An Interethnic Paradox: Chicago's Irish and Everyone Else

IN MARCH 1875, A CHICAGO TRIBUNE CORRESPONDENT reported that a miners’ strike in Brazil, Indiana, continued with conditions worsening and the “breach between labor and capital widen[ing].” The year-long labor dispute found the striking miners “dogged and sullen” and was taking a dreadful toll on the men and their families. Many of the town's merchants initially supported the strike, but they increasingly feared violence would ensue as the striking miners became more vigilant and defiant. One merchant stated that he had witnessed other strikes, but none of them had “men so determined not to yield,” and he believed it would be necessary to bring in the military to prevent an outbreak of violence. The Tribune correspondent predicted that a “revolution in labor” was imminent because the desperate mine operators were willing to hire Black workers to take the place of the striking miners. The mine operators were “confident that, if negro labor [was] adopted unanimously, it [would] completely and effectively crush strikes, which [had] become so frequent and arrogant of late as to make any dependence on white labor impracticable.” African American workers, according to the correspondent, were more dependable than white laborers, and they would not become “turbulent at trifles, and for many other reasons that are apparent.” As a result, some midwestern mine operators had already arranged to fill their mines with Black workers, and “others will follow suit.”1The newspaper correspondent's prediction about a “revolution in labor” was accurate—during the height of labor unrest in the late 1870s, Northern industrialists sought measures to undercut the burgeoning labor movement by importing African American workers from the South into their predominantly European American worksites. Industrialists were encouraged by two overarching factors: first, Black workers from the South traditionally earned lower wages than their Northern counterparts and would therefore cost less; and more importantly, due to racist exclusionary measures, as well as the relatively small African American population in the North, semi-skilled and skilled worksites were dominated by European American workers. Industrialists correctly assumed that the racism of their workers would cause an exceedingly vitriolic reaction to the idea of Black workers replacing them. In addition to the typical labor conflict issues, racialized violence would invariably ensue. Industrialists then found justification to utilize draconian measures on the strikers—enforced by local militia or police—to ensure that the replacement workers would be allowed to work in relative safety, and to ensure that industrialists continued to make profits.2This racial dynamic became increasingly prevalent throughout the Midwest as rapid industrialization and massive population growth created whole new categories of workers. European American workers braced themselves for the possibility of a chaotic economic transformation by frantically jockeying for occupational viability within the racial hierarchy. In the environment of an increasingly racialized labor movement, Black and other non-white workers, with few exceptions, were forced to the bottom of the economic ladder.Among midwestern states, Illinois was particularly distinct due, in part, to the massive growth of Chicago as a central industrial hub for the region. In comparison to adjacent midwestern states, Illinois was also unique because of its relatively small African American population. By 1890, the African American population in Illinois was only 57,028 (1.5 percent of the state population); in 1900, 85,078 (1.8 percent of the state population). The dearth of a substantial Black population, coupled with a significant rise in anti-Black sentiment throughout the state, helped to create the perception that African American workers were unable to perform technologically advanced labor. Thus, Black Illinoisans of the late nineteenth century were often forced out or excluded from more desirable occupations and, subsequently, forced to the periphery of the labor movement.This article explores the labor activism of Black Illinoisans during the tumultuous late nineteenth century in the context of this relatively new phenomenon—that is, the racialization of labor. Of course, historians generally acknowledge this period as the Second Industrial Revolution in the United States. Yet for African Americans, the period also signified a time in which their racial “character” was under severe scrutiny—not only in labor, but also in virtually every aspect of Black American life. Notions of white racial superiority invariably circumscribed Black people as inferior outsiders—undeserving of a place within mainstream American life. Thus, to most European Americans, it made perfect sense within the twisted logical framework of white supremacy to categorize labor based upon race.In the context of heightened anti-Black sentiment, Black Illinoisans were faced with a difficult decision: should they remain with the larger labor movement that increasingly viewed them as “inferior” workers? While the European American working class famously fought for labor issues such as unionization, safer working conditions, and the eight-hour workday, Black Illinoisans during the nineteenth century also supported these issues. Yet Black workers were forced into a hybrid labor activism—an activism where they fought for their rights not only as workers but also as workers who were gradually excluded from higher-skilled occupations based upon their race. In addition to the racialized occupational environment, Black workers were also forced into a battle for their civil rights during the late nineteenth century as they fought against the inimical rise in white supremacy throughout the United States.The concept of racializing labor was not entirely novel to Northern industries. As historian Jacqueline Jones explained, white Northerners had always expressed their apprehension over emancipating Black people from slavery in moralistic terms. As early as the eighteenth century, they claimed that free Black laborers had shown a lack of restraint in public—displaying “racial” behavior that European American city dwellers found galling. Various groups of African American workers came under attack by the early nineteenth century for advertising for services in a supposedly unseemly fashion. For European American workers, their goal was to maintain their advantageous position in the workplace, and any other socio-political aspect in which there was the perception of losing ground within the racial hierarchy. Thus, European American workers developed new forms of self-definition that would establish a sharper distinction between “white” and “Black” labor.3One of the earliest and staunchest proponents for disrupting the burgeoning labor movement through racialization was co-owner of the Chicago, Wilmington, and Vermillion Coal Company (CW&V) Alanson Sweet. He quickly developed a reputation for slashing wages and firing workers when he forced workers at the Michigan Central Railroad Company to take a pay cut during a dispute in 1862. Workers that protested were fired and replaced with African American workers from the South.4 Sweet believed that the reaction of his predominantly white workforce would be intensified with the importation of an all-Black strikebreaking unit that would likely lead to violence. When violence inevitably ensued, Sweet and his co-owners were then able to utilize state-sponsored protection to ensure the protection of both his imported workers and his property.5As a co-owner of the CW&V in Braidwood, Illinois, during an economic depression, once again, Sweet reduced workers’ wages. Predictably, the unionized miners refused any pay cuts and went on strike. After some convincing, the CW&V co-owners acquiesced to Sweet's ideas on importing African American men to disrupt the conflict. “With the mines filled with colored men,” he assured his fellow owners and stockholders, “it is believed that the Company will not be burdened with the expense of another strike for many years.”6 The CW&V co-owners may have been willing to agree to Sweet's concept due to their past failures. In an 1874 labor dispute with their workers, both recently arriving European immigrants and white workers were recruited as