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

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Chad Pearson is a history graduate student at the State University of New York, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12222, USA. Email: [email protected]

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, Seventy Years of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 249–73; Tymeson, 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, 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;’ ‘Worcester, Open Shop City;’ ‘Labor and the State in Worcester;’ ‘A Lack of Solidarity;’ ‘Lords of Capital and Knights of Labor.’

Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will.

Tedlow, Keeping the Corporate Image; Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul.

On the south, see Woodward, The Origins of the New South; Gaston, The New South Creed; Garofalo, ‘The Sons of Henry Grady;’ Ayers, Promise of the New South. On Western boosters, see Abbott, Boosters and Businessmen; Cronan, Nature's Metropolis.

A. J. 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, ‘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, ‘The Origins of the Open‐Shop Movement,’Journal of American History; Klug, ‘The Roots of the Open Shop;’ Fine, ‘Without Blare of Trumpets;’ Greene, Pure and Simple Politics, 88–93; Harris, Bloodless Victories; Millikan, A Union against Unions; Bucki, Bridgeport's Socialist New Deal, 106. Resent research has shown that Canadian employers were also active union fighters. See Yarmie, ‘Employers and Exceptionalism.’ On the role of lawyers in the open‐shop movement, see Ernst, Lawyers against Labor.

On the city's diverse industries, see Washburn, Industrial Worcester. On the city's machine tool industry, see Wagoner, The US Machine Tool Industry, 40. For an excellent analysis of the way places such as Worcester contributed to the Second Industrial Revolution, see Scranton, Endless Novelty.

The founders of some technical schools, including the Georgia Institute of Technology, looked to WPI as a model to emulate. See Brittain and McMath, ‘Engineers and the New South Creed.’

Lecuyer, ‘MIT, Progressive Reform, and “Industrial Service.”’

Washburn, ‘Technical Education in Relation to Industrial Development;’ Alden, ‘The Washburn Shops of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute;’ Taylor, Seventy Years of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Scranton, Endless Novelty, 67. On the relationship between early manufacturers and the city's civic institutions, see Chasan, ‘Civilizing Worcester.’

Calvert, The Mechanical Engineer in America, 75. For a classic discussion of the links between engineering schools and industrialists, see Noble, America by Design.

Taylor, Seventy Years of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 108.

Logan, ‘Industrial Pioneers of Worcester.’

Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor, 176.

Worcester Magazine, May 1915, 124.

Ira Hollis to John Leonard, 3 May 1921, Hollis Papers.

Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will, 21–22.

The NMTA started outside of Worcester, emerging in response to a labor struggle involving pattern makers in New York City and Brooklyn in July 1899. 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, ‘Employers’ Associations for Dealing with Labor in the United States;' Zimand, The Open Shop Drive, 31–32; Bonnett, Employers' Association in the United States, 104; Wiebe, Businessmen and Reform, 168; Ramirez, When Workers Fight, 106; Montgomery, Workers' Control in America, 49–57; Haydu, Between Craft and, 81–87, 210; Harris, Bloodless Victories, 63, 85–86; Millikan, A Union against Unions, 8–10; Beckert, The Monied Metropolis, 289–92. For a classic analysis of the IAM, see Perlman, The Machinists.

Norwood, Strikebreaking and Intimidation, 76. Glaringly absent from Norwood's account is any serious treatment of employer organizations and their involvement in the open‐shop movement.

No NMTA member could recognize unions by 1906. See Bonnett, Employers' Association in the United States, 105.

Bonnett, Employers' Association, 112. For an illustrative description of labor spy activities, see Howard, The Labor Spy.

Bonnett, Employers' Association, 108.

‘A Matter of Business.’Bulletin of the National Metal Trades Association, January 1904, 84.

Bonnett, Employers' Association, 105.

Wuest, Industrial Betterment Activities, 8, 15.

Ibid., 4.

Harris, Bloodless Victories, 74.

Corbin, ‘The New England Districts.’

‘Report of the First District of National Metal Trades Association.’Bulletin of the National Metal Trades Association, July 1903, 481.

Adams, ‘The Worcester Labor Bureau.’

On Whitin, see Navin, The Whitin Machine Works since 1831.

This is according to the Worcester Chamber of Commerce. See ‘Among Worcester Manufacturers.’Worcester Magazine, April 1902, 146.

‘Commissioner’s Report.'Bulletin of the National Metal Trades Association, July 1903, 466.

‘Employers Ready.’Daily Telegram, 20 May 1902, 2.

Cincinnati's labor bureau was also a national model. See Harris, Bloodless Victories, 102–5.

