Effects of the Cigar Strike of 1937

1057 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Depression investigate

Not only did the strike affect money, family relationships and Nowak's ankle it erupted a domino effect, affecting other businesses as well.“They won the complete support of the whole neighborhood,’ according to Stanley Nowak. “The cigar womens strike also precipitated a wave of sit-downs by other women in laundries, restaurants, hotels, and the five-and-dime and specialty food stores in the city.” Other women in smaller businesses around the city began sitting down in strike as well. Although their strikes did not last as long as the Cigar strike it goes to show how the Cigar making women had an impact on other working women. That caused the city to lose even more money along with all the losses from the cigar strike and the previous losses from the stock market crash which the city was still trying to recover from. “The Depression had taken a savage toll on the city’s hotels-6 of 20 major establishments were in bankruptcy court in 1937, and with the entire hotel industry slashing prices to secure business, cost-conscious managers were cutting wages to the bone.” This Cigar strike had started a mini depression. Businesses employees had been sitting down all over the city because they felt they deserved to be paid more, meanwhile they were costing their employers money when they were still trying to recover from the stock market crash. “In all, nearly 130 factories, offices, and stores were occupied and held for a few hours or up to six weeks. According to newspaper estimates, 35,000 workers joined these sit-downs and over 100,000 others walked picket-lines outside the plant.” After the auto plant sit-down this wave of sit-downs struck the city in a matter of weeks beginning with the Cigar Strike. Nowak’s book had a different app... ... middle of paper ... ... IN DARKNESS BUT BULLETS GO WILD Mob of 15,000 Onlookers Dispersed by Streams of Water From Township Fire Department. Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), pg 1-2. Babson, Steve with Ron Alpern, Dave Elsila, and John Revitte. (1984). Working Detroit. New York, NY: Adama Books. Botello, Roberto. "Emma Tenayuca Fought for Women Workers." People's Weekly World: 5. Mar 2008. ProQuest. Web. 5 Mar. 2014 . Bukowczyk, John. (Ed.). (1996). Polish americans and their history: Community, culture, and politics. Pittsburgh, Pa: University of Pittsburgh Press Gage, Eleanor. “Women in the Cigar Industry of America.” Detroit Free Press 21 July 1912. Print Grevatt, Martha. “Immigrant Women Beat Cigar Company Bosses.” Workersworld.org. 17 March 2010. Web. 18 February 2014. Grevatt, Martha. “1930’s: The Women Were Fearless.” Workersworld.org. 27 March 2008. Web. 18 February 2014.

Show More
Related

  • The Main Cause Of The 1919 Steel Strike (AA)

    363 Words  | 1 Pages

    The main cause of the strike was when the American Federation of Labor (AFL) started to hire unskilled workers into the steel industry. The skilled jobs that the AA worked in were starting to fade away. The AA was not pleased,

    Read More

  • Essay On The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

    737 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...s leading up to the fire and the aftermath of the event that makes this event so influential and important. The reforms made afterwards within New York legislation soon spread across the nation, and to almost every manufacturer in the country. It changed how workers were treated, the conditions in which they worked, and other legalities that protected their rights as workers and as human beings. This event also lead to the changing of lives through recognition women within the workforce, to women holding office in national politics, and eventually women’s suffrage. The fire impacted reformers and thinkers who went on to create the ideals within the New Deal. The majority of the legislation that was passed because of the outcome of the fire is still in effect today, over 100 years later. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire changed the nation’s workforce completely.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Out Of This Furnace

    683 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Depression hit the steel industry with a blowing force massively cutting hours and wages and the silence echoed through the mills with massive layoffs leaving them empty for months at a time. Entering the mill was like walking through a “deserted city” and “Leaving them was like coming out of a tomb.” (p.269). With the blame being placed on the rich and powerful because of the outspoken way they were handling the devastating hit to the mills, the worker became very upset sparking the movement for a union.

    Read More

  • Great Railroad Strike of 1877: APUSH DBQ Research Paper

    533 Words  | 2 Pages

    As darkness fell over the city of Pittsburgh on July 21, 1877, an enormous failing. The Pennsylvania Railroad's PRR massive railroad yards were engulfed by a sea of fire. "Strong men halted with fear," one witness later recalled, "while others ran to and fro trampling upon the killed and wounded." The conflagration that raged that hot summer night was the result of a long-simmering crisis in the lives of American working men and women.The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 was the angry response of railroad workers to wage reductions, job cuts, and the profiteering by the huge railroad corporations that had risen to dominance after the Civil War. Millions of Americans had become wage workers when businesses boomed, but a bank panic partly sparked by the instability caused by railroads' rate wars in 1873 sent the nation into an

    Read More

  • Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

    1667 Words  | 4 Pages

    Life in the early 1900’s wasn’t easy. Competition for jobs was at an all time high, especially in New York City. Immigrants were flooding in and needed to find work fast, even if that meant in the hot, overcrowded conditions of garment factories. Conditions were horrid and disaster was inevitable, and disaster did strike in March, 1911. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York set on fire, killing 146 workers. This is an important event in US history because it helped accomplish the tasks unions and strikes had tried to accomplish years earlier, It improved working conditions in factories nationwide and set new safety laws and regulations so that nothing as catastrophic would happen again. The workplace struggles became public after this fire, and the work industry would never remain the same again.

