Fannie Never Flinched

by Mary Cronk Farrell

  1909–1911 UNITED GARMENT WORKERS STRIKE MARX & HAAS, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

  After negotiations for better pay and working conditions broke down, the Marx & Haas Clothing Company locked out one thousand workers, including United Garment Workers of America Ladies’ Local 67, of which Fannie Sellins was president. Union members picketed the factory until they were prohibited from doing so by a judge. Still, the strikers held out for two years, while a national boycott of Marx & Haas Clothing pressured the company to sign a contract with the union for improved pay and working conditions.

  1913–1914 UNITED MINE WORKERS STRIKE, COLLIERS, WEST VIRGINIA

  September 13, 1913, United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) went on strike against the West Virginia–Pittsburgh Coal Company, which continued operations with nonunion labor. The company won a court injunction to prohibit the UMWA from organizing local workers. Union leaders, including Fannie Sellins, were jailed for speaking at public rallies. The strike settled in June 1914, with workers re-hired at slightly better wages and working conditions but dissolution of the UMWA in the region.

  1914 LUDLOW MASSACRE, LUDLOW, COLORADO

  On April 20, Colorado National Guard soldiers aimed a machine gun at a union camp during a strike in Southern Colorado. Company gunmen harassed strikers, shot at them from an armored car and beamed searchlights on their tents at night. The miners thought the Guard had arrived to protect them from dangerous harassment by the camp guards, but the soldiers and guards destroyed two tent camps, burning one to the ground and killing two women and eleven children. The massacre brought criticism to principal owner John D. Rockefeller and highlighted the Colorado miners’ grievances, but little improved for them.

  What remains of a striking coal miners’ tent colony after attack and burning by National Guard troops. Ludlow, Colorado, 1914.

  1919 UNITED MINE WORKERS STRIKE ALLEGHENY COAL & COKE, BRACKENRIDGE, PENNSYLVANIA

  After Fannie’s death, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) continued its labor action against the Allegheny Coal & Coke Company. The next month the American Federation of Labor (AFL) struck the United States Steel Corporation with the same demands—higher wages, an eight-hour workday, and recognition of unions. The strike spread across the nation, and eventually 350,000 workers walked out. But companies whipped up prejudice against unions, painting workers as communists, and strikers lost public support. Federal and state soldiers ended the strike, and UMWA and AFL workers returned to their jobs with no gains.

  1920–1921 WEST VIRGINIA COAL WARS AND BATTLE OF BLAIR MOUNTAIN

  West Virginia miners lived in nearly feudal conditions—their homes, schools, churches, stores, and even their politicians owned by the mine bosses. When the miners went on strike, coal operators hired gunmen, including sheriff’s deputies, to assault, arrest, and blacklist workers and evict their families from their homes. When two union sympathizers were shot on the steps of the county courthouse, five thousand union miners armed themselves to face the corporate gunmen and soldiers. When the federal government sent ground troops, and bomber planes landed at a nearby airfield, the strikers surrendered.

  1934 WEST COAST LONGSHOREMEN STRIKE

  In what is also known as the West Coast Waterfront Strike, longshoremen (dockworkers) closed ports in California, Oregon, and Washington for eighty-three days, demanding union recognition and hiring halls run by unions, not bosses. Two strikers were shot dead and more than one hundred wounded by police on a sidewalk in San Francisco on July 5. The police killings triggered a four-day general strike, and sailors and workers throughout the city joined the shutdown. Employers eventually agreed to government arbitration to end the strike. The longshoremen’s victory launched the modern labor movement in the western United States, in which workers have the right by law to form unions and bargain with employers.

  Policeman wielding a nightstick engages with a striker during the citywide general strike. San Francisco, California, 1934.

  1934 BLACK FRIDAY, MINNEAPOLIS TRUCKERS STRIKE

  After truckers striking for improved wages and better working conditions nearly shut down commercial transportation in the upper Midwest, Minneapolis police fired on crowds of strikers at the city’s central market, killing two and wounding more than sixty. Political pressure from President Franklin D. Roosevelt averted all-out warfare in the streets. Companies needing the administration’s help to finance their credit agreed to sit down and talk with strikers and accept government help in reaching an agreement. Thus the International Brotherhood of Teamsters was born.

