The Atlantic Mills Tenant Union (AMTU) is far from the first organizing movement to take place within the towers of the Mills.
During the long history of Atlantic Mills as a textile factory, there were countless strikes, labor disputes, and dramatic clashes between workers, middle managers, and others. Below, explore a timeline of labor and strike events that involved Atlantic Mills.
This is almost assuredly an undercount of strikes and actions that occurred, and the veracity of these news reports is at times questionable. But still, these reports and images give a glimpse into what life working in the mills could have been like.
We were a hell of a lot better off than people in other mills, I knew that by talking around. If we wanted to resist something. We could do it. If we decided a machine needed three men instead of two, by God those machines didn’t run. No newspaper ever got ahold of these stories, nobody ever heard them but they happened.
– Al Sisti, 1978
1884
A wage reduction at the Delaine Mills made headlines in 1884:
“The product of the Atlantic Mills is of fine quality and requires weavers of extra skill, who are not to be picked up every day however abundant help may be. Weavers have been known to come to Olneyville from Fall River, and after trying their hand at the work, have given it up, and gone back to more poorly paid but less skillful and difficult labor of the cotton mills. A number of weavers in the Atlantic Mills have already given their notices, and on Saturday evening it is thought about one hundred looms will be idle, and these are of the best help, who feel confident of being able to get work elsewhere.”
Some workers were going back to England, according to The Providence Daily Journal.
1890
On March 15, 1890, Atlantic Mills weavers went on strike in response to the implementation of fines on weavers who made mistakes.
“If carefully adhered to no good weaver, who attended to his work, would suffer and the fine system was necessary to cover losses in goods damaged by incompetent and careless weavers,” Mr. George Owen said on behalf of management. The next day, the strikers decided their grievances were unfounded, according to the newspaper, and ended the strike.
A few days after the strike concluded, some workers proposed forming a “protective union, to which the weavers of all classes of goods might be eligible [for] membership so that in the future, when a strike was necessary they would have funds to support them through such a struggle.” But a meeting was never held, and there were insufficient numbers to form a strong union.
1893
163 WEAVERS KEEP 5000 HANDS UNEMPLOYED
Nine of the mills were closed in December 1893, with a strike stretching 10 weeks, the Providence News reported on Dec. 16, 1893. But Atlantic Delaine was still running!
The article describes the lives of a few families who live in “the row of Atlantic Mills cottages,” a few blocks from the Mills:
- “In the row of Atlantic mills cottages there is a family man, wife, and two children. The wife is the only one who can find work. She earns about $4.50 a week; $1.12 a week is deducted for the rent. The family is not eligible to the relief fund because one member has work. They subsist on $3.38 a week.”
- “Here is a family with eight children. Three of the girls work in the mills. The father eeks out a living selling rugs, canvassing them from house to house. They are not eligible to the relief fund and are having a hard time of it.”
The houses were managed by landladies, who, according to the article, were increasingly in debt as a result of the strike. The veracity of this story remains unclear, but it shows that the author had an interest in inspiring people to end the strike.
1895
April 1895:
In 1895, the local chapter of the Textile Union was formed — and it was a truly tumultuous time at the Mills, filled with strikes, negotiations, scabs, and angry mobs.
On April 8, The Providence Journal reported that “the weavers of the Atlantic Mills met at Textile Hall in the Llibrary building on Olneyville sSquare yesterday afternoon, and by an almost unanimous vote decided to strike. There are about 700 weavers in the six mills owned by the Atlantic Company, and the operatives employed in all departments number 25,000. There are about 400 of the Atlantic weavers in the Textile Union.”
The article noted that interestingly “Atlantic Mills differ from other mills in Olneyville, in that production consists of cotton, woolen and mixed goods for women’s wear principally, while in the others woolens and worsteds for men’s wear are produced.” Weavers in 1895 had experienced a 22% wage cut.
So on April 12, the strike was set to begin. But their plans were foiled when the managers simply locked the door that Thursday — posting notices that read “owing to the present disturbance among our help these mills will be closed for the present,” that were signed by the superintendent at the time, S.N. Lougee.
The report included organizers saying that they had been worried about scabs, making the closure a relief (though again, the accuracy of such a report is difficult to ascertain).
Ultimately, later that month, a strike began.
According to The Pawtucket Tribune on April 18, 1895, management “made arrangements for the importation of ‘gray goods,’ which can be furnished cheaper than the goods [that] can be made at the Atlantic Mills. The unfinished goods will be finished at Olneyville. Spinners and weavers will not be needed.”
May 1895:
The temperature continued to rise around Atlantic Mills, with a Scab Book emerging the next month — organizers created a list of scabs and displayed it outside of the mill gates. This tactic scared two girls off from going to work, according to the May 22 edition of The Providence Journal. Apparently, a false report had been circulated alleging that work had resumed in some of the “idle” departments of the Mills.