strikebreakers. Instead of being a disruptive force, the replacement miners met with the striking Braidwood miners, became informed of the ongoing labor dispute, and were subsequently convinced to leave. Significantly, the workers left relatively peaceably within days of their arrival.7The nation was in the throes of a massive railroad strike starting in July 1877. Wage cuts, and generally poor conditions and treatment touched off a nationwide strike that shut down most of the nation's railroads. The Chicago Times observed that the arrival of African American workers, combined with the news of the national railroad strike created an “anxious mood” among the Braidwood miners, and “it would take but very little to cause an outbreak in this place.” When the African American workers arrived in Braidwood, there were no friendly meetings. Instead, the striking Braidwood miners gave them an ultimatum: leave town “peaceably or forcibly.” Fearing trouble, some of the miners left town.8 However, when Sweet and the CW&V ownership alerted Illinois governor Shelby Cullom of the intimidation tactics, the state militia was brought in to restore the Black miners to their jobs. The next day, 1,250 Illinois state militia were called into Braidwood to quell the conflict, and if the strikers resisted, “the troops [would] make short work of them.” The CW&V owners understood that an escalation in violence could possibly lead to such measures—and these measures would ensure that the African American workers would be protected and allowed to work in the mines.9Convinced that order could be maintained, and the African American miners would be allowed to remain in the mine shafts, the state militia left Braidwood several weeks later. Although relative peace did prevail after the departure of the state militia, the strike continued another four months. The Braidwood strike of 1877 was the longest strike in United States’ history (to that date) and took an enormous toll on the lives of the strikers and their families. With winter approaching in November 1877, the weary miners finally gave in and ended the strike. The owner's desire to destroy the miners’ union was successful, and the company refused to hire the union leaders as well. Feeling victimized by the CW&V owners, many miners complained bitterly about working alongside the African American strikebreakers who they believed had done “all they possibly could to assist capital to crush labor.”10 For the CW&V owners, the reaction of the Braidwood miners to the importation of African Americans into the mines was the crucial element in their victory. If white and immigrant miners did not react violently, the owners would not have brought in the state militia to see that their mines and their replacement workers were protected.Race relations remained strained in the Braidwood mines during the immediate years after the strike. Nevertheless, African American miners remained in Braidwood and continued to work in the mines. At least half of the seven hundred miners in Braidwood were African American; by 1880, there were 703 Black men and their families living in the surrounding area (compared to 242 in 1870). Institutions such as the Colored Odd Fellows lodge and the First Baptist Church were established in 1878 to support the town's African American community. Reverend T. C. Fleming, who was one of the strikebreakers during the 1877 strike, was the pastor of the church.11 Despite establishing themselves as viable workers in the mines, and decent citizens in Braidwood, the small African American population continued to experience difficulties in town and the workplace.While the African American miners at Braidwood established a reputation for being viable workers and willing union men, their white counterparts insisted on following national racist trends in the workplace. Moses Gordon, an African American miner among those imported from Virginia, observed: “[African Americans] could no more get work here until the year 1877 than they could fly. . . . [I]t was the miners themselves who would come out on strike before they would allow the negro to earn his daily bread.” White workers increasingly drew the color line in the workplace and the major labor unions in the late nineteenth century. Significantly, Gordon also noted that CW&V owners fired African American workers that joined unions. Thus, the racialization of labor worked as a two-pronged attack against Black workers during the industrial era: As discriminatory policies against non-white citizens in the United States became the norm, and therefore accepted by the dominant racial group, employers increasingly utilized African Americans as strikebreakers in order to disrupt unionization. African American workers were either shunned from major labor unions by white union members who refused to allow them to join, or, as in the case in Braidwood, African American workers were threatened with termination. On the other hand, white workers—embracing the full social Darwinism of the late nineteenth century—and thus, completely accepting their collective place at the top of the racial hierarchy in American society—readily rejected African American workers from the most desirable occupations. As white workers wielded more bargaining power in the last decade of the nineteenth century, they insisted on the racialization of both the workplace and their labor unions. Gordon remarked on how this racist process in Braidwood would affect the working class: “Every nationality on the face of the globe can come here and go to work wherever there is work to be had, except for the colored man, and in nine cases out of ten the miners are to blame for it. A house divided against itself cannot stand. If the laboring class fights capital for their rights, they have enough to do without fighting against six millions [sic] of people that have got to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow.”12Strikebreaking served as an occupational and economic weapon against the racialization of labor for men like Moses Gordon. As labor historian Eric Arnesen explained, strikebreaking was a viable form of working-class activism for African Americans as they sought to strengthen their economic position during the labor upheaval of post-Reconstruction America. The most important coal mining towns in Illinois followed the practice of racial exclusion. Strikebreaking not only allowed African American workers to gain entry into desirable industrial positions, but it also represented chances for low paid Southern African Americans to earn higher wages. Their decisions to become strikebreakers were often informed choices, rationalized by a complex and changing worldview that balanced their experiences as industrial workers, farmers, and African Americans. Indeed, these Black men were neither willing tools nor ignorant serfs—rather, they were poor and ambitious men who were often recruited by coal company agents, sometimes under false pretenses. During the nineteenth century, African Americans were never the only workers used as strikebreakers in Illinois or any other Northern state. Moreover, they were never the most used strikebreakers during the height of labor turbulence of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, African Americans were usually the most visible strikebreakers because of American racism, and therefore, they were almost always the easiest targets for white working-class rage during the tumultuous labor disputes of this era.13As the Chicago Tribune correspondent predicted, other industrialists throughout the region adopted racialization as a weapon to squelch unionization among the working class. For example, in 1880, approximately one hundred African Americans were hired to replace striking coal miners in Rapids City, near Rock Island, Illinois. Tragedy struck immediately—one of the African American strikebreakers was shot and killed by a striking miner. That same year in Springfield, Illinois, mine owners resisted demands made by union officials and proceeded to import African American miners from Richmond, Virginia. The predominantly European American workforce was ordered to remove their tools from the mines and evacuate company houses. If any violence ensued, the mine operators, their property, and the African American workers, were all protected by local police officials. These drastic actions led to the demise of the