  1934 AUTO-LITE STRIKE, TOLEDO, OHIO

  In what is also known as the “Battle of Toledo,” sheriff’s deputies used tear gas and fire hoses against Electric Auto-Lite Company strikers. The city’s 80 percent unemployment rate, a result of the Great Depression, had led factory managers to reduce wages and inspired thousands of citizens to support the strikers. National Guard troops provoked a five-day battle in the streets. People fought with fists and bricks; soldiers fired on the crowd, killing two and injuring more than two hundred. Forty thousand citizens threatened to shut down the city. Electric Auto-Lite finally gave in and signed the first contract with what would become the United Auto Workers.

  1934 NATIONAL TEXTILE WORKERS STRIKE, NEWNAN, GEORGIA

  Charged with picketing for better hours and working conditions at a cotton mill in Newnan, Georgia, sixteen women and one hundred and twelve men were imprisoned. A Labor Day textile workers’ strike in North Carolina quickly spread across the South and up the Eastern Seaboard. Soon, nearly half a million workers joined the strike. Company guards and Georgia National Guard troops were dispatched in at least seven states, smashing the strike in three weeks. Penniless workers, faced with brutal violence, started returning to their jobs, but companies refused to re-hire 72,000 strikers. Unions remain weak in the South to the present day.

  1935 NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT

  The presidential election of 1932 sparked a major turning point for American labor unions, bringing pro-labor president Franklin D. Roosevelt into office in 1933, along with a Congress sympathetic to labor. The National Labor Relations Act, also known as the Wagner Act, guaranteed workers the right to form unions and collectively bargain for fair wages and workplace safety. The law formed the National Labor Relations Board to protect both employers’ and employees’ rights and to intervene when labor and management disputes become deadlocked.

  The Georgia National Guard rounds up strikers gathered outside the Newnan Textile Mill. Newnan, Georgia, 1934.

  NOTES

  Stanley Rafalko, The Fannie Sellins Project interview, November 16, 1985, transcript (Pennsylvania State University Library, University Park, PA), p. 2.

  “Faster!” Rose Feurer, ed., “Washington Avenue Garment District.” The St. Louis Labor History Tour (St. Louis, MO: St. Louis Bread and Roses, Inc., 1994), p. 9.

  “You bleed on the fabric, you pay for it.” Scott, Miriam Finn, “The Spirit of the Girl Strikers,” The Outlook, Vol. 94, February 1910, p. 393.

  “All the doors . . . fire should come.” “Two Women Fighting Sweatshop System to Help Save Bodies and Souls of Children,” The Tacoma Times, October 16, 1911, p. 5.

  “Not fair . . . scabs!” Feurer, Associate Professor, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, author phone interview, October 8, 2007.

  “Help us fight . . . die in the mines . . . in our daily work.” Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Convention of the United Mine Workers of America, January 16–February 2, 1912, Vol. One (Indianapolis, IN: The Cheltenham-Aetna Press, 1912), p. 624. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.

  “Injury to one is an injury to all.” Feurer, e-mail to author, Theatrical Rendition of Fannie Sellins’s Speeches During Marx & Haas Strike 1909–1910, St. Louis, MO, December 21, 2013.

  “Pass the hat.” James Cassedy, “A Bond of Sympathy: The Life and Tragic Death of Fannie Sellins,” Labor’s Heritage, Vol. 4, No. 4., Winter 1992, p. 36.

  “in th
eir homes or on the street.” Richard D. Lunt, Law and Order vs. the Miners: West Virginia, 1907–1933 (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1979), p. 20.

  “I am free . . . obey the law.” “Mass Meeting in Wellsburg,” The Wheeling Majority (Wheeling, WV, December 1913), p. 1.

  “I do not advise . . . last resort.” Application for Clemency. Case File 28-684. U.S. Pardon Attorney, November 22, 1916.

  “We don’t want our people carrying.” Richard Gazarik, Black Valley: The Life & Death of Fannie Sellins (Latrobe, PA: Saint Vincent College, 2014), p. 60.

  “For God’s sake, don’t kill him!” Ron E. Roberts, Carol Cook-Roberts, Mother Jones and Her Sisters: A Century of Women Activists in the American Coal Fields (Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1993), p. 64.

  “There were no innocent . . . guilty of rioting.” Meyerhuber, p. 55.

  “to get her.” Meyerhuber, p. 54.

  “known nothing but a sewing machine for fifteen years.” Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Convention of the United Mine Workers of America, p. 622.

