Origins
Lost in Translation: the Dutch, the Churches, and the Grand Rapids Furniture Strike of 1911 Robert Schoone-Jongen
n the morning of 19 April 1911, for the nineteen firms that formed the Osome seven thousand furniture Grand Rapids Furniture Manufacturers workers walked from their Grand Rap• Association. The owners were almost ids homes to dozens of factories, ready exclusively local men with family trees to spend ten hours amid the noise, rooted in New England and upstate vapors, and sawdust. These productive New York. They lived on the bluff to people annually carved and assembled the east of downtown; the workers about one-third of all the chairs, resided closer to the mills, near the tables, bedsteads, sideboards, cabinets, Grand River and its tributaries.1 Grand Rapids prospered and grew from the furniture business. The city's ten banks testified to the profits the factories earned. Five of the furniture companies were knot• ted into the tangled web of directors who controlled the banks and savings and loan associations. The furniture makers could finance their businesses through the local banks, independent from the larger banks in Chicago, or Detroit, or New York. The furniture men/bank directors sat alongside prominent department store owners, lawyers, and newspaper publishers. Stow & Davis Furniture: 86 Front Ave., S.W., Image courtesy of Assessor's Department Real Property Appraisal Card Collection. City of Grand Rapids Archives Come noon, they all lunched together and Records Center, Grand Rapids, Michigan. at the exclusive Peninsula Club at the corner of Fountain and Ionia and, if and display cases produced in the the weather permitted, spent a pleas• United States. Grand Rapids, Michi• ant afternoon on the links at either the gan, indeed, deserved the nickname alliterative Kent County Country Club "Furniture City of America." One half along Plainfield Avenue or the High• Robert Schoone-Jongen recently retired of those furniture workers were Dutch• land Club at Giddings and 5th Street, as Associate Professor of History Americans; the balance largely Poles, beyond the eastern boundary.2 at Calvin University. He has been Transportation costs had forced the researching and writing about Dutch• Lithuanians, Germans, and Swedes. American immigrant experiences for Eight firms formed the core of the manufacturers to cooperate with each many years, with special emphasis on Grand Rapids furniture industry, each other, beginning in 1881. The major communities in Minnesota, New Jersey, of them with roughly four hundred markets were concentrated on the East and Iowa. or more workers. Eighty-five percent Coast, and even farther away to the of the city's furniture workers worked west. Grand Rapids products could not
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and "Christian dow would be back in the hands of the Reformed," owners who had paid it out on Saturday. with a few other This economic hamster wheel fueled in• variants as well. dustrial discontent among the furniture Only seven workers. Consumer prices were rising, of the Dutch but when the workers asked for an in• congregations crease in wages, the men who owned the held services big houses on the bluff pleaded poverty.6 in English in When a delegation of furniture 1911.' The Re• workers appealed for higher wages in formed (RCA) 1909, they were first asked to wait for churches tended an answer until after the owners saw the to stress a more results of the always crucial semi-an• pious Calvin• nual buyers' conventions. The eventual ism, one more at answer was to ignore the requests and home with other dismiss the petitioners as agitators. The Protestant de• manufacturers association would only nominations and deal with individual workers, claim- American cul• ing that each worker should be free to Women painting furniture. Image courtesy the Grand Rapids History & Special Collections, Archives, Grand Rapids Public Library, Grand Rapids, ture. The Chris• negotiate his own terms of service with Michigan. tian Reformed a fair-minded employer. Another local ( CRC) ministers organization, the Employers Associa• be shipped in bulk via the Great Lakes. stressed principled living, strongly in• tion, kept files on workers' behaviors. Neither did the city sit on the nation's fluenced by social and political trends Still another group backed by the major railroad trunk lines, the nearest recent immigrants imported with them manufacturers, the Good Government of which lay in Indiana. Five railroads from the Netherlands. The question of League, sought to keep city politics held the transportation keys to the secret society membership was a major inclined to the industrialists' interests. city. The furniture makers formed the sticking point. The CRC vigorously All this prompted Viva Flaherty, the Furniture Manufacturers Association denounced groups like the Masons. social outreach workers for the Fountain to jointly negotiate freight rates with It looked askance at any organization Street Church, to write, "The associated the railroads. Those lower bulk rates that included membership oaths and employers refused arbitration in order to were a vital part of the city's ability to rituals, including labor unions. The · maintain the right of organized capital win such a large share of the national RCA held no such official positions.5 to deal with labor unorganized." furniture market.3 During the six days of the week In 1910, the several thousand fur• On Sundays the