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Chapter One: Houston’s Working Class and the Origins of Organized Labor in the Bayou City
- Texas A&M University Press
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chapter one Houston’s Working Class and the Origins of Organized Labor in the Bayou City FOUNDED IN 1836 by the brothers Augustus and John Allen, Houston was a town built on speculative growth and dedicated to the spirit of unfettered capitalism. Located on the desolate Texas coastal plain about fifty miles north of Galveston, the city they envisioned along the banks of White Oak and Buffalo Bayous eventually became the leading financial, commercial, and industrial center in the Southwest. Between the 1830s and the 1890s it slowly transformed itself from a frontier society into a growing economic center. Cotton, timber, and railroads fueled Houston’s economic growth in the nineteenth century . The three interacted together, as cotton and timber harvested in the outlaying regions encouraged railroad construction. By the end of the nineteenth century Houston had established itself as the region ’s second most important commercial center behind Galveston. It served as the hub for an increasing number of railroads and was home to the East Texas cotton and lumber industry.1 As the twentieth century dawned two events propelled Houston past Galveston as Texas’ leading financial center. On September 8, 1900, a hurricane destroyed Galveston and left more than six thousand people dead in its wake. Afterward, prominent Galveston merchants and bankers transferred their operations inland to Houston in order to protect their economic interests from the destructiveness of Gulf hurricanes. The second happened on January 10, 1901, with the discovery of oil at Spindletop near Beaumont. Within several years after the first oil strike, other important oil discoveries were made near Houston and the city became the logical location for the newly emerging Texas oil industry. Due to its previous experience in serving the financial, administrative, and transportation 12 needs of the timber and cotton industries, Houston quickly became home to dozens of industrial and commercial enterprises associated with the oil industry. The oil and oil-related industries grew and flourished in Houston in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Established in 1908 the Hughes Tool Company manufactured patented rotary drilling bits for the petroleum industry.2 When the Spindletop oil gusher blew in at the beginning of the twentieth century Houston was a bustling city of approximately fortyfour thousand people. A sizable working class called Houston home in 1901, and many of its members labored in the construction and repair shops of the Southern Pacific and the twelve other railroads that had maintenance facilities in the city. In addition to these industrial employers , there were numerous car and wheel shops and foundries that served the railroads’ needs. All these concerns employed skilled tradesmen such as machinists, boilermakers, blacksmiths, and patternmakers , as well as unskilled labor. The skills and experience of these workers were readily transferable to the new oil tool companies such as Hughes Tool. An important but overlooked aspect of Houston history is that it was home to a substantial working class with a tradition of union-mindedness, labor activism, and racism. The first vestiges of Houston’s labor movement can be traced back to the late 1830s, and the city can lay claim to being the home of Texas’ first two bona fide labor unions. In April 1838 journeyman printers in Houston organized the Texas Typographical Association to promote the interests of their trade within the Texas Republic. At its first meeting the printers proposed a standardized wage scale, elected officers, adopted a constitution and bylaws, and invited all Texas printers to join. During its first year the Typographical Association was very active . Monthly meetings were held, and several new members were “elected and qualified.” In October 1838 the union went out on strike in Houston over wages and won a 25 percent wage increase. Houston carpenters organized in 1839 in order to establish uniform wages and to exact what their “services justly deserve.” The record is sketchy about whether the carpenters succeeded in their quest for uniform wages, and the carpenters and printers unions faded into obscurity. No evidence exists of any labor union activity in Houston between 1839 and 1866.3 Several factors retarded the growth of organized labor in the antebellum period. The small number of workers and the lack of industrial development in Texas at this time were major contributing factors. Texas’ houston’s working class 13 [3.81.221.121] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 01:04 GMT) geographic isolation likewise played a role, and Texas workers appeared to have little contact with or...