The story & strike of Illinois Iron and Bolt
05-10-2012, 08:15 PM
#1
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Joined APC: Oct 2010
Posts: 239
The story & strike of Illinois Iron and Bolt
A story I found about a little town 40 miles west of Chicago circa 1900. Couldn't help but think of y'alls situation, the parallels and the phrase: The more things change...
Carpentersville
As the nineteenth century drew to a close, Carpentersville, Illinois, had a population of about 1,000. Although the smallest of the villages in Dundee Township, it was the site of its three largest industries: the Illinois Condensing Company, the Star Manufacturing Company, and the Illinois Iron and Bolt Company. The township's leading taxpayer, the Bolt works, employed about 290 hands in buildings on both sides of the bridge along the west bank of the Fox River, which supplied the power.
Before Julius Angelo Carpenter acquired a controlling interest in Illinois Iron and Bolt in 1868, the business was small and consisted primarily in manufacturing reapers and mowers. Under his management the plant was expanded and production shifted to thimble skeins for wagons, sad irons, copying presses, seat springs, blacksmith tools, pumps and other articles with a national market.
When Carpenter died in 1880-reportedly asking, 'What will become of my men?"-his bereaved employees wore crepe on their left arms and attended his burial services en masse. The business lived on. Its wage payments housed, fed and clothed township families; the taxes it paid helped educate children and pave the streets. When the noon whistle sounded, the villagers went to lunch. Mary Edwards Carpenter, the widow and company treasurer, established a park in her husband's memory and donated the Congregational church building and parsonage.
The Bolt workers had to have muscles of iron to labor ten hours a day, six days a week, forging, welding, and attending the blazing furnaces in the foundry. Many were German speaking. Some of the employees lived in company-owned houses along the race bank, but most were scattered throughout the three villages. The heaviest concentration of their homes was in Carpentersville and East Dundee.
American industry in 1899 was in full recovery from the business depression that started with the Panic of'93, and labor was organizing to press for a share of the higher profits. In the neighboring city of Elgin the emergent unions had united in a local Trades Council. The preceding year the Elgin National Watch Company had the first strike in its history. George P. Lord, who had married Carpenter's widow, was now president of Illinois Iron and Bolt. Eighty years old, he was a resident of Elgin, where he headed and liberally funded the YMCA. Devoutly religious (he had resigned the presidency of the Elgin street car line because of a decision to operate on Sundays), a confirmed advocate of temperance, be did not look with favor upon labor unions.
The conflict that was to arouse hatreds and ravage the three villages had its origin in a reduction in the piecework scale in the blacksmith shop of the Bolt works on February 16, 1899. The company justified this cut by claiming that with more efficient new machinery, wages under the old scale-which had averaged $2.29 for the ten-hour day-would be excessive. The men agreed to try it for two weeks, apparently under the assumption that if their wages did not remain the same, the old rates would be restored. At the end of the next pay period, when their compensation came to only $1.50, the management refused to change the scale and the 18 hands quit work. Talk about forming a union spread quickly. When three leaders of this movement were discharged without explanation, a local, Federal Union No. 724 1, was organized March 7th and applied for affiliation with the American Federation of Labor.
The company responded by granting a five percent pay increase but the union continued to enlist members. The union demanded the restoration of the old rates and reinstatement of those who had led in organizing the union. Management refused to discuss those issues, and on the morning of April 19th, 175 men walked out and marched in a body to West Dundee, where a meeting was held to plan the strike. About 20 skilled moulders and 95 men in other departments remained at work.
Declining to meet with the union or to recognize the Elgin Trades Council, which attempted to effect a settlement, the company began hiring replacements. It was this decision to continue operating the plant during the strike that led to the disorders and violence. The strike breakers, called scabs by the union men, were a rough lot for the most part, found among the floating elements in Elgin and Chicago. The company boarded about 40 in a space off the plant's dining hall. The strikers called this the Lord Hotel or the Hotel de Scab. Others stayed at Hitzemann's hotel in Dundee or commuted from Elgin. The Dundee Hawkeye described them as "being the worst type-men who couldn't hold or even get a job," and prophesied that "the company will see the day they wished with all their hearts they had the old force back again."