  SOURCES

  Cassedy, James. “A Bond of Sympathy: The Life and Tragic Death of Fannie Sellins.” Labor’s Heritage, Vol. 4, No. 4. Winter (1992).

  “Fannie Sellins Dies on Battlefield of Labor.” St. Louis Labor, August 30, 1919.

  “Fatal Mine Riot Inquest Held Today.” Pittsburgh Leader, September 26, 1919.

  Ferrandiz, Susan. E-mail to author. January 8, 2014. Application for Clemency. Case File 28-684. U.S. Pardon Attorney, November 22, 1916.

  Feurer, Rosemary, ed. “Washington Avenue Garment District.” St. Louis Labor History Tour. St. Louis, MO: St. Louis Bread and Roses, Inc., 1994.

  Feurer, Rosemary, Associate Professor, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, author phone interview, October 8, 2007.

  Feurer, Rosemary. E-mail to author. Theatrical Rendition of Fannie Sellins’s Speeches During Marx & Haas Strike 1909–1910, St. Louis, MO, December 21, 2013.

  Gazarik, Richard. Black Valley: The Life & Death of Fannie Sellins. Latrobe, PA : Saint Vincent College, 2014.

  Hilton, W. B. Ohio Valley Trades and Labor Assembly, letter to Mr. James A. Finch, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., July 7, 1914.

  “In Contempt of Dayton’s Court.” Wheeling Majority. Wheeling, WV, December 1913.

  Lunt, Richard D. Law and Order vs. the Miners: West Virginia, 1907–1933. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1979.

  “Man and Woman Shot: Mrs. Fannie Sellins Killed,” Valley Daily News, Tarentum, PA, August 27, 1919.

  Marx & Haas Clothing Corp. versus Union Local 26 of the UGWA, et al. Circuit Court, City of St. Louis, December Term 1909, Case 60718.

  “Mass Meeting in Wellsburg,” Wheeling Majority, Wheeling, WV, December 1913.

  Meyerhuber, Carl I. Less Than Forever: The Rise and Decline of Union Solidarity in Western Pennsylvania, 1914–1948. Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, London and New York: Associated University Presses, 1987.

  Meyerhuber, Carl I. “The Alle-Kiski Valley Coal Wars, 1913–1919,” Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, Vol. 63, No. 3, 1980.

  Murray, Philip, President, District 5, United Mine Workers of America, Pittsburgh, PA. Western Union Telegram to John L. Lewis, August 27, 1919, photocopy, Pennsylvania State University Library, University Park, PA.

  Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Convention of the United Mine Workers of America, January 16–February 2, 1912. Vol. One, Indianapolis, IN: The Cheltenham-Aetna Press, 1912.

  Rafalko, Stanley. The Fannie Sellins Project interview, November 16, 1985, transcript, Pennsylvania State University Library, University Park, PA.

  Roberts, Ron E., Carol Cook-Roberts, Mother Jones and Her Sisters: A Century of Women Activists in the American Coal Fields. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1993.

  “Say Slain Woman Led Mob: Steel Deputies Testify Organizer Headed Attack on Them,” New York Times, June 8, 1925.

  Scott, Miriam Finn, “The Spirit of the Girl Strikers,” The Outlook, Vol. 94, February 1910, p. 393.

  Slomkoski, Anthony, United Steel Workers of America #1196, Retired. Brackenridge, PA, author interview, July 24, 2010.

  “Steel Mill Men Warn Judge Gary.” Pittsburgh Daily Dispatch, August 27, 1919.

  “Steel Trust’s Hellish Crew Desecrates Head,” New Majority, September 20, 1919.

  “Two Women Fighting Sweatshop System to Help Save Bodies and Souls of Children,” Tacoma Times, October 16, 1911.

  Wolman, Leo, Paul Wander, Paul, H. K. Herwitz, and Eleanor Mack. The Clothing Workers of Chicago, 1910–1922. Chicago Joint Board, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, 1922.

  Yost, L. N., M.D., Jail Physician, Marion County Jail. Letter To Whom It May Concern: United States Department of Justice, Washington D.C., June 12, 1914.

