Making the ‘city of prosperity’: engineers, open‐shoppers, Americanizers, and propagandists in Worcester, Massachusetts, 1900–1925

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes John Leonard to Ira Hollis, 29 April 1921, Ira Hollis Papers, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Archives, Worcester, MA. On Hollis's work at WPI, see Taylor Taylor Herbert Foster Seventy Years of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute Worcester, MA: Davis Press 1937 [Google Scholar], Seventy Years of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 249–73; Tymeson —— Two Towers: The Story of Worcester Tech, 1865–1965 Barre, MA: Barre Publishers 1965 [Google Scholar], Two Towers, 98. Hollis also authored a heroic story about the navy (The Frigate Constitution). Ira Hollis to John Leonard, 3 May 1921, Hollis Papers. Rosenzweig Rosenzweig Roy Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870–1920 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1983 [Google Scholar], Eight Hours for What We Will. The most prolific historian of Worcester's workers is Bruce Cohen. He has chronicled the city's labor history from the nineteenth to the late twentieth century. See Cohen —— ‘The Worcester Machinist Strike of 1915.’ Historical Journal of Massachusetts 16 (1988) 154 71 [Google Scholar], ‘The Worcester Machinist Strike of 1915;’ ‘Worcester, Open Shop City;’ ‘Labor and the State in Worcester;’ ‘A Lack of Solidarity;’ ‘Lords of Capital and Knights of Labor.’ Rosenzweig Rosenzweig Roy Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870–1920 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1983 [Google Scholar], Eight Hours for What We Will. Tedlow Tedlow Richard, S Keeping the Corporate Image: Public Relations and Business, 1900–1950 Greenwich, CT: JAI Press 1979 [Google Scholar], Keeping the Corporate Image; Marchand Marchand Roland Creating the Corporate Soul Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 1997 [Google Scholar], Creating the Corporate Soul. 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Hain, an activist in the open‐shop movement, claims that 1,665 separate chambers of commerce participated in the open‐shop movement during the 1920s, the ‘American plan’ years. See Hain Hain AJ ‘Nation Swinging to the Open Shop.’ Iron Trade Review September 1920 846 [Google Scholar], ‘Nation Swinging to the Open Shop.’ There are several fine studies showing the ways employers fought organized labor to establish open‐shop workplaces. See Wakstein Wakstein, Allen, M. (1964). ‘The Origins of the Open‐Shop Movement.’. Journal of American History, 51: 460–75. 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After defeating major strikes by the International Association of Machinists (IAM), an American Federation of Labor affiliate formed by former members of the Knights of Labor in 1888, the NMTA established itself as a formidable opponent of trade unions, willing to use everything in its arsenal to defeat organized labor and advance the position of its members. Many have outlined the context surrounding the NMTA emergence. See Willoughby Willoughby, William Franklin. (1905). ‘Employers' Associations for Dealing with Labor in the United States.’. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 20: 119–29. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], ‘Employers’ Associations for Dealing with Labor in the United States;' Zimand Zimand Savel The Open Shop Drive: Who Is Behind It and Where Is It Going? 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Available evidence suggests that Tulloch was highly zealous in his use of the blacklist, and in the early 1930s some of the city's labor‐friendly politicians were unafraid to label him a malicious union buster. Hard feelings about Tulloch were revisited in 1931 when some city politicians proposed that Tulloch serve on the city's Parks and Recreation Commission. Labor News carried several melodramatic stories about men who were forced to leave the county in order to earn money to feed their families. One disapproving writer called Tulloch ‘the shinning light in the local metal trades industry.’ See Labor News, 29 May 1931. Hildreth —— ‘Membership.’ Bulletin of the National Metal Trades Association August 1903 628 [Google Scholar], ‘Membership.’ Harris Harris Howell Bloodless Victories: The Rise and Fall of the Open Shop in the Philadelphia Metal Trades, 1890–1940 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000 [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Bloodless Victories, 199. 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On Morgan and Schwacke, see Harris Harris Howell Bloodless Victories: The Rise and Fall of the Open Shop in the Philadelphia Metal Trades, 1890–1940 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000 [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], Bloodless Victories. On Merritt's speech and useful biographical information on this colorful figure, see Daniel R. Ernst, Lawyers against, 229–30. ‘Audience Cheers at News from Mexico.’ Daily Telegram, 22 April 1914, 8. Tulloch —— Worcester: City of Prosperity Sixteenth Annual Convention National Metal Trades Association, Worcester April 20–22, 1914 Worcester, MA 1914 [Google Scholar], Worcester, 118–26. Ibid., 198. Ibid., 198. Ibid., 298. ‘George Jeppson’ manuscript, no date, Worcester Historical Museum, Worcester, MA; Cheape Cheape Charles, W Family Firm to Modern Multinational: Norton Company, a New England Enterprise Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1985 [Google Scholar], Family Firm to Modern Multinational, 40–44. 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Westfield, MA: Institute for Massachusetts Studies, Westfield State College 1990 [Google Scholar], ‘Worcester, Open Shop City,’ 182. Kelly Kelly Brian Race, Class, and Power in the Alabama Coalfields, 1908–1921 Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press 2001 [Google Scholar], Race, Class, and Power, 50–80. George D. Berry to Donald Tulloch, 21 November 1919, Hollis Papers. Barbour Barbour Percy, E ‘Efforts Towards Solving the Problem of Industrial Relations.’ Journal of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute November 1919 34 53 [Google Scholar], ‘Efforts Towards Solving the Problem of Industrial Relations.’ Ira Hollis to John Hibbard, 19 June 1919, Hollis Papers. Cox clearly had much in common with Worcester's anti‐union activists, but it does not appear that he offered any original advice. He was a rather ordinary open‐shopper, arguing that fellow businessmen should support welfare capitalism while simultaneously denouncing trade unions. In his words, ‘Progressive businessmen have come to realize in recent years the practical responsibility for working out a successful solution of this [labor] problem rests on them as representing the most intelligent and experienced elements of our population. If a solution is to be found it is they who must find it.’ On unions, Cox was not one to mince words, preaching, ‘The road to union dominance is the road to class favoritism and national disaster.’ Unions, in his view, were responsible for ‘increasing disturbance, coercion, intimidation, force, violence, and crime; and these acts are justified and defended by the union leaders.’ Even though this hot‐headed commentator considered labor leaders ‘a set of brutal and reckless criminals,’ he thought it was appropriate to ‘try to understand the union viewpoint.’ No such understanding is found in his narrative. See Cox Cox Jacob, Jr. The Truth about the Labor Question No publisher or date. 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He is chiefly interested in Norton whereas I seek to show that other firms replicated the carrot‐and‐stick policies adopted by Norton. Heald Herald, August 1917. Quoted in Tymeson Tymeson Mildred McClary Men of Metal Worcester, MA: Worcester Stamped Metal Co 1954 [Google Scholar], Men of Metal, 31. Whittall Shuttle, June 1920. For insightful descriptions of company‐sponsored team sports, see Littmann Littmann, William. (1998). ‘Designing Obedience: The Architecture and Landscape of Welfare Capitalism, 1880–1930.’. International Labor and Working Class History, 53: 88–114. 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Email: cpearson@cwa1104.com