Adams, ‘The Worcester Labor Bureau.’

Hobbs, ‘Aims and Objects of the Labor Bureau.’

NMTA, Synopsis of Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Convention, 47–48.

‘The Worcester Labor Bureau.’Bulletin of the National Metal Trades Association, August 1904, 352–57.

Hastings, ‘The Worcester (Mass) Labor Bureau.’

On Tulloch's involvement in these organizations, see Worcester Directory, 1908–20; Nutt, History of Worcester and Its People, 780.

Tulloch dedicated the proceeds of the book ‘to the British born women of Worcester.’ See Tulloch, Songs and Poems of the Great World War.

Labor News, 13 November 1915.

Quoted in Labor News, 29 January 1937. Anecdotal reports suggest that the city's workers genuinely feared the widespread power of the NMTA. 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.’

Harris, Bloodless Victories, 199.

On the NMTA's support of ‘welfare’, see Wuest, Industrial Betterment Activities. Historians of welfare capitalism have focused primarily on the origins and development of welfarism on a nationwide basis, and on the unique welfare programs found in particular firms. See Bernstein, The Lean Years; Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism; Brody, Workers in Industrial America, 48–81; Meyer, The Five Dollar Day; Hareven, Family Time and Industrial Time, 38–68; Jacoby, Employing Bureaucracy, 49–64; Zahavi, Workers, Managers, and Welfare Capitalism. Fewer studies examine welfare capitalism as a citywide practice in which leading industrialists shared information about the value of welfare capitalism in the same way that they shared information about troublesome employees. See Cohen, Making a New Deal, 159–212; Harris, Bloodless Victories, 68, 309. There is a growing literature on the ways welfare capitalism was gendered. See Tone, The Business of Benevolence; Mandell, The Corporation as Family.

This line of argument is laid out nicely in Gitelman, ‘Welfare Capitalism Reconsidered.’ See also Littmann, ‘Designing Obedience;’ Kelly, Race, Class, and Power, 60–64; Harris, ‘Industrial Paternalism and Welfare Capitalism.’

Alford, ‘The Present State of the Art of Industrial Management.’

On Alden's important relationship to WPI, see ‘George Ira Alden.’Journal of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, November 1926, 13–15.

Alden, ‘Modern Socialism.’

Quoted in Taylor, Seventy Years of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 249.

NMTA, Synopsis of Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Convention, 12.

Tulloch, Worcester.

‘Worcester—A Convention City.’ Worcester Magazine, May 1914, 122.

On the Ludlow massacre and the reforms that it sparked, see Howard Gitelman, Legacy of the Ludlow Massacre. Howard Zinn has captured the drama of this bloody strike (‘The Colorado Coal Strike’).

For a comprehensive list of attendees, see NMTA, Synopsis of Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Convention, 274–81. On Morgan and Schwacke, see Harris, 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, 118–26.

Ibid., 198.

Ibid., 198.

Ibid., 298.

‘George Jeppson’ manuscript, no date, Worcester Historical Museum, Worcester, MA; Cheape, Family Firm to Modern Multinational, 40–44.

Barton, A Line of Men One Hundred Years Long, 58.

Green, ‘How the Rug Weavers Came to South Worcester;’ Zuckerman, ‘Matthew Whittall.’

‘Worcester—A Convention City.’ Worcester Magazine, May 1914, 122.

‘Enlarged Plant of the Royal Worcester Corset Company.’ Worcester Magazine, January 1912, 86; Tarbell, New Ideals in Business, 104; Stone, History of Massachusetts Industries, 1734; Southwick, ‘David Hale Fanning Had His Own Brand of Feminism.’

‘Presentation of Loving‐Cup to David Hale Fanning,’ Worcester Magazine, June 1911, 575–76; Tulloch, Worcester, 138.

‘Worcester—A Convention City.’

Labor News, 22 September 1915. A number of scholars have written about this strike. See Zeuch, ‘An Investigation of the Metal Trades Strike;’ and, most recently, Cohen, ‘The Worcester Machinist Strike of 1915.’

Daily Telegram, 28 September 1915, 1.

For a discussion of ‘yellow‐dog’ contracts, see Ernst, ‘The Yellow‐Dog Contract and Liberal Reform.’

Stone, History of Massachusetts Industries, 1746.

Labor News, 22 September 1915.

Labor News, 16 October 1915. For a useful biographical sketch of Hildreth, see Nutt, History of Worcester and Its People, 140–41.

Quoted in Worcester Telegram, 30 September 1915.

Worcester Telegram, 27 September 1915.

