Planning the Strike

The 1927-1928 Colorado Coal Strike marked an intense period in the state’s labor history. In August of 1927, leaders of the International Workers of the World prepared and submitted a strike petition to the Colorado Industrial Commission (CIC). Officially unveiled at a September 4th meeting, it largely focused on demands for better pay and working conditions. It also laid out the plan for a strike that would begin on October 8th. The petition deliberately omitted anything that referred to the International Workers of the World, also called the IWW or Wobblies, because they were not a legally recognized union in Colorado. Instead, they called themselves the All State Conference of Colorado Coal Miners. However, the CIC realized that they were a front for the IWW and rejected their petition on the grounds that it was submitted by an unrecognized union. This meant that regardless of how closely the Wobblies followed the CIC rules, their petition to strike would always be rejected.¹

Deeming any and all IWW strikes illegal backfired on the CIC; it encouraged previously hesitant workers to participate in the Wobbly strike, and the date was pushed back from October 8th to October 18th in order to properly organize the northern and southern coal fields of Colorado.²

On October 17th, coalminers gathered in Lafayette, Colorado to vote on the strike. So many workers were present that they had to move from a local meeting hall to a baseball field. The workers unanimously voted to strike. Afterwards, a few men from each mine were called to a closed door meeting to begin planning the protests.³ Miners began to walk off the job the very next day, officially beginning the 1927-1928 Coal Strike on October 18th.⁴

Government Response

On October 19th, Thomas Annear, the state industrial commissioner and representative of the CIC, stated that the strike was illegal on the grounds that the picketers had not provided 30 days notice. The petition that they had submitted as the All State Conference of Colorado Coal Miners remained, in his eyes, illegal.⁵

On October 26th, Governor William H. Adams issued his first official statement on the strike:

The government’s immediately hostile response to the strike was just the beginning; tensions would only increase for the duration of the strike, and they would eventually lead to bloodshed in Colorado.

Columbine Mine Keeps Running

Columbine Mine was run by the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company, or RMFC. It was the newest and largest mine run by the company and was surrounded by the company town of Serene. It was also the only large coalmine that remained in operation after the strike began. Picketers were very active at Columbine Mine because it was so close to many other towns, including Lafayette and Erie. It allowed protesters to walk or drive to Columbine while scabs were preparing for work and try to dissuade them from working or convince them to join them in the strike.⁷

Columbine, like other northern Colorado coalmines, operated seasonally. The kind of coal that was rich there could not be stored well, but if it was left out too long it would not burn but could, potentially, spontaneously combust. Normally, coal miners only worked from October to March. The strike coincided with the opportune mining season as well as the time when people needed coal most; they needed it to heat their homes and businesses and provide them with electricity.⁸ The timing of the strike placed more pressure on coal companies, including the RMFC and its lone operating mine at Columbine.

Columbine Mine Workers Negotiate

On October 27th, the workers that had been manning Columbine Mine throughout the strike filed a petition with the CIC to raise their pay and impose better working conditions. The CIC considered this document legal, unlike the petition sent in to get permission for the state-wide strike. This was because the petition was filed separately from the strike by miners that worked while others were protesting. Crucially, the petition, and the miners that filed it, had no affiliation with the unrecognized IWW.⁹

This legal recognition scared mine owners, who believed a CIC decision favoring the miners could encourage strikers to keep pushing for wage increases. Simultaneously, owners feared that a decision against the petition could lead to yet more workers walking off of the job.¹⁰ M. D. Vincent, the Vice-President of the RMFC, penned a response to the petition. He acknowledged that the workers had “causes for just complaint” and stated that the company would be willing to increase wages, however he also claimed that the company was not turning a large profit. He said that if miners considered the difficulties the company faced, it would “consider their complaints, and it will be possible, not all at once, but gradually, to improve the conditions of both miners and operators.”¹¹

Two days after receiving the petition, the CIC announced that the basic wage at the Columbine Mine would be increased from $6.27 to $6.77 per 8 hour day. The decision was to be applicable at all six of the mines owned by RMFC, and many officials hoped it would spark the end of the strike in the northern Colorado coal fields.¹² Many Columbine miners were disappointed with the CIC decision, as they had hoped to earn at least $7.25 per day.¹³ Nonetheless, representatives of the Columbine Mine workers accepted the fifty-cent wage increase on October 30th, and by November 2nd more workers began returning to the job. However, this limited win was not enough to quell the strike in the rest of the state. The IWW encouraged protesters to hold out for the higher wage that they wanted, and the demonstrations continued throughout Colorado.¹⁴

The Strike Continues

During the first two weeks of the strike, meetings, rallies, and parades continued to grow stronger and more impactful throughout Colorado. Many picketers were able to convince scabs to join the strike, impacting coal mine production. On November 4th, as they grew more desperate, Colorado Fuel & Iron, or CF&I, told strikers that they would do anything to protect their property. Up to that point, the company had publicly claimed that production had actually increased during the strike, but the day before they had to lay off half of their steel workers because there was insufficient coal to run the plant. In response to this development, Governor Adams decided to intervene.¹⁵

The Colorado State Strike Police

On November 4th, the same day CF&I laid out their willingness to protect their coal mines, Governor Adams revived the controversial prohibition force used by his predecessor, Governor Clarence Morely. Adams had actually campaigned against the force but brought it back as the state strike police, possibly to avoid calling in the more expensive National Guard.¹⁶ 

The new police force was under the direction of Louis Scherf. He and his men raised tensions with the protesters almost immediately. On November 6th, Scherf and seventeen strike officers arrested seven speakers who were about to address a crowd of protesters in Berwind, Colorado. They beat the speakers and, despite being under orders not to open fire, were all armed with pistols. That same day, roughly one thousand strikers gathered in Lafayette for a rally; two hundred of them then marched into Columbine Mine.¹⁷

On November 7th, Adams further expanded the strike police and sent them to the southern fields. When three thousand people rallied at a monument to the Ludlow Massacre, a 1914 slaughter of coal strikers, four airplanes controlled by the strike police flew overhead. One of them was armed with bombs. Meanwhile, in the north, protesters blocked the road leading to Serene and for the first time were able to halt production at Columbine Mine.¹⁸

Tensions at Columbine Mine

On November 8th, a large parade marched through Serene and the Columbine camp. County sheriffs tried and failed to arrest some protesters, who were defended by swarms of picketers that prevented police from getting close enough to arrest their targets. The picketers also convinced some scabs to join their movement, and the number of people working at the Columbine Mine fell to just 75.¹⁹

The arrests the strike police made in the southern fields may have angered and motivated protesters, as roughly one thousand men, women, and children all demonstrated at Columbine Mine at 4 o’clock on the morning of November 12. Another mass rally was held on November 14th. When it marched through Columbine, Weld County sheriffs were once again unable to arrest anyone due to the sheer size of the crowd. That seems to have been a turning point, as strike policemen then told newspaper reporters that the state strike police officers were going to begin enforcing the law in Weld County.²⁰

Columbine Mine closed for fortification on November 15th. Governor Adams sent twelve strike police officers to the northern coal mine, and when it reopened the next day, it was guarded by thirty-fix armed men and two machine guns. Notably, the state legislature only allocated $18,600 for emergency state police funding. Since November 4th, $16,000 of that money had been spent. By November 17th, only a few hundred dollars remained.²¹ It was crucial for Adams to end the strike before the funding for the state police ran out.

The Columbine Mine Massacre

As the sun rose on November 21st, roughly 500 people arrived to parade through Columbine and Serene as they had for the past few weeks. For the first time, however, they found the gates locked. They were met with local sheriffs, RMFC officials, and at least twenty armed state police. Louis Scherf was among the strike police, and he told the crowd they would not be allowed to protest that day. They insisted on their right to march through the company town, and Scherf demanded to talk to their leaders. The strikers responded by saying they were all leaders.²²

The stories of what happened next conflict. Scherf testified that the crowd stormed through the gate unprovoked and attacked the police with knives and rocks. He claimed he gave them verbal warnings to stop, then fired an ineffective warning shot. Left with no other options, he gave his men the order to fire into the crowd.²³

The protesters that witnessed the massacre were not called to testify but showed up at the Weld County Coroner’s office regardless, insisting on telling their story. They argued that after telling Scherf they were all leaders, he began yelling and threatening them. One of the protesters, Adam Bell, began to argue with one of the police officers, and both men tried to climb the fence. Picketers testified that Bell was pulled over the fence by the policeman and beaten. They claimed that they had no choice but to push the fence down in order to save Bell. They stated that, per strike instructions, they carried no weapons with them. However, they admitted to fighting back when the police began to attack them. In the midst of the violence, the police knocked down the picketing flag bearer and trampled the American flag. One eyewitness claimed a woman named Elizabeth Veranek tried to shield the flag with her own body, after which it was picked up and someone tried to continue marching with it.²⁴

It did not take long for shots to be fired, and World War I veterans that participated in the protests testified that the bullets came so fast that they had to have come from machine guns. People began to flee from the mine and soon returned with cars draped in white flags in order to collect the injured.²⁵

Two men, John Eastenes and Nick Spanandakis, were killed immediately. Jerry Davis, Rene Jacques, and George Kovovitch, died by sunset. Although doctors amputated both of his legs in an attempt to save his life, Mike Vidovich died of gangrene by the end of the week. He was the last to die as a result of the Columbine Massacre.²⁶

Aftermath of the Massacre

In spite of the testimony protesters gave, the County Coroner ultimately ruled that the strikers that had been killed were “assembled and invading the mine property after having been properly and legally warned not to enter,” meaning that the deaths were “not felonious.” ²⁷ No one would be charged for any of the six deaths. Following the Massacre, the IWW largely lost control over the strikes, as many protesters refused to risk their lives.²⁸

The day after the Massacre, Governor Adams ordered 325 men to occupy the area surrounding the mine and declared martial law in the northern fields. He also decided to finally mobilize the National Guard, however he never sent them to the Columbine Mine. Instead, they remained in Denver, ninety miles north east of the site of the Massacre. Despite his activation of the Guard, Adams still trusted the state police, allowing them to deal with any unrest for the remainder of the strike.²⁹ As a result of the martial law in the northern fields, the largest protests shifted to the south. There, demonstrators were often arrested or attacked by the strike police. This went on for for the remainder of the strike, until workers finally voted to end it at a meeting near Walsenburg on February 19th, 1928.³⁰

Significance

Governmental Anti-Reform Sentiment

The Columbine Mine Massacre demonstrates the strong push against reform in the 1920s. Part of this was caused by “the political and economic climate that strangled union and worker initiative.”³¹ Indeed, the Colorado state government’s direct involvement in suppressing the strikes was an effort to protect the interests of large corporations. By refusing to legally recognize the strikes, arresting IWW leaders and protesters, and of course firing upon demonstrators at Columbine Mine, the Colorado government demonstrated its willingness to intervene on behalf of coal companies at the expense of workers. The government’s defense of its actions also demonstrates its anti-labor stance, as Governor Adams blamed victims of the shooting by claiming that Scherf had only “ordered his men to fire only when it appeared that his own life and those of his deputies where in jeopardy.” ³²

Public Anti-Reform Sentiment

The public reaction to the Massacre also demonstrates America’s hostility towards the reform movement in the 1920s. During the First Red Scare, when the workers’ rights movement was tainted with the threat of communism, most Americans were afraid of or unsympathetic towards workers and unions. ³³ Newspaper articles from the wake of the Massacre show the animosity many people held towards striking works. For example, one headline refers to the protesters as a mob and writes that the strike officers were “protecting the Columbine Mine.” ³⁴ The antagonistic manner in which the strikers are discussed, combined with the heroic characterization of the state strike police, exhibits the strong anti-reform sentiment seen during the 1920s. Recognizing the push against reform allows for a deeper understanding of what led to the 1927 Columbine Mine Massacre.

Citations

Bibliography

• “1,000 Coal Miners Are Affected by Columbine Award.” Rocky Mountain News. (Denver, CO), October 29, 1927. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=RMD19271029-01. 
• “2 Miners Die, 3 Hurt As Police Fire on Mob.” Brooklyn Daily Times. (New York, NY), November 21, 1927.
• “Campbell-Hale, Leigh. Remembering Ludlow but Forgetting the Columbine: The 1927-1928 Colorado Coal Strike. Boulder, CO: University Press of Colorado, 2023.
• “Columbine Miners Not Satisfied with Wage Increase Given Them.” Daily Times. (Longmont, CO), October 29, 1927. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=TDT19271029-01. 
• “Company Makes Reply to Columbine Miners.” Daily Times. (Longmount, CO), October 28, 1927. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=TDT19271028-01. 
• “Coroner’s Jury Blames Strikers for Deaths Columbine Mine Battle.” Fort Collins Coloradoan. (Fort Collins, CO), November 25, 1927.
• Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang. 1995.
• “Four Strikers Killed in Riot in Coal Fields.” Buffalo Evening News. (Buffalo, NY), November 21, 1927. 
• “Gov. Adams Meets Striking Miners Not Affiliated With the I. W. W.” Boulder Daily Camera. (Boulder, CO), October 27, 1927. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=BDC19271027-01. 
• “Industrial Commission Investigates Demand of Weld County Miners.” Daily Times. (Longmont, CO), October 27, 1927. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=TDT19271027-01.
• “Miners In North Field Accept Pay Increase.” Rocky Mountain News, (Denver, CO), October 30, 1927. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=RMD19271030-01. 
• “Miners Returning to Work at Columbine Mine, Force Gains 60 Since First Day of Strike.” Longmont Daily Call. (Longmont, CO), November 2, 1927. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=LDC19271102-01. 
• “Thousands of Colorado Coal Miners Strike Under Orders of I. W. W.” Boulder Daily Camera. (Boulder, CO), October 18, 1927. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=BDC19271018-01.2.9.

