USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Northampton > The Northampton book; chapters from 300 years in the life of a New England town, 1654-1954 > Part 23
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9 concerns employing from 10 to 40 workers 4 concerns employing from 40 to 100 workers
6 concerns employing from 100 to 450 workers
I concern employing from 1300 to 1500 workers
The Pro-Phy-Lac-Tic Brush Corporation which amalgamated with the Lambert Company in 1930 is Northampton's giant in number of employees and volume of business. This company be- gan with the manufacture of daguerreotype cases, lockets, and toilet brushes and in 1900 advertised mirrors, toilet sets, hair, cloth, and tooth brushes. These various brushes constitute about 35 to 40 per cent of its present output which now through the moulding and fabrication of plastics, embraces over 100 articles from radio cabinets and chairs, to well-designed tableware.
A number of the smaller firms were founded in the 1940's, the decade of revival after the catastrophic '30's. Many make parts or accessories for larger factories, thus contributing support to the contention of Big Business that it gives rise to Small Business. We must await the report of the Congressional Committee investigat- ing this question for a general conclusion on this point. Many of the small firms produce to specification and thus provide flexi- bility which standardized large scale production finds difficult and expensive.
The large number of persons engaged here in institutional and educational work approximately equals the number of factory workers. Northampton is thus not essentially a factory town but one with a happy balance of interests.
This comprises a summary account of our factories in the 20th century. But we would fail to see how differently we spend our working time and lead our lives if we neglected the change in occupations other than factory work which has occurred in this period. The perusal of the Northampton Directories for 1900 and 1952 proved an entertaining as well as an instructive enterprise. There I found that Northampton had in 1900 and 1952:
1 900 14 Blacksmiths 2 Broommakers
1952 2 Blacksmiths No survivors
2 59
Manufacturing in Northampton: 1900-1952
5 Cigar manufacturers No survivors
3 Lead pencil makers
No survivors
I Indelible ink manufacturer I Survivor
In 1900 we still made our ladders and hand screws; today we pur- chase them from outside our area. In 1900, engaged in the sale or renting of horses, carriages, and wagons including harness, feed and other dealers and "repositories" (vernacular, livery stables), there were 42 establishments. Today, engaged in the sale, repair, and operation of motor vehicles and accessories and the sale of gasoline, oil, etc., we have something like 60 establishments em- ploying roughly 250-300 workers. In 1900 the Directory listed 73 dressmakers, today 8. In 1911, if memory serves me, we had I women's apparel shop, today 15; in 1900, 2 hairdressers, today 22 beauty parlors; in 1900 we had 3 employment agencies, today how many baby-sitters? We had an umbrella-repairer in 1900, and I would we had one today. I find no dry cleaners listed in 1900; today we may choose among 13; no window cleaners in 1900, today we have 2 companies. These professional services seem to show that the housewife has been relieved of many cares and duties and this is borne out by the large number (41/2 columns in the Directory) of bakers and restaurants in Northampton. Yet the decline, almost to extinction, of domestic service leaves the modern housewife even with all of her electric aids a much oc- cupied person.
Business history is young. Much is not known which it would be interesting to know,-among other things the rate of survival of business enterprises and what makes for survival; how much natural resources count and how much personal qualities. In our area in the past half century there is no doubt about the answer. Our losses should not be attributed to regional disadvantage but to national forces, such as the Depression, or to accidental and personal factors. Neither has our region any rich natural re- sources as the basis of its successes. We have had no rich mines or stands of timber to depend on, no especially advantageous situa- tion or transportation. Our present industries were established by ingenuity, kept going by sensitive feeling for change and the constant adaptability of both managers and workers. Our human material has been our greatest asset and that should give an opti- mistic outlook for our next half century.
Chapter Thirty
Northampton Labor Unions
By LEO LEOPOLD
J UST before the Gay Nineties dawned, Northampton got its first trade union. Men working in textile plants and cutleries had discovered that while one could complain, more than one, united in an organization dedicated to better conditions for them- selves and their children, could accomplish considerably more, and at less risk.
