The Union Movement in the Southwest

The history of the labor movement in the South is varied and colorful, though little known. The first Southern unions were formed in the major cities early in the 19th century, especially in the building and printing trades. Shortly after the Civil War, the longshoremen and the various railroad unions organized vigorous Southern affiliates. Among the railroad unions, in fact, the machinists, boilermakers, and blacksmiths all were of Southern origin—they all were founded around 1888 in Atlanta, which was the South’s most important railroad center at the time. Among the longshoremen, the screwmen were in an especially strategic position since they stowed cotton and tabacco aboard ships with jackscrews; these products had to be carefully packed in order to be profitable. Among industrial organizations, the brewery workers and mine workers organized in the South in the 1880s and 1890s. The first significant general labor organization was the Knights of Labor, which sent 15 organizers into the South in 1878, especially into Alabama and Kentucky. A successful 1884 strike on the Jay Gould railroads catapulted the Knights into the undisputed leadership of the nation’s labor movement. The Knight’s primary goals were ...