union.14 In the summer of 1886, a strike for higher wages occurred in Vermillion County at Grape Creek. In this case, there was a small African American presence in the mines—yet they refused to strike with their European American coworkers. The African American miners belonged to the biracial Knights of Labor (KOL) union and refused to participate because it was “a white man's fight.” The Grape Creek operators brought in African American men from Tennessee and Kentucky under police protection. The conflict dragged out and defeated the strikers, as the mine operators brought in five to fifteen new African American workers each day.15 This pattern of racialization continued throughout Illinois during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. According to data compiled by economic historian Warren Whatley, Illinois industrialists utilized Black strikebreakers more than any state during this period. However, while Black strikebreaking increased substantially during this period—especially in high-profile conflicts—they remained a relatively small percentage of the nation's strikebreaking force.16While Northern industrialists continued to recruit Black workers from the South during the late nineteenth century, they virtually ignored Northern Black workers. This omission was particularly glaring in Illinois and other midwestern states due to the dearth of African Americans living in the region. Approximately 90 percent of the African American population remained in the South, and it was simply easier to find and recruit Black labor in the South. Another more compelling reason had to do with the collective attitudes of African Americans living in the North. While Southern Black workers were cajoled relatively easily due to precarious economic condition or general lack of knowledge of a particular labor conflict in the North, Northern African Americans simply had more exposure to Northern labor strife. Although the Black population of Illinois was quite small, they gained a reputation as ferocious labor agitators during the late nineteenth century. Like their European American working-class counterparts, they also battled for workers’ rights. To be sure, African American workers in Illinois were occasionally used as strikebreakers during the late nineteenth century—there would be a collective shift in their attitude toward the labor movement by the turn of the twentieth century as white working-class racism became more pronounced. Yet prior to the full implementation of white supremacist ideas about allegedly inferior and superior workers based upon race, Black Illinoisans were not only a part of the labor movement, in some cases they were at the vanguard of the movement.During the summer of 1877, while the Braidwood mine operators were importing African American workers into their labor fracas, more than 150 Black longshoremen from Illinois disputed recent wage cuts against the Mississippi Valley Transportation Company (MVTC). Like their Braidwood counterparts, they too were inspired by the “Great Railroad Strike” and organized their own all-Black union. In solidarity with the national movement, the workers arranged a general strike against all Illinois, employers due to the recent wage When the owners were of the strike, they hired strikebreakers. The next the striking longshoremen on the and their and that they leave the When they refused to the longshoremen them by a of in their The longshoremen then after the to ensure that none of the strikebreakers would only a few but it created quite a throughout The observed that the longshoremen may well have been within their rights to strike for higher but they no to prevent from working who willing . . . to work for the The noted that by the strikebreakers off the the Black longshoremen were a for which they be a significant in how the African American workers were in When African American workers for their rights, they were often as or workers. In Black labor activism was often viewed as chaotic and While strikebreaking was generally in white working-class when Black workers fought to their economic the they should be a that [would] last them for all time to the Braidwood which and supported striking miners during their African American workers were viewed with throughout and as workers throughout Illinois sought the same measures in unionization as other workers prior to the full of racialization in labor. As early as 1877, the Knights of Labor (KOL) established as many as seven in Illinois that African American men and into their For many Black workers, the was more than a labor the of leaders and as a than any other union in their the were able to the for African American After the national railroad strike in 1877, labor leaders recruited Black workers to the to racist to workers. goal of the labor leaders was also to the of Black workers during an 1878 African Americans the supported the and the city and with the white Chicago continued to into one of the nation's industrial the of the city was for African Americans. The battle for skilled labor in a environment, was often a losing for African American for from the South. African American men often to racist racist white and workers with the of racist to Black men out of viable As a result, Black workers in Chicago were left with occupational and often found themselves to with national of the racialization of labor was in Chicago by the last of the nineteenth century. By 1890, African Americans were as the to be laborers, workers, or to the During that decade they represented only percent of the population percent of all in the occupational for Black of or no higher than railroad or were also tools for the of such as or who were who or the of and dwellers more and the to their To ideas of racial and economic the their to an One noted that African American men of slavery . . . and became a of to the of the African American men, as a Chicago were the they are by and to were not always to ideas of racial if it in wages. A could a sense of and the of the of the South, which could lead to a was a relatively novel idea in the nineteenth Yet any that these men would allow these to into their in labor issues of the would be an Black in were the of hybrid labor activism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Black over pay In 1875, they out of throughout the during and in some of At the out because their new to He informed the all-Black that they would be to at the an before their and they would no be allowed to left over by practice that allowed workers to their out in during the and workers of all and were toward labor unionization in the Yet European American workers to follow nationwide discriminatory in labor unions by Black workers from union Black often with their own of labor activism that all-Black unions or biracial unions. For example, after the of the five Black from the in Chicago, were to their of the that were to citizens of every and and were informed that it was against the to of their in the The the men a in the where the and their while on The by the left for another where they were and served without in Chicago were to find a labor union that would their in fighting for their labor and civil rights. The them with the of unionization that they In 1886, created the Colored local and more than four hundred Black and during a The Chicago Times the the Knights had on the Black the union the colored and gave the with This represented the entry of African Americans into organized labor in Chicago and was followed within two years by a Black the which organized after from the of the Black in Chicago little time in their reputation as labor In two hundred African American joined nine hundred white in of the of and in wages. The biracial an of substantial for The owners to a through the workers by importing African American replacement workers to replace the white The between the workers was and the Black were enough to the strikebreakers to A year during another Black labor conditions, and they also the to become more about their rights and the labor was not one African American predicted, by would for their working-class men and in Illinois for more biracial union during the late nineteenth century. an African American of the that more Black workers to the union to themselves as a within the labor than a within the the for laboring men and was an of wages. have been