The founding of the first labor union of real significance was in 1885. While there had been textile unions at Belding Brothers earlier, never had worker organizations been of sufficient im- portance for employers to reckon with. The first union was com- posed of knife-grinders in one of the community's important in- dustries.
The cutlery industry was started here between Northampton and Florence. Before the Civil War it had engaged in the manu- facture of tools to be used by slaves on southern plantations and during the war it produced gun barrels for the Union army. In 1871 Samuel Hinckley, at an investment of $100,000, bought the then bankrupt cutleries and founded the Northampton Cutlery Company. By 1900 the plant was employing over 250 men and manufacturing a complete line. Other plants were started by some of his former associates, among them being William T. Clement, who founded the Clement Manufacturing Company.
Like their counterparts in other communities, the knife-grind- ers learned that their organization was looked upon with some- thing less than joy by their employers. This was the era of no interference in "management" affairs, a time when unions were opposed as heralds of ill tidings. Unionization was met by dis- missal from jobs, and only when the local cutlery workers, in a hitherto unheard of display of unity and purpose had demanded recognition from the employers, were the dismissed rehired. From that day forward, unions were to stay in Northampton.
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Northampton Labor Unions
In 1886 metal polishers, catching the fever of unionization, or- ganized, only to see their union dissolved in a lost strike the fol- lowing year. One year previous the skilled bricklayers had or- ganized. In 1895 the cigarmakers, engaged in what is today almost a lost art, founded their union. The metal polishers re-formed their ranks in 1896. Painters, carpenters, bartenders, and barbers united in 1899. In quick succession the hod carriers organized in 1900, the Mt. Tom pulp mill workers in 1901, platers and buffers in 1902. In these years the first local attempts were made by unions to cooperate in joint efforts at collective bargaining by formation of the Allied Metalworkers Association, a forerunner of the present AFL Metal Trades Department. Clearly labor was on the march-a new day was dawning.
The turn of the century saw the greatest growth Northampton labor unions had ever experienced. In 1898 there were 7 unions; by 1903 the figure had jumped to 35. Membership in the Central Labor Union (CLU) was 395 in 1899, organized in 9 unions. Four years later the same body totaled 1400, with 29 constituent unions, and an influence great enough to have the City Council pass an ordinance requiring union help in construction and repair. William McDonald, president of the Weavers Union, while dedi- cating the CLU Hall, could truly say, "The difficulties encoun- tered have been numerous and great, but now conditions are better." This despite "the misguided hostility of contractors."
The rapid growth of unions was spurred by the human desire for improvement. It was sparked by the drive to make things a little better, and after that, still a little better. Working condi- tions were to be improved, wages were to be increased, hours of work were to be cut, all this so that Man, made in the image of God, might do more than eat, sleep, and work. It was also to be done so that human beings might fulfill their legitimate longings for themselves and their families, and so that democracy would have meaning where it really counted-at the workbench.
Today we work 40 or 48 hours per week, usually. We labor under generally tolerable conditions. Not so 50 years ago. Prior to the passage of the 54-hour maximum law, hours in Northampton's Nonotuck and Belding establishments were running around 58, McCallum's hosiery employees enjoyed a 57-hour week, with these hours fairly indicative of other enterprises. While condi- tions in Northampton were better than average for that era, a
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fact accounted for by the personal interest and relationship be- tween workers and owners, there was, as everywhere, much room for improvement. In 1907 the Massachusetts State Board of Health could still report that "the percentage of lung diseases, including pneumonia and tuberculosis, in Northampton cut- leries, was four times as high as for the general male population and caused 72.73 per cent of deaths of cutlers and grinders .. . ," this despite the fact that the Clement Cutlery was called "the cleanest cutlery in the United States" and real efforts were being made by management to arrest these developments.
Long hours were not confined to private industry; the Daily Hampshire Gazette for February 9, 1899, reported that postal "clerks in the office are all obliged to work overtime constantly and some work 11 and 12 hours a day ... . " The pay for these government employees was $650 to $850 per year for letter carriers, while clerks got $500 to $1000. Uncle Sam, in the per- sonages of Presidents Roosevelt and Taft, in 1905, 1906, and 1909, looked with disfavor upon labor in the post office department organizing and issued orders to forestall unionization. Though postal employees were liable to removal, until the Lloyd-LaFol- lette Act of 1912, the local group had an organization as early as 1900.
