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Philadelphia's Lords of the Docks: Interracial Unionism Wobbly-Style

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2010

Peter Cole
Affiliation:
Western Illinois University

Extract

In the early twentieth century, several thousand Philadelphia longshoremen organized themselves into a powerful, durable, and effective labor union. These men, who proudly belonged to the Industrial Workers of the World, proved willing and able to employ the Wobblies’ direct action tactics to improve their lives. Perhaps even more impressive is that Local 8 was one of the most, perhaps the most, racially inclusive union of its era. Few institutions of any sort at that time in America could claim to be more committed to interracial, multiethnic unionism than Local 8. For ideological and pragmatic reasons, Local 8 stood for racial and ethnic integration on the waterfront. Uniting a diverse workforce was essential to the union's success. Indeed, the union collapsed when Local 8 was split along racial lines. This article looks at the rise and fall of the Progressive Era's most integrated union.

Type
Essays
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2007

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References

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2 Local 8 has been ignored in the IWW historiography for decades. Local 8 was an eastern local in a union known for its western origins and radicalism, a maritime union in an organization known for its efforts in extractive industries (mining, timber, agriculture), and a longterm success in a union much better known for spectacular failures and dramatic, occasionally victorious, strikes. My new book covers Local 8's history in the most detail; Peter Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive Era Philadelphia (Urbana, 2007).Google Scholar There are only three significant articles on Local 8, all recent: Cole, Peter, “Quakertown Blues: Philadelphia's Longshoremen and the Decline of the IWW,” Left History 8 (Spring 2003): 3970Google Scholar ; Kimeldorf, Howard and Penney, Robert, “‘Excluded’ By Choice: Dynamics of Interracial Unionism on the Philadelphia Waterfront, 1910-1930,” International Labor and Working Class History 51 (Spring 1997): 5071CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; McGirr, Lisa, “Black and White Longshoremen in the IWW: A History of the Philadelphia Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union Local 8,” Labor History 36 (Summer 1995): 377402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar My previous article focuses on the role of communism in destroying Local 8 and dividing the entire IWW after World War I, a topic that deserves more attention. On Local 8 and race, where Kimeldorf and Penney focus too narrowly on race as the only important factor in Local 8's decline, McGirr's article (despite the tide) insufficiently explains the reasons for the racial basis of the union's successes and failures. The best general history of the IWW remains Dubofsky, Melvyn, We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World, 2nd ed. (Urbana, 1988)Google Scholar , although he, typically, treats Local 8 as a curiosity not quite relevant because its strength lasted beyond the war. Preston, William notes Local 8's inability to gain “much historical emphasis” in his review essay, “Shall This Be All?: U.S. Historians Versus William D. Haywood et al.,” Labor History 12 (Summer 1971): 446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Joseph Conlin attempted to address the lack of case studies of individual IWW branches but ignored Philadelphia; , Conlin, At The Point of Production: The Local History of the I. W. W. (Westport, CT, 1981).Google ScholarGambs, John S. devotes a few pages to Local 8 but disclaims interest in issues of race and ethnicity: “The race question, however, though dormandy existing, does not concern us“; see Gambs, The Decline of the I.W.W., 1917-1931 (New York, 1932), 135–37.Google Scholar In contrast, Spero, Sterling D. and Harris, Abram L. discuss Local 8 precisely because of its black majority in The Black Worker: The Negro and the Labor Movement (1931; New York, 1969), 333–36.Google Scholar Finally Foner, Philip S. singles out Local 8 and Ben Fletcher but seems to find the Brotherhood of Timber Workers' case more interesting; Foner, “The IWW and the Black Worker,” Journal of Negro History 55 (Jan. 1970): 51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar I have written a short biography of Fletcher, in the context of Local 8, and gathered his writings and all that has been written about him; see Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly (Chicago, 2007).Google Scholar Similarly, historians of Philadelphia have not given Local 8 its due; the fullest treatment is Hardy, Charles Ashley III , “Race and Opportunity: Black Philadelphia during the Era of the Great Migration, 1916-1930” (PhD diss., Temple University, 1990), 8083Google Scholar.

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12 U.S. Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors, The Port of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 340–41Google Scholar ; Barnes, Charles B., The longshoremen (New York, 1915), 5575Google Scholar ; , Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront, ch. 1-2Google Scholar ; Hobsbawm, Eric, Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour (New York, 1964.Google Scholar On the diversity and disunity of Philadelphia's shipping interests, see, e.g., Simpson, Spence & Young, to Chas. M. Taylor's Sons, Inc., June 3, 1913, Fred W. Taylor Papers, Pennsylvania Historical Society, Philadelphia.

13 Garlock, Jonathan, Guide to the Local Assemblies of the Knights of Labor (Westport, CT, 1982), 450–60.Google Scholar The Knights were founded in Philadelphia in 1869, and there were around 300 assemblies there in the 1880s.

