Browne, Carl (1846–16 January 1914), political agitator, reform journalist, and organizer of "Coxey's Army", political agitator, reform journalist, and organizer of “Coxey’s Army,” was born in Springfield, Illinois. (The date and place of his birth are sometimes less reliably given as 4 July 1849 in Newton, Iowa). Browne was working as a sign painter in western Iowa in 1869 when he suddenly decided to move to California. At that time he desired more than anything else to paint a gargantuan panorama of the Yosemite Valley. He later exhibited this painting up and down the Pacific Coast, such panoramas being a popular form of folk art in the nineteenth century. One unfriendly critic observed, “As an artist Carl Browne belongs to a distinct school. In fact, he constitutes the entire school.” Browne’s response to critics was to affirm that as a young man he had apprenticed with a carriage and house painter (an experience that probably accounted for his love of huge panoramic images and garish colors such as might adorn a circus wagon)....
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Browne, Carl (1846–16 January 1914), political agitator, reform journalist, and organizer of "Coxey's Army"
Carlos A. Schwantes
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Cameron, Andrew Carr (1836-1892), labor leader and editor
Brian Greenberg
Cameron, Andrew Carr (28 September 1836–28 May 1892), labor leader and editor, was born in Berwick-on-Tweed, England, the son of a Scots printer (his father’s occupation and nationality are all that are known about his parents). After only a brief time in school, Cameron went to work in his father’s shop. In 1851 he emigrated with his parents to the United States, settling just outside of Chicago....
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Chaplin, Ralph Hosea (1887-1961), radical labor editor and artist
Anne Huber Tripp
Chaplin, Ralph Hosea (30 August 1887–23 May 1961), radical labor editor and artist, was born in Cloud County, Kansas, the son of Edgar Chaplin and Clara Bradford, farmers. Hard times forced his family to leave Kansas when Chaplin was an infant, and he was raised in Chicago, where his family moved frequently and struggled against poverty....
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Evans, George Henry (1805-1856), labor editor and land reformer
Carl J. Guarneri
Evans, George Henry (25 March 1805–02 February 1856), labor editor and land reformer, was born in Bromyard, in Herefordshire, England, the son of George Evans, who served in the British army during the Napoleonic Wars, and Sarah White, who came from the modestly landed gentry. When she died in 1815 George Henry remained with his father to receive a “scholastic” education while his younger brother Frederick William was sent to live with relatives. In 1820 Evans immigrated to the United States with his father and brother; he was apprenticed to a printer in Ithaca, New York, where the family settled. The Evans brothers studied the writings of ...
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Giovannitti, Arturo Massimo (07 January 1884–31 December 1959)
In
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Giovannitti, Arturo Massimo (07 January 1884–31 December 1959), poet, journalist, and labor leader
Nunzio Pernicone
Giovannitti, Arturo Massimo (07 January 1884–31 December 1959), poet, journalist, and labor leader, was born in Ripabottoni (Molise), Italy, the son of Domenico Giovannitti, a physician and pharmacist, and Adelaide Levante. Raised in a family of middle-class professionals in southern Italy, Arturo Giovannitti was educated at the Collegio Mario Pagano in Campobasso, the regional capital, where he first demonstrated his literary ability by winning a national contest for poetry. Rather than attend university in Italy, Giovannitti decided to “visit the world,” immigrating to Canada by himself at age sixteen or seventeen. Little is known about Giovannitti’s activities in Canada before he enrolled in a theological seminary affiliated with McGill University in Montreal and became a pastor’s assistant at a Presbyterian mission for Italians. His early attraction to Protestantism has never been adequately explained....
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Gresham, Newt (1858-1906), labor organizer and editor
Carol A. Lockwood
Gresham, Newt (20 February 1858–10 April 1906), labor organizer and editor, was born Isaac Newton Gresham in Lauderdale County, near Florence, Alabama, the son of Henry Gresham and Marcipia Narcissa Wilcoxon, tenant farmers. The family moved to Kaufman County, Texas, in 1859 (though some sources claim they moved after the Civil War). After his parents’ deaths in 1868, Gresham lived with his older brother Ben....
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Haessler, Carl (1888-1972), journalist and socialist trade unionist
Dan Georgakas
Haessler, Carl (05 August 1888–01 December 1972), journalist and socialist trade unionist, was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of Herman F. Haessler and Elizabeth Wagner. The political life of that city was dominated at that time by immigrant German social democrats. Haessler earned a B.A. at the University of Milwaukee, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University, where he studied for two years. He completed his formal education with a Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois, where he also taught. In 1917 he married Mildred Barnes; they had two children....