As more replacement workers filled the strikers' jobs, the walkout turned ugly. Disorders, assaults, and window breaking became more frequent. Some scabs were waylaid and beaten by the union men, and the replacements antagonized the community with thefts, drunken behavior and other actions, such as standing on the footbridge that connected the upper floors of the two plant buildings and spitting tobacco juice on pedestrians below. To protect themselves, many of the scabs carried knives and revolvers. In early July a confrontation between the antagonists in front of the plant led to stone throwing, and a scab brandished a gun. The fighting was later continued on the streets of West Dundee. Each side accused the other of provocation. The village president of Carpentersville, who was also company foreman and had remained on the job, left town for a long stay in Iowa, and the county sheriff informed the three village governments that he would preserve the peace since they appeared unable to do so. For a time the company confined the scabs to their quarters in the plant to ease the growing tension.
Rumors heightened the emotional conflict among union men, company officials, and those who continued to work. The struggle continued week after week, month after month, dividing families and breaking up friendships. Neighbors who had been congenial for years now passed without speaking. In niarked contrast to the turmoil at the Bolt works, the president of the watch factory in Elgin met with workers to resolve disagreements and allay discontent. The labor force of the Star plant across the river, with similar occupations, remained loyal to their company.
Letters to Elgin newspapers expressed some of the bitterness of the strikers and their many sympathizers in the villages. One writer claimed that Carpentersville had died of "scab rot" and should henceforth be called Lordsville. Ella Obland, one of the correspondents who did not shrink from signing her name, used sarcasm in referring to strike breakers, praising the company for bringing "such good people here to build up the town and fill the church and force out the lawless set who have lived here most of their lives."
Another letter pointed up the difficult choices made by the union men: "Here is Frank Reeves, an old soldier, who has worked in this foundry since the close of the civil war, and Arthur Arvedson, just home from Cuba. The latter's mother is an only niece of the late J.A. Carpenter. They are out of the shops with all the other men and a special trolley car runs up from Elgin with strangers to take their places."
"These men are our neighbors who turned out to a man when the shops were on fire, to assist in protecting the company's property," reminded another writer. "And when the company brings the sheriff here it courts riot."
Management finally met with a union committee in July but would not agree to its terms. Dundee merchants, whose businesses suffered, met with George P. Lord in a fruitless attempt to mediate the dispute. The company offered to allow the strikers to return but would not recognize the union. Those who remained loyal were treated to a family excursion to Lake Geneva, the first such affair in the company's history, while strikers who lived in company-owned houses were given eviction notices.
The union announced a boycott of the company's products, and the American Federation of Labor placed Illinois Iron and Bolt on its unfair list. The Elgin Trades Council gave the union funds it was planning to use for a Labor Day celebration. Although the company claimed in August that it was employing as many men as it could use, the union asserted that both the quality and quantity of the output had declined and the plant
could not fill all its orders. The turnover rate among the replacements was high, and by September the plant manager was calling at the homes of skilled workers trying to persuade them to return.
Samuel Gompers, president of the A. F. of L., invited the company president, union leaders, and a representative of the Elgin Trades Council to meet with him in Chicago. On the day appointed, September 15th, George P. Lord neither appeared nor sent his regrets, and the union then abandoned all efforts to communicate with the management. The boycott was pushed with visits by union men to Chicago factories but had little success.
The strike was never settled by an agreement. As late as January, 1900, 11 months after the beginning of the trouble, violence was still occurring and the union claimed that only about 20 of its members had returned to work. By then most of the strikers had taken jobs elsewhere in the Fox valley. Perhaps as many as 30 of the more skilled pattern makers and moulders had gone to a plant in Marinette, Wisconsin, to make skeins at higher wages in competition with their former employer. Others found employment at a foundry in Stoughton, Wisconsin.
The company lost orders and goodwill, the strikers their jobs, and the community its peace. And the name of George P. Lord, the God-fearing philanthropist whose intransigence had prolonged the conflict, remained anathema in the three villages long after his death.