June 1895:
And finally, simmering tension flared past a boiling point — on June 6, The Providence Journal reported on a mob scene that culminated in a strike leader being thrown in jail with a libel charge.
“The big detail of police under the command of Chief Child and the captains of the several police districts of the city sent to Olneyville to maintain order and protect the people who want to work from those who would compel them to quit and stay out, had their hands full last night in trying to control the biggest mob that has gathered since the trouble began,” read the report.
The controversy swelled as a result of a worker named Maggie Hurry (employed at a different mill) being listed as a scab by the strikers. The authorities “had their hands full to keep the mob in check,” and the paper detailed a fantastical fight between a girl and a woman which culminated in the woman being struck with an umbrella.
“At a late hour last night John W. Thorton, one of the Textile Union officers and a prominent leader of the strikers, was arrested on a writ by Deputy Sheriff Rabbitt and lodged at the County Court House. A girl at Riverside Mills named Maggie Hurry brought a libel suit because her name was “one of a number printed and circulated last week on a circular relating to ‘scabs.’ Damages are named in the sum of $3,000,” according to The Providence Journal.
At the end of the month, mill operatives decided to end the strike and eventually return.
But the next January, several families from Michigan were brought to Olneyville to work in Atlantic Mills because some posts had still not been filled since the last strike.
1900
1906
In 1906, the Atlantic Mills workers got a raise for Christmas!
“The Atlantic is their largest independent mill in Rhode Island and one of the most important dress goods mills in the State,” The Evening Bulletin reported. “There have been many change[s] in the Atlantic within a few years; in fact the personnel of the local management would not be recognized by an ‘old time.’ It is generally conceded that the mill has seen more prosperous days than those at present, but the plant has done much for Olneyville. For more than a quarter of a century it has been operated with little or no halt.”
Interestingly, the report ignores the months-long strike at the mills in 1895.
1908
Lewis Hine became a photographer for the National Child Labor Committee in 1908. He visited various mills across Rhode Island, though he did not photograph the Atlantic Mills facility on Manton Avenue. He did however, photograph many of the children working in the factories around this time, as well as an exterior photo of the original Atlantic Mills building on Olneyville Square.
1919
According to the Feb. 3, 1919 Evening Bulletin, “The spinners of the Atlantic Mills at a meeting held in the Textile Hall yesterday morning voted to go out on strike until the eight-hour day is granted. The management of the plant was asked today to grant the 48-hour week.”
At this time, 3,000 workers were employed at the mill — only 700 were working and 400 were engaged in production when the strike was in effect.
On April 22, the strike concluded.
1925
PROVIDENCE, R. I., Feb. 19, 1925 —That the big wage-slashing drive which was supposed to affect only the cotton mills has already cut deep in the woolen mills, had to be admitted today after the 800 weavers of the Atlantic Mills met Monday night in Providence to solve the riddle of the queer pay envelopes.
Everyone has been saying during the past three months: “They won’t dare to cut wages in the woolen mills.” Only last week I asked a veteran weaver of high skill, a long head, and a longer strike record, whether there would be any strike. He had replied: “Not as long as they confine the cuts to the cotton mills. But if they cut in the woolen mills, then there’ll be a strike as quick as lightening; and the cotton mills will follow the woolen mills out.”
Later that year, another wage reduction was to be protested.
1934
According to The Providence Journal on March 25, 1937:
“Joseph A. Sylvia, State chairman of the Committee on Industrial Organization [CIO], at an organization meeting of workers in Atlantic Mills that filled Franco-American Hall, Olneyville, last night, declared the Amalgamated Clothing Workers are behind the effort to organize textile workers. ‘If manufacturers do not sign an agreement the clothing workers will not handle their product. It will be more effective than a strike,’ he declared.”
Eventually, the textile workers would successfully unionize under the CIO.
1941
The Providence Journal, Jan. 14, 1941:
1953
In 1953, the textile production in Atlantic Mills shuttered for good. The Vice President of the Textile Workers Union of America, CIO, Vincent Canzano spoke at a dinner for the former workers of Atlantic Mills in December 1953. Canzano spoke about changes to retirement and compensation laws that were in the works in at the state level at that time.
1978
Al Sisti was a steelworker and organizer. He was interviewed by Paul Buhle and Duane Clinker in February 1978. Selected Excerpts Below:
I started to work at Atlantic Mills when I was thirteen. I knew nothing about a union at that age. You don’t go through personnel, you don’t sign anything, you just hang your coat on a nail and go to work. This was a mule-spinning department. I joined the union because my uncle told me to join the union. He was a spinner there, I became a back boy. He said to me, you join a union. I paid a quarter a month. At that age, I could think of all kinds of things I could do with that quarter — nobody told me what a union was, what it did. As I went along, I didn’t like what was happening to me. I was very curious as a kid. I found out they had union meetings, and I could go to the meeting, but I was a twenty-five cents member with no voice. How did you become a fifty cents member? You became a piecer or spinner.
