and Andrew Haley. All three men worked in the city’s flour mills. Ormmond was a single boarder living on 2nd Avenue South. A millwright, the forty-one-year-old worked eight hours a day, five days a week, setting up and maintaining mill machinery. Ormmond had moved to Minneapolis from Ohio. He made $16.00 a week doing his job. Living just four blocks away was Andrew Haley, a thirty- eight-year-old from Wisconsin. Haley was an operative miller who oversaw the progress of grain as it was milled into flour. Like Ormmond, Haley worked eight hours a day, five days a week, though Haley earned only about $15.00 weekly. A married man with no children, Haley was the head of his household at 629 6th Street South. Rung was also married, and the father of five children. Head of his household, Rung resided in the 200 block of 8th Avenue South. Born in Minnesota, Rung, age thirty-four, was a packer, responsible for putting flour into sacks and barrels for shipping. Rung, like Ormmond and Haley, worked an eight-hour day, five days a week. However, Rung earned only $11.25 a week, nearly $5.00 a week less than Ormmond.1 These men shared a place of occupation, and lived in similar neighborhoods, but were divided along craft lines as well by their wages, and marital status. These demographic differences in combination with different life experience had profound effects on the mill employees. In the autumn of 1902, the operative millers’ union and the nailers’ and packers’ union negotiated for an eight-hour day. This was the first negotiation between mill 1 “Mill Wages in Minneapolis,” Weekly Northwestern Miller, 3 June 1903. 2 employees and mill owners since the unions of the millwrights, operative millers, nailers and packers, and loaders had joined with an international organization, the International Union of Flour and Cereal Mill Employees (IUFCME). Although the operative millers, nailers, and packers got their demand, neither the loaders’ nor the millwrights’ union were included in the negotiation.2 As negotiations were taking place among the unions of the operative millers and nailers and packers, the millwrights’ union not only demanded an eight-hour day but also a wage increase. The millwrights, unsuccessful in negotiating with the mill owners, struck for ten days until mill owners gave them an eight-hour day and a very small pay raise.3 The loaders continued working ten- and twelve-hour days. In the spring of 1903 the loaders, the least-skilled men working in the mills, approached the operative millers’ and nailers’ and packers’ unions to seek support in acquiring the eight-hour day. The operative millers’ and nailers’ and packers’ unions pledged support for the loaders. However, when the loaders approached the millwrights’ union, the millwrights declined to support the loaders for the eight-hour workday. Why did the millwrights refuse the loaders’ request while the others supported it? There is evidence to suggest that the nailers, packers, and loaders shared similar backgrounds and life experiences and were very different from the millwrights. Although Rung, Haley, and Ormmond shared an occupational and residential location, Ormmond and the millwrights were very different from the operative millers like Haley and the nailers, packers, and loaders like Rung. These differences affected the mill employees’ attitudes toward other workers and influenced how they acted in response to the loaders’ request for support. 2 “Flour Mill Employees: Eight Hours a Day is Granted Without a Struggle,” The Union, 3 October 1902. 3 “Millwrights,” The Union, 10 October 1902. 3 Other factors, too, affected the mill employees’ autumn 1903 strike. In the year between the successful negotiations among the mill owners and the unions of the operative millers and nailers and packers, there was an increased tension in the relationship between labor and capital in Minneapolis. The mill employees joined the IUFCME in the autumn of 1902. At the same time, the mill owners made their membership in the Citizens’ Alliance (CA), a national organization with locals that advocated the establishment of the open shop in all industries in the United States, public.4 The tensions among mill employees and between capital and labor came to a head in the autumn of 1903 when the operative millers, nailers, packers, and loaders struck in support of the eight-hour day for the loaders. The story of flour milling in Minneapolis, however, began seventy-three years before the autumn strike. Minneapolis was established in one of the most potentially lucrative locations in the state of Minnesota. The Mississippi River was on the eastern edge of the city, on its western edge, a large hinterland with fertile soil that reached to the Missouri River in the Dakotas; to its north, thick forest and thousands of lakes, and to its south its twin city, St. Paul and the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers. St. Anthony Falls, the largest drop the Mississippi River took in its 2340-mile stretch between Itasca, Minnesota and New Orleans, was situated in the center of the city.5 This drop allowed for massive industry to set up in Minneapolis, none larger than flour milling. From the falls to the world, flour milled at St. Anthony Falls would bear familiar names: Washburn-Crosby, sold as Gold Medal and General Mills, and Pillsbury. At the turn of the century, there were three major flour milling firms, Washburn-Crosby, 4 An open shop prevents any requirement for workers to be in a union when they worked in a particular industry. 5 Lucille Kane. The Falls of St. Anthony (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987), 1. 4 Northwestern Consolidated, which bought small independent flour mills and amalgamated them under one company, and Pillsbury. These “big three” dominated the waterfront along St. Anthony Falls. The mill district ran along Washington Avenue South and the Mississippi River between Marquette Avenue South and 9th Avenue South, and was at the north end of Minneapolis’s Ward Five.6 The largest mills in the district, the Washburn A and B mills, stood next to one another between Washington Avenue South and the Mississippi River.
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