Union organization brought changes in conditions. These were especially noted amongst the building trades. In 1900 the brick- layers received an 8-hour day, the wages for which were set three years later at $4.00. Plumbers had been receiving $2.50 for a 9- hour day in 1899; unionization and a strike in 1905 resulted in an 8-hour day for $2.65. Carpenters joined the parade-$2.50 for 9 hours in 1899 was boosted to $3.00 in 1909 for an 8-hour working day. Barbers, whose hours were from 7 A.M. to 9 P.M., Saturdays till midnight, got one night off in 1901 and no Sunday work. By 1903 Monday was a half holiday and the luxury of an evening at home with their families was extended to two nights. Pulp mill workers at Mt. Tom reduced their day by one hour. Progress was being made.
A recession in the economy in 1907 halted further unionization and weakened many of the already organized locals. With fac- tories working only part time and conditions generally in a down- ward trend, bargaining became less effective.
With the end of the recession in 1910, unions began nationally
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Northampton Labor Unions
to increase their membership, to organize new locals, and re- vitalize old ones. In Northampton this was reflected in the re- organization of the Painters Union. That year, 1910, also saw the organization of street car employees and the International Broth- erhood of Electrical Workers (AFL). The Connecticut Valley Railway Company, which operated cars between Amherst and Northampton, was the scene that year of a bitter strike.
McCallum's, founded in 1898 by Alexander McCallum and operating in a new West Street mill, was organized in 1913 by the American Federation of Full Fashioned Hosiery Workers. The Printers Union was founded in 1913, and one year earlier, Academy of Music employees formed a Theatrical and Stage Union. With interest in unions on the upswing the CLU was re- organized by AFL General Organizer Frank McCarthy on March 27, 1912. A Building Trades Department was also formed.
Perhaps the most dramatic episode in Northampton labor his- tory was the strike of street railway employees in 1914. On Au- gust 19 a dispute between labor and management resulted in a general walkout. Pinkerton detectives, "experts" in labor dis- putes, were imported to oppose the strikers. The union, however, encouraged the general public in its boycott of the trolleys by running jitneys, which were well patronized. Republican Mayor Feiker thought the situation serious enough to warrant a request for state police. The Commonwealth's Democratic Lieutenant Governor disagreed, but the Governor, siding with the Mayor, sent 14. Sympathy was generally on the side of the strikers, with many cases of store clerks refusing to wait on the Pinkertons. A union victory had one interesting result when police had to es- cort the detectives to the depot, to protect them from the wrath of the public.
The First World War found the Northampton labor move- ment almost united in its support. Despite the fact that in the im- mediate pre-war period the CLU had gone on record as opposing American intervention, and that even after war had been declared there were small but significant groups of anti-war Socialist trade unionists, the labor movement as a whole gave its blessing and cooperation to the war effort.
With industry booming and the number of jobs increasing, labor unions grew during the war years. Most of this increased
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membership was of a temporary nature, with the possible excep- tion of the city's firemen, organized in August 1918.
In 1920 began a decade and a half in which trade unions in America were to become subject to unfavorable conditions. The difficulties in the '20's came from two sources. In the first place, tremendous improvements in technology made a great many jobs held by skilled craft unionists almost obsolete. Stone masons lost their local as industry gave way to new methods. Cigarmaking, one of the most completely organized crafts, was being displaced by automatic machines. Hydroelectric power, flowing in ever- increasing torrents from Turners Falls to the arteries of local in- dustry displaced large numbers of union-organized stationary firemen. Prohibition arrived, signalling the doom of the bartend- ers temporarily. The Academy of Music stock company was dis- banded in 1928, ending the Stage Hands Union. The building trades alone could report unionism holding its own.
