There is power in a union : the epic story of labor in America

from An Award-winning Historian, A Stirring (and Timely) Narrative History Of American Labor From The Dawn Of The Industrial Age To The Present Day. From The Textile Mills Of Lowell, Massachusetts, The First Real Factories In America, To The Triumph Of Unions In The Twentieth Century And Their Waning Influence Today, The Con­test Between Labor And Capital For Their Share Of American Bounty Has Shaped Our National Experience. Philip Dray’s Ambition Is To Show Us The Vital Accomplishments Of Organized Labor In That Time And Illuminate Its Central Role In Our Social, Political, Economic, And Cultural Evolution. there Is Power In A Union is An Epic, Character-driven Narrative That Locates This Struggle For Security And Dignity In All Its Various Settings: On Picket Lines And In Union Halls, Jails, Assembly Lines, Corporate Boardrooms, The Courts, The Halls Of Congress, And The White House. The Author Demonstrates, Viscerally And Dramatically, The Urgency Of The Fight For Fairness And Economic Democracy—a Struggle That Remains Especially Urgent Today, When Ordinary Americans Are So Anxious And Beset By Eco­nomic Woes. CHAPTER ONE: THE OPPRESSING HAND OF AVARICE

It seems fitting that one of the first renowned activistsin the titanic struggle between labor and capital on this continent, Sarah G.Bagley, was an unassuming young woman off the farm, initially no different fromany of the thousands who emerged from rural New England in the 1820s and 1830sto become "operatives" in the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts,the nation's earliest industrial city. This original population of Americanfactory workers was, for a generation, the pride of the youthful United States,and Lowell a model of enlightened industrialism that visitors were drawn fromacross the country and around the world to behold with their own eyes.

Bagley, like most of her peers, shared in the public's fascination; only after many years did she grow concerned about the system'sinjustices. In an era when few if any women spoke publicly she found her voice,first as a writer, then as a labor organizer, eventually leading the LowellFemale Labor Reform Association, which she helped create, in its historic fightfor decent work conditions and a ten-hour day. At turns eloquent and caustic,her challenge to the status quo brought her into open conflict with Lowell'spowerful mill and banking interests, the legislature of the state ofMassachusetts, and even many of her cohorts and friends.

Born in Candia, New Hampshire, in 1806, where herparents, two brothers, and a sister farmed and operated a sawmill, Bagleyworked as a schoolteacher before moving to Lowell in 1837. Beyond those fewfacts not much is known of her early life, although there are what may beintriguing glimpses into her background in two stories she wrote for the LowellOffering, the independent literary journal published by women mill workers andcelebrated here and in Europe as evidence of the superiority of America'sfactory culture. In one tale Bagley describes a young farm girl unhappy withher fate as a household domestic, who, smitten by "Lowell fever,"dreams of being a worker in the booming mill city thirty miles distant. So poor she doesn't own a pair of shoes in which to travel, the little heroine nonetheless defies her cruel mistress and runs away. A kindly stagecoach drivertakes pity on the barefoot child he encounters walking along the road, her few possessions in a knotted bundle, and, asking no fare, delivers her to Lowell.There, within days, she is reborn, with new acquaintances, a job in a mill, andeven the beginnings of a modest bank account. In the second story, a Lowellmill hand named Catherine B., suffering from dire homesickness, receives the terrible news that her mother and father have both died. Stricken by grief but determined to save her younger brother and sister from poverty, she rededicatesherself to the steady job she is fortunate to hold in a Lowell factory. For her brave display of "practical benevolence," Catherine is wooed formarriage by a desirable man

"Lowell fever" the lure of the textile mills,of factory work at good wages, was remarked upon by many who flocked to theteeming little city. Not only did mill work pay better than the other jobs opento Yankee farm girls, chiefly those of teacher, nanny, or domestic, it offeredescape from the other common alternative-grueling, unpaid labor on the familyfarm. The role of independent worker better suited the freeborn American womenof Bagley's time. The first young people to come of age in thepostrevolutionary era, they "expected to make something of themselves andof life," Lucy Larcom, a Lowell operative who entered the mills at ageeleven, later remembered. Young women like Larcom and Bagley, no less than JohnGreenleaf Whittier, a Lowell resident, Henry W. Longfellow, NathanielHawthorne, and Ralph Waldo Emerson-who would write that "the children ofNew England between 1820 and 1840 were born with knives in their brains" wereswept up in the intellectual ferment, heightened spirituality, and openness tonew ideas that characterized the nation in the age of Jackson. Theseexpectations led increasingly from the countryside to the civilization of theindustrialized town.