14 , Barnes, The longshoremen, 110–13.Google Scholar

15 , Spero and , Harris, The Black Worker, 183Google Scholar ; Reynolds, Lloyd G. and Killingsworth, Charles C., Trade Union Publications: The Official journals, Convention Proceedings, and Constitutions of International Unions and Federations, 1850-1941, 3 vols. (Baltimore, 1944), I: 94100Google Scholar ; , Arnesen, “It Aint Like They Do in New Orleans”Google Scholar ; , Lewis, In Their Own Interests, 4959Google Scholar ; , Nelson, Divided We StandGoogle Scholar ; International Longshoremen's Association, Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual Convention, 1903, 7Google Scholar ; The Longshoreman, August 1913, p. 12Google Scholar ; Russell, Maud, Men Along the Shore (New York, 1966), 83, 90-91, 248Google Scholar.

16 , Foner, “The IWW and the Black Worker,” 45, 49-57Google Scholar ; , Spero and , Harris, The Black Worker, 329Google Scholar ; , Green, “Brotherhood of Timber Workers.”Google Scholar David Brundage argues that Haywood's beliefs on “working class internationalism” stemmed from debates and battles fought within and against the Denver labor movement, in which Haywood's Western Federation of Miners played a major role; , Brundage, The Makings of Western Labor Radicalism: Denver's Organised Workers, 1878-1905 (Urbana, 1997), 1-6, 3452, 154-63.Google Scholar In contrast, even the Socialist Partywas far behind the IWW on race, rarely trying to organize African Americans and often segregating them when it did.

17 Fletcher, Ben, “Philadelphia Waterfront's Unionism,” The Messenger, June 1923, p. 740–41;Google ScholarPublic Ledger (Philadelphia), May 17, 19, 20, 1913Google Scholar ; Solidarity, Oct. 4, 1913Google Scholar.

18 Perry, Grover H., “Transport Workers Join I.W.W.,” International Socialist Review 13 (May 1913): 812Google Scholar ; transcript of interview with James Fair, Dec. 21, 1978, Deborah Shaffer Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin; , Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront, ch. 2Google Scholar.

19 , Roediger, “Whiteness and Ethnicity in the History of ‘White Ethnics’ in the United States,” Towards the Abolition of Whiteness, esp. 184–87Google Scholar ; Radzialowski, Thaddeus, “The Competition for Jobs and Racial Stereotypes: Poles and Blacks in Chicago,” Polish American Studies 33 (Autumn 1976): 519Google Scholar ; The Longshoreman, Aug. 1913, 12.Google Scholar Arnesen writes of Polish longshoremen who struck with black workers in Baltimore; “It Aim Like They Do in New Orleans,” 82-86.

20 North American (Philadelphia), May 17, 1913Google Scholar ; Solidarity, May 24, 1913.

21 Bois, Du, The Philadelphia Negro, 135Google Scholar ; Solidarity; May 24, June 7, 1913.Google Scholar For an excellent discussion on the unity of longshoremen and sailors created by waterfront culture and the sea, see Nelson, Bruce, Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, longshoremen, and Unionism in the 1930s (Urbana, 1988), esp. ch. 1Google Scholar ; Rediker, Marcus, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750 (New York, 1987), esp. ch. 2Google Scholar.

22 “River Front Strike at Philadelphia,” Fred Taylor to Furness, Withy & Co., Ltd., London, June 3, 1913, Taylor Papers, Pennsylvania Historical Society; Public Ledger, May 17, 1913Google Scholar ; Philadelphia Inquirer, May 30, 1913Google Scholar ; Solidarity, May 24, 1913.Google Scholar The only demand the employers did not agree to was a raise to thirty-five cents an hour (New York City longshoremen were receiving thirty cents an hour at the time). “River Front Strike at Philadelphia,” Simpson, Spence & Young, Steamship Managers to Chas. M. Taylor's Sons, Inc., June 3, 1913, Taylor Papers.

23 “River Front Strike At Philadelphia,” Fred Taylor to Franklin, June 26, 1913, Taylor Papers.

24 Solidarity, Feb. 28, 1914Google Scholar ; The Longshoreman, July 1914Google Scholar ; , Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront, ch. 3Google Scholar.

25 Solidarity, May 30, 1914Google Scholar ; “To the President of the United States” from the Philadelphia MTW, The Messenger, March 1922, 377. The only time Local 8 did not celebrate its anniversary was in 1918, when the nation was at war with the Central Powers, and the organization voted to postpone the holiday “so as not to hamper the war work.”