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Hall, William Covington (25 August 1871–21 February 1952)
Steven A. Reich
Hall, William Covington (25 August 1871–21 February 1952), labor organizer, newspaper editor, and educator, was born in Woodville, Mississippi, the son of William A. Hall, a Presbyterian minister and educator, and Mary Elizabeth Pierce. When his parents separated, Hall—who went by his middle name Covington—moved to Rural Retreat Plantation, a family estate located in the sugarcane district of Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, to live with his uncle Dr. A. V. “Ami” Woods. Although Hall was raised and educated for a life of privilege among the southern planter elite, he grew up in a household that teetered on the brink of financial ruin. In the fall of 1887 some 10,000 of the region’s mostly African American plantation workers organized under the auspices of the Knights of Labor and went on strike. The only planter to concede to the workers’ wage demands was Hall’s uncle, who did so not out of sympathy with the union but to prevent the loss of his crop and to preserve the solvency of his estate. Unsympathetic to the Hall family’s circumstances, the region’s wealthiest planters accused Hall’s uncle of disloyalty to his class interests and broke the union. The restoration of labor order did little to promote the Halls’ financial recovery. By 1891 the bank foreclosed on Rural Retreat Plantation, forcing its sale at a sheriff’s auction....
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Harrison, Hubert Henry (1883-1927), black intellectual and radical political activist
Jeffrey B. Perry
Harrison, Hubert Henry (27 April 1883–17 December 1927), black intellectual and radical political activist, was born in Concordia, St. Croix, Danish West Indies (now U.S. Virgin Islands), the son of William Adolphus Harrison and Cecilia Elizabeth Haines. Little is known of his father. His mother had at least three other children and, in 1889, married a laborer. Harrison received a primary education in St. Croix. In September 1900, after his mother died, he immigrated to New York City, where he worked low-paying jobs, attended evening high school, did some writing, editing, and lecturing, and read voraciously. In 1907 he obtained postal employment and moved to Harlem. The following year he taught at the White Rose Home, where he was deeply influenced by social worker Frances Reynolds Keyser, a future founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1909 he married Irene Louise Horton, with whom he had five children....
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Hayes, Max Sebastian (1866-1945), labor editor and trade union leader
Eric J. Karolak
Hayes, Max Sebastian (25 May 1866–11 October 1945), labor editor and trade union leader, was born in Huron County, Ohio, the son of Joseph Maximilian Sebastian Hoize and Elizabeth Storer, farmers. His parents, immigrants from central Europe, had changed their name to Hayes and made their way to Ohio by ox team. Hayes attended grammar school in Fremont, Ohio, where he became an apprentice printer in 1879. In 1883 the Hayes family moved to Cleveland, and Hayes began a lifelong career in journalism by going to work on the ...
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Jackson, Gardner (10 September 1896–17 April 1965), newspaperman, public official, and liberal gadfly
Arthur M. Schlesinger
Jackson, Gardner (10 September 1896–17 April 1965), newspaperman, public official, and liberal gadfly, also known as “Pat,” was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the son of William Sharpless Jackson, a wealthy banker and railroad magnate, and Helen Banfield. In the Jackson family, affluence mingled with sympathy for the oppressed: Jackson’s father was a Quaker, and his mother was the niece of his father’s late and revered second wife, ...
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Lewis, Augusta (1848-1920), journalist and labor leader
Sandra Opdycke
Lewis, Augusta (1848–14 September 1920), journalist and labor leader, was born in New York City, the daughter of Charles Lewis and Elizabeth Rowe, occupations unknown. Having lost both her parents while still an infant, Lewis was raised by Isaac Baldwin Gager, a commission merchant in Brooklyn Heights. She received her early education at home, after which she lived for several seasons with one of her private teachers in Cold Spring, New York. Returning to New York City, she studied at Brooklyn Heights Seminary and then entered the Sacred Heart Convent School in Manhattanville, New York, from which she graduated with honors....
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Litchman, Charles Henry (1849-1902), labor reformer and editor
Robert E. Weir
Litchman, Charles Henry (08 April 1849–20 May 1902), labor reformer and editor, was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts, the son of William Litchman and Sarah Bartlett. He attended Marblehead public schools and made shoes in his father’s factory, where he worked as a salesman from 1864 to 1870. He married Annie Shirley in February 1868; the couple had several children....