In the second place, the climate in the country politically was extremely conservative and not favorable to unionism. The post- war period saw an anti-labor reaction, nurtured by a desire to return to "normalcy." It was the day of the open shop being equated with Americanism and of opposition, bordering on hys- teria, to anything progressive. It was a period opposed to liberals, trade unionists, socialists, and non-conformists. While Northamp- ton bypassed any violence during this period, as other communi- ties did not, the mood nevertheless had its effect in the decline of trade unionism. It is significant that this period, locally, saw the formation of no new unions, with the one exception of the second Hosiery Local. The CLU was for all practical purposes inactive at this period, and not until 1928, at the hosiery workers' initiative, was the local central AFL labor body revived.
With the coming of the Great Depression in 1929, trade union membership in the Northampton area began to fall. This was a normal occurrence, for in a full employment economy Labor has its best chances of not only consolidating past gains, but in win- ning new ones, with the opposite of this true in a depression period.
America could "boast" in 1930 of 16,000,000 unemployed, of poverty and hunger and bread lines written across the face of a nation. It was the occasion of a strike at McCallum Hosiery, called by the American Federation of Hosiery Workers, to protest a cut
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Northampton Labor Unions
in wages, a routine occurrence in that period. The strike was con- ducted in cooperation with union national headquarters and Branch 10 AFHW, Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. A caravan of Northampton hosiery unionists joined the Wyomissing workers at the gates of the Berkshire Hosiery there, to protest the wage cuts.
One other significant and typical effect of the depression on Labor was the attempt by the local Painters Union to stimulate more work for its members by reducing wage rates, an effort not entirely successful.
The CLU met regularly during the depression, acting as a clearing house for its affiliated locals. The passage by Congress in 1934 of the now famous section za of the National Recovery Act (NRA), which attempted to guarantee Labor the right to organize, and which had such a stimulating effect on unionism in steel, auto, coal, and other industries, had little or no effect in Northampton. Not until industrial activity increased in 1940, the result of war in Europe and Lend-Lease, was there a noticeable increase in local union membership. That year an important addi- tion occurred when a Building Service Employees International Union was formed at Smith College.
The CIO, known initially as the Committee for Industrial Or- ganizations, was formed nationally in 1935. It began as a commit- tee of AFL leaders, headed by John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers, to see what could be done to organize the unorganized into industrial type unions, rather than those based on craft. The committee tried rather unsuccessfully to persuade the AFL, of which it was then a part, to charter industrial unions to organize the mass production industries, and in 1938 this group, having decided there was little or no possibility in the AFL for this new technique, left the Federation and established itself as a permanent central national labor body, keeping the magic initials CIO by renaming itself Congress of Industrial Organizations. Lewis re- mained as president.
The American Federation of Hosiery Workers, of which the McCallum local was a part, was an affiliate of the CIO. In addition to this CIO union, Northampton had two others, the Pulp Mill Workers and the Teachers Union.
The breach in the labor movement nationally between the CIO- AFL, took a considerable length of time to seep down into the
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grass roots, that is, to the level of local central labor bodies. As has been usual during quarrels at the national level between labor leaders, local trade unionists in many areas found a community of spirit, an underlying unity, and a trade union loyalty that made it difficult to extend the break completely to the bottom. North- ampton was the perfect case of this type. With CIO unions barred from participation in national and state AFL conventions, and with charges of "dual unionism" filling the air, local AFL and CIO people found it quite possible to work together and to con- tinue membership of Northampton CIO unions in the Central Labor Union (AFL). Robert Underwood, a leading CIO trade unionist, was even president of the CLU during this period. The situation probably would have continued had not national AFL headquarters decided otherwise.
In the winter of 1945, fully 8 years after the formation of the CIO, President William Green of the AFL sent to Northampton General Organizer Malone, with strict orders to either "disaffili- ate the CIO or lift the charter of the Northampton Central Labor Union." Local unionists were overwhelmingly opposed to this break, but with pressure extended from higher AFL circles, the CLU, with deep regret, expelled the CIO unions in February 1945.