The ongoing work of restoring lost nineteenth-century women writers to the American literary canon often yields the added benefit of bringing to light experiences of ethnic groups left out of the dominant narrative of American identity. The opportunity to compare ethnic American literatures can provide fascinating new approaches to better-known authors like Pauline Hopkins, whose literary concerns extend beyond the social and domestic needs of her own African American community. Hopkins interrogates the very foundations of equality and democracy as the United States turns into the twentieth century, frequently flirting with nativist discourse as she does so. Conversely, the Schomburg Center for research in Black Culture holds one of the few extant copies of an 1888 work by Alice Rollins entitled Uncle Tom's Tenement; this critically un-examined and seemingly forgotten novel uses abolitionist language to describe the plight of Irish American women. As an Anglo-American middle-class woman writing about an Irish immigrant minority, Rollins invokes rhetorical strategies comparable to Hopkins's. Both Hopkins and Rollins engage nativist discourse but more prominently deploy slavery as metaphor, either to highlight the ongoing vulnerability of African and Irish Americans in a hostile United States or to expose the roots of tenement poverty. The fraught issue of female sexuality epitomizes such vulnerability; voicing the political desires of under-represented racial and ethnic groups, particularly women, suggests that only pluralism and equal access to government can guarantee equal protection. Certainly, these two authorial agendas resist disavowals of African and Irish American capacity for self-government, not uncommon among Anglo-American politicians of that era. Hopkins, nonetheless, proceeds to empower her African American heroines without hesitation while Rollins proves more likely to appeal to Anglo-Americans on Irish women's behalf. Imitating Harriet Beecher Stowe, then, Rollins's moral logic preserves the distance between middle-class women of her own caste and scenes wherein social boundaries dissipate, leaving women of color vulnerable to sexual exploitation by Anglo-American men. Anglo-masculine claims to power include a discourse of sexual purity that requires sexual self-restraint. Racist depictions of Irish and African American sexuality, projecting stereo-typically lascivious and disorderly sexual conduct upon racial or ethnic citizens, denied either group the capacity for self-government or participation in American national politics. Hopkins's and Rollins's demand for racial, ethnic, or gender inclusion in national politics, therefore, challenges exclusively Anglo-masculine claims on power. Although they treat the ambiguous racial and ethnic status of African American and Irish American heroines quite differently, Uncle Tom's Tenement, Contending Forces, and Hagar's Daughter exceed the specific interests of Black or Irish Americans. They prescribe standards for civic duty and that apply to the nation as a whole, challenging doctrines of Anglo-masculine supremacy by associating sexual exploitation with Anglo-American political and economic power. Hopkins and Rollins subvert claims made in Anglo-masculine discourse (especially nativism) as they work to include women and non-Anglo-Americans in the pluralistic their literature demands. The manner in which each writer deals with racial identity is quite telling. As she parallels Ethiopian and Anglo contributions to civilization in a modern America, Hopkins prophesies a great future built on the tradition of Ethiopianism; her critique of Anglo-American exclusivity applies only to the oppression of blacks and does not concern other ethnic groups like the Irish. While Hopkins inverts stereotypical racial categories, frequently vilifying whiteness, Rollins inserts Irish Americans into the discursive place conventionally occupied by black slaves in abolitionist discourse. …

