Labor in Akron, 1825-1945 , livre ebook

Labor in Akron, 1825–1945
SERIES ON OHIO HISTORY AND CULTURE
Series on Ohio History and Culture
Kevin Kern, Editor
Kathleen Endres, Akron’s “Better Half”: Women’s Clubs and the Humanization of a City, 1825–1925
Russ Musarra and Chuck Ayers, Walks Around Akron: Rediscovering a City in Transition
Heinz Poll, edited by Barbara Schubert, A Time to Dance: The Life of Heinz Poll
Mark D. Bowles, Chains of Opportunity: The University of Akron and the Emergence of the Polymer Age, 1909–2007
Russ Vernon, West Point Market Cookbook
Stan Purdum, Pedaling to Lunch: Bike Rides and Bites in Northeastern Ohio
Joyce Dyer, Goosetown: Reconstructing an Akron Neighborhood
Robert J. Roman, Ohio State Football: The Forgotten Dawn
Timothy H. H. Thoresen, River, Reaper, Rail: Agriculture and Identity in Ohio’s Mad River Valley, 1795–1885
Brian G. Redmond, Bret J. Ruby, and Jarrod Burks, eds., Encountering Hopewell in the Twenty-first Century, Ohio and Beyond. Volume 1: Monuments and Ceremony
Brian G. Redmond, Bret J. Ruby, and Jarrod Burks, eds., Encountering Hopewell in the Twenty-first Century, Ohio and Beyond. Volume 2: Settlements, Foodways, and Interaction
Jen Hirt, Hear Me Ohio
Ray Greene, Coach of a Different Color: One Man’s Story of Breaking Barriers in Football
Mark Auburn, editor, Hail We Akron!: The Third Fifty Years of The University of Akron, 1970 to 2020
Deb Van Tassel Warner and Stuart Warner, eds., Akron’s Daily Miracle: Reporting the News in the Rubber City
Joyce Dyer, Pursuing John Brown: On the Trail of a Radical Abolitionist
John A. Tully, Labor in Akron, 1825–1945
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Labor in Akron, 1825–1945
John A. Tully
Copyright © 2020 by the University of Akron Press
All rights reserved • First Edition 2020 • Manufactured in the United States of America.
All inquiries and permission requests should be addressed to the Publisher,
The University of Akron Press, Akron, Ohio 44325-1703.
ISBN : 978-1-629222-00-4 (paper)
ISBN : 978-1-629221-98-4 (ePDF)
ISBN : 978-1-629221-99-1 (ePub)
A catalog record for this title is available from the Library of Congress.
∞The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper).
Cover: Image from the Goodyear Collection, University of Akron Archives. Used with permission. Cover design by Amy Freels.
Labor in Akron, 1825–1945 was designed and typeset in Adobe Caslon by Beth Pratt and printed on sixty-pound natural and bound by Bookmasters of Ashland, Ohio.
 
Produced in conjunction with the University of Akron Affordable Learning Initiative. More information is available at www.uakron.edu/affordablelearning/ .
For the Akron Socialist firebrand Marguerite Prevey, Akron Abraham Lincoln Brigade volunteer Salaria Kee O’Reilly, and Wilmer Tate— “the father of the CIO in Summit County.”