Carpentersville
As the nineteenth century drew to a close, Carpentersville, Illinois, had a population of about 1,000. Although the smallest of the villages in Dundee Township, it was the site of its three largest industries: the Illinois Condensing Company, the Star Manufacturing Company, and the Illinois Iron and Bolt Company. The township's leading taxpayer, the Bolt works, employed about 290 hands in buildings on both sides of the bridge along the west bank of the Fox River, which supplied the power.
Before Julius Angelo Carpenter acquired a controlling interest in Illinois Iron and Bolt in 1868, the business was small and consisted primarily in manufacturing reapers and mowers. Under his management the plant was expanded and production shifted to thimble skeins for wagons, sad irons, copying presses, seat springs, blacksmith tools, pumps and other articles with a national market.
When Carpenter died in 1880-reportedly asking, 'What will become of my men?"-his bereaved employees wore crepe on their left arms and attended his burial services en masse. The business lived on. Its wage payments housed, fed and clothed township families; the taxes it paid helped educate children and pave the streets. When the noon whistle sounded, the villagers went to lunch. Mary Edwards Carpenter, the widow and company treasurer, established a park in her husband's memory and donated the Congregational church building and parsonage.
The Bolt workers had to have muscles of iron to labor ten hours a day, six days a week, forging, welding, and attending the blazing furnaces in the foundry. Many were German speaking. Some of the employees lived in company-owned houses along the race bank, but most were scattered throughout the three villages. The heaviest concentration of their homes was in Carpentersville and East Dundee.
American industry in 1899 was in full recovery from the business depression that started with the Panic of'93, and labor was organizing to press for a share of the higher profits. In the neighboring city of Elgin the emergent unions had united in a local Trades Council. The preceding year the Elgin National Watch Company had the first strike in its history. George P. Lord, who had married Carpenter's widow, was now president of Illinois Iron and Bolt. Eighty years old, he was a resident of Elgin, where he headed and liberally funded the YMCA. Devoutly religious (he had resigned the presidency of the Elgin street car line because of a decision to operate on Sundays), a confirmed advocate of temperance, be did not look with favor upon labor unions.
The conflict that was to arouse hatreds and ravage the three villages had its origin in a reduction in the piecework scale in the blacksmith shop of the Bolt works on February 16, 1899. The company justified this cut by claiming that with more efficient new machinery, wages under the old scale-which had averaged $2.29 for the ten-hour day-would be excessive. The men agreed to try it for two weeks, apparently under the assumption that if their wages did not remain the same, the old rates would be restored. At the end of the next pay period, when their compensation came to only $1.50, the management refused to change the scale and the 18 hands quit work. Talk about forming a union spread quickly. When three leaders of this movement were discharged without explanation, a local, Federal Union No. 724 1, was organized March 7th and applied for affiliation with the American Federation of Labor.
The company responded by granting a five percent pay increase but the union continued to enlist members. The union demanded the restoration of the old rates and reinstatement of those who had led in organizing the union. Management refused to discuss those issues, and on the morning of April 19th, 175 men walked out and marched in a body to West Dundee, where a meeting was held to plan the strike. About 20 skilled moulders and 95 men in other departments remained at work.
Declining to meet with the union or to recognize the Elgin Trades Council, which attempted to effect a settlement, the company began hiring replacements. It was this decision to continue operating the plant during the strike that led to the disorders and violence. The strike breakers, called scabs by the union men, were a rough lot for the most part, found among the floating elements in Elgin and Chicago. The company boarded about 40 in a space off the plant's dining hall. The strikers called this the Lord Hotel or the Hotel de Scab. Others stayed at Hitzemann's hotel in Dundee or commuted from Elgin. The Dundee Hawkeye described them as "being the worst type-men who couldn't hold or even get a job," and prophesied that "the company will see the day they wished with all their hearts they had the old force back again."
As more replacement workers filled the strikers' jobs, the walkout turned ugly. Disorders, assaults, and window breaking became more frequent. Some scabs were waylaid and beaten by the union men, and the replacements antagonized the community with thefts, drunken behavior and other actions, such as standing on the footbridge that connected the upper floors of the two plant buildings and spitting tobacco juice on pedestrians below. To protect themselves, many of the scabs carried knives and revolvers. In early July a confrontation between the antagonists in front of the plant led to stone throwing, and a scab brandished a gun. The fighting was later continued on the streets of West Dundee. Each side accused the other of provocation. The village president of Carpentersville, who was also company foreman and had remained on the job, left town for a long stay in Iowa, and the county sheriff informed the three village governments that he would preserve the peace since they appeared unable to do so. For a time the company confined the scabs to their quarters in the plant to ease the growing tension.
