This Day in Labor History: July 31, 1835

On July 31, 1835, workers at the Washington Naval Yard went on strike over the ten-hour day and recent moves to limit their lunch privileges. This was the first serious strike of federal employees in American history. It did not succeed, but is both an excellent window into work at this time and also is worth discussing because of the historical nature of the event. That window also provides a great view of the racism at the core of early American labor organizing.

Now, we are going to want to cheer on this important event, but the background of the conflict returns us to the depressing reality of the American labor movement’s history–racism. Washington had large numbers of free Black workers and that number grew over time. White workers did not like this, not at all. They wanted protection from Black competition. But this gets worse. The Navy would also hire slaves that owners sent to them. This was common. Many slaves, especially away from cotton country, would work urban jobs as their owners hired them out to an employer, allowed them to keep some pittance of the money to support themselves in the city, and then pocketed the rest. So white labor didn’t just have to compete against free Black labor. It had to compete against slaves. In fact, the Navy Yard was perhaps the largest “employer” of slaves in the country during the early 19th century, though I imagine the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond might have a claim to that as well.

White workers did the more skilled work, while free Blacks and slaves did the menial and grunt work. What all of them had in common though was being day laborers and also being subject to the whims of Congressional appropriations. Congress did not like to spend money in these years. So work was inconsistent and often seasonal. Moreover, pay declined over time. In 1808, carpenters made $2.50 a day, but by 1820, that had declined to $1.64 a day, for example. On occasion before this, small groups of workers had made collective demands in a sort of proto-unionism, but these were unorganized spontaneous actions that the bosses could easily dismiss as a few angry men. The closest things had come to broader action is when a small group of workers in 1830 stayed away from the job for a week over pay issues.

The key issue in 1835 was the 10-hour day. This was a year in which workers around the country began to flex their muscles and come up with some collective actions. Boston carpenters had started this particular campaign, with demands that the workday be reduced from the traditional sunup to sundown to a more reasonable and consistent 10 hours a day, with time off for two meals. They spread their action to carpenters around the east coast. So the Navy Yard carpenters wanted this too.

On July 29, Secretary of the Navy Isaac Hull issued a new rule that forbade workers from being in the shop during lunch or bringing their food onto Naval Yard property. The reason was that the master mechanics believed the workers were stealing tools by placing them into their lunch boxes or baskets. In fact, two days earlier, a blacksmith striker got caught doing this very thing, which led Hull to issue the regulation. In fact, he was convicted of theft but then pardoned by Andrew Jackson since the guy had fought in the War of 1812 and he was poor. This all really angered William Doughty, a master carpenter of very real fame who had been head carpenter since 1804 and had spearheaded the construction of the nation’s finest ships during the War of 1812. Doughty urged workers to reject the accusation they were a bunch of thieves. Out of the 231workers, 175 of them refused to work. This was a strike.

Hull believed his regulations had nothing to do with it. He thought it was really about the 10 hour day, which he also refused to grant. No doubt it was both issues. It was also about a third issue, which is that Hull had hired some Black caulkers and the white workers were extremely angry that he didn’t hire whites instead. Then the workers led the Snow Riot on August 11. Many of these workers and other skilled workers formed a mob and destroy a Black owned restaurant in Washington. This was violent anger about white men having to compete with Black men for jobs. It only ended when Andrew Jackson, a man sympathetic to those workers, called out the Marines to stop the attacks on Black people that continued for several days. The stated reason for the riot is some rumor that the owner of the restaurant had said something about the wives and daughters of the strikers, which is almost certainly untrue, but which sparked the racial violence connected to the broader discontent of the workers toward both the government and toward anyone non-white. And of course when they broke up the restaurant, they paused for awhile to drink all the whiskey inside.

The District’s newspapers strongly condemned the race riot and this pretty much ended the strike, which officially happened four days later, on August 15. First, Hull refused to give in on any issue. Second, the fact that these strikers had started a race riot and created a general sense of disorder did not exactly endear them to the broader community, reinforcing a lot of elite beliefs about workingmen and collective action.

The aftermath saw very small changes to working hours, but not enough to really make a major difference in the workers’ lives. Finally, they did receive the ten-hour day in 1840, when Martin Van Buren issued an order about it. As for the racism, that did not exactly disappear from the American working class. The Naval Yard continued to hire workers of both races and that continued to lead to tensions in the workplace with whites angry about it.

One thing this story demonstrates to me is my disdain for the facile leftist talking point that capitalism created racism. Let’s just say that these workers didn’t exactly need industrial capitalism to express racism in some pretty violent manners. I suppose the Naval Yard could have not employed any Black people at all and then you don’t have racial tensions, but somehow I don’t think that’s the vision of class solidarity we should be promoting.

Another interesting point about this strike is how long historians totally misunderstood it because the available sources were so sketchy. In fact, Philip Foner, one of the great pioneering historians of labor and the left, said back in History of the Labor Movement in the United States from Colonial Times to the Founding of the American Federation of Labor that the strike was an early example of interracial solidarity! Yeah, no. But this is what new primary sources do–expand our vision, knowledge, and ability to tell accurate stories.

This is the 529th post in this series. Previous posts are archived here.