factory owners spent laboring at the lathes, unskilled niture workers organized Local 335 of and their workers occupied different laborers (mostly Polish and Lithu• the United Brotherhood of Carpenters spiritual realms. The owners gravitated anian) earned less than two dollars and Joiners of America. From the outset to congregations located in the center for their ten hours of toil. The skilled five Dutch-Americans stood among of the city, especially Park Congre• carpenters, joiners, and veneer men the leaders, four of them members of gational and Fountain Street Baptist (mostly Dutch) garnered about $2.25 the Christian Reformed Church. Henry Church. The workers scattered among per day. The managers and foremen Bowmaster, the first president of the dozens of churches, both Catholic and (mostly Germans and Swedes) re• local, had been born into a Dutch im• Protestant. The Dutch, who accounted ceived considerably more. A healthy migrant household in Allegan County for a quarter of the city's population, percentage of the workers managed to in 1865 and reared in the Christian supported thirty-three separate congre• buy modest houses, financing them Reformed Church.8 After working in the gations in the city. Theologically the through mortgages held by a savings Chicago area, where he also married, he denominations ranged from Unitarian and loan association. Those institu• moved to Grand Rapids to make a liv• to Roman Catholic, with the vast ma• tions were, in turn, beholden to the ing building houses. Garrit Verburg, an jority featuring the word "Reformed" furniture manufacturer who controlled immigrant from the Oudewater prov• in their titles. Reformed was subdi• the banks. By Monday, the money in a ince of Utrecht, the Netherlands, served vided largely between "Reformed" pay envelope carried from a pay win- variously as president, treasurer, and
15 Origins
in 1913, had denominational ( CRC) Synod proved moved from reluctant to issue blanket condemna• Muskegon to tions, except for banning membership the Grandville in the Knights of Labor in 1886, local Avenue neigh• church bodies dealt with the question borhood and on a case-by-case basis.' Classis Grand worked as a Rapids West denounced the Wood cabinetmaker. Workers Union in 1899 and then His service asked the denomination to create a list in the union of banned unions.15 That request was brought him to denied. In 1904 Synod again refused the attention of to condemn unions but urged careful Grand Rapids scrutiny of each one. While Christian Mayor George unions were preferable, prudence E. Ellis, who required Christians to act as salt and Chair makers at the Widdicomb Furniture Factory. Image courtesy the Grand Rapids History & Special Collections, Archives, Grand Rapids hired Timmer light in existing organizations as well. Public Library, Grand Rapids, Michigan. as a secretary. But, in 1906, Synod did distinguish Gerrit Raterink, between "bread and butter" unions, business agent.9 Employed as a cabi• president in 1916, was a house builder like those affiliated with the American netmaker, Garrit and his wife, Lena in the West Leonard area and a long• Federation of Labor, and overtly Marx• Vander Schelde, raised their children time member of the Alpine Avenue ist unions connected to the Socialist in the Grandville Avenue Dutch en• congregation.12 People like Verburg, Labor Party.16 An American Federation clave. Twenty-six-year-old millworker Van Dyke, and Timmer, cabinetmakers of Labor union membership might Louis (Lieuwe) Van Dyke, who served in the factories, earned approximately be compatible with church member• a year as president of the local, was $550--$645 per year, working ten-hour ship, but church members could not Michigan born and lived with his wife, days, five and one-half days per week, endorse violent protests or political Engeltje (Lena) Kooistra and their with no paid vacations or any other revolution. The anti-union sentiment growing family in the Creston neigh• benefits, but they earned enough to in the Christian Reformed Church borhood, within walking distance of allow someone like Van Dyke to own could be best summarized in words the Dutch-speaking Coldbrook CRC.® his home on Spencer Avenue in 1910. Professor Louis Berkhof published in John Timmer, secretary/treasurer Timmer and Verburg also purchased 1916: "Surely the brotherhood of be• homes eventu• lievers takes precedent over the broth• ally. Bowmaster erhood of labor." And again, '"Not for a and Raterink class, but for the King' should be their built the homes slogan; the establishment of social their families righteousness, their [unions'] ideal inhabited on goal."" Dunham and But under the leadership of Rev. West Leonard, John W. Brink (who had authored syn• respectively.13 odical reports hostile to unions), the The rise of Grand Rapids West Classis condemned Local 335, and membership in the Bricklayers &r Ma• its prominent sons Benevolent Association in 1907 Dutch contin• for having equated Sunday with all gent, fueled the other holidays, requiring members to ongoing Chris• swear an oath of secrecy, and advocat• tian Reformed ing a closed shop employment sys• Church debate tem.' The classis grudgingly approved on labor union membership in the cigarmakers union, GarritVerburg, left, in Strike office. Image courtesy the Grand Rapids History & Special Collections, Archives, Grand Rapids Public Library, membership. while urging church members to avoid Grand Rapids, Michigan. While the joining it.
