Chapter 3: Testing the Limits: Politics, Race, & the Labor Movement

Welcome to Last Minute Lecture.

This free chapter overview is designed to help students review and understand key concepts.

These summaries supplement not replaced the original textbook and may not be redistributed or resold.

For complete coverage, always consult the official text.

Okay, so today we're doing a deep dive into the sources to uncover, well, a really surprising story from the Gilded Age South.

We're talking labor success where you'd least expect it.

That's right.

Specifically, New Orleans between 1882 and 1892.

Yeah, a place where, you know, labor power was usually weak, racial lines strictly enforced.

But New Orleans, for this decade, it tells a totally different story.

A radically different story.

Our sources really focus in on the waterfront workers there.

And against all odds, really, they managed to secure some of the highest longshore wages in the entire country.

Which is just wild.

And the key thing, the paradox here is how they did it through this unprecedented biracial solidarity.

Exactly.

So our mission, if you will, in this deep dive is to pick apart how race, class, and yeah, even a specific kind of local politics lead the groundwork for this power.

And also crucially why that groundwork turned out to be, well, pretty fragile in the end.

Right.

So the core of this unity was this powerful federation, the Cotton Men's Executive Council.

It managed for a time to bring together different trades and different races.

We even have a quote here from a Dr.

James T.

Newman, a black physician writing right in the middle of this period.

He called it a great tidal wave, blending all classes and colors into one great whole.

And he actually said, he said the white and black stood shoulder to shoulder, shoulder to shoulder in the post reconstruction South.

That's, that's genuinely stunning.

Okay.

So let's break this down.

Ingredient number one has to be the politics, right?

This kind of unity couldn't happen if the local powers were actively trying to crush it.

Precisely.

You hit on it.

Two conditions were absolutely necessary.

First, this local political machine, the Democratic conservative party machine.

They called them the old regulars or just the ring.

The ring.

Okay.

And they had this

permissive stance towards labor organizing kind of hands off, strategically speaking.

Why would they be hands off?

Simple answer.

They needed the white working class vote badly.

Their power depended on it.

So these weren't like the plantation elite running the city.

These were guys with closer ties to the working class.

Oh, absolutely.

The ring was described as a tightly knit, well organized hierarchy.

Yeah.

But it dominated municipal politics often through self -made men, guys who actually came up from the working class.

Can you give us an example?

Sure.

Look at John Fitzpatrick orphan young started out as a carpenter, worked his way up through politics and eventually becomes mayor in 1892.

Wow.

From carpenter to mayor or Patrick Mealy, an Irish immigrant worked at the cotton presses.

He actually founded the white cotton yard men's benevolent association.

Number one, while he was serving as a city administrator.

Okay, that's that's a fascinating overlap.

Politician and union founder.

And I assume the ring used its political clout patronage and whatnot to keep those ties strong.

They absolutely did.

Patronage was key.

They weren't necessarily, you know, administrators, but politically very effective.

How so?

Well, there's this great complaint from a satirical journal at the time, The Mascot.

It's about Administrator Fitzpatrick, the future mayor.

Yeah.

What did it say?

It complained that wherever work for one man can be found, the services of 10 are engaged.

10 guys doing the work of one.

Seriously.

Yep.

And get this, the journal added that these city employees practiced baseball to keep their muscles up to the requisite pitch of firmness desirable on election day.

Wait baseball to keep fit for election day brawls.

That's the clear implication.

Yeah.

Yeah.

City payroll was basically padding the voter rolls with loyal, physically capable supporters.

So this level of, let's be honest, corruption, it ironically helped create a space where white labor had political leverage.

Okay, so the ring provides this kind of permissive political soil for white labor.

Yeah.

But for biracial solidarity, the black unions needed their own source of power, right?

They couldn't just rely on a machine that primarily catered to white voters.

That's the crucial other piece of the puzzle.

Black union power came from their autonomy and how deeply embedded they were in the black community.

So not just about the workplace.

Not at all.

I mean, yes, there were some surprising sort of cracks in the color line back then, interracial street cards for a while, even shared beaches until the mid 1880s.

But the real strength for groups like the Longshoremen's Protective Union Benevolent Association, the LBUBA.

LBUBA, got it.

Their strength came from within the black social network, churches, fraternal groups, the whole web.

Providing protection, you mean?

Exactly.

Protection against employers, sure, but also sometimes against hostile white workers trying to push them out.

But it was more than just protection.

Their social and financial reach was huge.

Like what?

They sponsored massive community events, excursions, picnics, balls.

These were big deals.

And they acted as real benevolent societies, pouring money back into the community.

There's one example where they helped the St.

James AME Church clear massive debt, like $3 ,500.

Three and a half grand back then.

That's a fortune.

It shows that the union wasn't just about wages.