Suggested Resources

• “Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection.” Colorado State Library. Accessed May 5, 2026. https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=p&p=home&e=——-en-20–1-byDA-img-txIN%7CtxCO%7CtxTA-columbine+mine——-0——.
• “Columbine Mine Incident Collection.” University of Colorado Boulder Libraries, Rare and Distinctive Collections, https://archives.colorado.edu/repositories/2/resources/518.
• Kerwin, Hugh L. “Industrial Disputes: Strikes and Lockouts in the United States in November, 1927.” Monthly Labor Review 26, no. 1, (1928): 111-120, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41860658.

Grace Martinez

Grace Martinez is a Ramapo college history major with a minor in museum & exhibition studies.

www.linkedin.com/in/%20grace-martinezz

On December 5th, 1928, Colombian laborers and their families gathered at Ciénaga’s train station to negotiate the terms of their strike against the United Fruit Company with the Governor of Magdelena. Just before midnight, the Colombian military opened fire on the crowd as the government declared a state of siege in the banana zone.​ This atrocity, ending the morning of December 6th, is known as the Banana Massacre.¹ 

The Popularity of Bananas

The 1920s was an era known for excessive consumer culture fueled by increased advertising and affordable goods. The banana offers a case in point – it grew in popularity in the 1920s due to the United Fruit Company’s vigorous advertising campaign.  The company began advertising bananas in 1917 when they already had established plantations in Central and South American countries. They used the “logic” form of advertising to sell the exotic fruit, having scientists promote the nutritional value of bananas, and saw banana sales increase. Advertising in America would change forever when Edward Bernays began targeting people’s emotions instead of logic. With this new mode of advertising proving to be highly successful, the U.F.C. launched the “Great White Fleet” cruiser that brought Americans to tour United Fruit’s plantations in Latin America while also transporting bananas. This endeavor would prove to be very successful in increasing the banana market.² 

Visitors saw a theatrically created plantation that appeared to be a humane and peaceful place. In reality, U.F.C. plantations were corrupt, and the laborers were subjected to terrible work conditions.³ The United Fruit Company did not value their workers; laborers were only regarded as replaceable cogs in their machines. For this reason, there are few photos of the actual workers who labored at the UFC’s plantations. Indeed, most photos from the UFC during this era are of cars, the bananas themselves, and infrastructure.⁴ This makes the photo of the strike organizers particularly rare. The image was not meant to be available to the general public, as its primary purpose was to inform the operations of the management and security forces. ⁵

The Strike

Colombia was home to several United Fruit plantations, where banana workers were subjected to long hours and low pay. Raul Eduardo Mahecha, a Partido Socialista Revolucionário (PSR) representative, led the strike that preceded the massacre.⁶ With the support of fellow PSR members Ignacio Torres Giraldo and Maria Cano, Mahecha led a lecture tour of the Banana Zone discussing labor rights. This inspired significant support for reform, with the plantation workers’ concerns regarding the contract system, their work hours, and the abuses they and their families were subjected to by their supervisors. For example, a worker named Aristides Lopez Rokano stated: “We worked from six in the morning until eleven and then from one in the afternoon until six…The contractor paid the salary and reserved up to thirty percent for himself.” At the same time, the wives and daughters of the workers suffered sexual violence at the hands of the UFC employees. Inspired by the words of Mahecha, workers gathered on October 6, 1928, to discuss these frustrations, and unionist Erasmo Coronel proposed the idea of a strike. The workers created nine demands for better working conditions, citing parts of the Colombian Constitution to support these demands.⁷ In this way, these efforts were less an act of communism and more an attempt to modernize labor relations in Colombia. Their demands included receiving real money payments and transitioning to a six-day work week. ⁸

The Massacre

American corporate interference in international relations would not have been possible before World War I when there was more suspicion of corporate power. However, by the 1920s, the American public idealized corporations and businessmen, as Americans largely viewed them as instrumental parts of the war effort.⁹ The American government in the 1920s supported corporations like the United Fruit Company to expand their markets and acquire raw materials by applying economic, diplomatic, and military pressure. This was particularly common in Latin America. The pressure could be subtle or indirect. However, in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and Santo Domingo, the U.S. government took bold action to protect corporations’ interests by sending troops.¹⁰

The United Fruit Company thus leveraged its power in the United States government to ensure that the strike in Colombia was brought to what would be a bloody end. Considering that the strikers’ demands would have resulted in higher operation costs for the company, the U.F.C. utilized its ties with the United States government to have the Marine Corps threaten to invade Colombia if the Colombian government did not protect the company’s interests and end the strike.¹¹ In this way, the Banana Massacre was the direct result of American military threats and pressure against the Colombian government. 

The strike gained national attention in the United States, although it conveniently ignored the terrible conditions that led to the strike. Prominent newspapers like the New York Times focused on how the strike threatened Americans in Colombia, as opposed to what this strike and the actions of the U.F.C. had meant for Colombians. For example, the Times published a map entitled “Region Affected by Colombia Strike” on December 6, 1928, after the massacre had been committed. Instead of using this visualization of the Banana Zone as an opportunity to highlight the crimes committed by the Colombian military on the strikers, the map’s caption highlights how the strike was endangering the “lives and property of Americans.”¹² This demonstrates how the strike was viewed as a harmful hindrance to the small number of Americans located in and exploiting the Banana Zone. This is a testament to the successful efforts to cover up the massacre in American media. 

The strike lasted two months, and on December 5th, the Governor of Magdalena summoned the strikers to Ciénaga to settle the strike. Strikers gathered in the thousands, and at the same time, the government issued Decree Number 1 that ordered the military, led by Carlos Cortes Vargas, to open fire on the unarmed strikers and their families.¹³ It is estimated that anywhere from 50 to 2,000 people were killed in Ciénaga’s train station that night.¹⁴ Despite this, by daybreak, only nine bodies were left behind. Some strikers theorized that the nine bodies were symbolic of the nine demands of the strikers. The Colombian military did not end there, with officers killing over 1,000 strikers. Laborers responded by destroying several of United Fruit’s buildings.¹⁵

Liberal politician Jorge Eliecer Gaitan brought significant attention to the disastrous conduct of the military during the massacre in Colombia. Union leader Ignacio Tores Giraldo quipped that Gaitan “concluded the investigation” on the massacre less than a day after it had been committed. One primary issue Gaitan raised regarding the massacre was that it was pre-planned, indicating that there would be little chance for the strikers to protect themselves. Furthermore, those who were only injured after the military opened fire were killed by officers with bayonets, and the dead bodies were thrown into the sea so they could not be found and identified afterward. While committing this atrocity, the drunken military officers, including Cortes Vargas, sexually violated the women in Cienaga. The overarching qualm Gaitan held was that the army acted not in the interest of Colombia but of the United States. The press widely spread Gaitan’s allegations and only increased the disapproval of this massacre.¹⁷ 

The Legacy of the Banana Massacre

In January 1929, 600 strikers were detained and charged with criminal offenses in military courts. Of these 600, 31 were sentenced to prison, ranging from 2-25 years. All of the sentenced were freed in 9 months, after the advocacy of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan during a parliamentary debate. The former strikers only continued their activism, with one of the freed individuals, Alberto Castrillon, announcing his run for the presidency as the PSR party candidate on the symbolic date of December 6, 1929. At the same time, Cortes Vargas and the Minister of War Ignacio Rengifo were demoted from their positions, indicating the decline of the Conservative elite in Colombian politics.¹⁸ Therefore, although the massage successfully crushed the strike, it had the reverse effect in the long term. It offered Colombian workers and unionists a story and martyrs to further their movement and contributed to the end of the conservative hegemony. However, the polarization between Liberals and Conservatives that resulted from this massacre is considered to be the cause of La Violencia, a bloody civil war in Colombia that lasted from 1948-1958.¹⁹

The Banana Massacre was further ingrained into Colombian culture as it was featured in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 1967 Nobel Prize-winning novel 100 Years of Solitude. In this pillar of magical realism, Marquez describes the presence of an American banana company in the fictional Colombian town of Macondo, which exploited and destroyed the town’s resources and people. The people responded with a general strike, culminating in the military executing an apocalyptic massacre against the strikers who had gathered in a train station. Garcia Marquez has explained that this scene was directly inspired by the Banana Massacre, which was prominent in his memory of Colombian history.²⁰

This atrocity continues to be a point of contention in Colombia, as, in 2017, right-wing Representative Maria Fernanda Cabal claimed that the massacre was a communist myth that was blown out of proportion in order to support communist operations.²¹ In this way, the rhetoric of a communist threat persists in modern-day discussions of the Banana Massacre.

Significance to the 1920s

Justifying such violence and anti-union activity required fear-mongering, with the most effective tool being the apparent threat of the spread of communism. The strike in Colombia did occur in alliance with the Colombian Communist Party, which helped mobilize the poor and small business owners to support the strikers and their demands.²² Prior to the massacre, from 1919 to 1920, the United States was the site of a Red Scare, the successful result of the Bolshevik Revolution in what became the Soviet Union. During the Red Scare, the American public feared that communism would create a revolution in the United States. Due to this, significant hysteria spread throughout the United States, with people like organized laborers under intense scrutiny.²³ For this reason, corporations that suppressed strikes were viewed as safeguards against communism.²⁴ This was not coincidental, as corporations, with the help of the press, made it seem as though all strikes were part of a larger communist plot.²⁵ Furthermore, companies like the United Fruit Company hired public relations firms to ensure that bloody stories like the Banana Massacre did not reach the American public.²⁶

The language of a communist threat also pervaded government correspondence regarding the massacre. According to a telegram sent from the American Vice Consul in Santa Marta Lawrence Cotie to the Secretary of State at the time, Frank Billings Kellogg, on December 9, 1928, the Colombian military was “actively engaged in clearing the district of the Communists.”²⁸ What is meant by “clearing” is not precisely clear, but one could conjecture that it is about detaining or even killing those suspected to be communist. In this way, it is clear that the apparent threat of communism was key to military operations in the Banana Zone.

The role of the Red Scare and censorship looked rather different on the Colombian side of this atrocity. The Colombian government also feared a communist revolution, resulting in the passage of Decree 707, which gave the police significant powers to repress those suspected to be communist in 1927. Similarly, in 1928, the government introduced and passed projects aimed at attacking suspected communists. However, this did very little to prevent the growth of the opposition to the conservative government. Thus the campaign against the “Red Menace” was largely unsuccessful and criticized by many domestically and internationally.²⁹ 

Despite the predominantly conservative regime that seemed to dominate Colombia’s politics in the 1920s, propaganda against them proliferated before and during the strike. For example, the Diario de Córdoba was best known for ridiculing army officers. Mahecha utilized his printing machine to have La Nacion and La Prensa publish pieces supporting the strike. This rhetoric spread to the opposition press in Bogota. The propaganda leaflets were read aloud to the largely illiterate crowds. The government was slightly more successful in censoring the press in the Banana Zone from the date of the massacre until the end of the state of siege on March 14, 1929. Outside of the Banana Zone, however, newspapers continued to criticize the actions of the government.³⁰