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Ministers like Brink looked upon commission with society as a body with different parts, Rev. Alfred W [SOME POINTS OF DIFFERENCE! each with its unique function. This Wishart of Foun• Y THE EMPLOYERS, biblically invoked analogy meant, they tain Street Baptist BY THE MEN. Grand Rapids domfnutes the furnftue Grand Rapfds produces but f0 per said, that each person needed to live Church, Viva mnrket, cent of the output. Grand Haplds can ralse wages regard• owing -to unfnvorable freight rates, within their divinely assigned function. Flaherty's em• less of outside eompetftlon, cte., Grand Raplds ls absolutely subject 'Ile present average wng e Is not a Iv» to competftlon. Owners had one assignment, workers ployer. The union Ing wage. 'nges compare favornbly with same 'There has been no general fnerease I class of workmen In other cltfe», another. Workers could not tell owners leaders (presum• wges, 'There has been n average Wage Dr» how to run their businesses; owners ably including 'There hns beeng eneral cut In wages fnereaso of 28 per cent In ten years, nt cllfff'r•('llt Umr~. 'There has bee n no general wage cut, should pay the workers as fairly as Garrit Verburg) 'inlshing certain classes of furniture Maintained wages during f907, costs f0 per cent less than four years No general reductlon In ffnfshfng. possible. What was left unsaid was presented their I ago, Some costs more and some less, Give gures showing low average Snay fhe average wage today fs $2.,03. what workers should do when own• grievances to wage, Piecework ls sclentlfleally correc t and Ask thitt piecework be dispensed with, should be continued, ers were being patently unfair in their the commission Dqslre a minimum wage scale on an Great variety In qullty of goods demands and stingy with wages. That on 6 April. The hour basts, makes minimum wage seale fmpossible, Last of employes kept for purpose of Old card enrollment plan abandoned power imbalance became the issue in manufacturers mafntafning a blacklist, some years ago, (Charge that men have been dlscharged Deny that men have been discharged Grand Rapids in the months leading responded in because of affilftlon with unlonfsm, because they belonged to unlons, up to 19 April writing, reject• Strike problems. De Grondwet 16 May 1911. Translation: William 1911. ing all the union Boonstra, an employee of the John Widdicomb Furniture Company At a mass demands on 1 7 accused Frank Wysocki of having scratched him in his face. The latter meeting called April. The next denied guilt. More serious offenses are occurring at the present strike; by the Car• day the union however, the public is generally behaving itself. And it would be even better if people would leave the warring parties to their own devices. penters and leaders authorized Unsolicited advice is not appreciated, which is just as well. Joiners in a strike. The men October 1910, reported for work at the usual time on McFarlane's presence symbolized four thou• the 19th, but then at nine o'clock in the national attention Grand Rapids sand furniture the morning about four thousand put furniture workers gained. He was sent workers voted down their tools and headed for the by the national union to oversee the Prof. Louis Berkhof. for a nine• doors. The Grand Rapids Furniture strike. With two hundred thousand Image courtesy of hour workday, Strike of 1911 had begun. From that members nationally, the union offered the Calvin University Archives, Grand Rapids, a 10 percent moment on the city would never be strike benefits (three-quarters of a Michigan. increase in quite the same.' weekly wage) and logistical support. pay, and an Bishop Schrembs openly sided with There were rallies and marches to keep end to the piecework pay system in the workers in the dispute.' A large the members enthused for the cause, the factories. On 9 February 1911 the share of his flock consisted of Polish as well as the daily solidarity of stand• union had sent this proposal to the immigrants, who found themselves at ing together on the picket lines. The Furniture Manufacturers Association, the bottom of the city's social ladder, companies kept operating with the which ignored it since it came from the poorest paid of the furniture work• minority of workers (predominantly an organization. When on 25 March ers. They lived on the West Side, in Dutch-Americans) who refused to join the carpenters voted to strike on 1 neighborhoods that often flooded, in the walkout. On 24 April, Veit Manu• April, Mayor Ellis and other notables part because the city's riverside facto• facturing became the first company to offered to arbitrate the