On the board's limits, see Cohen, ‘The Worcester Machinist Strike of 1915.’

Labor News, 13 November 1915.

On Norton, see ‘Memorandum—Training Department,’ 2 April 1918, Box 7, Folder 3, George Jeppson Papers, Worcester Historical Museum, Worcester, MA. For a description of Wyman‐Gordon's popular turkey hand‐outs, see Gabbe, The Wyman‐Gordon way, 1883–1983, 33; on Whitcomb's picnic and gardening activities, see Hildreth, ‘Co‐operative Shop Gardening.’

For a description of the NMTA's position on labor during the war, see ‘Make Every Man Work.’ The Review, August 1917, 302. On Hollis and Alden's citywide work, see ‘Institute Notes.’ Journal of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, November 1918, 61; Norton Spirit, August 1918. Hollis insisted that WPI's graduates stay out of the war, but he helped them secure jobs in explosives factories. Seventy‐five percent of the 1918 graduating class entered this line of work. See Tymeson, Two Towers, 119.

Norton Spirit, December 1918. The beneficiary of massive wartime orders, Norton expanded its operations and its workforce during these years, the latter growing from 900 in 1914 to 3,000 in 1918. See Cheape, Family Firm to Modern Multinational, 125.

On Americanization programs see Kelly, Training Industrial Workers. For a critical analysis of these programs, see Dunn, The Americanization of Labor; Korman, Industrialization, Immigrants, and Americanizers.

Publicity Committee of the Worcester Branch of the NMTA, Jerome R. George, George I. Alden, and Douglas Cook to the Members of the Worcester NMTA, 24 March 1921, Hollis Papers.

Our 50 Years of Making Steel Say ‘Yes’ . On Morgan Construction's safety programs, see Morgan, The Morgan's of Worcester, 18.

‘8 Thousand Participate in Parade Three Miles Long.’ Worcester Telegram, 14 September 1916, 3.

Heald Herald, February 1919.

‘Conference on Minstrel Show,’ 2 November 1917, Box 1, Folder 3, George Jeppson Papers.

‘Red Cross Membership Campaign,’ 14 June 1917, Box 2, Folder 3, George Jeppson Papers.

The National Association of Manufactures also named Bridgeport, Connecticut and Chicago as cities with superb wartime industrial education programs. See Breen, ‘Industrial Training and Craft Dilution in World War I.’

My understanding of the strike comes largely from an essay by Bruce Cohen (‘Worcester, Open Shop City’). On government–business relations during the war and its aftermath, see Conner, The National War Labor Board; Gerber, ‘Corporatism in Comparative Perspective,’ 100; McCartin, Labor's Great War, 38–119.

Crane, History of Worcester County Massachusetts, 575.

‘Foundry Workers Form New Union.’ Daily Telegram, 13 May 1917, 1; ‘Temporary Injunction Issued by Judge Philip J. O’Connell.'Daily Telegram, 27 May 1919, 3.

On strike violence, see ‘Strikers Beat up Other Employees in Street Fight.’ Daily Telegram, 23 May 1919, 1; Cohen, ‘Worcester, Open Shop City,’ 182.

Kelly, Race, Class, and Power, 50–80.

George D. Berry to Donald Tulloch, 21 November 1919, Hollis Papers.

Barbour, ‘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, The Truth about the Labor Question, 1, 29.

Hibbard to Hollis, 23 June 1919, Hollis Papers.

Riley, ‘Our Year’s Work.'

Quoted in Cohen, ‘Worcester, Open Shop City,’ 179.

Quoted in Hanlan, ‘Grinding out Dissension.’ My argument complements Hanlan's thesis. 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, Men of Metal, 31.

Whittall Shuttle, June 1920.

For insightful descriptions of company‐sponsored team sports, see Littmann, ‘Designing Obedience;’ Gems, ‘Welfare Capitalism and Blue‐Collar Sport.’

Quoted in Hedin, ‘George Nathaniel Jeppson.’

Whittall, ‘Matthew John Whittall,’ 201.

Hildreth, ‘Ten Thousand Volunteers in Snow‐Shoveling Army.’

Heald Herald, February 1920.

Whitin Spindle, November 1919.

Whittall, ‘Matthew John Whittall,’ 204.

Meagher, Inventing Irish America, 282.

George, ‘American Labor Conditions.’ I would like to thank Bruce Cohen for bringing this essay to my attention.

Zahavi, ‘Negotiated Loyalty.’

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Chad Pearson

Chad Pearson is a history graduate student at the State University of New York, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, NY 12222, USA. Email: [email protected]