  WEBSITES FOR MORE INFORMATION

  The History Channel: www.history.com/topics/labor

  Illinois Labor Historical Society: http://www.illinoislaborhistory.org/labor-history-articles/fannie-sellens?rq=fannie%20sellins

  Labor Heritage Foundation: www.laborheritage.org

  Labor History Timeline 1642-2011, Western States Center: http://www.roadmapproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Timeline-of-Labor-History1.pdf

  The National Women’s History Museum: www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/progressiveera/introprogressive.html

  University of Pittsburgh Labor Legacy: www.library.pitt.edu/labor_legacy/Sellins.html

  Women in Labor History Time Line: www.afscme.org/for-members/womens-leadership-training/leadership-tools/body/Women_in_Labor_History_Timeline.pdf

  BOOKS FOR FURTHER READING

  Note: An asterisk denotes books written for adults.

  Nonfiction

  Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. Kids on Strike! New York: HMH Books for Young Readers, 2008.

  Berlatsky, Noah, ed. Are Unions Still Relevant? (At Issue series), San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 2013.

  Brown, Monica. Side by Side/Lado a Lado: The Story of Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez/La Historia de Dolores Huerta y Cesar Chavez, Bilingual edition, New York: Rayo, 2010.

  *Dray, Philip. There Is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America. New York: Doubleday, 2010.

  Miller, Connie Colwell. Mother Jones: Labor Leader (Graphic Biography series). North Mankato, MN: Capstone Press, 2007.

  Nelson, S. D. Digging a Hole to Heaven: Coal Miner Boys. New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2014.

  Skurzynski, Gloria. Sweat and Blood: A History of U.S. Labor Unions (People’s History series). Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publishing Group, 2008.

  Warren, Sarah and Robert Casilla. Dolores Huerta: A Hero to Migrant Workers. Seattle, WA: Two Lions, 2012.

  Fiction

  Farrell, Mary Cronk. Fire in the Hole! Boston: Clarion Books, 2004.

  Lieurance, Suzanne. The Locket: Surviving the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (Historical Fiction Adventures series). New York: Enslow Publishers, Inc., 2008.

  Lyon, George Ella and Christopher Cardinale. Which Side Are You On?: The Story of a Song. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press, 2011.

  Paterson, Katherine. Bread and Roses, Too. Boston: Clarion Books, 2006.

  Winthrop, Elizabeth. Counting on Grace. New York: Wendy Lamb Books, 2006.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’m intensely grateful to my agent, Stephen Fraser, and my editor, Howard Reeves, for believing in Fannie’s story, and to Maria Middleton, Michael Clark, Orlando Dos Reis, and Kathy Lovisolo, who helped make it such a powerful book and get it into the hands of young readers. I am greatly indebted to members of my writing group, who read many versions of Fannie Never Flinched and lent encouragement and support through the years: Mary Douthitt, Claire Rudolf Murphy, Meghan Nuttall Sayres, and Lynn Caruso, and also Beth Cooley and Kris Dinnison, who helped in the homestretch. I received a huge boost of confidence and research funding from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, which awarded this project the 2008 Nonfiction Work-in-Pr
ogress Award endowed by James Cross Giblin.

  Many people helped me with my research, and without them I never could have written this book. I am especially grateful to Anthony Slomkoski, a retired steel-worker who gave me a tour of the area where Fannie Sellins was shot and shared his collection of historical documents. I also owe much to the generosity of James Cassedy, Rosemary Feurer, and Susan Ferrandiz.

  Other people and institutions to which I am so grateful: author Philip Dray; James Green (Professor of History, University of Massachusetts Boston); Robert Anthony Bruno (Professor of Labor Studies, University of Illinois); Joseph A. McCartin (Professor of U.S. Labor, Social and Political History, Georgetown University); University of Pittsburgh Labor Legacy Web Site and Archives Service Center; Mike Matejka (Illinois Labor History Society); Elise Bryant (Acting Executive Director, Labor Heritage Foundation); Laura Bell (Photographs Manager at the West Virginia and Regional History Center); Zach Brodt (Records Manager, University of Pittsburgh); Miriam Meislik (Media Curator, University of Pittsburgh); Jim Quigel (Historical Collections and Labor Archives, Paterno Library, Pennsylvania State University); Alexandra Bainbridge (Special Collections, Pennsylvania State University Libraries); Timothy Babcock; Laura Elizabeth Pinsent (Pennsylvania State University Libraries Special Collections); Anne Evenhaugen (Reference Librarian, Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery Library); Holly Reed (Archives Specialist, Still Pictures Reference, National Archives); Jaime Bourassa (Missouri History Museum); Sumi Shadduck and Gillian Sayre (Spokane Public Library); and Robin Lightly (coalmininghistorypa.org).