dispute. The ries acted as a levee that kept the river accept the workers' demands. During manufacturers declined the offer. out of the downtown area. The poorly the coming weeks only two others Other unions then voted to support a paid Poles were building the Basilica would concede.22 carpenters' strike. At the request of the of St. Adalbert within the shadow of The manufacturers also enjoyed head of the city's biggest bank, John the Widdicomb company mill as the national support. The National W. Blodgett, Auxiliary Bishop Joseph strike broke out. Rev. Wishart openly Association of Furniture Manufactur• Schrembs, and two other community supported the factory owners, several ers voted to cut production nation• leaders, the union leaders postponed of whom attended his prestigious ally rather than taking advantage the strike to allow time for a blue• church? Wishart would duel, in print, of the output drop from the Grand ribbon commission to examine the with the carpenters' union's strike Rapids factories. In another instance, situation. Schrembs jointly chaired the leader William B. McFarlane.?' Grand Rapids Show Case Company
17 Origins
early days some harm. Not only has it entailed financial of the first loss, but its moral and religious effect persons arrested· have been and are baneful. ... Brethren for disorderly by reason of one faith, one Lord, one conduct were baptism, yea, one congregation, are at Henry Van variance with one another. Anger is Strien and Peter oft evidenced, because one has kept at J. Beukema. work or returned thereto. Expressions As violence as the following are heard: 'You __ increased on the scab. I got no use for you.' 'You are a picket lines, es• man without principle.' 'If I must choose ent Thal Has pecially outside between the Union and the Church, I'll . iq Furniture St the Widdicomb leave the Church.' Many a greeting is
Strike and Riot Squad. Image courtesy the Grand Rapids History & factory, the two not returned, hands outstretched for a Special Collections, Archives, Grand Rapids Public Library, Grand Rapids, local Chris- brotherly clasp are ignored or spurned." Michigan. tian Reformed Beets squarely placed the blame on "the classes met in Union and its brotherhood..." for this announced that an out-of-town com• regular session on 16 and 17 May Both dissension.?° petitor would help fill orders the local bodies appointed committees of three On the other side stood Rev. Johannes plant could not complete. Then Grand ministers and four laymen to study Groen, pastor of the East Street congre• Rapids Show Case began importing the carpenters' union, the strike, and gation. Groen, lacking Beets's editorial strikebreakers. First came one hundred its causes. Rev. John W Brink chaired megaphone, confined his thoughts to fifty unemployed Pullman Palace Car Classis Grand Rapids West's commit• conversations and church meetings. We workers from Chicago, then more from tee. The laymen included a bank teller, can get a sense of his thoughts during Philadelphia. The city health depart• an advertising writer, a gas fitter/con• the strike from an address on unions ment exiled a group of strikebreak- tractor, and a railroad lawyer?" When he gave to a Grand Rapids ministers' ers from Greenville, Michigan, who Classis Grand Rapids East met, Rev. conference a few years afterward. came to the city with smallpox victims Johannes Groen presided as the body Groen argued that union membership among their number. agreed to follow West's lead. Besides was not wrong unless the organization The furniture strike struck at the the three ministers, East's committee functioned as a lodge. Since no Ameri• economic and social core of Grand included a bookseller, a peddler, a lum• can Federation of Labor union fit that Rapids. Mayor Ellis sided with the beryard laborer, and a carpenter who category, it was incumbent on Christians workers and resisted the manufactur• had recently started his own manu• to leaven those unions as Christian. ers' demands that he stop the picket• facturing company" Given the fact Separate unions only divided workers ing. When violence began, the mayor that CRC members were a significant and reduced their collective influence hired one hundred auxiliary police• percentage of the factory workers, and against the concentrated power held men, mostly from the ranks of the given a general hostility to organized by those who controlled concentrated strikers and including many Dutch. labor within the church, much was at wealth."In the wake of another forceful He also closed all the city's saloons stake in these deliberations-for the Groen statement to the 1914 Synod (and for the duration, including