Reviewed by: For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865 Robert H. Woodrum For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865. By Robert H. Zieger. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007. Pp. ix, 276.) In the course of his long and productive career, Robert H. Zieger has contributed much to the study of labor history. His classic works, The CIO: 1935-1955 and American Workers, American Unions (currently in its third edition), have introduced waves of aspiring scholars to the major themes in the field. Zieger's edited volumes, Organized Labor in the Twentieth-Century South and Southern Labor in Transition, served as vehicles for new and innovative scholarship and helped fuel an explosion of interest in Southern labor history. In his latest ambitious work, For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865, Zieger turns his attention to the troubled relationship between African Americans and organized labor since the end of the Civil War. Zieger focuses much of his analysis on two themes: the struggle of blacks to obtain full citizenship in the workplace and wider society, and the role that organized labor has played in either helping or hindering these aspirations. Zieger rejects the narrow focus of recent surveys by "free market" historians, such as Paul Moreno, who view unions mainly as cartels that restrict the number of workers in the labor force, driving up wages and benefits in part by discriminating against African Americans. Zieger believes that unions are essential elements in a free and democratic society, and they have historically played a broader, more complex, and more beneficial role in American history than scholars like Moreno acknowledge. Zieger, however, does not downplay organized labor's racism, and he focuses much of his analysis on the contradiction between the movement's rhetoric of equality and the discriminatory practices of many unions. For Jobs and Freedom begins with an examination of the decades after Emancipation, when national labor organizations first grappled with the race issue in a substantive manner. Tentative efforts to create interracial movements emerged in the coal mines around Birmingham, Alabama, and on the waterfront in New Orleans. However, more durable and exclusionary practices emerged in the lily-white railroad brotherhoods and in many unions that affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL), particularly in the building trades and in unions such as the International Association of Machinists (IAM). Many of these tendencies, Zieger finds, continued into the new century, through the era of World War I. More positive trends emerged as well, in the migration of millions of African Americans out of the South and into the urban areas of the North, and in [End Page 129] the rise of A. Philip Randolph, the president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, who began his long campaign against racism within the American labor movement in the decade after World War I. A burst of activism followed the Great Depression, with the passing of New Deal legislation favorable to unions and the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) as a rival to the AFL. The CIO, behind the success of John L. Lewis and his United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), organized black workers, though leadership positions usually remained in the hands of whites. Unions with substantial black membership grew in the automobile, meat-packing, and other industries under the direction of the CIO. The number of African Americans in labor unions grew dramatically, according to Zieger, from sixty thousand to more than one million by the end of World War II. Many of these workers belonged to AFL unions, which were forced to modify their policies and reach out to black workers in part to keep up with the CIO. Legislatively, this era was mixed, according to Zieger, with Franklin Roosevelt's symbolic actions having little practical effect and some New Deal legislation actually excluding or harming black workers. Meanwhile, civil rights attorneys won important victories for black workers against discriminatory unions in the courts, beginning a difficult and long process of reform. Thus, at the end of the war, Zieger concludes that "African American workers had more reason to be optimistic than at...