Rumors heightened the emotional conflict among union men, company officials, and those who continued to work. The struggle continued week after week, month after month, dividing families and breaking up friendships. Neighbors who had been congenial for years now passed without speaking. In niarked contrast to the turmoil at the Bolt works, the president of the watch factory in Elgin met with workers to resolve disagreements and allay discontent. The labor force of the Star plant across the river, with similar occupations, remained loyal to their company.
Letters to Elgin newspapers expressed some of the bitterness of the strikers and their many sympathizers in the villages. One writer claimed that Carpentersville had died of "scab rot" and should henceforth be called Lordsville. Ella Obland, one of the correspondents who did not shrink from signing her name, used sarcasm in referring to strike breakers, praising the company for bringing "such good people here to build up the town and fill the church and force out the lawless set who have lived here most of their lives."
Another letter pointed up the difficult choices made by the union men: "Here is Frank Reeves, an old soldier, who has worked in this foundry since the close of the civil war, and Arthur Arvedson, just home from Cuba. The latter's mother is an only niece of the late J.A. Carpenter. They are out of the shops with all the other men and a special trolley car runs up from Elgin with strangers to take their places."
"These men are our neighbors who turned out to a man when the shops were on fire, to assist in protecting the company's property," reminded another writer. "And when the company brings the sheriff here it courts riot."
Management finally met with a union committee in July but would not agree to its terms. Dundee merchants, whose businesses suffered, met with George P. Lord in a fruitless attempt to mediate the dispute. The company offered to allow the strikers to return but would not recognize the union. Those who remained loyal were treated to a family excursion to Lake Geneva, the first such affair in the company's history, while strikers who lived in company-owned houses were given eviction notices.
The union announced a boycott of the company's products, and the American Federation of Labor placed Illinois Iron and Bolt on its unfair list. The Elgin Trades Council gave the union funds it was planning to use for a Labor Day celebration. Although the company claimed in August that it was employing as many men as it could use, the union asserted that both the quality and quantity of the output had declined and the plant
could not fill all its orders. The turnover rate among the replacements was high, and by September the plant manager was calling at the homes of skilled workers trying to persuade them to return.
Samuel Gompers, president of the A. F. of L., invited the company president, union leaders, and a representative of the Elgin Trades Council to meet with him in Chicago. On the day appointed, September 15th, George P. Lord neither appeared nor sent his regrets, and the union then abandoned all efforts to communicate with the management. The boycott was pushed with visits by union men to Chicago factories but had little success.
The strike was never settled by an agreement. As late as January, 1900, 11 months after the beginning of the trouble, violence was still occurring and the union claimed that only about 20 of its members had returned to work. By then most of the strikers had taken jobs elsewhere in the Fox valley. Perhaps as many as 30 of the more skilled pattern makers and moulders had gone to a plant in Marinette, Wisconsin, to make skeins at higher wages in competition with their former employer. Others found employment at a foundry in Stoughton, Wisconsin.
The company lost orders and goodwill, the strikers their jobs, and the community its peace. And the name of George P. Lord, the God-fearing philanthropist whose intransigence had prolonged the conflict, remained anathema in the three villages long after his death.
05-10-2012, 09:22 PM
#2
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2009
Posts: 786
A cute story, but it has almost nothing to do with the UCH pilot situation. First of all the RLA (and JP's lemmings) keep any real pressure from ever being exerted on the company. Second, Smizeck will always operate on Sundays even if he has to pay workers $2.29 a day and lastly, If I remember correctly the federal government came to Chicago with federal troops before the Wagner Act and shot, beat and arrested most of the strikers in similar conflicts to end strikes. Look up the Pullman strike and The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
I don't know about you, but I ain't livin' in no company housing!