26 Solidarity, Nov. 28, 1914, Feb. 13, 1915, April 15, May 6, 1916.Google Scholar On Spanish sailors, see Solidarity, May 6, 27, 1916, Sept. 23, 1916Google Scholar ; Avrich, Paul, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America (Princeton, 1995), 393, 396-97Google Scholar ; Gabaccia, Donna, “Worker Internationalism and Italian Labor Migration, 1870-1914,” International Labor and Working-Class History 45 (Spring 1994): 6379CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Solidarity, June 17, 1916 and Feb. 3, 1917.

28 Lamar, Elden, The Clothing Workers of Philadelphia: History of Their Struggles for Union and Security, ed. Hardman, J.B.S. (Philadelphia, 1940), 25Google Scholar ; , Harris, Bloodless Victories, 140–53.Google Scholar For much more on the forces arrayed against Local 8, see , Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront, esp. ch. 4, 6, and 8Google Scholar.

29 Public Ledger, Jan. 28, 1915Google Scholar ; Solidarity, Feb. 13, 20, 1915Google Scholar ; The Longshoreman, Dec. 1915Google Scholar.

30 , Jackson, Ku Klux in the City, 170-73, 240–43Google Scholar ; Litwack, Leon, Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow (New York, 1998)Google Scholar.

31 , Arnesen, “Following the Color Line of Labor,” 53Google Scholar ; , Washington, “The Negro and the Labor Unions,” 756–67Google Scholar.

32 Solidarity, March 10, 1917 and June 2, 1917. The pamphlet “To Colored Working Men and Women” was also distributed separately.

33 Bois, Du, The Philadelphia Negro, 133135Google Scholar ; , Arnesen, ‘“It Aim Like They Do in New-Orleans,’” 67-68, 71, 80Google Scholar ; Abraham Moses, n.d., and John Quinn, May 22, 1980, Delaware River Oral History Project, Independence Seaport Museum, Philadelphia; Thomas Dabney, Business Agent for ILA Local 1116 (Philadelphia), Jan. 20, 1928; “Labor Union Survey Questionnaire, Pennsylvania 1925-28,” Box 89, Series 6, National Urban League Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

34 Cole, Ben Fletcher, Seraile, William, “Ben Fletcher, I.W.W. Organizer,” Pennsylvania History 46 (July 1979): 213–32Google Scholar ; Marcus, Irwin M., “Benjamin Fletcher: Black Labor Leader,” Negro History Bulletin 35 (Oct. 1972): 138–40Google Scholar.

35 Untitled memo, JAF-CZC 37-361-3773, Nef et al., and “Memorandum For Mr. Burns, Chief, Bureau of Investigation,” File 37-479 (Ben Fletcher), Record 37 (Box 985), Pardon Case Files, 1853-1946, Office of the Pardon Attorney, RG 204, National Archives; The Messenger, March 1922, p. 377. There were no accidents or explosions on the piers where Local 8 members worked during the war, including the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Every Local 8 member registered, and hundreds served in the Navy. Supposedly the Philadelphia dock-workers purchased $100,000 in war bonds. Nationally, most IWWs registered, and in some areas registration ran well over 90 percent; Preston, William Jr, Aliens and Dissenters: Federal Suppression of Radicals, 1903-1933 (New York, 1963), 90Google Scholar.

36 Deposition of Emil John Lever, April 29, 1922, File 37-479 (Fletcher) and File 37-478 (Walsh), RG 204, and Office of Naval Intelligence, “Investigation of the Marine Transport Workers and the Alleged Threatened Combination between Them and the Bolsheviki and Sinn Feiners,” Dec. 23,1918, p. 31, folder 20/580, Box 89 (20/544-20/580), Entry 1 (General Records, 1907-1942, Chief Clerk's Files), RG 174, National Archives (hereinafter ONI, "Investigation").

37 Statement of Walter Nef, Jan. 23, 1922, File 37-461 (Nef), RG 204; The Messenger, May 1922, p. 404Google Scholar ; ONI, “Investigation,” 28-29, 32Google Scholar ; Deposition of Todd Daniel, May 5, 1922, and U.S. Attorney, Pardon, “Memorandum for Mr. Burns, Chief, Bureau of Investigation,” April 8, 1922Google Scholar , JAF/CZC, both in Ben Fletcher, 37-479, Box 985, Pardon Attorney Case Files, 1853-1946, RG 204, National Archives; , Dubofsky, We Shall Be All, 404–08Google Scholar ; , Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront, ch. 4Google Scholar ; , Preston, Aliens and Dissenters, 8890Google Scholar ; Renshaw, Patrick, “The IWW and the Red Scare 1917-24,” journal of Contemporary History 3 (Oct. 1968): 6372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The two IWW leaders arrested in Philadelphia who were not longshoremen were Joseph Graeber, a Pole, and Manuel Rey, a Spaniard; Like Rey, Pazos was an anarchist.