Remembering Herbert Gutman's <i>Work, Culture, and Society</i> Fifty Years On

“WHITE,” IF “NOT QUITE”: IRISH WHITENESS IN THE NINETEENTHCENTURY IRISH-AMERICAN NOVEL1 CATHERINE M. EAGAN over the past ten years, an increasing number of Americanist historians have suggested that Irish and other European immigrants, in an attempt to secure the prosperity and social position that their white skin had not guaranteed them in Europe, lobbied for white racial status in America. The success of this effort was by no means assured. While American laws concerning who could immigrate, be naturalized, and be enslaved accepted Irish people’s pale skin color and European roots as evidence of their white racial pedigree, the discrimination that Irish immigrants experienced on the job, and the simian caricatures they saw of themselves in the newspapers, suggested that they were “racially” inferior to white AngloAmericans and thus somehow nonwhite, perhaps even “black.”2 Many historians , focusing their attention on the Irish-American working class, have argued that Irish immigrants worked to counter suggestions of their racial affinity with African Americans and thus ensure the recognition of their whiteness through their participation in labor agitation and in popIRISH WHITENESS IN THE 19TH-CENTURY IRISH-AMERICAN NOVEL 66 1 My article title is an adaptation of Homi Bhabha’s well-known description of the “ironic compromise” of the mimicry that happens under colonial systems. Bhabha defines “colonial mimicry” as the “desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite” (emphasis in original). Homi Bhabha, “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse,” The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 86. 2 For examples of English and Anglo-American comparisons of Irish and African racial inferiority, see Dale Knobel, Paddy and the Republic: Ethnicity and Nationality in Antebellum America (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1986). Whatever the rhetorical strength of Americans’ assertions of Irish and African racial similarities, it should be emphasized that the Irish retained their hold on white entitlement so as not to equate the oppression that they and African Americans experienced. ular cultural forms like blackface minstrelsy.3 Some historians of Irish America, by contrast, have questioned whether Irish Americans actively pursued white racial status, citing desperation for jobs as the chief source of conflict with African Americans and pointing to examples of Irish opposition to antiblack racism.4 Be that as it may, the Irish-American novel, particularly as written by the embattled famine generation of immigrants, makes it clear that “whiteness ” was an identity to which Irish Americans not only felt entitled but actively pursued. Although these novels should not be taken as exact IRISH WHITENESS IN THE 19TH-CENTURY IRISH-AMERICAN NOVEL 67 3 See Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971); David Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (London: Verso, 1991) and Towards the Abolition of Whiteness: Essays on Race, Politics , and Working-Class History (London: Verso, 1994). 4 See, for example, David Brundage, “‘Green Over Black’ Revisited: Ireland and IrishAmericans in the New Histories of American Working-Class ‘Whiteness,’” a paper delivered at the conference on “Racializing Class, Classifying Race: Labour and Difference in Africa, the USA, and Britain,” St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford, 11–13 July 1997; Graham Hodges, “‘Desirable Companions and Lovers’: Irish and African Americans in the Sixth Ward, 1830–1870,” in Ronald H. Bayor and Timothy J. Meagher, eds., The New York Irish (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). Lauren Onkey provides a nice summary of Irish Studies scholars’ reception of Noel Ignatiev’s ideas in particular in her “‘A Melee and a Curtain’: Black-Irish Relations in Ned Harrigan’s The Mulligan Guard Ball,” Jouvert 4 (1999), 31 March 2000, . “Contrasted Faces.” The juxtaposition of these two images starkly illustrates how the Irish were racialized in the mid-nineteenth century. Source: Samuel R. Wells, New Physiognomy: Or Signs of Character, as Manifested Through Temperament and External Forms and Especially in “The Human Face Devine” (New York: Fowler & Wells, 1866). Widener Library, Harvard University. reflections of Irish-American realities or sensibilities, they do reveal some of the modes through which Irish people argued for a white racial identity that they regarded...

Ce texte constitue une réaction face à plusieurs interprétations nouvelles qui, si elles sont acceptées, risquent de modifier la perception historique du rôle joué par les centres urbains dans l'adaptation des Irlandais catholiques en Ontario au 19e siècle. Donald Akenson, un historien du monde rural, estime que l'expérience canadienne des immigrants irlandais diffère de l'expérience américaine. Il prétend que la prédominance des Protestants à l'intérieur du groupe national, de même que les bases rurales de la communauté irlandaise, empêchent la formation de ghettos urbains et permettent une relative liberté d'action en terme de mobilité sociale. Par comparaison les Irlando-Américains, majoritairement catholiques, sont concentrés dans les ghettos urbains. De surcroît, les nouveaux historiens du Travail affirment que la montée des Chevaliers du Travail suscite un rapprochement entre les Orangistes et les Irlandais catholiques de Toronto qui, en dépit de leur haine ancestrale, s'attachent à former une culture ouvrière commune. Cette interprétation présuppose que la culture irlandaise catholique constitue une valeur bien faible pour être rejetée si facilement. L'auteur estime qu'aucune de ces interprétations n'est fondée. Dans les ghettos torontois, la fusion de la culture paysanne irlandaise avec un catholicisme traditionnel, produit un nouveau courant urbain ethno-religieux — le catholicisme irlandais d'obédience tridentine. Cette culture se propage de la ville vers l'arrière-pays et, grâce aux réseaux de la métropole, d'un bout à l'autre de l'Ontario. Une société irlandaise repliée sur elle-même se constitue, résultant du « privatisme », ceux qui y naissent ne la quittent qu'à leur mort. Les Irlandais catholiques se sont effectivement impliqués dans les organisations ouvrières afin d'améliorer la condition et l'avenir de leurs familles, mais ils ne se sont jamais associés avec leurs ennemis de toujours, les Orangistes, pour développer une nouvelle culture ouvrière.

