Falmanac: The Fallston Almanac of American History
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(Wikipedia) Coxey's Army was a protest march by unemployed workers from the United States, led by the populist Jacob Coxey. They marched on Washington D.C. in 1894, the second year of a four-year economic depression that was the worst in United States history to that time. Officially named the Commonweal in Christ, its nickname came from its leader and was more enduring. It was the first significant popular protest march on Washington and the expression "Enough food to feed Coxey's Army" originates from this march. Continued
My parents' families can be very tightlipped on certain subjects. For example: They still haven't told me my father was married & divorced, previous to marrying my mother. I'm 45 years old - I think I can handle it. They are all ancient now, I guess they'll never tell me.
So I wasn't surprised at Christmas dinner, a few years back, when my uncle mentioned that he and my father, and the rest of the family, spent every summer working as migrant laborers, picking crops all over the region. "When was this?" I asked. "Oh, our whole lives growing up," he said. This was in the 20's and 30's. They picked fruits and vegetables on the Delmarva peninsula, and in York County too. I asked him if he liked the work? "Nah." "How about my dad?" "He hated it." (Interestingly, both men had huge gardens as adults.) "Did the girls work?" "Everybody worked."
The other day, I came across the pictures below, made by Lewis Hine, in the employ of the Maryland Child Labor Committee. They show Baltimoreans, mostly Polish families from Fells Point, working in the fields in 1909. This was a few years before my father's generation, so I guess the Child Labor Committee didn't get very far with its crusade. The photographs below are from the Library of Congress. You can see more of them by clicking here and putting in the key words "Hine" & "Maryland." Any captions below are from the original pictures.
Off to the berry farms of Maryland. Taken on Fells Point, Baltimore, Md.
A street full of Baltimore immigrants lined up and ready to start for the country to the berry farms. Wolfe Street, near Canton Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland.
Typical cooking and eating quarters of berry pickers. Anne Arundel Co., Maryland.
Annie Bissie, a little picker in the fields near Baltimore.
John Slebzak
Three families live in this shack: one room above and one below. Bottomley's farm near Baltimore, Md.
Interior of a shack occupied by berry pickers. Anne Arundel County., Maryland.
Interior of one family room in upper floor of one of the berry-pickers shacks, Bottomley's farm, near Baltimore.
Groups showing a few of the workers stringing beans in the J. S. Farrand Packing Co., Baltimore, Md.
A canning machine and some of the boy[s] Small boys work at and around these machines some of which[?][ are dangerous. J. S. Farrand Packing Co., Baltimore, Md. Witness--J. W. Magruder. July 7, 1909.
A strawberry field on Rock Creek, near Baltimore. Whites and negroes, old and young, work here from 4:30 A.M. until sunset some days. A long hot day.
These children are representatives of the two families that occupy this one room in a shack on Bottomley's farm, Baltimore, Md.
Marie and Albert Kawalski. 615 S. Band [Bond?] St., Baltimore, Md. Albert is 10 and Marie 11 years old. They worked, with mother, last winter, shucking oysters for Varn & Beard Packing Co., Young Island, S.C. (near Charleston). Mrs. Kawalski did not have things represented to her correctly and she found that all the children that had fare paid were compelled to work for the company. Other smaller children worked some and went to school some. Maire and Albert have worked several summers in the berry, beans and tomato fields packing houses near Baltimore.
Laura Petty, a 6 year old berry picker on Jenkins farm, Rock Creek near Baltimore, Md. "I'm just beginnin'. Picked two boxes yesterday. (2 cents a box).
(LoC) On August 20, 1866, the newly organized
National Labor Union called on Congress to mandate an eight-hour workday. A
coalition of skilled and unskilled workers, farmers, and reformers, the National
Labor Union was created to pressure Congress to enact labor reforms. It
dissolved in 1873 following a disappointing venture into third-party politics in
the 1872 presidential election.
Although the National Labor Union failed to
persuade Congress to shorten the workday, its efforts heightened public
awareness of labor issues and increased public support for labor reform in the
1870s and 1880s. Continued
(LoC) Roman Catholic Cardinal James Gibbons, champion of labor and advocate of the separation of church and state, was born to Irish immigrants in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 23, 1834.
Not long after his birth, Gibbons' ailing father moved the family back to Ireland at his doctor's suggestion. After his father's death in 1847, Gibbons' mother decided to move her family back to the United States. Continued
(Wikipedia) ... The great railroad strike of 1877 started on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in response to the cutting of wages for the second time in a year by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O). Striking workers would not allow any of the stock to roll until this second wage cut was revoked. The governor sent in state militia units to restore train service, but the soldiers refused to use force against the strikers and the governor called for federal troops. Meanwhile, the strike spread to Cumberland, Maryland, stopping freight and passenger traffic.When Governor Carroll of Maryland directed the 5th and 6th Regiments of the National Guard to put down the strike, citizens from Baltimore attacked the troops as they marched from their armories towards B&O's Camden Station for the train to Cumberland, causing violent street battles between the striking workers and the Maryland militia. When the outnumbered troops of the 6th Regiment fired on an attacking crowd, they killed 10 and wounded 25. The rioters injured several members of the militia, damaged engines and train cars, and burned portions of the train station. On July 21-22, the President sent federal troops and marines to Baltimore to restore order. Continued
(LoC) Emma Goldman, American anarchist and feminist, compelling advocate of free speech, the eight-hour work day, and birth control, was arrested in New York City on February 11, 1916, just prior to giving another public lecture on family planning. She was charged with violating the Comstock Act, an 1873 statute banning transportation of "obscene" matter through the mails or across state lines. At the time, federal courts interpreted the statute as prohibiting distribution of contraception information.
