Black Discrimination: In Unions And Our Transportation System(Freedom Rides)

By the 1890's,an era historian Rayford Logan has famously termed"the nadir"of the black experience in America,Southern state legislatures had begun the devious process of eliminating black voting across the former Confederacy.Lynching of African American men began to appear in newspapers almost every other day.Magazines ran insulting caricatures of blacks and published articles of pseudo scientific nonsense about Negroes' genetic backwardness.Finally,in 1896,the U.S Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson certified Jim Crow segregation as the law of the land(Dray).

Neither had the labor movement shown itself willing to accommodate African American workers,except under the most rigid,piecemeal terms.Sam Gompers(AFL) and William Sylvis(NLU) wanted inclusion because discrimination had the effect of creating an available pool of cheap labor that industry could and did exploit,using blacks as replacement workers and strikebreakers.It was equally clear that only unity across racial lines would guarantee labor the fullest bargaining power.Gompers,however, was limited in how much he could dictate policy to unions within the federation,and the AFL response remained inconsistent.By 1885,Gompers became weary of the fight for inclusion.Several nationally prominent unions were open in their stated exclusion of blacks(Dray).

Labor's inability to achieve integration was more truly a national failure.In 1897,Booker T. Washington openly criticized the AFL warning that the federation's racial policies left him no choice but to side with employers against labor unions.W.E.B.Du Bois stated that the history of the labor movement from1886 to 1902 has been a gradual receding from the righteous declaration of earlier years.Given the reality of race relations in the country at the time,which were essentially nonexistent,and black citizenship rights,which had become invisible,labor's success would have been remarkable(Dray).

 Jim Crow segregation continued throughout the south until the 1940's.In 1946,Morgan v. Virgina,won by Thurgood Marshall, desegregated buses in interstate transportation. A group of people was organized to test the Supreme Court decision in a practical way.The"Journey of Reconciliation"(1947),organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Congress of Racial Equality, had heavy participation from men who had been imprisoned draft resisters during WWII( Jim Peck,Igal Roodenko...I met in the early 70's at the War Resisters League).Bayard Rustin was also a member who desegregated the prison systems during the war when he served time for resisting the war.This action eventually led to the desegregation of the armed forces a few years later by Truman.The"Journey of Reconciliation"  ran into trouble in North Carolina and many were arrested for riding together(whites in the back, and blacks in the front) of the bus and using the posted bathrooms in the same manner.Igal Roodenko spent three months in jail for his participation.

The First Freedom Ride left Washington D.C. in May,1961 to demonstrate if a 1955 Supreme Court ruling against discrimination(unconstitutional) on interstate buses was being enforced properly..Seven black and six white people traveled south on two buses.They met resistance in Rock Hill,South Carolina and Anniston,Alabama where the vigilantes firebombed and destroyed a bus. Many were attacked and beaten by the angry crowds that wanted the bus system to remain segregated. The national media picked up the story and all of American became witnesses to the violent discrimination.On May 29, 1961, bowing to the demands of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other leaders, as well as international outrage, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, in an unorthodox legal maneuver, sent a petition to the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to comply with a bus-desegregation ruling it had issued in November, 1955, Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company. That ruling had explicitly repudiated separate but equal in the realm of interstate bus travel, but, under the chairmanship of South Carolina Democrat J. Monroe Johnson, the ICC had failed to enforce its own ruling.In September 1961, bowing to pressure from the Attorney General and the civil rights movement, the ICC issued the necessary orders, and the new policies went into effect on November 1, 1961, a full six years after the ruling in Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company. After the new ICC rule took effect, passengers were permitted to sit wherever they pleased on interstate buses and trains, "white" and "colored" signs came down in the terminals, separate drinking fountains, toilets, and waiting rooms were consolidated, and the lunch counters began serving people regardless of race.

The Workingmen's Party,Albert Parsons and the Eight-Hour Workday

  The Workingman's Party is often viewed as the first tangible political representation of the Socialist impulse in America.It played a prominent role in the St.Louis General Strike of 1877.Its seven thousand members were mostly German-American craft workers but the group favored worker unity across ethnic and racial lines.It was founded on the question of advancing Socialism's cause through electoral politics.Some of the members were Marxian Socialists that didn't believe it was worthwhile to engage in party politics(I'm feeling more like this everyday).They believed there would be no progress until man's labor was fairly valued,trade unions flourished,strikes and boycotts persisted to reveal the weaknesses of capitalism and private property.