    Read More

  • The Pullman Strike of 1894

    1479 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Pullman Strike of 1894 was the first national strike in American history and it came about during a period of unrest with labor unions and controversy regarding the role of government in business.5 The strike officially started when employees organized and went to their supervisors to ask for a lowered rent and were refused.5 The strike had many different causes. For example, workers wanted higher wages and fewer working hours, but the companies would not give it to them; and the workers wanted better, more affordable living quarters, but the companies would not offer that to them either. These different causes created an interesting and controversial end to the Pullman strike. Because of this, questions were raised about the strike that are still important today. Was striking a proper means of getting what the workers wanted? Were there better means of petitioning their grievances? Was government intervention constitutional? All these questions were raised by the Pullman Strike.

    Read More

  • Big Fish by Daniel Wallace

    1267 Words  | 3 Pages

    Burton, Tim, dir. Big Fish. Writ. Daniel Wallace and John August. 2004. Sony Pictures, 2005. DVD-ROM.

    Read More

  • Impact of US involvement in World War I

    721 Words  | 2 Pages

    strike to force women off the job, while officials in New York informed twenty women

    Read More

  • The Gilded Age: Unions and the Labor Movement

    1368 Words  | 3 Pages

    This tragedy brought attention to the unregulated/unsafe working conditions that the women who had lost their lives were experiencing. In response, the Ladies Waist-makers Union formed one of the world’s largest female strikes. This is an example of a successful strike that was effective in achieving higher wages and improved working conditions. This strike marked the significance of women workers organizing and achieving bargaining Pullman Palace Car Company made luxury railroad cars. The people who lived in the town of Pullman payed rent by deductions from their wages.

    Read More

  • The Strike of 1934

    1843 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Strike of 1934 displayed the power the organized labor had, and how the mistreatment of labor can shut down an entire city and coast. The timing was just right for the maritime workers to strike. The grips of the Great Depression fueled laborers to maintain and improve their quality of life and security for their families. Congresses investigation into the 1934 San Francisco Strike concluded that “the aspirations of labor which led to the strike were directed from the change in public opinion expressed in the National Industrial Recovery Act. The potentialities of a protected right to bargain collectively were quickly perceived by waterfront workers.

    Read More

  • U.S. Labor History

    1343 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...s became even more desperate at the time of the great depression that ultimately led to the great railway strike, in which many workers lost their lives at the hand of the Pennsylvania militia. This act proved to be a major turning point in the evolution of the labor movement in the United States.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Capitalism In Today's Society

    1508 Words  | 4 Pages

    Led by Clara Lemlich, 20,000 immigrants, mostly young women, demanded a twenty percent pay raise, a fifty-two hour workweek, and a closed shop (59). Their cause gained a significant amount of attention and caught the eye of wealthy progressive reformers, such as Alva Belmont and Anne Morgan, who perceived the strike as an opportunity to also advocate their own objective: women’s suffrage. Wealthy elites like Carnegie and Sumner may have believed that efforts to change the natural order are futile, but Morgan claimed that after learning about the details of the strike, she and other women wouldn’t be able to live their lives “without doing something to help them” (72). These affluent women demonstrated their support from both sides of the spectrum, from modestly distributing ribbons and buttons, to Alva Belmont’s contribution of her several cars to a parade for the striking workers (682) and the pledge of her mansion as surety for the bail of four strikers (76). Without the aid of these women, it was doubtful the strikers “could have lasted much longer without progressive money” (70). However, frustration arose amongst picketers as these progressive reformers turned a strike based on class struggle into a “broader feminist revolt” (68). Morgan blamed the strikers’ treatment on the inability for women to vote, not their inability to unionize (67). Striker’s retorted, asking

    Read More

  • American History-19th Century

    1592 Words  | 4 Pages

    ... Chicago decided to cut the wages of its workers. Due to Pullman’s monopoly on sleeping cars, the American Railway Union (ARU) was created by Eugene V. Debs. The ARU was ordered not to handle the sleeping cars. Railroad officials saw this boycott as a chance to break up the union. The ARU spread the strike all throughout the country which resulted in the disruptance of US mail. President Cleveland sent in troops to cease the strike with the help of Attorney Olney. The ARU was stopped and Debs was put in jail. The corporation won once again, but this time with the power of the government and its arbitrary power over corporation rule.

    Read More

  • Film Analysis: The Shining

    2366 Words  | 5 Pages

    1980. Warner Bros. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Music by Wendy Carlos and Rcachel Elkind. Cinematography by John Alcott. Editing by Ray Lovejoy. With Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd.

    Read More

  • The Meaning of Life and Death

    3655 Words  | 8 Pages

    ...s Cut. Dir. Ridley Scott. Perf. Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. DVD. 1982.

    Read More

More about Effects of the Cigar Strike of 1937

Open Document