There’s something special about being first. True, some first claims still may be insufficient to merit notice or to earn mention in the history books. Furthermore, first claims are occasionally blurred by the fact that thus-and-such has never happened before, hence the achievement may be ill-defined, misunderstood, or simply overlooked.
Being first is on my mind because I wanted to make a history-revising claim. As noted previously, many of my childhood neighbors and family members employed off the farm and/or outside the home worked at the Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota, including Dad, Grandpa Meyer, my uncle, my aunt… eventually, my cousin, my sister-in-law, and my youngest brother.
The claim I sought to verify: In 1933, the nation’s first sit-down strike happened at the Hormel plant in Austin. It’s been said before, although it’s not generally acknowledged. For example, when I googled “first sit-down strike in U.S. history,” 49 of the first 50 citations were about the United Auto Workers strike in Flint, Michigan in 1936. The fiftieth item cited the Hormel example from 1933.
Quoting a timeline on the Minnesota Historical Society website, since taken down: “Workers at George A. Hormel and Company stage the first sit-down strike in the U.S., taking over the Austin meatpacking plant for three days. The tactic works; Hormel agrees to submit wage demands to arbitration. The strike re-invigorates the labor movement, which had been in decline through the 1920s.”
The facts: In 1933, Hormel workers joined a newly formed entity, the International Union of All Workers, seeking an increase in the hourly rate for union workers of 20 cents an hour; an increase in pay for workers on other than hourly rates to receive an increase equal to hourly employees; and, when females replace males in the plant, their compensation be the same as for male workers.* This last point strikes me as being noteworthy and remarkably progressive.
Hormel reached out to President Roosevelt and Minnesota Governor Floyd Olson for help. Governor Olson denounced strikers’ “illegal possession of the plant” before outlining a plan of action eventually agreed upon by workers and management. Favorable congressional action rooted in FDR’s New Deal had triggered a surge in labor organizing. According to one labor historian, “In this charged atmosphere, workers at the Hormel plant went on strike demanding recognition of their union, higher wages, and a safer workplace. The plant employed 2700 of the town’s 17,000 residents in 1933.”
One of these 2700 employees was Herbert Meyer, my grandpa; four of these 17,000 residents were my grandparents and their two young children, including their firstborn, my dad. Grandpa died before I ever asked him about this. I once asked Dad if Grandpa had gone out on strike. “Well… I suppose so. He was working there,” but he didn’t know details. (“World’s Greatest Dad” wasn’t a historian, sigh.)
So, was the Hormel episode the country’s first sit-down strike? Some of this hinges on what constitutes a sit-down strike. I found several definitions: 1) a strike during which workers occupy their place of employment and refuse to work or allow others to work until issues are settled; and 2) civil disobedience in which organized workers take possession of the workplace by “sitting down” at their stations.
I sought but didn’t find accounts of striking Hormel workers literally occupying their workstations, although I found multiple references to their taking possession of the factory. (Nor could I verify that the company agreed to pay women the same as men, but that’s a separate issue.)
After considerable reflection, my sense is that Google and Wikipedia are right in not listing the Hormel action as the first U.S. sit-down strike. To quote Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Much as I had hoped, there’s no persuasive evidence that Hormel strikers employed the distinctive sitting-in-place technique that gave this practice its name.
While there’s something special about being first, it’s of greater importance to get it right. I’ll keep looking… and will keep you posted.
-------------
*Larry Engelmann, “We Were the Poor – The Hormel Strike of 1933,” Labor History, Fall, 1974.
*********************
I’m pleased to be part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative. These are my colleagues:
Although I am not a historian, per se, I certainly believe it is far better to get things right, that propagate things that are just plain wrong. You have likely heard someone say, "Iowa sent more troops to the Civil War, per capita, than any other state in the north." Certainly Iowa was patriotic and did their part, but the "per capita" business, makes it exceedingly hard to prove the statement! Iowa was on the edge of the frontier and growing like mad throughout the Civil War.In order to get figures to discuss that growth you would start with a population smaller than when the Civil War started, in 1860, when the last Federal Census had been created. Then add five years of consistant growth in population! The concept of "per capita" growth. suddenly becomes meaningless! Not only that, but the state would have difficulty counting soldiers! I have found one ocassion where a man enlisted no fewer than five times during the war, being discharged for wounds or disease, getting healed up and returning to the war in yet another enlistment with yet another company! Was he counted once, or was he counted five times? I even had the State Historical Society look into it, and they agreed with me! Unfortunately, that statement still is used over and over again, it never goes away! And there is no documented proof anyone did any statistics to prove it in the first place! Yet it continues to be used over and over simply by siting someone else who quited the same malarchy and doing the same! I sympathize with your attempt to get it right, but in the end, the AFL/CIO will win out, even if they are wrong!