PHA 2014 Conference Poster Session

This dissertation explores the interplay between industrial racial hiring practices and the following institutions and transitions characterizing the inter-war period: unionization, institutional change among unions, business cycle activity, government anti-discrimination policy, and high-wage policies. The degree to which industrial racial hiring practices differed across manufacturing and mining industries and the impact that this industrial segregation had on black workers is explored. During World War I, when many northern employers first hired black workers, there was a significant difference in how black and white workers were distributed across industry. However, the segregation decreased significantly over time and it was not a contributor to the black-white income differential among industrial workers. Black workers were not employed disproportionately by industries with low wages, with low capital-to-labor ratios, or that were disproportionately dangerous. However, industrial segregation exposed them to greater unemployment risk, explaining a portion of their disproportionately high unemployment rates. The third chapter identifies some of the forces that shaped and mitigated industrial segregation. The way that black workers were distributed across industries was a fimction of union density, union affiliation, and tight wartime labor markets. The craft based unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor were notorious for discriminating against black labor. The industrial unions affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) actively promoted the organization of black labor.

Objective-This study examined differences in service needs and treatment utilization, retention, and outcomes between African-American, Hispanic, and white substance abusers in communitybased treatment programs.Methods-Data were collected from 2,401 African Americans, 3,222 Hispanics, and 7,980 whites who were admitted to 43 drug treatment programs across California from 2000 to 2001.The Addiction Severity Index (ASI) was administered at intake to assess clients' problem severity in a number of domains (alcohol use, drug use, employment, family and social relationships, legal, medical, and psychological), and treatment retention and arrest data were obtained from administrative records.A subsample was followed up at three months to assess service utilization (N=2,145) and again at nine months to readminister the ASI (N=2,566).Results-All three groups had similar severity levels of drug and legal problems upon treatment entry.Upon entry to treatment, white clients had the highest severity levels of alcohol, family, and psychiatric problems and African Americans had the highest severity levels of employment problems compared with the other two groups.Treatment retention did not differ between the three groups, but whites received a greater number of alcohol treatment services than did African Americans or Hispanics, and African Americans received a greater number of employment services than did Hispanic and white clients.All three groups showed significant improvement in all outcome domains except for medical outcomes.At the nine-month follow-up, whites had worse outcomes in the alcohol domain compared with the other two groups, and whites had worse outcomes in the legal domain compared with Hispanics.Compared with whites, African Americans were significantly less likely to be charged with driving under the influence in the year after treatment admission.Conclusions-All three groups improved after treatment, although benefits from treatment can be further enhanced if services underscore different facets of the psychosocial problems of each racial and ethnic group.Racial and ethnic disparities in the availability and quality of substance abuse treatment are of interest to both policy makers and treatment service providers.A number of studies have indicated greater unmet needs for health services and poorer health outcomes for persons from racial or ethnic minority groups across a range of disease areas, including cardiovascular disease, mental disorders, diabetes, and other chronic and infectious diseases (1).However, there has been little research on the service needs, utilization, and outcomes of African Americans and Hispanics in substance abuse treatment.

This article examines the letter writing of black railroad workers to the United States Railroad Administration during World War I. Engaging with scholarship on the African American experience during the war years, the article considers the ways in which ordinary African Americans acted on the opportunities presented by the mobilization for challenging Jim Crow and seeking racial justice. The article disagrees with interpretations that see the war period as one of promise but ultimately failure and disappointment for advocates of racial justice. Rather, attention to the epistolary undertakings of black railroaders reveals how letter writing itself figured as a form of political action through which black workers sought to bend the state to their purposes. The content of black railwaymen’s letters demonstrates the importance of citizenship and the centrality of economic justice to civil rights activism. Moreover, these letters illustrate how letter writing could be empowering. Not only did black workers demand fair treatment at work but in the course of writing many of them also fashioned themselves as fully endowed citizens. In Jim Crow America, in a society and culture that publicly denied African Americans agency as well as basic rights and liberties, the capacity of letter writing to facilitate “selfnarration” against dominant exclusionary definitions of citizenship helped African Americans, in the words of historian Chad Williams, “resist white supremacy, affirm their citizenship, and assert their humanity.” Like many other black workers in the industrial North during the World War I years, Lott Calloway came from the South. Born in Stokes, North Carolina, in 1886, he joined a burgeoning stream of African Americans making their way to the nation’s industrial centers in the first decades of the twentieth century. He lived in the heart of the old African American neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio, just off Mt. Vernon Avenue, with his wife, Minnie, whom he had married in 1915, and their three young children, Clarence, Ruth, and Harry. When the census taker visited his home in 1920, the thirty-four year old Calloway must have felt a sense of satisfaction, if not manhood, pride, and citizenship, in setting out the details of his growing family and in the fact that over the previous decade