Shortly after the 1877 rail strike, it renamed itself the Socialist Labor Party and it achieved notable electoral success in Chicago,where in 1878-9 its candidates won slots for a state senator,three state representatives, and four city aldermen.But within a few years many in the Chicago SLP became disillusioned with political corruption and denials by judges of elected SLP candidates.Albert Parsons,leader of the SLP, had placed faith in the ballot as a means of alleviating the workers' blight.Parsons and other leaders eventually became disillusioned and stated that the State,the Government and its laws were agents of the powers of capital(sound familiar)..that the chief function of all Government was to maintain economic subjection of man of labor.This form of despotism was an invasion of man's natural right to liberty.Of course, the Chicago authorities kept a close eye on Parsons and friends since those words were proclaimed at a Market Street speech.

One of Parsons friends was August Spies who was the editor and business manager of the German-language daily called the Arbeiter-Zeitung in Chicago.Spies paper was radical in tone and both men retained a tenuous faith in the ballot as an instrument for change.They found themselves among the more adamant colleagues at national gatherings.They sided with the Revolutionary Socialist Party,an anarchist splinter group from NYC,who advocated direct action including terrorism as a weapon of harassing the ruling elite and emboldening the masses.

Parsons edited the Alarm which had a subscription of twenty-five hundred and a pass-along readership that was much higher.In February,1886,the Alarm viewed the popular eight-hour movement as a sign of the progressive ideas underlying the entire labor movement.On May 1,Chicago and numerous cities around the nation would demonstrate for the eight-hour workday.One hundred thousand marched in Chicago for the cause on May 1,the nation's largest turnout, with relative calm.Unfortunately,on May 3,four men were shot to death by the Pinkertons in an riot at the McCormick Reaper Company who wanted to replace union workers and lower wages.To protest the slaughter at McCormick,a rally was called for the next day at Chicago's Haymarket Square.

The Haymarket Square gathering was peaceful.Spies and Parsons spoke but didn't inflame the crowd with violent rhetoric.Spies accused the McCormick bosses of murder while Parsons urged the workers to arm themselves in self defense.Both left the rally after their speeches.Samuel Fielden worked as a teamster and gave the last speech.He stated that a war has been declared on us and that workers must resist with anything they can get a hold of...the capitalists have no mercy,so ought you? The Pinkertons,lead by Inspector Bonfield,was informed about the remarks and lead his men to disperse the crowd. As they got to the stage to stop the rally, a terrific explosion occurred and the bomb killed seven and injured sixty-seven policemen.After the explosion,the police killed four and wounded fifty workers at the rally.Samuel Fieldon was led away by companions,a police bullet in his knee.

Most of the nation was outraged over the incident,a deadly assault on uniform police by anarchists.The NY Times,Harper's Weekly and the Chicago Daily News all came out against the violence of the leaders of the rally. While the much-published assumption that the bombing was planned,there was little proof to support the theory.Spies,Fielden and five others were arrested immediately with Parsons evaded the police dragnet.Sifting through the scant evidence and interviewing witnesses,investigators could not agree on weather the bomb had been thrown at the police from the speakers wagon,the sidewalk,or a window overhead.Nonetheless,over several days the outlines of a conspiracy emerged with the arrested as the targets for the prosecution.Parsons came back to Chicago to stand trial with the other six comrades on June 21,1886.

The defense assaulted the state's claim that the anarchists intended the rally in Haymarket to trigger"a revolution",since any intelligent person knew that when anarchists spoke of revolution they were referring to an ideal--a change in the economic and civic conditions of society that would someday replace government authority with greater individual autonomy.Unfortunately,the defendants lost the trial and all were hanged on November 11,1887.Before he died Parsons read a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier's"The Reformer".Wheather on the gallows high,Or in the battle van,The noblest place for man to die,Is where he dies for man.

More from "There Is Power In A Union" by Philip Dray.