Three months later the Northampton CIO unions set up a central labor body of their own, to be known as the Northamp- ton Industrial Union Council (NIUC). At a meeting in May 1945, Robert Underwood of the Hosiery Workers was named president, and Mrs. Alice Lazerowitz, of the Teachers Union, secretary. The council had a membership at its peak of approxi- mately 500 and lasted only three years, being dissolved in 1948.
Northampton Labor today represents potentially one of the strongest organizations in the community. With the Teachers Union dissolved and both the Hosiery and Pulp Mill Workers back in the AFL, the local Central Labor Union speaks once again for a united labor movement. The CLU today has approxi- mately 2200 members affiliated with it. This membership is di- vided into 22 union locals belonging to 19 AFL International Unions. The Building Service Employees Union at Smith Col- lege provides at this point the two top ranking CLU officials, in the personages of William Scott, president, and William Heady, secretary. Scott succeeded veteran trade unionist, Barney Tilton,
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as president in 1952. Tilton, who has been active in labor circles for several decades, remains as business agent of the Bartenders Union.
The CLU meets regularly, acts as a clearing house for the local labor movement, concerns itself with legislation affecting labor and the community, and has initiated a successful scholarship program for two deserving high school students. Mr. Scott him- self made history by winning a scholarship in another contest. In 1953, he attended a 13-week course at Harvard University, study- ing labor-management relations, economics, and the trade union movement.
One of the fields of activity now being entered more aggres- sively by the labor movement, that of political action, has ap- parently not caught the attention of the local CLU to any marked degree. Though a non-partisan committee was set up to secure information from candidates in the last municipal election, no effort has been made up to the present time, or in the past, to set up a local equivalent of Labor's League for Political Education, to campaign at the ward and precinct level for candidates who rep- resent Labor's views. Some work of this type had been done by the Hosiery Workers, acting through the now defunct Labor's Non-Partisan League, and rank and file Socialist trade unionists had long urged support either for their party or for independent political action via a Farmer-Labor-Peoples Party, without suc- cess. As a rule the history of the local labor movement shows that it has been decidedly reluctant to grant its endorsement, pri- marily to avoid conflict in the organization. In 1952 the CLU gave tacit endorsement to Adlai Stevenson, primarily the result of his support by the national AFL and almost the entire labor movement. This endorsement was not shared by all local AFL leaders.
Typical of the increasing interest of Labor in general com- munity affairs, has been the participation of the two top CLU officials, and many other AFL leaders, in the activities of the Community Chest. Mr. Heady, CLU secretary, was recently head of the Chest's Industrial Employees Division, perhaps re- flecting a feeling popular in the labor movement that "what's good for the community is good for Labor," an acknowledgment that interests of Labor, Nation, and Community are one.
Chapter Thirty-One
How Our People Lived
By HAROLD U. FAULKNER
W ITHOUT over-stressing the economic interpretation of history, the fact remains that Northampton has ex- isted only because its settlers-and their descendants- have found ways to support themselves. For the location of a new settlement, the tiny village founded in 1654 had three great ad- vantages. It was, first of all, located in the fertile Connecticut Val- ley, an area of the finest farming land in New England. It was also on a river amply supplied with fish, a source of food important in the early years, and a product which could be exported to the West Indies and Europe. The Connecticut River also provided for almost 200 years a route of transportation for the products of the river, farms, and mills. Finally, its location on the Mill River gave it the water power for its early industrial development.
Like most Massachusetts towns, Northampton was founded through a petition to the General Court, followed by a survey, an arrangement with the Indians, and then a distribution of the land among the petitioners and first settlers. In Northampton, the settlers were usually given a home site of 4 acres, and sections of the rich meadow land varying from 8 to 50 acres and scattered in small lots, no one having all his land on one spot. The rest was held in common by the town, to be used as pasture land and wood lots, but eventually distributed or sold to later arrivals.
Colonial life in Northampton, as in other inland towns, was largely self-sufficing. The town raised its own food, spun and wove its own cloth, and made its own tools. It ground its flour and sawed its own timber. About 1660 a grist mill was constructed and 10 years later a sawmill. By 1702 a fulling mill to finish cloth appeared. All three were powered by the Mill River. Fortunately the rich meadow lands yielded a surplus of corn and wheat and
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