Citations 

Footnotes

1. “Colombia: A Photograph We Were Not Supposed To See,” Visualizing the Americas, accessed March 31, 2025, https://visualizingtheamericas.utm.utoronto.ca/1928-massacre-1. ︎
2. Lindsey Morey, “Blood For Bananas: United Fruit’s Central American Empire,” Roots of Contemporary Issues, 2014, https://history.wsu.edu/rci/sample-research-project/. ︎
3. Morey, “Blood For Bananas.” ︎
4. Kevin Coleman, “The Photos That We Don’t Get to See: Sovereignties, Archives, and the 1928 Massacre of Banana Workers in Colombia,” essay, in Making the Empire Work: Labor and United States Imperialism (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2015), 104–34, https://kevincoleman.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Coleman_The-Photos-We-Dont-Get-to-See_Sovereignties-Archives-and-the-1928-Massacre-of-Banana-Workers-in-Colombia.pdf, 106. ︎
5. Coleman, “The Photos That We Don’t Get to See,” 108. ︎
6. “Colombia: A Photograph We Were Not Supposed To See.” ︎
7.  Coleman, “The Photos That We Don’t Get to See,” 110-111. ︎
8. Mariana Ramirez Cabal, “The Dark Side of Bananas: Imperialism, Non-State Actors, and Power,” Harvard International Review, June 9, 2023, https://hir.harvard.edu/the-dark-side-of-bananas-imperialism-non-state-actors-and-power/. ︎
9.  Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 31-32. ︎
10.  Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 36. ︎
11. Ramirez Cabal, “The Dark Side of Bananas: Imperialism, Non-State Actors, and Power.” ︎
12.  Coleman, “The Photos That We Don’t Get to See,” 109. ︎
13.  “Colombia: A Photograph We Were Not Supposed To See.” ︎
14. Aviva Chomsky, “Globalization, Labor, and Violence in Colombia’s Banana Zone,” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 72 (2007): 901–115, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27673094, 95. ︎
15.  “Colombia: A Photograph We Were Not Supposed To See.” ︎
16.  After the Military Opened Fire on the Striking Workers in Ciénaga, the Workers Destroyed Several of the UFC’s Buildings, Including the Engineers’ Quarters in Sevilla., Kevin Coleman (The United Fruit Company Photograph Collection, Harvard University, 1928), https://kevincoleman.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Coleman_The-Photos-We-Dont-Get-to-See_Sovereignties-Archives-and-the-1928-Massacre-of-Banana-Workers-in-Colombia.pdf. ︎
17. Eduardo Posada-Carbó, “Fiction as History: The Bananeras and Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude,” Journal of Latin American Studies 30, no. 2 (May 1998): 395–414, https://www.jstor.org/stable/158531, 404-405. ︎
18. Posada-Carbó, “Fiction as History,” 403 ︎
19. Adriaan Alsema, “One of Colombia’s Worst Massacres in History a Communist Myth: Opposition Senator,” Colombia News, November 30, 2017, https://colombiareports.com/amp/one-colombias-worst-massacres-history-communist-myth-opposition-senator/. ︎
20. Posada-Carbó, “Fiction as History,” 395-396. ︎
21. Alsema, “One of Colombia’s Worst Massacres in History a Communist Myth.” ︎
22.  Chomsky, “Globalization, Labor, and Violence in Colombia’s Banana Zone,” 95. ︎
23. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 218. ︎
24. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 32. ︎
25. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 220. ︎
26. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 31. ︎
27. Coleman, “The Photos We Don’t Get to See.” ︎
28.  Kevin Coleman, “The Photos We Don’t Get to See,” Kevin Coleman, June 23, 2021, https://kevincoleman.org/the-1928-massacre-of-banana-workers/. ︎
29. Posada-Carbó, “Fiction as History,” 403-404. ︎
30. Posada-Carbó, “Fiction as History,” 402-403. ︎

Bibliography

1916 Advertisement for the United Fruit Company Steamship Line, Wikimedia Commons (Scribner’s Magazine, February 1, 1916), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:United_Fruit_Ad_1916.jpg.

After the military opened fire on the striking workers in Ciénaga, the workers destroyed several of the UFC’s buildings, including the engineers’ quarters in Sevilla. Kevin Coleman. The United Fruit Company Photograph Collection, Harvard University, 1928. https://kevincoleman.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Coleman_The-Photos-We-Dont-Get-to-See_Sovereignties-Archives-and-the-1928-Massacre-of-Banana-Workers-in-Colombia.pdf. 

Alsema, Adriaan. “One of Colombia’s Worst Massacres in History a Communist Myth: Opposition Senator.” Colombia News, November 30, 2017. https://colombiareports.com/amp/one-colombias-worst-massacres-history-communist-myth-opposition-senator/. 

Chomsky, Aviva. “Globalization, Labor, and Violence in Colombia’s Banana Zone.” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 72 (2007): 901–115. https://doi.org/www.jstor.org/stable/27673094. 

Coleman, Kevin. “The Photos That We Don’t Get to See: Sovereignties, Archives, and the 1928 Massacre of Banana Workers in Colombia.” Essay. In Making the Empire Work: Labor and United States Imperialism, 104–34. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2015. https://kevincoleman.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Coleman_The-Photos-We-Dont-Get-to-See_Sovereignties-Archives-and-the-1928-Massacre-of-Banana-Workers-in-Colombia.pdf. 

Coleman, Kevin. “The Photos We Don’t Get to See.” Kevin Coleman, June 23, 2021. https://kevincoleman.org/the-1928-massacre-of-banana-workers/. 

“Colombia: A Photograph We Were Not Supposed To See.” Visualizing the Americas. Accessed March 31, 2025. https://visualizingtheamericas.utm.utoronto.ca/1928-massacre-1. 

Comisaría de la United Fruit Company en Ciénaga, 1928. 1928. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Comisariato_cienaga.jpg. 

Handling bananas, backing the bunch, Colombia, 1924. ReVista. Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School, 1924. https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/making-a-difference-repatriating-photographs-revista/. 

Morey, Lindsey. “Blood For Bananas: United Fruit’s Central American Empire.” Roots of Contemporary Issues, 2014. https://history.wsu.edu/rci/sample-research-project/. 

Posada-Carbó, Eduardo. “Fiction as History: The Bananeras and Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.” Journal of Latin American Studies 30, no. 2 (May 1998): 395–414. https://www.jstor.org/stable/158531. 

Ramirez Cabal, Mariana. “The Dark Side of Bananas: Imperialism, Non-State Actors, and Power.” Harvard International Review, June 9, 2023. https://hir.harvard.edu/the-dark-side-of-bananas-imperialism-non-state-actors-and-power/. 

Unknown. Banana Massacre Photo. 1928. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Banana_massacre_photo.png.

stefanieviera

Stefanie Viera is a 3rd year History and Humanities & Global Studies double major who is taking the Discovering Digital History course in the spring of 2025. She currently work at the Jane Addams Papers Project as an Editorial Assistant.

The 1920s was an era known for its trends of excessive consumer culture. Although this is often exaggerated, there is still some truth to this assessment, as material goods gained increasing popularity during the decade. Such atypical purchases were also more affordable to the general public, and many were eager to purchase them.³ One such item that gained popularity amongst the 1920s consumer culture crowd was the banana, which was not part of the typical American diet until after the United Fruit Company (U.F.C.) vigorously advertised it. The company began advertising bananas in 1917, at which time they already had established plantations in Central and South American countries, and they used the typical “logic” form of advertising to sell the exotic fruit. For this reason, they had scientists promote the nutritional value of bananas, and banana sales began to increase. However, it would only truly reach its peak in the 1920s, when Edward Bernays changed American advertising forever as he targeted people’s emotions as opposed to using logic. One of the largest projects the U.F.C undertook with Bernays as advertising director was the launch of the “Great White Fleet” cruiser that brought Americans to tour United Fruit’s plantations in Latin America. This endeavor would prove to be very successful in increasing the banana market. However, the visitors only saw a theatrically created plantation that aimed to portray it as a humane and peaceful place. In reality, U.F.C. plantations were corrupt and the laborers were subjected to terrible work conditions.⁴

Colombia was home to a number of United Fruit plantations, where the banana workers were subjected to long hours and low pay. Laborers from the U.F.C.’s Magdalena plantation organized a strike on October 6, 1928, in which they issued nine demands to the company.⁵ Their demands included receiving real money payments and transitioning to a six-day work week.⁶ The strike lasted two months, and on December 5th, the Governor of Magdalena summoned the strikers to Ciénaga in order to settle the strike. Strikers gathered in the thousands and, at the same time, the government issued Decree Number 1 that ordered the military to open fire on the unarmed strikers and their families.⁷ It is estimated that anywhere from 50 to 2,000 people were killed in Ciénaga’s train station that night.⁸ Despite this, once daybreak came around, only nine bodies were left behind. Some strikers theorized that the nine bodies were symbolic of the nine demands of the strikers. The Colombian military did not end there, with them killing over 1,000 strikers. Laborers responded by destroying a number of United Fruit’s buildings.⁹

This massacre was not the effort of just the Colombian government. In fact, the United Fruit Company leveraged their power in the United States government to ensure that the strike was brought to an end. Considering that the strikers’ demands would have resulted in higher operation costs for the company, U.F.C. utilized their ties with the United States government to have the Marine Corps threaten to invade Colombia if the Colombian government did not protect the company’s interests and bring an end to the strike.¹¹ Such corporate interference in international relations would not have been possible prior to World War I, when there was a greater amount of suspicion of corporate power. However, by the 1920s, corporations and businessmen were idealized, as the American public viewed them as instrumental parts of the war effort.¹² The American government in the 1920s therefore supported corporations like the United Fruit Company to expand their markets and acquire raw materials through applying economic, diplomatic and military pressure. This was particularly common in Latin America. The pressure could be subtle or indirect. However, in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras and Santo Domingo, the U.S. government took more direct and bold action to protect corporations’ interests by sending troops.¹³ The Banana Massacre was the direct result of American military threats and pressure against the Colombian government. 

Justifying such violence and anti-union activity required the use of fear-mongering, with the most effective tool being the apparent threat of the spread of communism. The strike in Colombia did in fact occur in alliance with the Colombian Communist Party, which helped mobilize the poor and small business owners to provide support for the strikers and their demands.¹⁴ Prior to the massacre, from 1919 to 1920 the United States was the site of a Red Scare, which was the successful result of the Bolshevik Revolution in what became the Soviet Union. During the Red Scare, the American public feared that communism would create a revolution in the United States. Due to this, significant hysteria spread throughout the United States, with people such as organized laborers falling under intense scrutiny.¹⁵ For this reason, corporations that suppressed strikes were viewed as safeguards against communism.¹⁶ This was not coincidental, as corporations, with the help of the press, made it seem as though all strikes were part of a larger communist plot.¹⁷ Furthermore, companies like the United fruit Company hired public relations firms to ensure that such bloody stories like that of the Banana Massacre did not reach the American public.¹⁸ Despite these efforts, the memory of the massacre has remained deeply ingrained in Colombian culture, with it even inspiring a scene of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ Nobel Peace Prize winning book One Hundred Years of Solitude.¹⁹

Citations

Footnotes

1.  “Colombia: A Photograph We Were Not Supposed To See,” Visualizing the Americas, accessed March 31, 2025, https://visualizingtheamericas.utm.utoronto.ca/1928-massacre-1. ︎
2.  Handling Bananas, Backing the Bunch, Colombia, 1924., ReVista (Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School, 1924), https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/making-a-difference-repatriating-photographs-revista/. ︎
3.  Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s, ed. Eric Foner (New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1995), 77. ︎
4.  Lindsey Morey, “Blood For Bananas: United Fruit’s Central American Empire,” Roots of Contemporary Issues, 2014, https://history.wsu.edu/rci/sample-research-project/. ︎
5.  “Colombia: A Photograph We Were Not Supposed To See.” ︎
6.  Mariana Ramirez Cabal, “The Dark Side of Bananas: Imperialism, Non-State Actors, and Power,” Harvard International Review, June 9, 2023, https://hir.harvard.edu/the-dark-side-of-bananas-imperialism-non-state-actors-and-power/. ︎
7.  “Colombia: A Photograph We Were Not Supposed To See.” ︎
8.  Aviva Chomsky, “Globalization, Labor, and Violence in Colombia’s Banana Zone,” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 72 (2007): 901–115, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27673094, 95. ︎
9.  “Colombia: A Photograph We Were Not Supposed To See.” ︎
10.  Comisaría de La United Fruit Company En Ciénaga, 1928., 1928, Wikimedia Commons, 1928, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Comisariato_cienaga.jpg. ︎
11.  Ramirez Cabal, “The Dark Side of Bananas: Imperialism, Non-State Actors, and Power.” ︎
12.  Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 31-32. ︎
13.  Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 36. ︎
14.  Chomsky, “Globalization, Labor, and Violence in Colombia’s Banana Zone,” 95. ︎
15.  Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 218. ︎
16.  Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 32. ︎
17.  Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 220. ︎
18.  Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 31. ︎
19.  “Colombia: A Photograph We Were Not Supposed To See.” ︎

Bibliography

Chomsky, Aviva. “Globalization, Labor, and Violence in Colombia’s Banana Zone.” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 72 (2007): 901–115. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27673094. 

“Colombia: A Photograph We Were Not Supposed To See.” Visualizing the Americas. Accessed March 31, 2025. https://visualizingtheamericas.utm.utoronto.ca/1928-massacre-1. 

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. Edited by Eric Foner. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1995. 

Handling bananas, backing the bunch, Colombia, 1924. ReVista. Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School, 1924. https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/making-a-difference-repatriating-photographs-revista/. 

Morey, Lindsey. “Blood For Bananas: United Fruit’s Central American Empire.” Roots of Contemporary Issues, 2014. https://history.wsu.edu/rci/sample-research-project/. 

