ON THE EDGE OF THE PACIFIC RIM: CAPITALISM AND WORK ON THE LOS ANGELES WATERFRONT BY WILLIAM C. BRUCHER B.A., BATES COLLEGE, 2002 A.M., BROWN UNIVERSITY, 2007 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AT BROWN UNIVERSITY PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2012 © Copyright 2012 by William C. Brucher This dissertation by William C. Brucher is accepted in its present form by the Department of History as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date _______________ ________________________________ Elliott J. Gorn, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date _______________ ________________________________ Seth E. Rockman, Reader Date _______________ ________________________________ Robert O. Self, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date _______________ ________________________________ Peter M. Weber, Dean of the Graduate School iii Curriculum Vitae William C. Brucher was born on March 11, 1980, in Bangor, Maine and grew up in the nearby town of Bradford. He graduated with a B.A. in history from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine in 2002. From July 2002 through August 2006, he worked as a union organizer in the healthcare and human service industries for the Service Employees International Union and the Maine State Employees Association. He entered the Ph.D. program in history at Brown University in September 2006, earned his master’s degree in May 2007, and passed his qualifying exams in December 2008. While at Brown, he studied modern U.S. social and cultural history, transnational labor history, and modern Latin American history. He has served as a teaching assistant in a wide variety of early and modern U.S. and Latin American history courses. His dissertation research was funded by two year-long Brown University Graduate School fellowships, a William McLoughlin travel fellowship from the Brown Department of History, a summer grant from the Historical Society of Southern California, and a John Randolph Haynes and Dorothy Haynes Foundation Fellowship in Los Angeles History at the Huntington Library. He has authored a book review in the Michigan Historical Quarterly, the “Labor Unions and Strikes” chapter in the forthcoming textbook Conflicts in American History Volume 6: The Roaring Twenties, Great Depression, and World War II, 1920- 1945, and the article “From the Picket Line to the Playground: Labor, Environmental Activism, and the International Paper Strike in Jay, Maine” in the journal Labor History in 2011. iv Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the assistance and support of mentors, colleagues, friends, and family. Elliott Gorn has been a wonderful advisor throughout the course of this project, from its initial conception to its completion. His always comprehensive and thoughtful feedback has made me a much better writer. Our wide-ranging (and incredibly entertaining) conversations on history, politics, literature, music, and culture have shaped my scholarship in profound ways. I could not ask for better dissertation readers than Seth Rockman and Robert Self. Seth’s work on early American labor and political economy has shaped my approach to twentieth-century U.S. history. I will always be grateful for his encouragement of my work. Robert’s sweeping knowledge and detailed notes have also strengthened every aspect of my dissertation. As director of graduate studies, Robert has also been a vital source of support for me and every other graduate student in the Brown Department of History. I would also like to thank several faculty members who been wonderful teachers and mentors, including James N. Green, Karl Jacoby, Mari-Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Michael Vorenberg. Mary-Beth Bryson, Julissa Bautista, and Cherrie Guerzon have all been gracious and helpful to me throughout my time at Brown. Several institutions have supported my work. The Brown Graduate School was generous for funding two years of my research and writing. The Department of History provided an additional travel fellowship for a trip to the National Archives. A two-month John Randolph Haynes and Dorothy Haynes Foundation Fellowship in Los Angeles History at the Huntington Library granted me access to several archival collections related to the early history of L.A. Harbor. I thank the Huntington archivists, librarians, v and staff members, including Bill Frank, Mario Einaudi, Susi Krasnoo, Juan Gomez, Meredith Berbée, and Sara Georgi for their help. The Regional History Center at the University of Southern California houses the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce Collection, another trove of sources that proved indispensable for my project. I thank USC librarian Dace Taube for helping me navigate