A follow-up to this thread, more (visual) detail on the impressive Davis/Huffy works in East Dayton, and vicinity, with text, commentary and lyrics interspersed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"In late July 1901, as machinists returned to their jobs, the Employers Association struck another blow against the metal trades.  Without warning all the workers at the Davis Sewing Machine Company and the Computing Scale Company were discharged." 

 

 

"The men received the following notice with their final pay:"

 

 

"This factory will reopen on or about August 19 as an open shop.  All employees desiring to return to their present position must make written application on the enclosed card and return same to the superintendent..."

 

 

"The card was a statement saying that the employee would be willing to work with non-union labor when the plant reopened.  Together the two plants employed about twelve hundred workers and both were organized  by the International Association of Allied Metal Mechanics.  They had not struck during the machinists walkout and made no demands at either plant"

 

 

"According to the locked out men, the companies had made demands that "no man as individual or union man could accede to" and, in addition, the companies were planning to cut wages even though the Davis plant had just declared a six percent dividend.  The shops openly briefly in August, but closed again this time when the workers walked out."

 

 

"Unlike its policy in previous strikes, the Employers Association now openly claimed a part in the Davis and Computing lockout.  It took credit for the non-union contract circulated by the companies, and issued a statement saying that neither company would negotiated with the union and that Dayton would adopt a non-union policy."

 

 

"Two months after the lockout began, defeated unionists returned to work in the companies which then operated on an open shop basis.  The Employers Association claimed complete victory in the strikes and lockouts of 1901, calling the strikes "failures in every possible respect..."

 

 

"Not a single instance were the demands for concessions in wages, hours, reinstatement of discharged men, ...and a score of other grievances granted by any employers.  In the fullest sense it was a 'fight to the finish'".

 

 

"In an almost plaintive protest against such tactics, a machinist at the Davis Sewing Machine Company wrote to the (Dayton Daily) News that such harsh measures where unfair :”

 

 

"We are union men and good law abiding citizens, not vagrants and loiterers as some try and make out..."

 

 

"The discussion of the rise of Dayton's trade union movement began with a description of Labor Day parades as indications of the movement's legitimacy and power.  It is appropriate then to end on a similar, but sadder, note. While in 1900 a crowd between ten and thirteen thousand marched in the parade, by 1901 its size was estimated at seven thousand.  And in 1902, only twelve hundred workers marched under union banners."

 

(note:  during the 1890s estimates of unionization ran as high as 40% to 50% of the Dayton workforce)

 

 

 

 

….as a postscript the Employers Association was another one of Dayton’s industrial innovations,.  A group of business owners in a city who collaborated in busting unions in a coordinated fashion, via blacklists, spies, lockouts, open shop agreements,  injunctions from favorable courts, and aggressive use of strikebreakers.  This model eventually spread nationwide. 

 

Though management succeeded in breaking the back of organized labor in Dayton during the first years of the 20th Century, during the Depression labor came back strong via organization of unskilled and semiskilled workers on an industrial, not craft, basis.  The union most active in Dayton was the Communist-influenced, CIO-affiliated United Electrical workers (UE), who successfully unionized the Master Electric plant, among others.

 

 

UE and Master Electric are long gone, yet union halls can still be found in this neighborhood, as a legacy of the 1930s organizing drives that re-unionized Dayton…

 

 

…some neighborhood shots…

 

The Watertown connection in Dayton: recall that the Davis company brought a group of workers from Watertown with them to Dayton.  Perhaps these folks didn’t fit in well:

 

"The "Watertown Gang" was a group of workers employed at the Davis Sewing Machine Company, who, according to the newspapers, were toughs "lacking any higher ambition".  Gang members drank heavily, fought, engaged in petty crime, and they were regularly arrested for drunkenness and disorderly conduct."

 

 

 

 

It's funny how it all works out

Mad men in suits walking about

I'd like to change your point of view someday

But I feel my patience slipping away

 

 

 

Looks like it's time to lay this burden down

Stop messing around

Don't want to go to the grave without a sound

Give this whole place a rest

Not to ride on the factory belt

Not to ride on the factory belt

 

 

There's a trouble around, it's never far away

The same trouble's been around for a life and a day

I can't forget the sound, 'cause it's here to stay

The sound of people chasing money and money getting away

 

 

A long way from happiness

In a three-hour-away town

Whiskey bottle over Jesus

Not forever, just for now

Not forever, just for now

 

 

 

 

 

Quoted text passages are from:

City of Equals: Skilled Workers, Work Relations, and Culture in Dayton, Ohio, 1880-1901

, John S. Hoops, PhD theses, Boston College, 1984

(availble at the UD Roesch Library)

 

Song lyrics are from:

Factory Belt and Whisky Bottle,  Farrar/Tweedy/Heidorn and Farrar/Tweedy (both off the Uncle Tupelo No Depression album, 1990)

 

 

Excellent job, as always.

Very moving thread.

my kind of thread. thats an impressive factory indeed. makes you wonder what the area looked like years back too.

Thank you.  That story really fleshes out the images.

Most interesting!

Great pics and story.  The silence of the place really adds to the effect.

Nice job.  Those Tupelo songs will have additional meaning to me now.

i dunno why, but the factory and immediate surrounding hood reminded me of the big factories on the west side of mansfield (don't take offense dayton)

Awesome thread.

Very good work Jeffrey! I've been by this area so many times and have been intrigued at all of the dormant industry.