Lowdown(Hightower):Tom DeLay to Rick Perry,Why Republicans Are Devoid Of Content for the Working Poor

A friend of mine recently gave me a subscription to "The Hightower Lowdown"which is published monthly for the benefit of those who want to know the truth behind some of our government decisions.Hightower starts his newsletter with the nasty partisan called "The Hammer",Tom Delay.A jury convicted DeLay just before Thanksgiving for unabashedly collecting corporate campaign cash in exchange for moving corporate legislation when he was the house Republican leader.He coerced both the GOP congress and the K Street lobbyists to follow his dictatorial,undemocratic power plays to enhance big business.DeLay also secretly and illegally funneled corporate funds into several Texas legislative elections.He was the GOP leader in President Bush's first term and was forced out of politics for his criminal activities.

Hightower continued his newsletter by accusing the Koch brothers,Karl Rove,Rupert Murdoch,Dick Armey,Grover Norquist and the Chamber of Congress as the new" Hammers" that control the US House of Representatives.They control elections by supporting or withdrawing money with the high cost of acquiring a seat in the House.They can attack with copious amounts of money since the Citizens United decree from the Supreme Court was issued. Various GOP operatives set up unrestricted front groups that took $200 million from secret corporate funders to run private campaigns fostering the Republican takeover of Congress.The US Chamber of Commerce plowed$75 million in surreptitious corporate cash into the elections.The funding shells for the GOP had monikers as American Future Fund,American Action Network,Americans for Job Security(funniest by my standards),Club for Growth and 60 Plus Association. The operatives coordinated their attacks on Democrats through regular meetings dubbed the Weaver Terrace sessions which is where Karl Rove lives.

The Koch brothers are privileged plutocrats or kleptocrats who have billions and want government to go away and stop helping organized labor or the poor in America(35% of families make under $25,000,another 36% between $25,000 and $50,000 before taxes).Charles Koch is a billionaire 21 times over who is an oil baron,industrial polluter and yearns to impose corporate rule over our democratic republic.He is against health care reform,social security,green jobs,environmental regulations and collective bargaining.These issues,he claims,are threatening to destroy America.He and his cohorts are planning now at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort in Palm Springs to remove President Obama from office with all the power they have.They already have lackey John Boehner in the House and Murdock controlling the media(FOX has double the TV outlets of MSNBC and CNN in America).

The prevailing unemployment problem(direct result of American banking system with debt ratios as high as fifty to one during housing bubble) where four and half million have been without work for a year or more has been disastrous for the Obama administration.The past two years have seen middle class jobs off shored,wages fall,family incomes sink,pensions looted,college education priced out of reach(one of the main reasons the poor join the military, for tuition),and homes foreclosed.Corporate chieftains consider low wages,long periods of joblessness,declining home ownership and economic insecurity as "the new normal". 53% of Americans fear they won't have the money in the future to make their monthly rent or mortgage payments.The Rebuplicans erroneously blame President Obama for these problems when they know the financial community and international corporations have taken no ownership of this troubled environment.The mainstream media continues to follow the populist Tea Party(Dick Armey) as if it was the answer to our problems(reduce the deficit created by the previous Republican administrations). Armey was a faithful servant of Wall Street,deregulation and giveaways to the rich. A lobbyist for health care giants and foreign countries doing business with our government(close friends with the Koch brothers).He has shaped the Tea Party's agenda from the start.I hope they run Rick Perry from Texas against Obama in 2012. In his last gubernatorial race he got only 18% of the vote of all eligible voters. His race was so lackluster that only 32.5% of all eligible voters had the stomach to vote.Perry has the worst environmental record in the country and the reason why oil refineries are located there.They have the worst schools,health care,pay scales with little collective bargaining,social services for the poor and a failed prison system that has terminated more people than any other in the U.S.

Subscribe to Hightower's"Lowdown" for only $10 a year...it's worth it.

Christmas Day,2010...Watching The Wheels Go Round And Round

So many statistics have passed these pages from the beginning of this blog(August) and I dare say I forgot many but this blog stores them for me(and you) so I can use them as a resource in the future.I've read and coordinated a lot of information over those months and I hope it has provide some insight in Today's World.As someone approaching sixty-one,I have seen and witnessed my share of history.I know that at eighteen,America seemed to be a land of great opportunity.I remember that I had numerous employment choices living in NYC and that I just needed to point myself in a direction to follow a career path.Everyone worked at good paying jobs and the majority of eighteen year old citizens just needed to hop on the train to Manhattan to seek the economic rewards of working hard.Many had the opportunity to go to college and took that path to even greater rewards.Some were drafted into the army to fight in Viet Nam.For those who survived with reasonable damage,their future was bright as public servants,business associates or any number of service jobs in the city.Even counter culture men and women could find work on the fringes of the workplace or move to the country and survive in rural communities.