the pri• strike, the church, and the city. his lonely, one-man minority report dis• vate one at the Peninsula Club, one of The committee of Classis West very senting from the conclusions the major• the manufacturers' favorite watering publicly studied statements by the ity of the committee had adopted), even holes. But the fact that the city firemen Presbyterian Church in the United Henry Beets publicly asserted that he too turned their hoses on the disorderly, States of America and compared them had never been among those who issued mostly women and children, outside to previous rulings from the Chris• a blanket condemnation of all unions. the Widdicomb factory was not well tian Reformed synods, dating back to "We believe there is too much good in received, and two senior firemen were 1883. The verbal fisticuffs the strike them to be thus branded [as antithetical dismissed. inspired within the churches prompted to church membership] and cast aside as The conventional story says the Rev. Henry Beets of the La Grave Av• works of darkness. "31 Dutch were law abiding during the enue church, and editor of the Banner, Economics undermined the strik• strike.' But in the confusion of the to lament, "The strike has done much ers' ability to hold out forever. They
18 Volume XXXVII • Number 2 ·2019
"Is Against Unions. understood, it could not be viewed in Christian Reformed Church Goes on isolation. An incomplete report would Record Today. not do.36 Objects To The Oath. Ritual and Basis The end of the strike did not mean Not Being Religious Chief Points." the encl of the labor question in the Christian Reformed Church. Succeed• The lead sentence was even more ing synods would return to the issue. blunt: "Members of the Christian Re• But over time the denomination's formed church cannot belong to labor generally hostile views were muted. unions and remain in good standing As for the four church members who in the church. "34 The article claimed helped lead the carpenters' local during that the decision of one classis bound the strike years, their futures ran the all members of the denomination, even gamut. Garrit Verburg spent several in Chicago and Paterson, New Jersey. years as the carpenters' union's busi• Mayor Ellis. Image courtesy the Grand Rapids History & Special Collections, Archives, It also created the impression that the ness agent, trying to recruit crafts men Grand Rapids Public Library, Grand Rapids, Christian Reformed Church broke the for the organization. As late as 1923 Michigan. strike. The next day the newspaper he could be found fighting the good quoted an unnamed deacon in the fight for the carpenters at a meeting had families to feed and mortgages to church as saying, "Personally, I have no in Benton Harbor. He also worked on pay. By the end of July workers were intention of resigning from the union. Mayor Ellis's city hall staff, and later beginning to abandon the picket lines I have been a church member in good at the short-lived bank Ellis opened in and picking up their tools once again. standing for years. I love the church and Grand Rapids. Soon after the strike he William Mcfarlane, the union leader, believe in its teachings, but I am con• bought a home of his own on Madison moved on to head another strike vinced that a mistake has been made."35 Avenue and affiliated with the Burton in Great Britain. The Grand Rapids He went on to say he would appeal any Heights Christian Reformed Church, carpenters gave him a rousing send• disciplinary action taken against him. making profession of faith at a consis• off on 31 July. Some of the furniture He also claimed that no church member tory meeting-chaired by Rev. Henry manufacturers agreed to award sixty he talked to intended to quit the union. Beets. Verburg never again worked in hours pay for fifty-five hours of work. If the church did proceed against union the furniture factories.37 And in this atmosphere, Classis Grand members, he Louis Van Dyke left the Christian Rapids West reassembled on 9 August predicted, many Reformed Church a few years after the with its committee on the strike ready would opt to join strike, but not voluntarily. He came to report. Elder Ysbrand Veenstra the Reformed under church discipline clue to marital from the Alpine Avenue congregation Church in infidelity, not union activities. Dur• 32 presented the recommendations. America. ing 1916 Classis Grand Rapids West The committee advised and classis Classis Grand authorized his expulsion. Eventually he approved a motion advising members Rapids East, con• moved to the Detroit area, then Los An• against membership in the carpen• vening on 30 Au• geles. He never worked in the