It was woven into the fabric of the community.

Absolutely.

And you see it in the leaders' lives, too.

James Porter, for example.

He was secretary of the Joint Labor Conference Committee, but he was also a delegate to Baptist conventions, belonged to something like nine different community associations.

Wow.

It meant El Pubo wasn't just some bargaining unit.

It was a powerful, respected, and importantly protected institution within the black community.

And that deep -rooted strength allowed them to negotiate with white unions from a position of power, setting up these formal alliances.

Precisely.

Alliances based on regulating the labor supply and, crucially, maintaining equal wages.

That's where the famous half -and -half cruise system came in.

Half -and -half cruise.

Tell us about that.

It was basically a formal work -sharing agreement, often brokered through that cotton council we mentioned.

It ensured white and black union members got an equal share of the work on the docks at the same pay rates.

So it stopped employers pitting one group against the other to drive down wages.

Exactly.

It regulated competition.

It was the practical application of that shoulder -to -shoulder idea.

Okay.

This sounds pretty solid, pretty stable.

But, you know, alliances rarely last forever without friction.

And here's where the story takes a turn, right?

This internal crisis between 86 and 87 that kind of blew up the cotton council.

Yeah.

This is where success, ironically, starts to sow the seeds of division.

How did that happen?

Well, the cotton council started admitting employers into its ranks in 1886.

Steve Doors, Draymond, even the powerful cotton press association.

Wait, employers in the labor federation?

Yep.

It transformed from a pure labor federation into this kind of joint association representing the organizations of labor and capital.

They essentially invited the Fox into the hen house, you could say.

Okay.

I can see how that would cause problems, prioritizing maybe

stability with the bosses over pure worker solidarity.

So who revolted?

The revolt was led primarily by the white screwmen.

They were the highly skilled guys, remember?

Right, the ones packing the cotton super tightly into the ships.

Exactly.

They used these huge screws, hence the name, highly skilled top dollar earners.

They pulled several unions out, kicking off what became known as the War of the Cotton Councils.

And the longshoremen were the more general laborers moving the bales.

Correct.

And this is where that classic craft versus common labor tension really flares up.

So it wasn't just about letting employers in?

No, that was the But the underlying friction was also about craft rivalry.

The screwmen, for instance, strongly opposed a new rule.

This rule would have paid the longshoremen for idle time if they were stuck waiting for the screwmen to finish stowing the cotton.

Ah, so the highly paid guys didn't want the less skilled guys getting paid for, essentially, waiting on them.

Pretty much.

And that specific economic dispute, that craft rivalry, it maps onto and really reinforces the racial tensions that were always there.

It gave a sort of economic justification for the split.

And this wasn't just debates in meeting rooms, right?

It got physical.

It did.

By January 1887, actual spermishes were breaking out on the levee between factions of black and white union members.

One source described it kind of oddly as a peculiar engagement where considerable powder is burned.

Wow.

So the big overarching council fractured.

Yeah.

But did the whole biracial cooperation thing just disappear?

Not entirely, and this is key.

While that top level cross -trade alliance ended, the fundamental structure of those half -and -half work -sharing agreements actually persisted within many of the individual unions, like the longshoremen.

So on the ground level, the day -to -day work -sharing continued in some key areas.

Yes, it showed a surprising resilience among the rank and file even after the leadership council fell apart.

The core cotton workers managed to hang on to their chains.

Okay, so the cotton workers had this exceptional power built on this unique political situation and internal structure.

But it was an exception.

To really grasp the limits, we need to look down the ladder, right, at the workers who didn't have that kind of clout.

Absolutely.

Contrast the powerful cotton folks with, say, the freight handlers.

These guys worked for the big corporate railroads.

Someone at the time called the railroads the southern juggernaut.

The southern juggernaut.

That paints a picture, doesn't it?

The freight handlers actually did form biracial unions back in 1883.

Associations number one and number two.

But look at the difference in power.

How so?

Their wages were way lower, maybe one dollar fifty cents a day compared to a screwman pulling in five dollars a day.

And they were up against these massive corporations, not just local stevedores.

And when they struck for union recognition?

The railroads just brought in strike breakers.

Easily done.

They flat out refused the union shop and the strike was crushed.

Simple as that.

Corporate power was just too overwhelming.

And even below them.

Even more marginalized were the Mississippi River roustabouts.

Mostly black workers facing truly brutal conditions.

You read accounts of constant racist abuse,

physical violence from the mates, the supervisors who openly used hickory clubs and guns.

And crucially, these guys lacked the strong ties to that organized black social network, the churches and benevolent societies.

They gave the longshoremen so much stability and power.

They were isolated.

On the river.

Literally and figuratively.

Very much so.

But they weren't completely passive.