“They Met Force with Force”:African American Protests and Social Status in Louisville’s 1877 Strike Shannon M. Smith (bio) On Tuesday, July 24, 1877, African American laborers employed to dig Louisville’s sewer system left their jobs in protest. That morning, “some idle negroes, including a strange one from Cincinnati” known as Buffalo Bill, reportedly urged the workers to demand a wage increase. When the supervisor refused their demands, the contracted workers—“mostly colored men”—left the work site and paraded through town. With this action, the black workers joined thousands of striking laborers across the country in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. The marching strikers gathered workers from other construction sites until the group numbered approximately four hundred black laborers. After traversing the city and commanding the attention of startled white townspeople, the group eventually dispersed in the late afternoon without incident.1 The actions of Louisville’s black workers were significant for several reasons. Four years into a national depression, and more than a week into the railroad strike, it was not surprising for laborers to protest low wages. Undoubtedly inspired by the working-class solidarity [End Page 1] that prompted a near-nationwide general strike, Louisville’s African American workers made public demands for fair pay consistent with that of white railroad workers engaged in unskilled labor. In Louisville, as in other southern cities, black workers demanded wage equality as vigorously as they sought civil rights. Over the next several days, black strikers were joined by hundreds of white men and women from the city’s tobacco factories, foundries, paper and woolen mills, furniture and plow factories, saddleries, and breweries, culminating in a general strike across the city.2 But unlike the railroad workers who led the strikes in cities across the country, Louisville’s white railmen adamantly refused to join the strike. Instead, they sided with the city’s white business and political leaders by joining the militia that helped to protect railroad property. In an industrializing border city, white railroad employees established their most important identities as protectors of “law and order” rather than joining in working-class action with other laborers. The perceived threat of black militancy led to the creation of an all-white militia that further disrupted possible class collaboration between black and white workers. White men used militia service to reinforce their own economic power and to ensure that black workers did not challenge long-standing class and racial boundaries. Through their actions, the men of Louisville contested who had the right to organize, by what means they could assert themselves publicly, and who was denied those rights—in short, who could lay public claim to being a citizen and a man.3 It is difficult to piece together the story of a strike, even more so [End Page 2] when it is accompanied by violence. Few eyewitness accounts remain from most riots, and police and military records are often scarce. No sources are more valuable than newspapers, yet they present their own challenges. News reporters did not interview the striking black workers to ask about their demands, so African American voices are limited. Nineteenth-century newspapers typically framed class conflicts as wars in which strikers threatened the forces of law and order. Such framing made “violence itself the story” and distracted readers from criticism of the system that created the conflict. Editors and reporters offered politicized viewpoints to their target audience and engaged in heated exchanges with competitors. Through interviews and relaying of selected events, news editors shaped citizens’ attitudes toward each other and a city’s vision of how best to preserve law and order. But newspapers were also beholden to advertisers and readers, and could not risk alienating either. Out of the challenges and confusion of strike coverage, newspapers became participants in molding the perceived reality of an event. Competing Democratic and Republican news reports of the Louisville strike must be interpreted carefully, but they still provide insights into the aims of striking black workmen, white workers who joined their ranks, and the employers who sought to re-establish control.4 The railroad strike in July 1877, the first nationwide industrial strike, began with railroad workers...

<i>Whose Harlem Is This, Anyway? Community Politics and Grassroots Activism during the New Deal Era</i> by Shannon King

<i>Working on the Dock of the Bay: Labor and Enterprise in an Antebellum Southern Port</i> by Michael D. Thompson

Stigma is a significant impediment to the successful treatment of individuals with mental illness, especially among racial minority groups. Although limited, the literature suggests that African Americans are more likely than Caucasians to believe that people with mental illnesses are dangerous. The authors reexamined this issue and assessed whether racial differences also extend to beliefs about how people with mental illness should be treated if violent. A nationally representative probability sample of 1,241 respondents participated in a telephone survey. The analysis focused on the 81 African-American and 590 Caucasian respondents who participated in a vignette experiment about a person with schizophrenia or major depressive disorder. The authors analyzed respondents' perceptions that the person would be violent, as well as their attitudes about blame and punishment. African Americans were more likely than Caucasians to believe that individuals with schizophrenia or major depression would do something violent to other people. At the same time they were less likely to believe these individuals should be blamed and punished for violent behavior. These racial differences were not attributable to sociodemographic factors. The study found racial differences in stigmatizing attitudes toward individuals with mental illness; however, African Americans' negative perception did not necessarily result in endorsement of harsher treatment of mentally ill persons. This study highlights the complexity of the stigma process and emphasizes the need to consider racial differences in developing interventions targeted to improve public attitudes.

Influence of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture on Childhood Obesity: Implications for Prevention and Treatment