I don't have that same feeling anymore about the economic health of our country.The population of the U.S.has doubled since I was born.There seems to be a great deal of competition for jobs and an eighteen year old today can't ride the train to a good paying job like I did.Many of the jobs that payed a decent salary have vanished from the workplace(Manufacturing is under 11% of GDP).Walmart is the number two private sector employer in NYS.The "big box" stores pay about $11/hr and the average workers takes home around $250 a week.They provide health insurance but the employees can't afford the rates.Three of the top ten private employers are in financial services(large companies on Wall St.)who hire highly trained,graduate students from the best schools in the country.The competition for these very high paying jobs are also very great.The 75% of Americans who only have a high school diploma don't have a shot at the financial sector jobs that have grown from 15% to 40% of total employment in the last twenty-five years(25% who go to college get them).The 75% must seek work in the "big box" stores or be lucky enough to acquire a trade in their communities.The health care industry is the only bright spot for NYS employment.The majority of the private sector jobs in NYS are in hospitals.They hold the largest number of employees and a good percentage of the jobs pay well.Unfortunately,they are also under some strain to stay afloat due to the burdens of cost of service and the numbers of uninsured that come to their doors for care(need single payer system).Income inequality(!0% own 90% of the wealth),I feel is a significant part of the problem.Our job opportunities are a reflection of the disparity of wealth in America.When I was eighteen,over 30% of the jobs had collective bargaining as compared to under 10% today.Collective bargaining creates increased wages for all Americans.Today,many on the right want to bust the unions that are left because they are in the public sector(33% of total).They feel the public employees should be like the vast majority in the country with no collective bargaining power.They want to level a distorted playing field.The Republicans who have their high paying jobs and comfortable housing don't want others to have the same.They want more money(less taxes) to spend on themselves and  increase separation from the low paid masses.The lower and lower middle classes are in a "catch 22 " where they can't afford taxes but need them to support government programs that protect them. Unfortunately,they win votes on cultural issues,mostly from the lower classes they want separation from.

Christmas time is a reflection of the positive in the world.It is a time of peace and sharing.We need to figure out a way to extend this season throughout the year.The wealth of a country in not measured in asset accumulation but in the way we treat the most needy, those lost in the shuffle and burdened by the loss of self worth.We must create models that take us back to better times when our assets were distributed in a more equitable manner.Total GDP will rise when all of us rise financially,not just the fortunate.Opportunity for all will bring peace in the streets and in the home.Our inmates in jails will diminish and our graduate students increase as communities once again will rise with the tide of compassion.

Workers Benevolent Association,John Siney And The Molly Maguires

On September 6,1869,disaster(fire with only one exit) at the Avondale mine,just south of Scranton,P.A.,carried 179 miners to the heavens above.At the time of the disaster, the Workers Benevolent Association(WBA),the areas first miners' union,had thirty locals and thirty thousand members.John Siney,an Irish immigrant,was the founder of the WBA and Samuel G.Turner,state senator,pushed through the Pennsylvania Mine Safety Act of 1870,which,among many other features,demanded that every mine have at least two means of entrance and exit.Despite the legislation,between 1870-75,more than 556 mine deaths occurred with more than a thousand men left injured or maimed.Technology(digging machines) made life more dangerous for the workers.The company expected a miner to extract 9 tons per day as opposed to 2.5 tons before the machines.

Siney's union(WBA) helped establish the first miners' hospital in Schuylkill County,arranged for union funds to pay sick or injured miners,burial costs and support for widows/families of men killed or stricken.The Ancient Order of Hibernians(AOH) were also active in the social and cultural life of the region. The leading members of the AOH owned popular crossroad saloons and helped the community with many social/economic needs.In the WBA,the Irishmen tended to be the most defiant,lobbying the union to take strong positions.The fierce Irish American resistance to authority was associated with a political group known as the Molly Maguires.The Maguires were a legendary nationalist rebel,anti-landlord association that committed anti-British attacks,sometimes disguised as women. In America,The Molly Maguires entered labor matters in the mines of Pennsylvania.They invaded a mine,roughed up scabs and shut down a company store in 1862.Between 1863-67,Schuylkill County had fifty unsolved murders.The WBA brought relative stability to the area and its leadership denounced the violence of the Molly Maguires.