Goldman was born on June 27, 1869, in Kovno, a Russian city now part of Lithuania.Like most poor Russian Jews, Goldman's family suffered under the political oppression and anti-Semitism of imperial Russia. She fled Russia with her sister Helena in 1885, settled in Rochester, New York, and was briefly married to a fellow Russian immigrant. Goldman worked in a garment factory, and disillusioned with working conditions there, she joined the labor movement. Continued
(Bluefield Daily Telegraph) Some of the bloodiest and most important moments in the American labor movement happened in the coalfields of southern West Virginia. But most who live beyond its rugged mountains, and even many who live in them, don’t know the stories.Doug Estepp is trying to change that, one busload of tourists at a time. Continued
(LoC) On December 20, 1790, a mill, with water-powered machinery for spinning, roving, and carding cotton, began operating on the banks of the Blackstone River in Pawtuket, Rhode Island. Based on designs of the English inventor Richard Arkwright, the mill was built by Samuel Slater, a recent English immigrant who had apprenticed with Arkwright's partner, Jebediah Strutt.
Slater had departed Britain in defiance of the British law against the emigration of textile workers (which would result in the loss of their mechanical skills and technical knowledge) and left for America to seek his fortune. Considered a central figure in the birth of the American textile industry, he eventually built several successful cotton mills in New England and established the town of Slatersville, Rhode Island. Continued
(Aegis) ... She said the quarry dates back to the 1840s, when speculators from Lancaster County started moving west to York County.
Slate's heyday was around the early 1900s and it was primarily used as roofing material, until the Industrial Revolution produced synthetic shingles that were cheaper, she said.
The quarry's manpower largely left during World War I, she said.
Robinson noted the site still contains slate, and remaining piles of it were used for various purposes. In the 1950s, the slate was taken for highway paving material.
Hard facts about Funkhouser Quarry's operating history are hard to come by. Continued
(NYTimes) On Dec. 3, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln delivered his first Annual Message, the equivalent of our modern State of the Union. In the 19th century, presidents summarized progress at the end of the year rather than the beginning, which gives a little more perspective on things.
The phrase “the State of the Union” dates from 1934, when Franklin D. Roosevelt used it for the first time. Nor was it spoken, as it has been, generally, since Woodrow Wilson chose to travel down Pennsylvania Avenue and deliver his message verbally in 1913. (Jimmy Carter sent his in in 1981, a confession that things had not gone so well.)
Instead, Lincoln composed a long written document, and sent it to Congress. Continued
(Baltimore Sun) John David Hiteshew Sr. and Jr. — both known as David — spent four years walking and exploring hundreds of miles of Maryland railroad trackage to document the industrial infrastructure and physical characteristics of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the nation's first common carrier railroad that began building westward from Baltimore in 1827.
They were armed with walking shoes, notepads and a digital camera used to photograph trackage, alignments, curves, grades, tunnels, culverts, bridges — both stone and steel, yards, signals and wayside structures affiliated with the railroad.
They also recorded stations, towers, shop buildings, and the remains or foundations where structures had once stood. No detail, no matter how mundane or pedestrian, escaped their attention and recording process. Continued
Photo: MDRails
MALVERN, Pa. (AP) The Irish immigrants building a stretch of railroad near Philadelphia in 1832 had been in the U.S. only a few weeks when they died — ostensibly of cholera — and were unceremoniously dumped in a mass grave. Their families never knew what happened to them.
Nearly 180 years later, local researchers say they have a clearer picture of the men's fate. Continued
(YDR via Firecured) When I was about 10 ... I used to sell crab cakes and fish for a man down Mason Alley. ... I used to go to a place out on Poplar Street and Dewey Street in West York called T.E. Brooks cigar factory, and they were not allowed to have breaks back then. They worked constantly for their eight hours. Anything they needed was right there where they worked. . . . I went to a lot of different factories doing this job selling crab cakes and fish . . . all around York on my bicycle, but T.E. Brooks cigar factory always stands out to me because I (had) to go from person to person. Any of the other factories, they came to me during their break time, but this place here did not have a break. . . . That always stood out in my mind.
Steven A. Hatterer, 46, of York
I was raised one mile below Red Lion off Route 74. I very well remember the cigar factories in Red Lion. They had quite a few, but the thing that I remember mostly was we had a strike (in 1934), and a man was blinded during the strike (reportedly because tear gas was fired by police), and in 1935, he had a Ford coupe . . . and I bought that from him for $150. The man was from Windsor that was blinded. A friend of mine told me about this man that became blinded, and he had a Ford coupe, and I borrowed the money from my father and bought it.
Mildred Knisely, 92, Springettsbury Township