Contents
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Preface
Introduction
1. Akron’s First Proletarians
2. Radical Artisans and Sweated Female Labor
3. From Artisans to Proletarians
4. They Treat Horses Better Than Miners
5. Open Shop Town
6. The Heyday of Socialism in Akron
7. Revolution in The Gum Mines?
8. The Supreme Mistake of the IWW
9. The Eclipse of the Socialist Party
10. Labor in a Boomtown
11. The Klan, Racism, and Labor in Akron
12. From the American Dream to a Nightmare
13. Industrial Unionism Comes to Town
14. A City in Radical Ferment
15. The Defeat of the Labor Party and Social Unionism in Akron
16. The Second World War and Akron Labor
17. The Great Unfinished Business of the American Working Class
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
I was fortunate in researching for this book to make the acquaintance of a number of very helpful archivists and librarians in Akron and elsewhere in Ohio. Firstly, I must thank the staff at The University of Akron Archives for their help. These include the current director, Vic Fleischer, John Ball, and the former director, John Miller. Sadly, another UAA archivist, Craig Holbert, died far too young in 2017. I missed Craig’s unfailingly helpful and courteous presence when I last visited the archives. Craig was the author of two books and had an encyclopedic knowledge of the local history of his city. I must also thank Jeffrey Franks of Bierce Library at The University of Akron for his help in suggesting readings when I was first gathering material on rubber and the labor movement in the city. Jeff also kindly provided me with details of the life of his grandfather, K. H. Andonian, who came to Akron as an Armenian refugee before World War I and worked for many years at the Goodyear plant. Nor can I forget Judy James and Mike Elliott at the Akron-Summit County Public Library; the staff of the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus, Ohio; and the staff at the Center for Archival Research at Bowling Green State University. Thanks also to Ann K. Sindelar and her colleagues at the Cleveland History Center, Ohio. I am especially indebted to Norma Hill, the librarian at the Akron Beacon Journal for helping locate material while I was in Akron, and for searching for material and sending it to me in Australia. Andy Blunden, Tim Davenport, and Marty Goodman of the Marxist Internet Archive also kindly helped to find a photograph of the Akron Socialist leader Marguerite Prevey, and I thank them for this. Thanks also to the staff of the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives in New York. Thanks also to Noah Carmichael, Field Representative of Local 7 of the Bricklayers’ Union, who shared details of growing up in Goodyear Heights and made time to give me a tour of the rubber factory sites in Akron. Noah also kindly contacted Dr. Samuel W. White of the Institute for Labor Studies and Research at the University of West Virginia for information on US coalmining terms. Thanks, Sam for tracking them down. (Evidently, my request for the American equivalent of the British term “banksman” caused Sam’s contacts in the United Mine Workers some merriment!) I should also not forget the UMWA.’s Tim Baker for his help in this regard. I have visited Akron on a number of occasions and have come to view the city with affection. The people have been unfailingly kind and helpful. Two I must thank for their hospitality are Jim Slowiak and Jairo Cuesta of the New World Performance Lab in Akron. The late Stan Ovshinsky, who spent his early life in Akron, also took time from his busy schedule to talk with me over lunch in a pleasant restaurant near his workplace in Detroit. I would also like to thank David Roberts, a rediscovered friend from my earliest schooldays, for reading some of the manuscript and making pertinent suggestions. I must also thank Jon Miller and his staff at The University of Akron Press for their invaluable help in bringing the manuscript to a publishable state, particularly Amy Freels and Thea Ledendecker. Nor should I omit mention of Elliot Linzer for the indexing. Lastly, I must not forget my life partner, Dorothy Bruck, for her unstinting support, including reading the manuscript and making suggestions; for tolerating my absences on research trips; and for putting up with my abstracted demeanor while I was writing the book—which she called “going to Akron.” Naturally, any errors and omissions are my responsibility and all interpretations are my own and do not imply agreement with my ideas by any of the people I have listed.
Glossary
ABJ
Akron Beacon Journal
AFL
American Federation of Labor
AFL-CIO
Merger of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations
ARWA
Amalgamated Rubber Workers Association
Big Three
The Firestone, B. F. Goodrich, and Goodyear Tire & Rubber companies
CIO
Congress of Industrial Organizations. Initially the Committee for Industrial Organization
CLP
Communist Labor Party
CLU
Central Labor Union (Peak body of AFL unions in a particular city. Thus, there were CLUs in Akron, Barberton, and Cleveland)
CP (USA)
Communist Party (of the United States)
CPA
Communist Party of America
CWL
Citizens’ Welfare League
Comintern
Third or Communist International
FLP
Farmer-Labor Party
GNP
Gross National Product
Gummers
Vernacular for blue-collar workers in the Akron rubber factories, or “gum mines”
IA
Industrial Assembly
IAM
International Association of Machinists
IATSE
International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees
IGWU
Independent General Workers Union
ISR
International Socialist Review
IWW
Industrial Workers of the World, or “Wobblies”
LNPL
Labor’s Non-Partisan League
NAACP
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
NIRA
National Industrial Recovery Act
NKVD
Russian abbreviation for the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs
NLR Act
National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act
NLRB
National Labor Relations Board
NMTA
National Metal Trades Association
O&E Canal
Ohio & Erie Canal.
P&O
Pennsylvania and Ohio Canal.
SLP
Socialist Labor Party.
SP(A)
Socialist Party (of America)
Summit County
County in northeast Ohio, of which Akron is the county seat
TLA
Trade and Labor Association
UAA
University of Akron Archives
ULP
Union Labor Party
UMW(A)
United Mine Workers (of America)
UNIA
United Negro Improvement Association (“Garveyites”)
URW(A)
United Rubber Workers (of America)
VJ Day
Victory over Japan Day (August 14–15, 1945)
WASP
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
Western Reserve
Today refers loosely to northeast Ohio. Originally, it was part of Connecticut, but the land was sold and subdivided
WLB
War Labor Board
WPA
Works Progress Administration
Preface
I make no apology for writing partisan history, but I do of course acknowledge John Adams’ insistence that “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state o