But things were happening to us. I felt it was wrong that I didn’t have a say. I started to speak at a union meeting in the woolsorters’ hall, and they told the sergeant-at-arms, throw him out. I can still see that sergeant-at-arms today — a big, rugged guy with a broken nose. He started towards me. I wasn’t even seventeen then, but I backed up and picked up a chair, when they said, let him talk, we don’t have to listen.
I can remember the union trying to collect dues, workers didn’t have the money. But we knew what we were up against. Then the mills had huge motors that ran these machines, and when a belt broke, a rivet went flying through the air. They made you fix that belt, one guy would hold it, the other would climb a ladder, pull the bolt until it flipped onto the pulley. One guy where I worked got flipped around and killed. They wouldn’t stop the motors, that’s why it happened. Sometimes people would get caught between them. We had union meetings down at Olneyville. Next to the hall was the barroom. The bar was open a couple of hours before the meeting Sunday morning, and somebody really heated up would go in and have a few drinks beforehand. The police were called sometimes, because the meetings were really hot. What I remember clearly was oldtimers speaking, with an English accent or Irisih brogue; what impressed me was their leadership qualities, their ability to speak on the subjects they knew affected the working man. We used to listen and be inspired by them.
During the 1930s, I remember Anne Burlak [a leading Communist labor agitator] speaking on Manton Avenue; people would go out for an hour at lunch and listen to her instead of going back to the job. Cops from the patrol wagons, ‘Black Marias,’ were handling her rough, practically dragging her away from the platform where she was talking. She wasn’t shutting up for nobody, though. She inspired people in that mill, to a hell of a great extent. I also remember the sitdown strikes, not In the Atlantic Mills but right down by the Woonasquatucket. Mostly women. I was really impressed by their militancy, and I have to think the inspiration went back to Burlak. It was unbelievable to see a woman say things like that, and whatever she was called, a Communist, it didn’t mean much to us.
We were in an independent union, the International Mulespinners of America. Woolsorters were an independent union, but they were the highest paid, strongest group in the mill, because they were so necessary, and because you could only learn the job from oldtimers. Those jobs were really sewed up mostly by English people who came over from the other side. The machinists came in with their own union. The CIO was organizing the weavers. And I was saying to myself, why don’t we all join the same union? When the CIO really came in, everybody was ready for it, except the guys with’ their hands on the treasury of the independent union. They used to fight like hell.
It was so bad in the factory that they once mixed rabbit hair with wool, the rabbit hair would spin off and get into your eyes, your nose, everywhere, and got all over the machinery, so you had to clean the machines off several times a day instead of once. We started to bitch, but the union wouldn’t listen to us, we were twenty-five-cents- a-month members. So we talked among ourselves and decided to strike. l led a wildcat strike. I was going to go up to the big boss, see if he would give us more money, and if he turned us down, I would head straight for my jacket and so would the others. I didn’t know if anyone would follow. But it worked to this extent. Everybody got out on the sidewalk. and the cops dispersed us, so we had no picket line. We kept walking up and down Manton Avenue. The second shift went along with us, though, and the factory couldn’t run. The union decided to allow us a special meeting, so they gave us a hall, the Franco-American Hall, right across the street from the mill, and they agreed to give us a right to go in and talk to management. I was elected spokesman, and I can still remember the big, fat guy behind the desk — he looked like a caricature of a capitalist. He stopped me halfway through my speech, and said, would you start again? I guess It was a technique of his. I started again, almost word for word, and when I got halfway through this time, he said, don’t worry about it, you’re going to get your raise. And I guess we got a three dollar raise, second and first shift, and from there on in the twenty-five cents rules went out the window. Everyone got the same voice.
After that we didn’t want another strike of our own — we wanted a strike of all of us against the big boss. Finally we did go out on strike, and it was bitter, it crippled the company, much of the spinning had til he brought from outside, and during the strike lots of scabs were brought in. A few of us were pretty hot, couldn’t find how to nail the scabs. We scaled the plant fence at night, climbed fire escapes, spotted one main guy and sent him to the hospital with a few broken ribs. When the strike was settled he was kept as boss with his horns cut-that was a compromise. We were a hell of a lot better off than people in other mills, I knew that by talking around. If we wanted to resist something. We could do it. If we decided a machine needed three men instead of two, by God those machines didn’t run. No newspaper ever got ahold of these stories, nobody ever heard them but they happened.
By Katy Pickens / Planning & Preservation Writer / kpickens@ppsri.org