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JRemember When?Revolt and dissension at the Blackinton MillBy Roger W. RiversEditor 's note: This is the third in a three-part series about the historic Blackinton Mill in North Adams.When the Civil War began in 1861, the Blackinton Mill was swamped with orders from the War Department for woolen army cloth.During the fall and winter months of 1861 and into the following spring, the mill ran night and day in a period of unprecedented prosperity' to keep up with the never-ending government orders.According to Oscar Archer, the diary-keeping superintendent, the Blackinton Mill took in a thousand dollars a day. In 1863, new machinery was added, increasing production by 25 percent. The following year, the Blackinton Woolen Mill, which had expanded into two other nearby mills, was the largest of its kind in Berkshire County, and it had doubled its manufacturing capacity in five years.workers that if they walked,' they could very well not return. “Don’t carry this too far, hewarned them. Cowed by his0words, they called off the proposed strike and accepted the cut in wages.A Manhattanville College student, Elizabeth Baker, in her treatise, commented on what happened in January 1876 — thethird vear of the country's reces-0 ■ ' '' 0sion. She wrote:In January 1876, the full effect of the Panic of 1873 had reachedWestern Massachusetts. As earlvwas November 1875 some mills had instituted 10-percent wage reductions, and in Januarv 1876 so did0Blackinton. This time the operatives, led by the weavers, struckimmediately. On Januarv 3rd the0 0mill was shut down.There had been some trouble before the strike,’ Baker wrote in her term paper. “The previous September there was a change of superintendents at both theBlackinton Mill and Bravtonville,0strike, a Saturday, the strikers held a meeting and sent a delegate to discuss terms with Sanford Blackinton, who was prepared to close the mill altogether until April. Blackinton refused to compromise. The strikers met again, voting this time to return to work the following Monday with the existing pay cut.“Only a few weavers came to0work on that Monday, however, and now Archer was angry. As superintendent, he threatened to fire all those who staved away the next dav. On Tuesday, Januarv 11,m 0 0the strike ended: It had lasted eight days. Archer must have anticipated an even longer siege, for on the dav when everybodyf 0 0went back to work, there was what he called ‘a great influx' of laborers in Centerville looking for work in place of the strikers.Still quoting from the Bakeressay: It must have been most0discouraging to the people of Wales, Great Britain and Scotland to have been caught inA# A* ♦ _ • iBlackinton. Nothing happened.On Oct. 20, the employees revolted. Thev worked the three-0quarters shift for which they were paid and they walked out. They | demanded exactly three-quarters time for three-quarters wages. They were fired immediately, and the mill was closed. Within a week, the help at Bravtonville and the Glen followed suit.Elizabeth Baker, in her findings. claimed the issue of this strike was the same as that of Januarv. The workers believed0the economy had improved to the point where the mill was showing enough profit to warrant normal wages again. Baker gave her view that the workers were justified intheir demands — that thev had0very real grievances on wage levels, that day laborers who had earned only a dollar a dav before’ w wwere now down to 75 cents a dav0and the weavers' piece rate on certain types of cloth had been cut in addition to the existing reduction.
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North Adams Transcript
North Adams, Massachusetts, US
Sat, Apr 18, 2009
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