Ramirez Cabal, Mariana. “The Dark Side of Bananas: Imperialism, Non-State Actors, and Power.” Harvard International Review, June 9, 2023. https://hir.harvard.edu/the-dark-side-of-bananas-imperialism-non-state-actors-and-power/.

stefanieviera

Stefanie Viera is a 3rd year History and Humanities & Global Studies double major who is taking the Discovering Digital History course in the spring of 2025. She currently work at the Jane Addams Papers Project as an Editorial Assistant.

Ross’ Early Years

Nellie Tayloe Ross was born on November 29, 1876, in St. Joseph, Missouri, on a plantation owned by her maternal grandfather in Andrew County. Her parents were James Wynns Tayloe and Elizabeth Blair Green. Nellie’s family had been devastated by the Civil War’s aftermath; in response, she had always feared poverty. Ross’ education was facilitated by her brothers who aided in helping her learn how to read when she was 5 years old. She attended the Maxwell School with her brothers. To achieve a more successful future, her family moved to Miltonvale, Kansas. She attended the United Presbyterian Church and her mother was involved in women’s suffrage. Here, she witnessed her mother in a position of leadership, a position which her father had respected. Her southern upbringing and her mother had influenced her political beliefs. She remained a Democrat for most of her life and gained the belief from her mother that women’s traditional roles were compatible with public responsibilities.² After her mothers death, her family moved back towards the Missouri river into Omaha, Nebraska. There, she became a kindergarten teacher. In 1900, she went to visit relatives in Tennessee where she met and married her husband, William Ross. They moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1902 and had four boys together. William started his own law practice and got involved in politics. He ran for governor and won with the state’s failing economy as his main concern.

The Election of Nellie Tayloe Ross

On September 25, 1924, her husband underwent an appendectomy. He died on October 2, just one month before the general election. The Democratic Party asked Nellie Tayloe Ross to be their candidate and after much convincing, she agreed. Both the Republican and Democratic parties held their conventions in Cheyenne on October 14 to choose their candidates. The Republican Party nominated Casper attorney and politician Eugene J. Sullivan. After receiving the Democratic nomination, Ross remained at home and let her friends lead the campaign. Political advertisements encouraged voters to support Ross because she promised to carry out her husband’s policies. This included policies that helped the economy and workers. They also portrayed her opponent, Sullivan, as a supporter of the founder of Sinclair Oil, Harry Sinclair, who was involved in the Teapot Dome Scandal. One advertisement in The Buffalo Voice encouraged voters to “Beat Texas to It,” encouraging Wyoming to become the first state to elect a female governor, as Miriam “Ma” Ferguson was also running for governor in Texas.⁶ While both Ross and Ferguson were the first women elected as governors in the U.S, Ross was sworn in first, earning her the title of “First Female Governor of the United States”. She defeated Sullivan by more than 8,000 votes. In addition, she even outperformed Republican Francis E. Warren, Wyoming’s senior U.S. Senator.⁷ On January 5, 1925, she was sworn in as governor of Wyoming during an inauguration ceremony in the Senate chambers in Cheyenne. She served as governor from 1925 to 1927.

Ross’ Governorship: Politics, Law, Economics, Prohibition, & Agriculture

The 1920s has the reputation of being a time of prosperity, economic growth, and the boom of the stock market. However, it differed from state to state. Before the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, Wyoming was facing an economic depression. Ross would be among the governors who confronted this depression. Wyoming’s economy depended on livestock, business, farming, coal production, and the Union Pacific Railroad. In post-WW1 Wyoming, the loss of government contracts, declining demand for certain commodities, deflation, and the 1919 drought contributed to this economic depression. To tackle these problems, Ross proposed a plan to address the state’s budget deficit and outlined strategies for managing it. She found that railroad property values were lower than those in neighboring states and that many mining corporations owned large amounts of property while avoiding taxes. She believed that more equitable taxation could help resolve the issue. In the 1920s, businesses and businessmen were becoming more idealized, striving to present a more polished and positive image. At the same time, the issue of business taxes became a significant concern in response to previous revisions to tax laws. People, such as Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, sought to reduce business tax, while Ross was concerned with equitable tax within her state.⁸ Following this, she discovered that falling oil prices were causing shortfalls and that light oil production was decreasing. In response, she supported producing more black oil and using it to build state’s highways. To her disappointment, her proposals to explore commercial possibilities for black oil were declined. Banks were also failing. Between 1920-1924, 68 state and national banks had failed in Wyoming. Half had closed by 1924.⁹ To address banking closures, Ross proposed laws to protect banks and depositors. This included laws that made sure that people wouldn’t lose their money if a bank failed. Lastly, Ross answered to further tax concerns by supporting a bill that would give one-third of mineral royalties to public schools. This would help with reducing local taxes. However, it was not approved by the legislature.

When we think of the 1920s, we also often think of Prohibition, a time when alcohol was banned across the U.S. During the late 19th century and into the 1920s, women had entered the political arena. One popular reform amongst them was Prohibition. This led to the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act that made the production, sale, and transportation of alcohol illegal. Women supported Prohibition because they believed male drinking led to reckless behavior, such as sexual excess, which harmed women and children in the home.¹¹ Ross, like these women, supported this law. She believed that the purchaser of alcohol was just as guilty as the bootlegger. She proposed a bill to enforce this, however, it was later declined by the legislature. During her term, she had to deal with two sheriffs who were involved in alcohol related acts. She received and agreed to a request from District Court Judge Metz to allow an investigation into Park County Sheriff William Loomis.¹² Loomis was accused of accepting pay from alleged bootlegger, Fay Willford, in protection money. Loomis faced charges for serving confiscated alcohol to prisoners, accepting bribes and protection money from Willford and James P. Morgan in relation to whiskey on Morgan’s property, and for appearing intoxicated in public. Ross ordered a removal of Loomis who she deemed unfit for his position. On June 17, 1925, The Park County Herald reported that “The Governor (Ross) having heard all the evidence, does find generally against the defendant, William H. Loomis”.¹³ Another Sheriff named Scott Hazen was charged with appearing intoxicated in public, taking confiscated alcohol for his own use, getting involved in a plan to transport and sell alcohol, and failing to serve warrants to known bootleggers while allowing speakeasies to operate. In response to his future hearings on this matter, he resigned from office.

In addition, Ross also dealt with several other issues, including farm and agricultural concerns, and protecting Wyoming’s claims to Colorado River water. Farm foreclosures and low prices were an issue in Wyoming. This prevented the settlement and expansion of farms on federal projects in Wyoming. Under her husband’s governorship, he had created a farm loan program which she continued by making it permanent. Later, Ross convinced Elwood Mead, the man behind water laws, and the Secretary of Interior, Herbert Work to review these projects. Mead explained that he could only point out the problems, and it was up to farmers and state officials to determine the additional funds and introduce legislation to address those issues. Ross worked with a man named George Kreutzer from the Bureau of Reclamation to address these issues. She used local newspapers to collect farmer’s concerns and seek help from the Bureau of Reclamation. She also created a reclamation committee made up of farmers to explain their challenges and issues to the Bureau of Reclamation.¹⁴

Women’s Rights, Feminism, Reform and Ross’ Views on Women

Beginning in the late 19th century and continuing into the 1920s, the “new woman” became more active in politics, with Ross serving as an example. They became political actors and lobbied for progressive reform. Suffrage was one of these reforms. Through this, women had gained the right to vote in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Wyoming, the state where Ross governed, however, already became the nation’s first suffrage state in 1869. This prompted many people and newspapers to declare Wyoming as the “Equality State”, further encouraging the election of Ross. Other reforms that “the new woman” supported included labor laws, which Ross had also aligned with. A suffragist named Grace Hebard had written to Ross in regards to a child labor bill. Ross responded by confirming her position on this issue claiming that the bill would be an important step in protecting the children of America. However, her child labor bill was later declined by the senate because of fear it would interfere with the rights of parents to give their children working roles.¹⁶ She also advocated for protective legislation to support female employees, but this proposal was also rejected. Ross continued to be dedicated to maintaining the welfare of workers. She supported and proposed mine safety legislation. These legislations were successfully approved.

While women became increasingly involved in politics, their views on women’s rights varied. Women, like Alice Paul and The Woman’s Party, advocated for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) that guaranteed equal rights for men and women. They believed that while suffrage was a major breakthrough in women’s political equality, the ERA would answer to the remaining limitations that women faced. This included the inability to execute contracts, unequal wages, and marriage property rights. In 1923, the legislation was introduced to Congress. Women like Julia Lathrop and Frances Perkins emphasized women’s distinctiveness, arguing that special labor protections tailored to their sex were necessary. This led them to reject the ERA in fear that it would undermine sex-based labor legislation that specifically protected women.¹⁷ Like these women, Ross held her own views on women’s roles, rights, and nature, which often left some feminists disappointed. Initially, many women’s rights advocates, suffragettes, and feminists viewed Ross’ election as a great victory. However, some women were left disappointed in Ross’ refusal to prioritize her influence on the women’s rights movement. Instead, she stated that her duty was to the people of Wyoming as their governor. In 1925, Hebard, the same woman who had written to Ross about a child labor bill, also suggested that Ross appoint women to positions in the Child and Animal Protection Board and the University Board of Trustees. This was left unanswered. Hebard continued to suggest that she attend a meeting of the “National League of Women Voters”, which Ross had declined.

Ross did believe in women’s capabilities within the political sphere and encouraged them to seek public office. However, she would often express her belief that a woman’s most important social role was being a wife and a mother. On March 28, 1926, The Brownsville Herald reported that “Although she (Ross) has faith in the future of America’s young womanhood and believes that ‘freedom of the younger generation of women will prove beneficial. Governor Nellie Tayloe Ross holds that the highest position of woman in life is matrimony and motherhood’”.¹⁹ Despite this, it did not stop her from believing in the importance of women in politics and positions of power. She was more concerned with the perception that engaging in politics had “unsexed” her.²⁰ She was committed to proving that despite her role in political power, she was still a feminine woman. In other words, femininity, politics, and public service were all compatible. While she praised motherhood, marriage, and domestic responsibilities, she also made it clear that women should not limit themselves to traditional roles alone.

Ross did not reject the traditional notion of women being wives and mothers. However, another reason for her distance from feminist ideology was the political climate of the 1920s. Politicians and political parties often supported women who did not engage in the feminist movement. If she had explicitly engaged in feminist activism, it is likely that she would not have been chosen as her party’s political candidate. She found herself having to prove that she could be as tough as any male politician while still maintaining her femininity. She advised women to not portray themselves as too “aggressive” when they entered office.²¹ Ross wanted people to support her because she was a capable candidate, not just because she was a woman. She hoped they would focus on her abilities and not discriminate against her because of her sex. In 1926, Ross responded to concerns that the entrance of women in politics would cause them to create havoc by exercising their newfound power. On January 24th, The Washington Post reported that she responded by stating, “It opens to woman the door for unbounded service and challenges her to prove whether she does possess high ideals.”.²² After losing her second-term election, she admitted regretting not doing more to appeal to women and challenge the sexist notions she faced.

Overall, despite Ross’ goal to distance herself from explicit feminist activism, she is still viewed as an important figure to women’s rights. Her title as the first woman governor in the U.S was and is still revered. She inspired other “new women” to get involved in the field of politics.

Wyoming’s Re-Election & Ross’ Post-Term

In 1926, The Democratic Party remained with her as their candidate for the next election. The Republican Party chose Frank Emerson, the state engineer. While Ross had won the 1924 election by a significant amount of votes, she did not succeed in re-election for a number of reasons. The most basic reason was that Wyoming was still an overwhelmingly Republican state, and the party had strengthened once again. Wyoming’s senior U.S. senator, Francis E. Warren, was believed to have been on the brink of passing away of old age. At the same time, Wyoming also had a Democratic junior senator, John B. Kendrick. If Ross had won re-election, she would have had the right to choose the next senior senator.²⁵ Republicans would not have preferred two Democrats. Another reason was that during the 1920s, the Klu Klux Klan had a resurgence, and many had controlled votes. Anti-immigrant sentiments and nativism surged during the decade, with Catholics and Catholic immigrants facing discrimination. Some Republicans portrayed Ross as a Catholic, which the KKK held hatred against. Lastly, Ross was a woman. Many still believed women were incapable of handling politics. Some female voters even believed that Ross didn’t automatically deserve their votes just because she was a woman. The Cody Enterprise reported on a woman who had voiced this. A woman named Mrs. Jenkins stated “What has Mrs. Ross done particularly to deserve the votes of women? Has she ever since taken any interest in Woman’s Suffrage? Has she ever been a delegate to a Woman’s Suffrage convention, to a Woman’s Christian Temperance meeting, to a Woman’s Relief Corps convention, to a meeting of the Federation of Woman’s clubs for Wyoming?.”.²⁶ However, while she had lost, she remained in politics and Democratic women’s groups. In the 1930s, she became a campaign orator and was even later on appointed as Director of the U.S Mint by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Significance

I chose Nellie Tayloe Ross’s achievement of becoming the first female governor in the U.S. because of my interest in women’s history. I was surprised to learn that a woman had already become a state governor as early as the 1920s. Ross’s victory was widely reported, with many 1920s newspapers covering her historic achievement and status as the first woman governor. It was perceived as a significant accomplishment.