furniture ters' union. It was further agreed that gust, two weeks factories again.39 this would be handled as a pastoral after the strike After serving as Mayor Ellis's secre• and not as a disciplinary matter. No had collapsed, Rev. Johannes Groen. tary for a few years, John Timmer was Image courtesy of church members would be excom• reached a very appointed clerk of the city's justice the Calvin University municated or censured for belonging, different conclu• Archives, Grand court. He held that position until the but the consistories would work to sion. Rather than Rapids, Michigan. day he died. Death came to him while persuade union members to drop their ruling on the attending a Sunday morning service affiliations. The report overlooked any union question alone, classis contin• at the Burton Heights Church, where analysis of the furniture manufacturers ued its committee with a mandate to he also served in the consistory. His or of the grievances that had provoked examine the Employers Association's death notices made no mention of his the strike.33 role in the city's labor woes, as well as activities in the carpenters' union. He The afternoon Grand Rapids Press the constitution of the local Trade and never worked in the furniture factories headlines read, Workers Association. If labor was to be again.®
19 Origins
Gerrit Raterink continued build• tant Reformed ing houses in the city's northwest Church.43 quadrant and remained active in the Rev. Henry [S NEST II0IS carpenters' union. One of his sons Beets served would be elected to the city commis• as the minister Christian Reformed Church sion from the westside ward. Gerrit of the Burton Goes on Record Today• was working on a city parks crew, Heights church making the ice rink in Richmond Hill until 1920, OBJECTS TO THE OATH when he accept• Park, when he collapsed from a heart Ritual and Basls Not Being Re• attack. His passing was noted on the ed a position llgton Chlof Points. Rev. Henry Beets. front pages of the city's newspapers as Director of Image courtesy of that highlighted his union activities. Missions for the About Seven Hundred Members of the the Calvin University striking Organizations safd to e He never was chosen to serve on the Christian Re• Archives, Grand Affected my Action of CIassfs, Alpine Avenue church consistory.' formed Church. Rapids, Michigan. He remained Members of the Chrlstfan Reformed Rev. Johannes Groen remained church cannot belong to labor unions the pastor at East Street/Eastern the editor of and remain in good standing In the church, Avenue Christian Reformed Church the Banner until '['his was the unianimous verdict 1929, molding reached today by the Cassis Grand until 1919. In 1916, at the corner of Rapids west which met In this clty to• Eastern and Wealthy, he was shot at the ecclesiasti• day, Seventeen churches with a mem• bership of about 8,000 persons were twice by a disgruntled parishioner.? cal opinions of represented, and the territory embraces the English-lan• not only the west slde of Grund Raplds A few years later Groen took an early but the western part of the state, retirement and moved to California. guage faction of Rev. Samuel Eldersvelt of Kalamazoo 44 presided, Rev. D, De+eer of Jenison Until his final days at Eastern Avenue, the church. was secretary and Rev, Frank Doezema The furniture of this city was stated clerk. he remained one of the more socially The committee of fourteen reported thfs progressive voices in the Christian manufacturers Rev. Herman morning, asserting that because of the onth requlred of union members church• Reformed Church. He spoke in favor won the strike, Hoeksema. Image men could not belong. courtesy of the Calvin It followed with n critfelsm of the ritual but at a cost. used by the Brotherhood of Carpenters of both union membership and University Archives, and Joiners, asserting It Is not based on Competition brothorhood of man, but fs for materla] woman suffrage, much to the conster• Grand Rapids, purposes only and ls not based on relig• from regions Michigan. Ion. nation of other voices in the church. Thrll part or the r1tun1 relotlng to where wages burial ot dead members ls particularly Four years after his departure from I attacked. were even lower led to a long, slow It ls held that every member of the Grand Rapids, the majority of his church should resign from the union as decline in the number of factories soon as possible, congregants followed his successor, 'T'he session this afternoon was devoted that actually made furniture in the to further dlscussfon of the report and Rev. Herman Hoeksema, out of the Its adoption as the verdict of the class]s T'he suggestion was made