For young women the initial benefits of the transitionwere abundant. The Lowell factory/boardinghouse system offered a safe livingenvironment (a reassurance to their parents), a peek at the wider world, thechance to meet like-minded young people, as well as a sort of undergraduateeducation in its after-work classes, reading rooms, and occasional lyceumlectures. A girl from Maine reported that she was drawn to Lowell chiefly for access to the town's lending library, from which she was observed to withdrawas many as four novels per week. Some arrivals hailed from illustrious NewEngland families. Harriet Curtis, editor of the Lowell Offering, traced herlineage to Miles Standish; Harriet Robinson's great-grandfather had sold ThomasBrattle the land on which much of Harvard College stood; Harriet Farley wasdescended from a long line of famous New England clerics, including the eccentric Joseph "Handkerchief" Moody, whose practice of hiding hisface behind a black veil inspired a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story. Curtis,even before arriving at Lowell, had made her reputation as the author of apopular novel, Kate in Search of a Husband, although, as an historian notes,"the earnings of a mill operative...were larger and more dependable thanany she could expect from the writing of fiction."

Bagley mentions these advantages and more in "The Pleasures of Factory Life," published in the Offering in 1840. She writesof the mill girls' wages assisting distant relatives, the broadening experienceof meeting women from other states and towns, and exposure through the lyceumlectures to the likes of Emerson and John Quincy Adams. But it was the busyfactories, the enormous workrooms of looms and spindles synchronized as onegiant, interlocking mechanism, that most impressed her. "In the mill wesee displays of the wonderful power of the mind," she wrote. "Who canclosely examine all the movements of the complicated, curious machinery, andnot be led to the reflection, that the mind is boundless, and is destined torise higher and still higher; and that it can accomplish almost anything onwhich it fixes its attention!"

Thomas Jefferson would have liked Lowell. The hummingmill town that grew up at the confluence of the Concord and Merrimack rivers,with its systematized production methods and lending libraries, might havestruck the Sage of Monticello as an acceptable solution to his concerns aboutthe development of manufacturing in America. He had prized the ideal of theUnited States as a pastoral world, its citizens enriched by their closeness tothe soil, free of the drudgery and regimentation of industry. "Those wholabor in the earth are the chosen people of God if ever he had a chosen people,whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuinevirtue," he had written in Notes on the State of Virginia, published in1787. "While we have land to labor...let us never wish to see our citizensoccupied at a workbench, or twirling a distaff.

His vision of America as a perpetual garden was not far-fetchedin the 1780s, for nine of ten Americans still lived on farms, land wasavailable and affordable, and to the west of the Colonies lay vast unsettledterritory. Large-scale manufacturing, he believed, might best remain in Europe,as the cost of importing factory goods would be worth the benefit of preservingthe American landscape, its people and government, from the baleful influencesof industrial development already seen in British manufacturing cities. Animmigrant who crossed the ocean hoping to make his mark in industry wouldquickly transfer his ambition to farming once he saw firsthand the benefits ofsuch an independent calling.

Jefferson, however, was also known for his interest inanthropology, science, and mechanical innovation. To love America as he did wasto love its clockmakers, gunsmiths, shed-bound dreamers of a thousand tinkeredmechanical schemes, as well as its "natural philosophers," men likeJohn and William Bartram of Philadelphia, who traipsed the Appalachians forplant specimens and Indian relics. As president, Jefferson filled the East Roomof the Executive Mansion with mastodon bones collected at Big Salt Lick on theOhio River. He appreciated, too, the ingenious homespun textile crafts ofdiligent American women.