The story of Nellie Tayloe Ross both reinforces and complicates our understanding of the decade. Common themes of the 1920s are flappers, economic prosperity, and prohibition. Flappers are known to have been young “new women” who strayed away from restrictive and traditional female roles. However, Ross represents a different kind of “new woman” who did the same. She was a woman involved in politics. Another aspect that her story demonstrates is that while women were increasingly becoming involved in politics, some had to distance themselves from feminism in order to gain support from male peers. Ross’ distance from feminism and her commitment to continuing what her husband left behind may explain why newspaper coverage of her victory was more positive than many people today would expect.

The theme of Prohibition is something many associate with the 1920s and Ross’ time as governor demonstrates that it is an accurate depiction. Prohibition had Americans question the amount of power the federal government possessed. Many people and certain senators argued that it violated the constitution by limiting states’ rights.²⁷ However, Ross’ stance on strict prohibition enforcement demonstrated that some state leaders supported it. She proved this by confronting two sheriffs who were accused of crimes associated with it.

Finally, Ross’s story complicates the common image of the 1920s as being filled with prosperity and fun. Wyoming was a state that was going through an economic depression and Ross’s election loss exposed a darker side of the decade. ​The KKK had reemerged and gained some influence in the political sphere.

Bibliography

Mackey, Mike. “Nellie Tayloe Ross and Wyoming Politics.” Journal of the West 42, no. 3 (2003): 25–34.https://research-ebsco-com.library2.ramapo.edu:2443/linkprocessor/plink?id=f5cae36e-3b49-3ace-ba5b-0cabe6b1f206

Scharff, Virginia. “Feminism, Femininity, and Power: Nellie Tayloe Ross and the Woman Politician’s Dilemma.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 15, no. 3 (March 1, 1995): 87–106. doi:10.2307/3346786.

Scheer, Teva J. 2005. Governor Lady: The Life and Times of Nellie Tayloe Ross. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.http://site.ebrary.com/id/10129006.

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.

“Beat Texas to It, and Elect Woman Governor,” The Buffalo Voice (Buffalo, Johnson County, WY), October 17, 1924. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92067096/1924-10-17/ed-1/seq-1/.

“Wyoming Inaugurates Nellie Tayloe Ross—First Lady Governor in United States.” Park County Herald (Cody, Wyo.), January 7, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92066928/1925-01-07/ed-1/seq-1/.

“Her Excellency, The Governess.” The Challis Messenger (Challis, Idaho), January 14, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88056159/1925-01-14/ed-1/seq-3/.

“Evening Star.” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), January 18, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1925-01-18/ed-1/seq-96/.

“Wyoming Senate Rejects Child Labor Amendm’t.” The Cody Enterprise (Cody, Wyo.), January 21, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92066929/1925-01-21/ed-1/seq-1/.

“Armed Prohibition Force Guards Gov. Nellie Ross.” The Washington Post (1923-1954), April 11, 1925. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post, pg. 1.

“Gov. Ross Removes Loomis from Office.” Park County Herald (Cody, Wyo.), June 17, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92066928/1925-06-17/ed-1/seq-4/.

“Matrimony Is Proper Thing.” Brownsville Herald (Brownsville, Tex.), March 28, 1926. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86063730/1926-03-28/ed-1/seq-5/.

“Woman Governor Sees No Havoc in Vote for Her Sex: Merely Opens Door…,” The Washington Post (1923-1954), January 24, 1926. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post, pg. A7.

“Clean Politics Urged On Women.” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), December 2, 1926. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1926-12-02/ed-1/seq-27/.

“Prominent Wyoming Lady Says Mrs. Ross Not Entitled to Woman Vote—Sympath Not Issue.” The Cody Enterprise and the Park County Herald (Cody, Wyo.), October 13, 1926. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92066930/1926-10-13/ed-1/seq-4/.

Rockpile Museum. Nellie Tayloe Ross for Governor. Postcard, 1926. Catalog No. 2004.025.0005. Accessed March 21, 2025. https://rockpilemuseum.pastperfectonline.com/archive/E78C4C54-6A62-4033-A6E8-793416583805.

Bettmann Archive. Nellie Ross and Eleanor Roosevelt. Photograph. July 1928.

Bettmann Archive. Governor Nellie Tayloe Ross Opens Gimbels. Philadelphia, 1926.

Bain News Service. Gov. Nellie T. Ross. [ca. 1915–1920]. George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/item/2014709682/.

Featured image: Bettmann Archive. Nellie Tayloe Ross Making a Speech with Clarence Morley, 1924.

Additional Resources

Nellie Tayloe Ross. YouTube video, 7:00. Posted by Wyoming PBS, 7 years ago.

National Governors Association. “Nellie Tayloe Ross.” National Governors Association. Accessed March 17, 2025. https://www.nga.org/governor/nellie-tayloe-ross/.

Rea, Tom. “The Ambition of Nellie Tayloe Ross.” WyoHistory.org, November 8, 2014. Accessed March 17, 2025. https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/ambition-nellie-tayloe-ross.

Wyoming History Day. “Nellie Tayloe Ross, First Woman Governor in the United States.” Wyoming History Day. Accessed March 17, 2025. https://www.wyominghistoryday.org/theme-topics/nellie-tayloe-ross-first-woman-governor-united-states

“Nellie Tayloe Ross: Wyoming, United States’ First Female Governor.” Wyoming Public Media, January 10, 2025. https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/open-spaces/2025-01-10/nellie-tayloe-ross-wyoming-united-states-first-female-governor.

“Nellie Tayloe Ross Papers, 1900-1977.” Archives West, accessed March 24, 2025. https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:80444/xv317842.

“Nellie Tayloe Ross.” Digital Public Library of America, accessed March 24, 2025. https://dp.la/search?q=Nellie+Tayloe+Ross.

Lucht, Tracy, and Chelsea Davis. “Gender, Race, and Place in Newspaper Coverage of Women ‘Firsts’ after the Nineteenth Amendment.” Journalism History 47, no. 4 (October 2, 2021): 333–52. doi:10.1080/00947679.2021.1982564.

Citations

1. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images, Governor Nellie Tayloe Ross Opens Gimbels, Philadelphia, featuring Ellis Gimbel, Governor Ross, and Mayor Kendrick of Philadelphia; Bain News Service, Gov. Nellie T. Ross, [ca. 1915–1920], George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2014709682/. ︎
2. Teva J. Scheer, Governor Lady: The Life and Times of Nellie Tayloe Ross (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2005), 27. ︎
3. Wyoming Inaugurates Nellie Tayloe Ross—First Lady Governor in United States,” Park County Herald (Cody, Wyo.), January 7, 1925, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92066928/1925-01-07/ed-1/seq-1/. ︎
4. “Her Excellency, The Governess.” The Challis Messenger (Challis, Idaho), January 14, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88056159/1925-01-14/ed-1/seq-3/. ︎
5. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), January 18, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1925-01-18/ed-1/seq-96/. ︎
6. “Beat Texas to It, and Elect Woman Governor,” The Buffalo Voice (Buffalo, Johnson County, WY), October 17, 1924. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92067096/1924-10-17/ed-1/seq-1/. ︎
7. Mike Mackey, “Nellie Tayloe Ross and Wyoming Politics,” Journal of the West 42, no. 3 (2003): 26. ︎
8. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 32-35. ︎
9. Scheer, Governor Lady, 74. ︎
10. “Armed Prohibition Force Guards Gov. Nellie Ross,” The Washington Post (1923-1954), April 11, 1925. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post, pg. 1. ︎
11. Dumenil, Modern Temper, 229. ︎
12. Mackey, “Nellie Tayloe Ross and Wyoming Politics,” 28. ︎
13. “Gov. Ross Removes Loomis from Office.” Park County Herald (Cody, Wyo.), June 17, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92066928/1925-06-17/ed-1/seq-4/ ︎
14. Mackey, “Nellie Tayloe Ross and Wyoming Politics,” 30. ︎
15. “Wyoming Senate Rejects Child Labor Amendm’t.” The Cody Enterprise (Cody, Wyo.), January 21, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92066929/1925-01-21/ed-1/seq-1/. ︎
16. Scheer, Governor Lady, 83. ︎
17. Dumenil, Modern Temper, 105.
    ︎
18. “Clean Politics Urged On Women.” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), December 2, 1926. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1926-12-02/ed-1/seq-27/. ︎
19. “Matrimony Is Proper Thing,” Brownsville Herald (Brownsville, Tex.), March 28, 1926, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86063730/1926-03-28/ed-1/seq-5/. ︎
20. Virginia Scharff, “Feminism, Femininity, and Power: Nellie Tayloe Ross and the Woman Politician’s Dilemma,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 15, no. 3 (1995): 88. ︎
21. Scharff, “Feminism, Femininity, and Power,” 88. ︎
22. “Woman Governor Sees No Havoc in Vote for Her Sex: Merely Opens Door…,” The Washington Post (1923-1954), January 24, 1926. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post, pg. A7. ︎
23. Nellie Tayloe Ross for Governor, postcard, 1926, Catalog No. 2004.025.0005, Rockpile Museum, accessed March 21, 2025, https://rockpilemuseum.pastperfectonline.com/archive/E78C4C54-6A62-4033-A6E8-793416583805. ︎
24. Bettmann Archive, Nellie Ross and Eleanor Roosevelt, photograph, July 1928. ︎
25. Mackey, “Nellie Tayloe Ross and Wyoming Politics,” 31. ︎
26. “Prominent Wyoming Lady Says Mrs. Ross Not Entitled to Woman Vote—Sympath Not Issue,” The Cody Enterprise and the Park County Herald (Cody, Wyo.), October 13, 1926. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92066930/1926-10-13/ed-1/seq-4/. ︎
27. Dumenil, Modern Temper, 29. ︎

grlynn

Grlynn is a Ramapo College senior majoring in history

The Nixon Nitration Works was a factory that manifactured highly flamable materials like cellulose nitrate and the lack of supervison in the factory caused the huge disater of March 1, 1924 which destroyed forty buildings and killed twenty people at the company’s New Jersey facility on the Raritan River. After the explosion, the Nixon factory was rebuilt into a smaller factory then kept functioning for a while but Lewis Nixon died due to the exposure of the deadly chemicals. Stanhope Nixon was the son of Lewis Nixon who also took over the factory but his son couldnt keep the busines going causing the closore of the nixon factory after a while the location was donated to the state of New Jersey and has since been re-named Edison, near New Brunswick.

The company was founded by naval architect Lewis Nixon in 1915 to manufacture cellulose nitrate, besides the production of celluloid, this factory used to supply some European nations with gunpowder and other materials for World War 1. When the war ended, these facilities were put to broader uses, were involving other explosive materials and dangerous chemicals The nitrate made the material highly flammable, but at the works cellulose nitrate was maintained in large sheets and had been piled in buildings. Within the works, Nixon leased a building to the Ammonite Company which was salvaging the contents of artillery shells for use as agriculture fertilizer. When the Ammonite building exploded, the shock was felt and the sound heard as far away as Manhattan and Brooklyn. After the initial explosion massive fires spread to other buildings.

Additionally, On March 1, 1924, an explosion, likely originating from an Ammonite Company building within the works that was processing ammonium nitrate from artillery shells, triggered a fire that spread rapidly through the surrounding building The disaster resulted in at least 20 deaths, with dozens more injured, many suffering from severe burns, inhalation of toxic fumes, and blunt force trauma from collapsing buildings and flying debris. Some victims were never recovered due to the intensity of the blast. The explosion leveled approximately 40 buildings within the chemical plant, reducing the once-thriving industrial hub to rubble. Fires burned for hours, fueled by volatile chemicals, making it nearly impossible for firefighters to contain the blaze immediately. Nearby factories and homes were also damaged due to the shockwave and subsequent fires. The explosion released toxic chemicals into the air and local waterways, contaminating soil and water supplies. Given the lack of environmental regulations at the time, the full extent of the damage was not immediately addressed, but the effects likely persisted for years.

The History

The workplace accidents/deaths are connected to how harsh the environment was in the workplace during the 1920s. The United States of America during the 1920s was in the revolutionary era when big factories, industrial work, construction, mining, oil rigs, mechanics, soldiers, hard labor, and big-name companies started to rise. All men had to go to work every day to survive and yet most men died at their jobs in the 1920s. Additionally, workplace injuries/deaths were common, and, in many cases, labor conditions were nothing less than grueling. Moreover, the main cause of death was not because of the jobs, they were due to exposure to harsh/deadly chemicals to the body. People were not as knowledgeable as today and many resources we have today they did not have 100 years ago. For example, men who worked in the mines all died due to Tuberculosis and lung cancer for not having the right oxygen mask protection. Mining is one of the deadliest industries, with cave-ins, explosions, and toxic gas exposure causing many deaths. Factories and manufacturing plants also had unsafe machinery with little to no protective measures, leading to crushing, amputations, and fatal injuries. Additionally, the 1920s had very unsafe workplace safety, leading to early labor protections, but this did not change until stricter regulations and enforcement significantly reduced workplace fatalities, like OSHA, ASSP, ANSI, and CSB. These organizations were designed to protect workers from unsafe work environments. During the 1920s, the jobs were extremely limited when it came to women. Additionally, women were only allowed to work as nurses and teachers during the 1920s but given this, women were not exposed to harsh workplace environments as men did.