From Wiki:
"The Sherman act authorized federal action against any "combination in the form of trusts or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade," was used as a blanket injunction against labor to break the current strike and others in the future. The Pullman Strike (1894) against the Great Northern Railway of Chicago, led by Eugene V. Debs, then president of the American Railway Union, was staged because of cuts in wages and continued high rents in company-owned housing. At the suggestion of Attorney General Richard Olney, President Cleveland ordered 2,500 federal troops to the strike zone and broke the strike within a week."
I don't know about you, but I ain't livin' in no company housing!
From Wiki:
"The Sherman act authorized federal action against any "combination in the form of trusts or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade," was used as a blanket injunction against labor to break the current strike and others in the future. The Pullman Strike (1894) against the Great Northern Railway of Chicago, led by Eugene V. Debs, then president of the American Railway Union, was staged because of cuts in wages and continued high rents in company-owned housing. At the suggestion of Attorney General Richard Olney, President Cleveland ordered 2,500 federal troops to the strike zone and broke the strike within a week."
05-11-2012, 10:20 AM
#4
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2008
Position: Cub Cap
Posts: 175
Originally Posted by Captain Bligh
A cute story, but it has almost nothing to do with the UCH pilot situation. First of all the RLA (and JP's lemmings) keep any real pressure from ever being exerted on the company. Second, Smizeck will always operate on Sundays even if he has to pay workers $2.29 a day and lastly, If I remember correctly the federal government came to Chicago with federal troops before the Wagner Act and shot, beat and arrested most of the strikers in similar conflicts to end strikes. Look up the Pullman strike and The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
I don't know about you, but I ain't livin' in no company housing!
From Wiki:
"The Sherman act authorized federal action against any "combination in the form of trusts or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade," was used as a blanket injunction against labor to break the current strike and others in the future. The Pullman Strike (1894) against the Great Northern Railway of Chicago, led by Eugene V. Debs, then president of the American Railway Union, was staged because of cuts in wages and continued high rents in company-owned housing. At the suggestion of Attorney General Richard Olney, President Cleveland ordered 2,500 federal troops to the strike zone and broke the strike within a week."
I don't know about you, but I ain't livin' in no company housing!
From Wiki:
"The Sherman act authorized federal action against any "combination in the form of trusts or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade," was used as a blanket injunction against labor to break the current strike and others in the future. The Pullman Strike (1894) against the Great Northern Railway of Chicago, led by Eugene V. Debs, then president of the American Railway Union, was staged because of cuts in wages and continued high rents in company-owned housing. At the suggestion of Attorney General Richard Olney, President Cleveland ordered 2,500 federal troops to the strike zone and broke the strike within a week."
I would not characterize the story above as cute, it is our history. Like it or not, we are labor. It is a story about the struggle for fairness, and about the dregs of the world that would steal another persons job. It was an early labor movement effort, unions lost many other battles before laws were established to minimize the violence and give workers a level playing field.
Our so called conservative friends in government, those that kowtow to big money interests, have passed laws like the Sherman anti-trust act and the more egregious Taft-Hartley act to stamp out labor unrest. It has not worked for them, we are still here and the middle class has grown because of union struggles. The anti-labor crowd, will say union membership has declined, but that is not because of these laws. The reason is that government has stepped-in to provide workers with the same protections that unions used to provide. So, labor has been successful, just not in a form that is obvious.
What is dissimilar to the current dispute, is that Lord was able to replace all the strikers. That is not possible at today's UCH. Also, Lord could make autonomous decisions, without concern for Wall Street lenders, government politicians or angry shareholders. If a strike is necessary, it is highly unlikely that this management will ignore the lessons from the last effort to operate during a hostile strike and endure the long term consequences of that action. They will shut down, there will be no new S--b's and no redemption for the old ones.
Baron50
05-11-2012, 11:25 AM
#5
Gets Weekends Off
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Oct 2010
Posts: 239
Bligh,
I'm thinking you missed the point of the story and Baron eloquently pointed it out much better than I would.
I will say that you may be wrong about company housing. If you're like most people who fly the line, you're probably in company paid housing more than you are in your own bed.
I'm thinking you missed the point of the story and Baron eloquently pointed it out much better than I would.
I will say that you may be wrong about company housing. If you're like most people who fly the line, you're probably in company paid housing more than you are in your own bed.