On Jan.1,1875,the WBA announced a general strike against the Philadelphia and Reading RR Company,controlled by its president,Franklin B. Gowen. The baron(Gowen) wanted a 20% pay cut in all Reading controlled mines.Gowen's mines were protected by the Coal and Iron Police created by the president of Reading to combat the WBA.He had twenty-six members of the WBA arrested and imported scabs to work the mines.Conditions in the mining towns were atrocious that winter,as bosses worked to literally starve the strikers and their families(very Christian) into submission.The "Long Strike" lasted six months and eventually the union weakened and collapsed.With this,a new round of violence broke out between former WBA rank and file and Gowen's police. Gowen and Allan Pinkerton,worked on RR security,choose to see little difference between unions and criminals(as did Reagan,Bush and every Republican since).Pinkerton's "cinder dicks" distinguished themselves on the sprawling railroads,including the Reading,and increasingly were hired for workforce-oriented espionage and union-busting.Gowen and Pinkerton vowed to crush the Molly Maguires in the labor movement.Gowen had 347 union people investigated through espionage and eventually in 1875 ordered two dozen men arrested and accused them of belonging to a terror group. A secret AOH membership list mysteriously was made public by Gowen's goons.The appeal of the Molly Maguire allegations was that they piqued existing public fears that labor organizations,particularly clannish ones based on ethnic identity,were radical and dangerous.Gowen tried to peddle that the Hibernians were communists.The Irish World,Labor Standard and the Knights of Labor denounced this perspective as hallucinatory.Eventually, ten Mollies were hanged(juries stacked) in Pottsville on June 5th,1876 as the executions were heavily guarded by armed soldiers to discourage possible rescue.Soon after,nine other men were executed and two dozen were sent to prison.It was common knowledge that Gowen had brought the prosecutions"for the purpose of breaking up the a labor organization that was hurtful to his business interests" and had allowed popular prejudice against the Irish to do the rest.

More from"There is Power In A Union" by Philip Dray.

The Civil War And National Unions(William Sylvis)

The conflict(Civil War) spurred an unprecedented wave of industrialization in the north,the vast war-spending reinvigorated a national economy staggered by the recession of 1857(not caused again by workers but by capitalists).Large monopolies(oil,steel,sugar) concentrated wealth and power(controlling representatives)to the heights never known in America.Congress actively supported big business by making grants to railroads,raising tariffs on foreign goods and authorizing employers to import immigrant laborers.In response, there was a parallel expansion of workers' organizations,from one hundred in 1860 to three hundred after the war.Between 1860 and 1870, the number of factory workers grew from 1.3 million to 2 million.Many of the new trade unions strived for national stature,most notably the National Typographical Union,Iron Molders'Union,the Machinists and Blacksmiths,the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers,and the iron workers who organized as the Sons of Vulcan.

William Sylvis became president of the Iron Molders' International Union in 1863.By 1865,under Sylvis tireless promotion,the group was on its way to becoming the strongest trade union in America,with seven thousand members in fifty-three locals.Sylvis even kept "scab albums" in order to track the names and movements of replacement workers.It was also characteristic of Sylvis to reach out to scabs wherever possible,in the hope of making them reconsider their folly and adding them to the union fold.In the summer of 1866,Sylvis founded the National Labor Union,the country's first national labor federation.The union was not dedicated to any specific trade but to all,both skilled and unskilled workers. The NLU agenda highlighted workers and consumer cooperatives as well as monetary reforms that would shift the country away from the gold standard to legal tender currency based on actual wealth,making more "greenbacks' available for workers and small businesses.It's major issue was the eight-hour day with additional pay.Shorter hours would make workers better consumers and their expenditures would invigorate manufacturing and create jobs,according to Sylvis.Shorter hours would also provide jobs for returning soldiers who need employment.The NLU established the nation's first permanent lobby in Washington.In May 1869,President S.Grant,issued a proclamation that no reduction shall be made in wages paid by government by the day to workers on account of a reduction in hours of labor.This opened the door eventually to private companies paying workers for their services in the same manner.