In the book, The Modern Temper chapter three mentions how the country was expanding to the consumer culture in the late 1920s causing many new jobs to arise for the automobile factories due to its 3.7 million car production number. Chapter 3 mentioned how in the 1930s the American Federation of Labor was extremely focused on the labor movement and making the work environment safer. Furthermore, the AFL association was extremely racist because it did not help Mexicans, African Americans, Asians, and women. The connection this book has with Nixon’s Nitration Work is about the industrial expansion of evolution in factories and construction. The Nixon Nitration Company was founded by Lewis Nixon in 1915. The factories manufacture cellulose nitrate and the production of celluloid and other early plastics. The nitrate made the material highly flammable, and the cellulose nitrate was supported in large sheets and had been piled in buildings. There was an explosion that started in one of the buildings, and the fire spread taking down a few nearby buildings along with 20 people’s lives. All those chemical materials stored together made the fire spread much quicker. Additionally, this is just one of the many accidents that happened during the 1920s due to unsafe procedures in the workplace.

Map

Over time, the site of the Nixon Nitration Works was redeveloped, with much of the area now consisting of residential and commercial properties. The industrial nature of Nixon faded as Edison, NJ, transformed into a suburban community. Additionally, In 1951, the company downsized and donated 48 acres of land and a dam to the city of New Brunswick. The site of the Nixon Works is now a part of Middlesex County College and the Raritan Center Industrial Park.

The End of the accident

The Nixon Nitration Works disaster of 1924 remains a significant event in the history of industrial accidents in the United States. It was a tragedy that claimed lives, devastated a community, and exposed critical weaknesses in industrial safety procedures. The explosion exposed the dangers associated with chemical manufacturing and the need for better safety measures to protect workers and the public. Additionally, this heartbreaking event ultimately contributed to the evolution of industrial safety regulations and environmental protection policies. Today, industries operate under much stricter guidelines, reducing the likelihood of similar catastrophes. The lessons from the Nixon Nitration Works explosion continue to be relevant, serving as a reminder that safety must always be a top priority in hazardous industries.

Citations

Bibliography

“March 03, 1924 – Topics on Newspapers.com.” Topics, www.newspapers.com/topics/century-ago-today/march-1924/march-03-1924/.

‌“1924 Nixon Nitration Works Disaster.” Wikipedia, 1 Oct. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1924_Nixon_Nitration_Works_disaster.

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Women’s lives had changed significantly from the late 19th century into the 1920s. They became more involved in politics and increasingly joined the workforce. This challenged the traditional ideas of women’s roles within society. Social and sexual norms surrounding women had also changed, leading to new ideas about womanhood and femininity. Many women had moved away from restrictive clothing of the Victorian era, as seen with the example of flappers. 

In the 1920s, Nellie Tayloe Ross achieved a historic title. She was elected Governor of Wyoming in 1924. She took office in 1925, becoming the first woman to ever serve as a governor in the U.S.A. Ross represents the “new woman” but in a way that differs from the stereotypical image of the carefree flappers of the 1920s. She was an older woman actively involved in politics. During the late 19th century and into the 1920s, women had entered the political arena. They became political actors, supported suffrage, and sought progressive and urban reforms. One popular reform was prohibition, a law infamously tied to the image of the 1920s. Ross was one of these women. She was a firm supporter of prohibition. Ross had believed that the consumer was just as guilty as the bootlegger. She was even once requested to authorize an investigation of the Park County Sheriff, who had been accused of accepting pay from an alleged bootlegger. 

The “new woman” of the 1920s would agree on one thing: women’s roles within society were changing, and their roles would be different from the old restrictive version of womanhood. However, this did not prevent disagreement and tension. Women’s ideas of feminism and women’s rights were sometimes at odds. Some women, like Julia Lathrop and Frances Perkins, believed in women’s distinctiveness. They believed that women needed special protections that aligned with their sex. While many women supported the Equal Rights Amendment, which promoted equal rights between men and women, many women like Lathrop and Perkins felt indifferent to it. They feared this would create barriers to sex-based labor legislation that specifically protected working women. Ross is an example of a woman who possessed different ideas of women’s newfound roles and power. Feminists and suffragists did view Ross’ election as a victory and a step towards women’s political voices. However, some women’s rights movement leaders were disappointed with Ross’ refusal to prioritize her influence on the movement. She believed in women’s capabilities within the political field but was not a “hardcore feminist”. Echoing the traditional views during the previous century, she stated that a woman’s role as a wife and mother was of the highest importance. She would become cautious with her involvement in feminism because of its negative image within the politics of the time. This cautiousness prevented her from appointing more women in government positions. Nevertheless, Ross firmly believed in women’s roles within the political sphere. While she promoted femininity, she sought to prove it did not have to dismiss a woman’s right to exercise political power. Her status as the first woman governor still inspired other “new women” to get involved in the field of politics. 

Bibliography

Bettmann Archive. USA: Clara Bow in Get Your Man. 1927. Photograph. Bettmann Archive. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/clara-bow-in-get-your-man-news-photo/514892606.

Bettmann Archive. Portrait of Actress Louise Brooks. Photograph. Bettmann Archive. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/actress-louise-brooks-poses-for-a-portrait-session-in-news-photo/514205164.

Evening Star (Washington, D.C.). October 24, 1929. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1929-10-24/ed-1/seq-3/.

Bettmann Archive. Activist Julia Clifford Lathrop Posing with Her Supporters. Photograph. https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/julia-clifford-lathrop-lead-the-way-for-improving-american-news-photo/517294142.

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.

Mackey, Mike. “Nellie Tayloe Ross and Wyoming Politics.” Journal of the West 42, no. 3 (2003): 25–34. https://research-ebsco-com.library2.ramapo.edu:2443/linkprocessor/plink?id=f5cae36e-3b49-3ace-ba5b-0cabe6b1f206.

Scharff, Virginia. “Feminism, Femininity, and Power: Nellie Tayloe Ross and the Woman Politician’s Dilemma.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 15, no. 3 (1995): 87–106. https://doi.org/10.2307/3346786.

grlynn

Grlynn is a Ramapo College senior majoring in history

The Radium Girls, a group of girls who sued the United States Radium Corporation 1928, were a prime example of the struggles and shortcomings of the “New Woman” of the 1920s. The new woman, as opposed to the 19th century woman, as seen in the picture of Louise Brooks on the right, was a woman who worked outside of the house, typically only until she had a husband, at which point she would be expected to give up her job. While new women could be any race, and typically were lower or middle class, the most widely depicted new women were middle class white women, who worked in “feminized” jobs, like dial painting, education, secretary work, or retail.   

The Radium Girls specifically were employed in a factory-esque setting in which they were paid by the number of dials that they produced and painted per hour. They were encouraged by the radium company to lick the paintbrush periodically so that the dials they were painting had finer lines and they could produce dials faster. As opposed to other women at the time, whose work was “largely devalued and poorly paid” ¹ working in Radium was a highly coveted job because it was a “well-paid skilled labor” for women in the 1920s.² In this case, the Radium Girl differs from the “New Woman” that characterized the 1920s because their work was paid at a higher rate than other feminized jobs. 

While the new woman struggled to find work, and worked for poor pay in monotonous or harsh conditions, even after obtaining a degree, the Radium Girls were at first highly respected due to the advertisement and consumption of Radium in the 1920s. As Radium grew into an important part of the consumer culture of the 1920s, it was a desirable job to work with the new glowing substance. As seen in the advertisement to the right, Radium was originally advertised as a panacea for any beauty or health issue: health tonics, tooth paste, hair creams and many more items fell victim to the radium craze. Radium was even used as a wide scale treatment in hospitals, and was mixed with water and given as a cure-all to a variety of different patients as a cure for any illness.³ Radium girls would even use the radium to paint their nails or other parts of their body in order to create a glow in the dark look. These women were not informed of the negative effects of Radium, even though many officials in the company already knew about the effects by the time that Radium was being widely consumed. But due to US Radium Company’s greed and want for success in the growing consumerism market, specifically dominated by the “new women” who now had “pin money” from their jobs, they continued to push the poisonous radium on the public. Consumerism was another growing issue from the 1920s discussed in The Modern Temper, specifically as women had more money to spend, they wanted to follow the trends of higher-status women, thus leading to a growing market that focused more on advertising to a larger audience. 

In the end, despite the appearance of a “better work” and “better life” for the Radium Girls, they ended up suffering just as much as the minority women who worked in factory jobs and “encountered harsh conditions and discrimination” for low pay.⁴ These women were continuously ingesting Radium in small doses, and over the years, ended up dying tragic and often gruesome deaths due to radium poisoning. The suffering of the Radium Girls fits into the larger trend of the early 20th century of the fight for equal rights and the struggle for worker’s protections in a growing industrialized market. After the Radium Girls’ trial, they all received a settlement from US Radium Company, which did not last them for long, as they all died within a few years of the trial. But, their trial had a lasting effect on the workers rights movement, and increased the demand for workers comp pay, women’s rights in the workplace, and enforced the judicial decision that employers could be held responsible for employee’s health and safety. 

Overall, the Radium Girls were a “New Woman” of the 1920s. They worked outside of the home, in a feminized field, and received a ‘woman’s pay.’ They spent the majority of the money they earned in the budding consumerist market, and they even used the radium to decorate their bodies in order to appear more good looking or intriguing. At the end of the day, working as a radium girl gave the girls “an individual public existence, a public identity of her own, and a sense of her own worth.”⁵ Even though they all died from their exposure and ingestion of radium, they became a household name—especially in New Jersey—and a spearhead for worker’s rights. The radium girls connect to so many different branches of the 1920s, like consumer culture, women’s rights, and worker health and safety regulations, which shows just how much of a ‘public existence’ they really gained from their work.

1. Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. United States: Hill and Wang, 2024, 122.  ︎
2. Balkansky, Arlene. “Radium Girls: Living Dead Women: Headlines & Heroes.” The Library of Congress, March 19, 2019. Accessed February 18, 2025. https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2019/03/radium-girls-living-dead-women/. 
   ︎
3. Elgert, Patrick. “Radium: A Medical Treatment of the Early 20th Century.” Historical Medical Library. Accessed February 18, 2025. https://histmed.collegeofphysicians.org/for-students/radium/. ︎
4. Dumenil, 117. ︎
5. Dumenil, 126. ︎

hannahsteinlauf

Hannah Steinlauf is a senior history major with a minor in museum and exhibition studies at Ramapo College. She is a student research aide for the Jane Addams Papers Project. She is a member of the Ramapo College Dance Company and Tri Sigma. Hannah is going to attend Trinity College Dublin for a masters degree in Public History after graduation.

Discovery of Radium

Radium, the 88th element on the periodic table, was discovered by Marie and Paul Curie in 1898. The couple noticed that their samples glowed blue in dark or limited light, due to the element’s radioactivity, which sparked a broader interest in the element. From the start of the discovery of radium, there was an interest in the luminescence of the chemical, but there was also a concern over the health and safety of people interacting with the element on a daily basis. Strict limits were almost immediately put in place for scientists and doctors who interacted with radioactive substances on a daily basis, but the same protections were not put in place for factory workers such as the radium girls. Marie Curie herself said that she was “surprised that the U.S. Government would permit the handling of such dangerous substances as radium in such a careless manner.” ¹ She even claimed that the ingesting of radium in the way that dial painters did was “criminal.”

Despite Marie and many other health professionals’ knowledge of the dangers of repeated exposure to radium, it was very quickly advertised to the public as “a wondrous and powerful element: a cure for cancer, and a source of beauty and vitality.”² Radium was advertised for any issue beauty or health related. Starting in the 1920s, working with radium was seen as a respectable, covetable job by many women looking to work outside the home, even though the dangers were already known to many scientists. 

United States Radium Corporation

The establishment of the United States Radium Corporation (USRC) factory in Orange, New Jersey in 1917 increased daily interaction with radium, specifically in groups of young girls aged 15-30. At the factory, girls were employed and paid approximately a penny and a half per watch dial that they completed. In an effort to make dials quicker and earn a higher daily wage, girls were instructed to do the “lip, dip, paint” technique to make the paint brushes have a finer tip, which in turn would make the lines on the watch dial more precise. By doing this, they could produce more watches per day. But, this also meant that they were ingesting more radium on a daily basis, as they pointed the tips of the paintbrushes in between their lips between every few dials they made.