38 Fletcher, “The I.W.W. and Negro Wage Workers,” n.d. Correspondence from Fletcher to Harris, Abram Lincoln Harris Papers, Manuscript Division, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University; United States Shipping Board, Marine and Dock Labor: Work, Wages, and Industrial delations during the Period of War (Washington, 1919), 27-29, 40, 75, 87Google Scholar ; 27-29, 40, 75, 87; National Adjustment Commission, Chairman's Report [1918] (Washington, 1919), 156–58Google Scholar ; The Longshoreman, Oct. 1917, p. 8Google Scholar ; Dubofsky, Melvyn, ‘The State and Tabor in Modern America (Chapel Hill, 1994), esp. 6374Google Scholar ; , Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront, ch. 4 and 8Google Scholar.

39 ONI, “Investigation,” 31.Google Scholar

40 Fletcher to Harris, Aug. 8, 1929, Harris Papers; Fletcher, “The I.W.W and Negro Wage Workers,” n.d. Harris Papers; “The Negro and the High Cost of Living,” Messenger, Oct. 1919, p. 16Google Scholar ; Montgomery, David, “The ‘New Unionism’ and the Transformation of Workers’ Consciousness in America, 1909-1922,” in Workers Control in America: Studies in the History of Work, 'technology and Labor Struggles (New York, 1979), 91112Google Scholar ; and , Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865-1925 (New York, 1987), 396–97Google Scholar ; , Spero and , Harris, The Black Worker, 334Google Scholar.

41 Cole, “Quakertown Blues.”

42 Transcript of interview with James Fair, Dec. 21, 1978, Shaffer Papers; The Messenger, July 1921, p. 214–15Google Scholar , Aug. 1921, p. 234, and Oct. 1921, p. 262–63; Hill, Robert A., ed, The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, vol. 2: 27 August 1919—31 August 1920, (Berkeley, 1983), 397Google Scholar.

43 Fletcher, “The I.W.W. and Negro Wage Workers,” n.d. Harris Papers; Philadelphia Branch, M.T.W., “The Philadelphia Controversy,” (1920) IWW Collection, Box 170, Reuther Library, Wayne State University.

44 For Baltimore, see , Spero and , Harris, The Black Worker, 192–93Google Scholar ; , Arnesen, “It Aint Like They Do in New Orleans,” 8286.Google Scholar For NYC, see Winslow, Calvin, “On the Waterfront: Black, Italian and Irish Longshoremen in the New York Harbour Strike of 1919” in Protest and Survival: Essays for E.P. Thompson, ed. Rule, John and Malcolmson, Robert (London, 1993), 370Google Scholar.

45 The Messenger, Aug. 1921, p. 234.Google Scholar

46 Fletcher, “The I.W.W. and Negro Wage Workers,” Harris Papers; , Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront, ch. 8.Google Scholar On USSB stevedoring contracts, see “Emergency Longshoremen Conditions—Philadelphia,” M.F. Mack, District Manager to J.E. Sheedy, Vice President, USSB, Oct. 24, 1922, “Stevedoring Files (T.V. O'Connor's Office) Philadelphia,” Box 14, Entry 13k, Records of the United States Shipping Board, RG 32, National Archives.

47 Fletcher, “The I.W.W. and Negro Wage Workers"; Dabney Questionnaire, National Urban League Papers; Sullivan to Van Fleet, Oct. 30, 1922, “October 1922” Folder, Box 135, Case File 1494, RG 32, National Archives; , Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront, ch. 8Google Scholar ; Tuttle, William M. Jr, Race Riot: Chicago and the Red Summer of 1919 (New York, 1970), 331Google Scholar.

48 Jones, William D., “The Mixed Union: Merits and Demerits,” The Messenger, Sept. 1923, p. 812Google Scholar ; , Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront, ch. 8.Google Scholar See , Lewis, In Their Own Interests, 4959Google Scholar , for Norfolk's example of a powerful all-black marine transport union, the Transportation Workers' Association.

49 Thompson, Fred W. and Murfin, Patrick, The I.W.W.: Its First Seventy Years, 1905-1975 (Chicago, 1976), 150–51.Google Scholar

50 Fletcher, “The I.W.W. and Negro Wage Workers,” n.d., Harris Papers; Dabney Questionnaire, National Urban League Papers; , Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront, ch. 8.Google Scholar Again, the federal government's Shipping Board, led by former ILA president O'Connor, played an integral role, forcing Philadelphia's waterfront employers to sign a contract with the ILA enshrining an eight-hour day.

51 , Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront, 259–60Google Scholar ; , Nelson, Divided We Stand, pt. 1Google Scholar ; Kelley, Robin D. G., Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression (Chapel Hill, 1990), 92-93, 116, 136–37Google Scholar.

52 Ben Fletcher to Abram Harris, July 22, 1929, Harris Papers.