the collection. The collections at the Southern California Library and the Urban Archives Center at California State University, Northridge gave me unparalleled access to the harbor’s labor history. I thank retired archivist Robert G. Marshal and retired longshoreman Tony Salcido for curating the ILWU Local 13 collections at the Urban Archives Center, as well as reading room supervisor David Sigler for his courteous help in accessing the collections. I also thank the volunteers at the San Pedro Bay Historical Society who were kind enough to introduce me to their community’s history. I am grateful to the Historical Society of Long Beach for inviting me to participate in their first annual community history conference in 2010. The Historical Society of Southern California gave me a generous grant in the summer of 2010 to pursue additional research. I received valuable comments on early versions of my dissertation chapters at three conferences in 2011. I would like to recognize Nelson Lichtenstein, Richard John, and the participants in the “Capitalism in Action” graduate student conference at Harvard, James Gregory, Moon Ho-Jung, and the participants in the “Race, Radicalism, and Repression on the Pacific Coast and Beyond” conference at the University of Washington, and Shana Bernstein and the participants in the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association annual meeting. vi I am deeply indebted to Hilmar Jensen, Lillian Guerra, James Leamon, Elizabeth Tobin, and Christopher Beam for nurturing my love of history when I was an undergraduate at Bates College. I would also like to thank my former colleagues at the Service Employees International Union and the Maine State Employees Association, including Carl Stamm, Iris Halpern, Todd Ricker, and Matt McDonald. The experience of working on organizing campaigns in communities throughout the country deepened my understanding of labor, economic, and political issues and has grounded my work in the academy. My friends and family have been a vital source of support and camaraderie throughout my life. I am particularly grateful to Derek Seidman, Sean Dinces, and Chris Lamberti for closely reading much of my dissertation, and giving me great advice for making it a better work. They are great scholars, and even greater friends. In addition to Sean and Derek, Wen Jin, Lindsay Goss, and Oddný Helgadóttir were generous in reading and discussing one of my chapters for our Mellon workshop. Kevin Brown also provided incredibly insightful comments on an early version of my second chapter. I would also like to thank Sara Fingal, Stephen Wicken, Emily Wicken, and the other Brown history grad students for making our program not only a great intellectual community, but for making it fun. George Pullen, one of my oldest friends, was a gracious host while I was in Maryland last summer to visit the National Archives. Noah Petro has always been a great friend in college, in graduate school, and beyond. From a very young age, my grandparents Walter Nelson, Mary Nelson, and Elizabeth Brucher sparked my interest in the past through their stories and recollections. I miss them dearly. My parents, Ingrid Nelson and Richard Brucher, have always been vii enthusiastic champions of my academic and professional endeavors. They are my role models. Katherine Brucher, Margaret Payne, and Genevieve Payne are the best siblings in the world. I am honored to have an incredibly supportive extended family, including Carl, Bev, Alec, Abbey, and Ellie Nelson, Elizabeth Payne, Peter DiCola, Bernie and Ann Novak, and Kathy, James, Liz, Alex, Jack, and Jenny Johnson. Finally, none of this would have happened without the love and companionship of Annie Johnson. She has been with me throughout the last six years, from Providence to Los Angeles and back again, and all of our adventures in between with Maple and Sadie. Annie, I love you buddy. I can’t wait to start new adventures—wherever they take us. viii Table of Contents Page Introduction: Los Angeles Harbor and the Pacific Rim Metropolis 1 Chapter 1: Visible Hands: Business, Politics, and the 12 Shaping of Los Angeles Harbor, 1853-1920 Chapter 2: Commodities and Industries: Port Development 54 and the Emergence of Global Los Angeles, 1917-1940 Chapter 3: Arteries of Trade, Ideologies of Empire: Los Angeles 95 Harbor and the Pursuit of Global Commerce through Cultural Outreach, 1917-1940 Chapter 4: Striking at “The Heart of the Capitalistic System”: 127 Labor Conflict in Los Angeles Harbor, 1885-1940 Chapter 5: The Anxieties of Progress: Modernization, Labor, and 182 Race on the Postwar Los Angeles Waterfront Conclusion: Los Angeles Harbor in the Neoliberal Age 231 Appendix A: Total Commerce, Imports, and Exports: 242 Port of Los Angeles.