During the height of World War I, the factory reached its peak production as watches were sent overseas to help men see the time in darkness. Over 300 girls were employed and painting watch dials during that time, and by 1924, approximately 50 had died and their deaths were attributed to radium-related ailments. While USRC did not take responsibility for the deaths yet, women who had been healthy five years prior contracted extreme diseases, like radium necrosis, also known as “radium jaw,” (as seen in the picture on the right) loose teeth, mouth ulcers, severe anemia, bone shrinkage and fractures. One of the sisters of the five girls who went on trial, Molly Maggia, died in 1922, and her death was attributed to syphilis, like many of the other radium girls dying in the early 20s. Dr. Martland, a New Jersey investigative surgeon, later attributed her death to radium poisoning, as he was studying the deaths of other radium girls.

Many of the girls who died in the early years before the trial had their reputations tarnished with accusations of syphilis, and they did not receive proper respect or diagnoses until years after they died. Similar to this is the case of Miss Eckert, a radium girl whose death was attributed to “shock from operation” and later re-diagnosed as radium poisoning. As the radium girl’s trial began, an autopsy was performed, which “showed that she was so full of radium that her bones fairly glistened in the dark.”³ Before the official start of the trial, and even as the girls were awaiting their decisions from the jury as the USRC continued to ask for a continuance, they continued to get sicker. In a sad interview with the Courier-Post, Quinta Maggia McDonald, sister of the now deceased Mollie Maggia, laments: “No, I no longer have any hope. I face the inevitable unflinchingly. What else can I do? I don’t know when I will die.” ⁴The map below details just a few key points in the history of Radium, from its discovery, to the deaths of many girls involved in the trial.

Five Girls and Their Fight for Justice

In January 1928, Grace Fryer, Edna Hussman, Katherine Schaub, Quinta Maggia Mcdonald and Albina Maggia Larice began their lawsuit against the USRC. Grace, the leader of the five girls suing USRC, tried to find a lawyer for many years before the trial officially began, as she noticed the frequent and irregular deaths of her friends and coworkers. She wanted to sue for compensation of medical bills, business malpractice and misinformation for the hazards of radium that they were ingesting daily. But, because of the strength and influence of the USRC, it took Grace over 2 years to find a lawyer willing to represent the girls. By the time that they found Raymond Berry, an attorney willing to take on the case, two of the girls were bedridden, and none of them could even raise their hands to take an oath. All of the girls already knew they were dying, like Edna Hussman admits in her interview with the Evening Courier, and they just wanted to win “because with the money us girls could have some of the comforts and joys of life before we go” rather than struggling to pay their increasing hospital bills.⁵ So the trial was less about getting the girls justice – they already knew they were doomed – and more about holding the USRC financially responsible for them, and potentially for future illnesses as well.

One of the biggest struggles of the radium girls trial was obviously ensuring that the USRC admitted their knowledge of the dangers of radium, and took responsibility for the death and illnesses of dial painters. One of the other more practical struggles of the trial was ensuring the girls could even attend. As they were all sick and dying, they needed many doctors appointments which took precedence during their days. Additionally, the USRC kept asking for a continuance, and trying to force the trial back, in hopes that the girls would just die, and the trial would die down. While many people argued that a trial or settlement needed to occur quickly before the girl’s deaths, the date kept being pushed back. Finally, evidence was pulled from a  judgement of medical statistics by Dr. Frederick Hoffman done in 1925 showed that out of the 12 dying dial painters studied, 10 of them had necrotic lesions on the jaw bones directly connected to radium intake.⁶ USRC, unable to deny the obvious radiation poisoning of the girls who ingested radium, offered a settlement. The girls decided not to proceed with the trial, and to take the money.  

The USRC offered the girls each $10,000 as well as $600 per year, for the rest of their lives, however short those were. They also agreed to pay the full medical and dental bills of the girls, which laid the precedent for the case of the Radium Girls from the Ottawa, Illinois plant in 1937. Even though the girls won their case, they were not the winners in the end, as they died before they, often poor, severely sick, and just ‘awaiting the inevitable.’ Many people saw these girls’ deaths as a repercussion for them working outside of the home. An Evening Courier article says that the girls’ struggle for representation and for payout from the trial was “just one more little illustration of some of the cons of this “career outside of the home” business.” ⁷ Even on their deathbeds, the girls were being criticized for working outside of the home, and this article makes it seem as if they had just stayed home, they would never have gotten radium poisoning in the first place. This trial brought to light just a few of the misogynistic ideals girls faced in the 1920s, whether it was their struggle to find a job in the first place, their struggle to find a lawyer, or the criticism that if they had not taken this job, they would not be dying of radium poisoning in the first place.

Significance — The 1920’s and Beyond

New Women in the 1920’s

The Radium Girls connection to other radium based deaths like those in Ottawa were not the only important aspect of their case. They also related to many broader cultural themes of the 1920s, like the New Woman. The New Woman was an idealized woman in the 1920s who worked outside of the house, typically only until she had a husband, at which point she would be expected to give up her job. The most widely depicted new women were middle class white women, who worked in “feminized” jobs, like dial painting, education, secretary work, or retail. The Radium Girls, with their non-unionized work, “feminized” pay, and gendered job opportunity are a prime example of the New Woman that became so popular in the 1920s.

As Radium grew into an important part of the consumer culture of the 1920s, it was a desirable job for women to work with the new glowing substance. As seen in the advertisement on the right, Radium was originally advertised as a panacea for any beauty or health issue: health tonics, tooth paste, hair creams and many more items fell victim to the radium craze. Radium girls would frequently use the radium to paint their nails or other parts of their body in order to create a glow in the dark look. These women were not informed of the negative effects of Radium, even though many officials in the company already knew about the effects by the time that Radium was being widely consumed. But due to US Radium Company’s greed and want for success in the growing consumerism market, specifically dominated by the “new women” who now had “pin money” from their jobs, they continued to push the poisonous radium on the public.

Consumerism was another growing issue from the 1920s specifically as women had more money to spend, they wanted to follow the trends of higher-status women, thus leading to a growing consumerist market that focused more on advertising to a larger audience of women. While the New Woman was dominated by middle and upper class women who had the freedom to do what she wanted, lower class women aspired to be like them and follow the trends they laid out. So, when women like the one in the advertisement said that they used radium for their hair or nails, lower class women purchase more radium based beauty products in order to follow the culture outlined by other women.

In the end, despite the appearance of a “better work” and “better life” for the Radium Girls, they ended up suffering just as much as the minority women who worked in brutal factory jobs and “encountered harsh conditions and discrimination” for low pay.⁸ These women were continuously ingesting Radium in small doses, and over the years, ended up dying tragic and often gruesome deaths due to radium poisoning. Despite their tragic deaths, the Radium Girls, like other New Women, had a lasting effect on consumer culture in the 1920s, and on women’s rights in general. 

Overall, the Radium Girls were a real life example of the 1920s idea of a “New Woman.” They worked outside of the home, in a feminized field, and received a ‘woman’s pay.’ They spent the majority of the money they earned in the budding consumerist market, and they even used the radium to decorate their bodies in order to appear more good looking or intriguing. At the end of the day, working as a radium girl gave the girls “an individual public existence, a public identity of her own, and a sense of her own worth.”⁹ Even though they all died from their exposure and ingestion of radium, they became a household name—especially in New Jersey. 

Worker’s Protections

The radium girls connect to so many different lasting themes of the 1920s, like consumer culture and women’s rights, but also worker’s health and safety regulations. Although the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was not made for another 50 years after the Radium Girls trial, they did have an effect on women workers rights. Women were typically not protected by the workers rights unions of the times, as unions did not extend membership to women workers in factories. For women who did not work in factories, typical women’s jobs, such as dial painting, secretarial work, or teachers, were not yet unionized. 

For instance, there were many safeguards for medical professionals working with radiation as early as 1903, long before the US Radium Corporation built their New Jersey factory.¹⁰ While there had been minor cases of radiation burns or poisoning in the early 20th century, more serious examples of burns from exposure to X-rays and radiation in doctors were found, reported, and handled by 1911.¹¹ In response to this health risk to medical professionals, there were increased health and safety regulations for physicians and medical professionals. In order to protect the professionals from the harmful effects of radiation, medical professionals had a strict limited exposure to X-rays and protection via medical shielding when handling radioactive substances. These medical professionals, after a few deaths in the early 20th century, were now effectively protected in order to limit future radiation-based illnesses.

While the harmful effects of radium were known and protected in doctors, women working in dial painting did not have the same protections while they worked with radium. For example, after the Radium Girls court case, “the New Jersey workers’ compensation laws were changed slightly, but not enough to help those who developed cancer and became disabled many years after their exposure.”¹² While there were many issues brought up after their death, like this article written by the The Courier News which charges US Radium with murder of the girls, very few actual changes were made in the direct years after the trial.¹³  It was only after the deaths of many girls that doctors like Dr. Martland or Dr. Hoffman attributed their deaths to radium. The protections laid out for women working in radium were often bare bones, and usually did not financially support the women in the years after their employment for the illnesses they contracted.  

It was not until the 1950s, when working on the Manhattan Project, that the radium girls got their justice and finally created protections for people working with radium. Through a study of the dead and alive radium girls during the 1950s, doctors established “the level of radioactivity associated with cancer and other changes in the skeleton and soft tissues.¹⁴ When realizing that the girls still had radioactive substances present in their bodies as long as ten, twenty, or thirty years after their death, the girls played a key part in establishing “maximum permissible standards for all workers exposed to radiation.”¹⁵ People argued, in some cases thirty years after the girls had died, that their increased exposure and consumption to radium was not only inhumane, but was also the cause for their extreme diseases and sicknesses. So, even though the radium girls did not get the justice they deserved in their lifetime, the study of their bodies and their illnesses in the 1950s established the expectations for radiation exposure.

Conclusion

Overall, the story of the radium girls is a tragic tale of a group of women who, in a struggle for freedom, self-sufficiency, and success in the 1920s, ended up dying gruesome deaths. These women left their home in an effort to make money in a recently “womanized” field painting watch dials. These watch dials were often painted with radium, in order to make them glow in the dark, so they could be more useful to men off at war in the dark or at night. Dial painters were instructed to “lip, dip, paint” for a finer line on the watches they painted, even though the negative health effects of radium were already known. The girls struggled to get legal representation or medical protections when they realized the harmful effects of radium on their bodies, and many of them died with their names tainted by accusations of syphilis.

The effects of the radium girls trial connect to broader trends of the 1920s, and beyond. While they related to the “new woman,” they also showcased how the lives of these working women often weren’t as free or as glamorous as the idealized perception of them was. They worked in poor conditions, for an unequal pay to male counterparts, and in the case of the radium girls, they died with their reputations tainted and in gruesome or painful ways. The consumption and advertisement of radium despite the known negative effects of the substance shows the poor morals of maybe people who just wanted to profit off of the easily consumable glowing substance. Finally, even though it was years after their trial occurred, the radium girls’ suffering helped regulate radiation exposure and bring awareness to women’s rights in the workplace. The radium girls, even though they struggled significantly during their lives, are remembered and given the attention they deserve in their death as they are credited with bringing to the public eye the harmful effects of radium.

Suggested Further Reading

Coursey, Bert M. “The National Bureau of Standards and the Radium Dial Painters.” Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, 14 Feb. 2022, nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/126/jres.126.051.pdf. 

Warren, Christian. “Toxic Purity: The Progressive Era Origins of America’s Lead Paint Poisoning Epidemic.” The Business History Review 73, no. 4 (1999): 705–36. https://doi.org/10.2307/3116131.

Bibliography

“Amelia Malia ‘Mollie’ Maggia (1896-1922).” Find a Grave, www.findagrave.com/memorial/99916653/amelia_malia-maggia. Accessed 12 Mar. 2025. 

Balkansky, Arlene. “Radium Girls: Living Dead Women: Headlines & Heroes.” The Library of Congress, March 19, 2019. Accessed February 18, 2025. https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2019/03/radium-girls-living-dead-women/. 

Cowen, Ron. “New Jersey’s ‘Radium Girls’ and the NIST-Trained Scientist Who Came to Their Aid.” NIST, Ron Cowen, 24 Jan. 2025, www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/new-jerseys-radium-girls-and-nist-trained-scientist-who-came-their-aid. 

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. United States: Hill and Wang, 2024. 

Elgert, Patrick. “Radium: A Medical Treatment of the Early 20th Century.” Historical Medical Library. Accessed February 18, 2025. https://histmed.collegeofphysicians.org/for-students/radium/. 

Fry, Shirley A. “Studies of U.S. Radium Dial Workers: An Epidemiological Classic.” Radiation Research 150, no. 5 (1998), S23. https://doi.org/10.2307/3579805.

“Government Moves To Protect Women in Radium Work” The Courier News, (Bridgewater, NJ), December 24, 1928, p. 15.