that em• Christian Reformed Church to form Furniture City. In 1914, when the ployers and employes form a unlon for the study of labor questions and as a the even more conservative Prates- federal government enacted the Clay• means of arriving at settlement of wage differences. ton Anti-Trust About 700 men in this clty are affected, 400 in Chfeago, about the same number Act outlawing in Paterson, N. J., and about 300 In yart• interlocking ous other towns. '\ directorates such as the one Strike Grand Rapids Evening Press headline. Image courtesy of the Grand that linked the Rapids Evening Press, 9 August 1911, Grand Rapids page 1. banks together, the city's bank• were rejected. Upstart companies in the ers asked for five community also undermined the old percent of all manufacturers' establishment. When the exemptions James Van Keulen (who served on the the government study committee for Classis Grand received. The Rapids East) and his brother, Nicholas Widdicomb factory. Image courtesy the Grand Rapids History & Special vast majority of Collections, Archives, Grand Rapids Public Library, Grand Rapids, Van Keulen, organized the Colonial Michigan. those petitions Furniture Company in 1910, it proved I 20 J Volume XXXVII • Number 2 ·2019
to be a harbinger of things to come. their monopoly of the city's levers of Doezema founder of Doezema Furni• Dutch-American factory workers power and influence.45 Others, such ture in 1929, copied the Van Keulen would become rivals of the old New as the Hekman brothers Henry, Jelle, brothers' pattern in the very near Englanders who had made Grand Rap• and john-founders of the Hekman future.«&? ids the Furniture City and challenge Furniture Company in 1922, and John
Endnotes 1. One source lists the eight largest Rapids, Michigan, and Its People of Faith and Its American Environment, 1890--1918 firms as: Berkey and Gay Furniture Co., (Grand Rapids: The Grand Rapids Coun• (Kampen,]. H. Kok B.V, 1973), 240. Grand Rapids Chair Co., Imperial Furni• cil for the Humanities, 1993), 73-80. 15. A classis is a regional governing ture Co., The Macey Co., Oriel Cabinet 6. Viva Flaherty, "History of the body in Reformed denominations con• Co., Phoenix Furniture Co., Royal Grand Rapids Furniture Strike With sisting of a pastor and elder from each Furniture Co., and Widdicomb Furni• Facts Hitherto Unpublished." Grand congregation in the district. ture Co. (Christian G. Canon, Grand Rapids, 1911, 7-8. 16. Labor organizers connected to the Rapids Furniture: The Story of Americas 7. Ibid., 12. Socialist Labor Party and the Industrial Furniture City. Grand Rapids: The Public 8. Bowmaster (Bouwmeester in origi• Workers of the World did appear in Museum of Grand Rapids, 1998, 46). nal Dutch) was working as a carpenter Grand Rapids during 1911, but with little Another source adds American Seat- on his own in Grand Rapids in 1920, success. On 6 and 7 February Emma ing, Grand Rapids Show Case Co., and by 1940 he was working as a carpenter Goldman, one of their premier speakers, Sligh Furniture Co. (Jeffrey D. Kleiman, in Pontiac, Michigan, where he died in held meetings in the city. One of her Strike! How the Furniture Workers Strike 1948. local supporters, William Buwalda of of 1911 Changed Grand Rapids (Grand 9. Garrit Verburg was born in 1870 in Hudsonville, helped organize the events. Rapids: The Grand Rapids Historical the Netherlands, emigrated in 1881, and Goldman and Buwalda first met in the Commission, 2006), 13. For the profile died in Grand Rapids in 1929. San Francisco area during 1908, when he of the work force, see Jeffrey D. Kleiman, 10. Louis Van Dyke was married to attended one of her lectures wearing his "Making Furniture" in Christian G. Car• Engeltje (Lena) Kooistra in 1904 by Rev. uniform as a soldier in the US Army. For ron, Grand Rapids Furniture: The Story of L. J. Hulst pastor of Coldbrook CRC; this he was court-martialed, sentenced to America's Furniture City (Grand Rapids: she was granted a divorce in 1916 due to a term in Alcatraz, and dishonorably dis• The Public Museum of Grand Rapids, "extreme cruelty." Van Dyke moved to charged from the service. Goldman's very 1998), 48-9; Kleiman, Strike, 1-28. Los Angeles, where he died in 1955. public defense ofBuwalda led President 2. Grand Rapids City Directory, 1911. 11.John Timmer was born in 1881 Theodore Roosevelt to urge the army to Kleiman, "Making Connections," 44-55. in Muskegon. He married Jane Temple commute Buwalda's prison sentence. He Kleiman, Strike, 28. The Highland Club and died in April 1940 in Grand Rapids, also helped to organize more appearances became the Ottawa Hills neighborhood Michigan. by Goldman in 1912 and 1914.