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Malkiel, Theresa Serber (1874-1949), trade union leader, woman suffragist, publicist, and educator
Thomas Winter
Malkiel, Theresa Serber (01 May 1874–17 November 1949), trade union leader, woman suffragist, publicist, and educator, was born in Bar, Russia. In 1891 she emigrated with her parents to the United States.
Soon after her arrival, Theresa Serber became a pioneer in the Jewish workers’ movement and socialist labor agitation in New York City. Employed in the garment industry, she joined the Russian Workingmen’s Club in 1892. In October 1894 she was among a group of seventy women who founded the Infant Cloak Makers Union (ICMU). Although it was a depression year, she and her associates decided not to accept wage cuts and deteriorating labor conditions any longer. Their action was front-page news. Eventually the ICMU became part of the Socialist Trades and Labor Alliance. In 1896, Serber was among the delegates to the first convention of the latter alliance; in 1899, along with many others, she broke with labor leader ...
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Mosessohn, David Nehemiah (1883-1930), dress industry arbitrator and editor
David J. Goldberg
Mosessohn, David Nehemiah (01 January 1883–16 December 1930), dress industry arbitrator and editor, was born in Ekaterinoslav, Russia, the son of Nehemiah Mosessohn, a rabbi and publisher, and Theresa Nissenson. Mosessohn came from a long line of rabbis, and his grandfather had once been chief rabbi of Odessa. In 1888 the entire family emigrated to the United States, and David grew up in Portland, Oregon, where he graduated from high school in 1900. He attended the University of Oregon and received his law degree from that university in 1902. That same year his father also received his law degree, and they were the youngest and the oldest graduates in 1902. Between 1902 and 1918 Mosessohn engaged in a general law practice while a senior member of Mosessohn and Mosessohn. Between 1908 and 1910 he served as deputy district attorney of Multnomah County. Together with his brother Moses Dayann Mosessohn, Mosessohn also served as publisher of the weekly ...
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Stevens, Alzina Ann Parsons (1849-1900), printer, labor organizer, journalist, and settlement worker
Ann D. Gordon
Stevens, Alzina Ann Parsons (27 May 1849–03 June 1900), printer, labor organizer, journalist, and settlement worker, was born in Parsonsfield, Maine, the daughter of Enoch Parsons, a farmer and carpenter, and Louisa Page. While Alzina Parsons was still young, her father gave up farming and settled the family in the mill town of Somersworth, New Hampshire, where she attended high school. A lifetime of self-supporting work began after her father’s death in 1864, when she took a job in a textile mill....
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Swinton, John (1829-1901), journalist, author, and labor activist
Thomas Winter
Swinton, John (12 December 1829–15 December 1901), journalist, author, and labor activist, was born in Salton, Haddingtonshire, Scotland, the son of William Swinton and Jane Currie. In 1843 the Swintons emigrated to Montreal, Canada. His training as a printer’s apprentice on the Montreal Witness...
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Tresca, Carlo (09 March 1879–11 January 1943), anarcho-syndicalist labor leader and newspaper editor
Nunzio Pernicone
Tresca, Carlo (09 March 1879–11 January 1943), anarcho-syndicalist labor leader and newspaper editor, was born in Sulmona, Abruzzi, Italy, the son of Filippo Tresca, a landowner, and Filomena Faciano. He attended a scuola technica (commercial high school) in Sulmona. His family could not afford to send him to a university. After joining the Italian Socialist party as a young man, Tresca became local secretary of the (Railroad) Firemen’s and Engineers’ Union and editor of ...
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Tveitmoe, Olaf Anders (1865-1923), labor leader and editor
David Vaught
Tveitmoe, Olaf Anders (07 December 1865–19 March 1923), labor leader and editor, was born in Valdres, Norway, the son of Anders O. Sløte and Ingebjørg Anfinnsdatter Berge. His mother, who was not married to his father, married Anders Olsen Tveitmoen, a farmer, in 1872. Olaf had a brief secondary education and a provincial rural upbringing. In 1882 he emigrated to the United States and settled in a Norwegian community in Minnesota, where he worked as a farm hand, attended St. Olaf College between 1887 and 1889, and in 1889 married Ingeborg Ødegaard, with whom he would have six children. As an editor for the college newspaper, he displayed the literary flair and unabashed political wit that would mark his career. He sharpened these skills writing for the Crookston Farmers’ Alliance’s ...