They developed this unique, almost guerrilla strike tactic.

Really?

What did they build?

It was all about timing.

Pure desperation really.

They'd wait until the steamboat was fully loaded, all the cargo on, engine ready to go, literally ready to start out.

Then they'd suddenly jump ashore and refuse to get back on unless they got a wage increase right then and there.

High stakes.

Did it work?

Often, yeah.

For temporary raises.

It was the only leverage they had.

But the employers fought back hard.

Extreme measures.

One time they hired 200 Swedish workers to replace strikers.

But the Swedes quit almost immediately because the conditions and treatment were so appalling.

More commonly, the police would just raid the riverfront bars and boarding houses, arrest any strikers they found, and basically force them back onto the boats.

Just brutal.

Okay, this all seems to be building towards a major clash.

And that comes in 1892, right?

The general strike.

Yes, the general strike of 1892.

This was really the high watermark of that Gilded Age solidarity in New Orleans.

But significantly, it was outside those powerful, established cotton trades.

Who was involved?

It was huge.

You had the Triple Alliance and the Working Men's Amalgamated Council.

Altogether, something like 42 different unions representing over 20 ,000 workers.

20 ,000 workers.

Wow.

And what was the main demand?

It wasn't just about villages this time.

The key demand, the sticking point, was the union shop.

Okay, let's pause there.

Remind us why the union shop is such a big deal, both for the unions and the employers.

Right.

So a union shop means that if you get hired, you have to join the union within a certain period.

It gives the union immense power because they essentially control the labor supply for that workplace or trade.

Total control over who gets hired, basically.

Pretty much.

And for employers, especially the big commercial interests, that's not just about money.

It's a fundamental challenge to their control, to their right to manage their own business as they see fit.

It's an existential threat for them.

Got it.

So huge stakes

and the political reaction.

Mayor Fitzpatrick, the guy who came up from the working class, did he back the strikers?

He offered some support, but it was pretty weak, ultimately ineffective.

The real power play came from the city's commercial elite.

They were terrified by this show of mass, unified working -class power.

And they went over the mayor's head.

Straight to the state government.

Governor Murphy Foster stepped in, took control of the city, denounced the strike for causing a paralysis of industry, and threatened to send in 5 ,000 state militia troops and special deputies.

5 ,000 troops.

Okay, that's serious pressure.

But the decisive factor, the thing that really broke the strike, it came from within the labor movement itself, didn't it?

It did.

And it goes back to those powerful cotton workers we talked about earlier.

The screwmen, the longshoremen.

Yeah.

Did they join the general strike?

No, they stayed out.

Why?

Because they'd already won their big fights years before.

They had their union shops.

They had their strong wage contracts secured through that half -and -half system and the old cotton council battles.

They had what the general strikers were fighting for.

So they decided to protect what they already had rather than risk it for the broader movement.

That seems to be the calculation.

And their decision to stay out, their isolation of the general strikers, was absolutely crucial.

It allowed the governor's threat of force to be decisive.

The amalgamated council had to back down.

The strike failed to win the union shop for those newer, broader unions.

A huge defeat.

And the consequences.

It was a major turning point.

The amalgamated council basically collapsed.

It was a massive setback for that broader vision of biracial unionism across the whole city.

And the timing couldn't have been worse.

How so?

This failure happened right as the economic depression of the 1890s was starting to bite hard.

And right as this really virulent wave of racism and Jim Crow segregation was rising across the south, the window for that kind of solidarity was closing fast.

Okay, so wrapping this up, what are the big takeaways for you, for our listeners, from this New Orleans story?

Well, I think the New Orleans waterfront in the 1880s is just this incredible paradoxical case study, right?

You see this moment where biracial labor achieves extraordinary power.

Power that was basically unthinkable anywhere else in the south at that time.

And it's a big but.

That power was totally dependent on a really unique kind of corrupt local political setup and on this fragile internal cooperation.

A cooperation built largely on shared economic interest within specific trades.

And when tested by broader challenges, internal craft divisions, external corporate power, state intervention, it fractured.

Exactly.

It gave way to those divisions and ultimately couldn't withstand the pressure from corporations and the state, especially once that unique political cover started to fade.

So that era of, let's call it, good feeling on the docks, however remarkable.

It ended partly because of a strategic choice, didn't it?

The established cotton unions chose to protect their own gains in 1892, staying out of that bigger fight,

which leaves us with a final thought, something for you to maybe mull over.

Did that choice by the cotton unions prioritizing their specific hard -won gains actually work in the long run?

Did it shield them effectively from the rising tide of segregation and anti -unionism?

Or did it just delay the inevitable confrontation for even the most powerful segment of that brief, brilliant biracial movement?

A tough question with no easy answer.

Definitely something to think about.

Thank you for taking this deep dive with us.