Sylvis saw a means to address the problem of a permanent wage-earning class.He proposed cooperative ventures,both manufacturing enterprises and consumer run stores.As cooperationists,they would sell the products they manufactured and subsist off the profits.Worker owned industries( I support state run industries today) would spawn land and home associations(cheaper housing),worker-friendly banks(today's credit unions), and lending institutions,as well as the means to distribute food and other necessities at reasonable prices(I support state run food cooperatives today).Sylvis's own Iron Moulders' Union showed the way opening foundry cooperatives in Troy,N.Y. and soon others in Albany,Rochester,Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

The foundries hit rough financial water after a number of years and Sylvis approached the government about supporting worker cooperatives with gifts of money and public lands, much as it had railroad interests(no luck there as it is today).But unlike Europe,where the collective impulse was intrinsic to how citizens viewed their governments(some things never change) and themselves,America was devoted to the individual-a person's freedom to compete and succeed or fail based on his or her own merits and abilities(40% don't pay income taxes today because they don't earn enough in our present economic system).Many believe in America(1870),that cooperation was an offshoot of communism..hostile to property(same here today).The problem with the cooperatives was that they were under capitalized(no help from government or business community),sales of their manufactured products were inadequate,and they lacked the money necessary to grow and sustain a large industrial enterprise(blacklisted by investors).They also lacked the market savvy leadership needed to compete with ordinary enterprises.Some cooperatives managed to creep into the twentieth century and the cooperative store movement fared better than its industrial cousin but both eventually dropped off the marketplace(only to be resurrected in 2016).

More from "There is Power in a Union" by Philip Dray.

The Lynn Shoemaker Strike of 1860

The first treadle sewing machine appeared in Lynn,Mass.in 1852.Before that technological event,Lynn had a workshop tradition dating back to the seventeenth century.Lynn was well known as the shoemaking capital before the treadle sewing machine appeared.Shoemaking was a home based craft with all members of the home assisting in the making of the product.The sewing machine disrupted this long-established system by increasing the pace at which uppers could be sewn.Shoe factories furnished with rows of sewing machines opened in Lynn;uniform shoe sizes were introduced,as were shoe boxes to safeguard the product.The new term"factory"implied a place of workers and bosses,strict hours,oversight and the constant hum of machines.By 1860,only 25% of the shoe workers were Lynn natives and many of the local journeymen and skilled home stitchers had been driven from the family hearth to occupy factory benches in town.

In the pre-factory era, a worker looked forward to his "competency",the amount of savings that would carry into old age or used for disability.With the new system factory owners,not independent workers,controlled hours and wages as well as availability of work,and "competency"was no longer a sure thing.Lynn shoemakers were displeased by this loss of egalitarian balance,angry that they ,the actual producers of the town's wealth,were forced to see their share of the shoe business's material rewards diminish even as their futures grew more uncertain(sound familiar).

Around 1860,the nation entered into a national recession and the owners cut wages and hours of the Lynn workers.The outraged workers saw an effort to degrade permanently the wages paid shoemakers in Lynn and declared a strike,demanding a standardized wage.This began the first nationally watched labor battle in U.S.history.On Washington's birthday,Feb.22,1860,the shoemakers marched in protest,holding aloft placards bearing images of the first president stating"Our cause is just and our union perfect".Sympathetic workers from surrounding towns joined the Lynn workers. The factories began to secretly send shoes to market.The striking workers disrupted this process and a town constable who intervened was mobbed and knocked down.The town asked Boston to send thirty policemen to maintain order.Violence continued the next day with the police but they left in a day and the strike continued without violence.On March 7th,eight hundred women trudged in falling snow through the main streets joining the men against the shoe making establishment.

The 1860 Lynn shoemaker strike against authoritarian dictates of the factory system proved something of a last gasp.Technically it gained little in terms of better wages or working conditions.The strike was a success for it's display of worker militancy and the free public discussion of labor issues than any specific results. Fifteen thousand male and two thousand female shoemakers had entered the fold of organized labor and lasting connections had been made between workers of neighboring manufacturing towns.In 1860, the town elected a shoemaker the new mayor of Lynn.On March 5th,1860,Abraham Lincoln was campaigning in Hartford,Conn. when a reporter asked him about the strike.He answered"I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails in New England under which laborers can strike when they want to".

More from "There is Power in a Union" by Philip Dray soon.