21 Origins
tools. Leaving the tools behind symbol• Hiemenga (Coldbrook), and Peter Ekster 42. Banner, 18 May 1916. William ized the workers' sense of owning their (Commerce Street); laymen: James Hoekstra, A Dutch immigrant, shot at positions in the factories. They belonged Van Keulen (pres., Colonial Furniture Groen two times, both bullets missing. there. Their presence was not a mere Co.), Berend Pieterson (laborer), Doeke Hoekstra did not shoot at Groen because matter of being allowed to work there. Bouma (peddler), and John B. Hulst of the union controversy but because he. 20. The search committee that called (bookseller). had been denied membership in the East• Rev. Wishart to Grand Rapids in 1906 in• 28. "Rapport in zake Kerkelijke Beslu• ern Avenue CRC, of which Groen was cluded William Gay; chair (Berkey &r Gay iten Betreffende Unions" De Wachter 12 pastor. For a complete explanation and Furniture Co.), Charles Hamilton (sales April 1911, 9-10. outcome, see Origins, Vol. 36, #1, page manager, Berkey &r Gay), Frank Leonard 29. Banner, 3 August 1911, 481. 12, note 36. (owner of a prominent importing busi• 30. Banner, 30 September 1915, 43. https://blog.reformedjournal. ness), and James Hawkins (Grand Rapids 604-05. See also James D. Bratt, Dutch com/2018/08/25/the-paradox-of-a• city treasurer). Jeffrey D. Kleiman, Strike: Calvinism in America: A History of a christian-reformed-progressive/ <25 July How the Furniture Strike of 1911 Changed Conservative Subculture (Grand Rapids: 2019>. Bratt, Dutch Calvinism, 77-79, Grand Rapids (Grand Rapids: Grand William B. Eerdmans, 1984), 76-79 and 44. Viva Flaherty's service with Foun• Rapids Historical Commission, 2006), Zwaanstra, 262-77. tain Street Baptist Church ended during 61. Bratt &r Meehan, 74-78. 31. Banner 30 September 1915, 605. the 1911 strike. That fall she published 21. Ibid. 95-6. Needless to say, his remarks during the her account of the strike, with its pointed 22. Nachtegall Manufacturing Com• strike were at variance with this hind• criticisms of Rev. Wishart's public role as pany on 13 May; Fritz Manufacturing on sight. defender of the furniture manufacturers. 15 May. 32. Ysbrand Beukema was born in the She moved to New York for a few years 23. Bajema Clippings, Folder 16, province of Groningen in the Nether• but returned to Grand Rapids in 1917, Local History Collection, Grand Rapids lands in 1864 and emigrated in 1884, in time to distribute anti-draft pamphlets Public Library, Grand Rapids, Michigan. married Trijntje Van Haitsma in 1889, during World War One. She was among 24. Flaherty, 20. was secretary of the Christian school a group arrested under the Espionage Act 25. Peter J. Beukema was born in board, worked himself up from stock and tried for disloyalty. Klaas Ooster• 1885 in Michigan. He died in June clerk to advertising manager at H. Leon• huis, one of the co-defendants, pastored 1973 in Grand Rapids. He belonged to ard r Sons, and died in Grand Rapids in the Holland Unitarian Church of Grand the Plainfield CRC. Henry Van Strien 1923. Rapids. Another, Dr. Martin E. Elzinga, was born in the Netherlands in 1867, 33. Minutes of Classis Grand Rapids a veterinarian, belonged to Central Re• arrived in the USA in 1871, was mar• West, 9 August 1911, Article 8. formed Church. The jury found all those ried to Cornelia Smit in 1889, died in 34. Grand Rapids Evening Press, 9 charged "not guilty." Flaherty remained 1945 in Grand Rapids. Van Strien was a August 1911, 1. active in social justice movements, and member of the Coldbrook CRC. ( CRC 35. Grand Rapids Evening Press, 10 the Socialist Party, for many years. She Membership records, Heritage Hall Col• August 1911, 1. died in Grand Rapids in 1968. "Socialists lection, Calvin University, Grand Rapid, 36. Minutes of Classis Grand Rapids Acquitted," The International Socialist Michigan) East, 30 August 1911, Article 18. • Review: A Monthly Journal of Socialist 26. Minutes of Classis Grand Rapids 37. Burton Heights Christian Re• Thought (Vol. 18) 1917, 283. (Google West, 16 May 1911, Article 21. (Heritage formed Church membership directories Books, accessed August 5, 2019), Hall Collection, Calvin University, Grand (Heritage Hall Collection Calvin Uni•
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