Hunt, Vilma R. “A Brief History of Women Workers and Hazards in the Workplace.” Feminist Studies 5, no. 2 (1979). https://doi.org/10.2307/3177594.

Moore, Kate. The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women. Naperville, ILL: Sourcebooks, Inc, 2016.

“Once Beautiful Blonde Aged By Radium Poison: Edna Hussman, DOOMED” Evening Courier, (Camden, NJ), May 23, 1928.

“Radium Victim’s Bones Glistened Says Physician” The Bayonne Times, (Bayonne, NJ), May 25, 1928, p. 2. 

“Radium Victim Tells How She Awaits Doom” Courier-Post, (Camden, NJ), May 22, 1928, p. 2. 

“Try ‘n Get It” Evening Courier, (Camden, NJ), May 3, 1928, p. 8. 

1. Vilma R. Hunt. “A Brief History of Women Workers and Hazards in the Workplace.” Feminist Studies 5, no. 2 (1979), 281. ︎
2. Arlene Balkansky. “Radium Girls: Living Dead Women: Headlines & Heroes.” The Library of Congress, March 19, 2019. Accessed February 18, 2025.
   
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3. “Radium Victim’s Bones Glistened Says Physician” The Bayonne Times, (Bayonne, NJ), May  25, 1928, p. 2.
   
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4. “Radium Victim Tells How She Awaits Doom” Courier-Post, (Camden, NJ), May 22, 1928, p. 2. 
   
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5. “Once Beautiful Blonde Aged By Radium Poison: Edna Hussman, DOOMED” Evening Courier, (Camden, NJ), May 23, 1928.
   
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6. Shirley A. Fry “Studies of U.S. Radium Dial Workers: An Epidemiological Classic.” Radiation Research 150, no. 5 (1998), S23.
   
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7. “Try ‘n Get It” Evening Courier, (Camden, NJ), May 3, 1928, p. 8. 
   
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8. Lynn Dumenil. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. United States: Hill and Wang, 2024, 117. 
   
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9. Dumenil, 126. ︎
10. Hunt, 280. ︎
11. Hunt, 280. ︎
12. Hunt, 281. ︎
13. “Government Moves To Protect Women in Radium Work” The Courier News, (Bridgewater, NJ), December 24, 1928, p. 15.
    
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14. Hunt, 282. ︎
15. Hunt, 282. ︎

hannahsteinlauf

Hannah Steinlauf is a senior history major with a minor in museum and exhibition studies at Ramapo College. She is a student research aide for the Jane Addams Papers Project. She is a member of the Ramapo College Dance Company and Tri Sigma. Hannah is going to attend Trinity College Dublin for a masters degree in Public History after graduation.

Overview:

Nobody knew it at the time but, nine days in 1926 would change the course of UK Labor History forever. These nine days in 1926 were anything but normal for the people and the government of the UK. During these nine days in 1926 from May 4 to May 12 all workers who were a part of the Trades Union which included almost every worker in the UK, walked off their jobs and the country was forced to a standstill. This monumental event did not occur in a vacuum though. The 1920s in general was not just a time where people partied their hearts and dressed frivolously. As the world emerged from the aftermath of World War I, the 1920s saw a surge of industrial activism and heightened class tensions, where the forces of big business and government clashed with the forces of unions and labor activists. All of these battles throughout the 20s culminated in the 1926 UK General Strike where labor would make its last stand. This blog will summarize the events leading up to the strike, the strike, and its aftermath and put into context with the rest of the events of the 1920s. 

Lead up to the Strike: 

As with many of the problems that occurred during the 1920s the problems that led up to the General Strike started with the end of World War I. After the end of WWI Britain, like many other European countries, suffered an economic decline. British exports were falling and the economy was feeling. One of the industries hit especially hard during the 1920s economic downturn was coal since exports were down due to effectively free coal from Germany going to France and Italy. To offset the lost profits from the decrease in exports  in 1921 the Coal Barons decided to do the easiest cost cutting action a company could do, cut workers wages. In response the miners went on strike, but the Coal Barons still forced them into accepting the lower wages.¹

The 1921 coal miners strike wouldn’t be the only Union loss in 1920 that eventually led up to the frustration Union had with the government by 1926. It was all part of the larger theme of the 20s of decreasing union power. Companies in the 1920s were extra vigilant of unions and unionization and had governments on their side helping them along the way to curb their power through the law. Some companies would even use force to stop workers from striking.² By April 1925 when Churchill decided to put Britain back on the Gold standard and start the events immediately leading up to the strike there had been many failed strikes by many different labor organizations. This made British exports more expensive and forced companies to decrease their prices to remain competitive on the global market. This hit the already low export coal industry especially hard and on June 30th the Coal Barons decided the best way to compensate for this was to enact wage cuts effective as of August 1st. The miners refused to accept this and threatened to strike again.³ 

The miners realized that last time they failed on their own so this time they enlist the help of the Trade Union Congress, the umbrella organization which all Unions in the UK fall under. They agreed on the 30th of July to put an embargo on movement of coal in the event of a strike. The government freaks out and agrees to give the miners a 9 month subsidy while they figure things out with the Coal Barons.⁴ The government was unprepared for such a collaboration and knew that it would only make current economic woes worse if such a strike were to happen. This 9 month period not only allowed the government to come up with a new proposal for the miners, but it also gave them time to stockpile in case the miners don’t like the new proposal. 8 months pass by and the government finally comes up with a new plan in March but neither side agrees to accept it. The Barons thought the plan included too little wage cuts and the miners didn’t want any cuts.⁵ There was no time for the government to come up with a new plan that both sides would like. There was no doubt anymore that the miners were going on strike. The miners wouldn’t be alone though and the events that would unfold over the next year would shape UK labor history for decades to come. 

What Happened?:

On May 3, 1926 the UK Trades Union Congress decided that an embargo wouldn’t be enough to force the government and the barons’ hands. They went with the nuclear option and decided to call a General Strike.  Over two and a half million workers across almost all sectors of the UK economy would walk off their jobs in show of solidarity with the miners and unified resistance against oppressive labor practices. The strike, which lasted from May 3rd to May 12th, would paralyze key industries, including coal mining, transportation, printing, and shipping, bringing the nation to a standstill.⁶ This meant no trams, trains, buses or ships. This also meant food and supplies wouldn’t be able to be delivered across the UK. The Trade Unions hoped that the threat of the UK economy crashing down due to a General Strike would force the government and the coal barons to offer a more fair deal which didn’t cut coal miners wages and worsen their working conditions. 

The government led by Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was keen on finding ways for Britain to hold on while the strike was going on. The part of this plan started on the night of May 2nd when the government called for volunteers to help run essential services while the strike was happening. The government was able to secure over 400,00 volunteers to help keep the country running. The government also got directly involved in the distribution of supplies by doing things like taking over the entire milk supply of London, putting the Board of Trade directly in charge of all food distribution, and disturbing food and supplies with armed convoys.⁷ Although the General Strike was a big hit to the UK economy the government successfully found ways to go around the strike and avoid the worst effects. This is partially why as the strike went on the government’s negotiating position got better while the Trade Union’s position worsened, the opposite effect of a strike. 

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Reactions to the Strike: 

Leading up to the strike and during the strike there was a newspaper war between the Trade Unions and the Cooperations. By the 1920s the era of small local mom and pop newspapers was over, it was now the era of media empires and syndication. Newspapers were becoming full of ads and syndicated stories.⁸ During the strike though the Newspapers themselves became vehicles of advertisement for each side of the strike and not just for companies. Each side had an entire media empire on its side. There were newspapers like the British Gazette and The British Worker which were owned by the UK Government and the Trade Unions Congress respectively. Then there was the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror which were owned by a giant newspaper corporation that went up against pro-labor newspapers like The Daily Herald.  

Newspapers on both sides reported the events so differently one might think that they’re reporting on two different events. For example, on the third day of the strike, May 6, 1926, The Daily Mail reported on a story about how 5,000 strikers rushed police officers and caused a lot of disorder.⁹ While on that same day The British Worker reports on a story about how strikers were swarmed by police outside of the new Daily Mail building.¹⁰ Both these events happened yet they frame the strike in two very different ways. One frames them as an out of control mob and the other frames them as an organized peaceful movement that the government is using violent means to suppress. At the end of the day though the government and the corporations had much more established newspapers and were able to win over the public through the use of fear mongering like the Daily Mail did. The radio too became a popular medium for news in the 1920s and the British Broadcasting Company controlled by the government dominated the space and used to decry the workers actions. 

Communism, The Red Scare, and the General Strike: 

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The Outcome of the General Strike:

Ultimately, the UK General Strike of 1926 ended without achieving its immediate objectives. The government outplayed the Trades Union Congress forcing them to call off the strike after only nine days, conceding to the government’s demands for a return to work without a resolution to the miners’ grievances. The UK General Strike would end up in the long list of labor failures and big business victories of the 1920s. 

Already at the beginning of the strike things were looking the best for the Trades Union when hundreds of thousands of volunteers showed up to keep the economy running and the government fully utilized its media empire to continually bash the strikers. The death blow to the strike was dealt on May 11th when a judge ruled that only the miners strike was legal while the General sympathy strike was illegal. This ruling meant that strikers could potentially be arrested and that the Trades Union could no longer pay its members who were striking instead of working. That same day the Trades Union Congress voted to end the strike.¹³ If TUC couldn’t pay its members and its members weren’t legally allowed then there was nothing they could do. Continuing the strike past this point would pit its members against each other and worsen their public appearance. If the TUC continued on it would basically amount to Revolution and not many were willing to go that far. 

9 days of striking had achieved absolutely nothing for labor. Everyone would have to go back to work without any improvements and a weaker collective bargaining position. Even the miners had to go back to work and accept the wage cuts after fighting on alone for another seven months.¹⁴ The strike did, though , end up costing the government 433,000 pounds (around 40 million of 2024 dollars), the country 30 million pounds (around 288 million of 2024 dollars), and as a bonus 400 thousand more people were unemployed after the strike.¹⁵ Now it’s hard to say whether that last statistic is directly because of the strike, but at the end of the day more people were unemployed after the strike than before it. The strike did successfully force the government to spend money on its people like it should in an economic crisis. It’s just that they spent it fighting them instead of helping them. 

Aftermath and Legacy of the Strike: 

In the aftermath of the strike, the government was not very forgiving to  the striking workers. To show this and prevent another General Strike from happening again Parliament approved The Trade Disputes and Trade Union Act of 1927, imposing severe restrictions on unions. The bill made intimidation against picketing legal, put restrictions on union funding for the Labor Party, restricted Civil Service Unions, and most importantly it effectively made any sort of general strike officially illegal.¹⁶ Not only did the government want to make sure May 1926 never happened again in UK history, but they wanted to punish the unions for what they did. All the Trade Union Congress and its member workers could do was watch as the institutions they fought so hard to build crumbled before their eyes in only a year.¹⁷

The failure of the General Strike dealt a blow to the morale of the labor movement, exposing the limitations of collective action in the face of big business and conservative governments. After the strike, the Trades Union lost half a million members and 4 million pounds  in funds in a year. The TUC had felt first the effects of increased corporate power on labor and realized they were no longer a match for them. The 1926 General Strike had been the last great fire to burn in a sea of labor flames that were all but extinguished by 1926. But just as soon as that flame ignited it was extinguished like the rest of the flames. It would another couple decades before that flame could reignite once again in a different group of miners. The 1920s weren’t meant to be the decades of the Union and the Worker. That decade had passed with the Progressive Era. The 1920s was instead the decade of big business and exploitation and the defeat of the General Strike had cemented that. It would take decades for labor to recover from the consequences of the General Strike. 

Timeline of the Events Leading Up to, During, and After the Strike

Significance :

The 1926 UK General Strike shines a light on the things that were going on behind the scenes in the 20s. While in America there was no general strike on the scale of the 1926 one in the UK, labor was still being crushed by big businesses and the government. The people who benefited from the 1920s are focused on too much when studying the 1920s. Kids grow up thinking the 20s was a time full of glitz and glamor when it was anything but that. The 20s was really more of Gilded Age 2.0 than a Golden Age. Everything looks fine on the surface but once you go deeper you realize everything is wrong and we’re just ignoring all those problems. The British ignored the problem of the coal miners for 5 years and even though they didn’t have to capitulate to them it still cost the government and the economy millions of dollars. To add on top of the ignoring of American problems there is an even greater ignorance of American then and now of problems going on in Europe at the time. Europe is going through enormous economic hardship and war throughout the 20s while the United States decided to sit and do nothing. FDR was right that when your neighbor’s house is burning down you can’t sit there and do nothing, you have to help and the United States failed to do that. The United States failed to help its struggling citizens and failed to help a struggling world when it’s unique post-war position allowed it to do both.

1.  Jame E. Cronin, Industrial Conflict in Modern Britain, (London, UK, Croom Helm Ltd, 1979), 52 & 127. 
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2.   Lynn, Dumenil, Modern Temper, (New York: Hill and Wan, 1995),66-67
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3.   Melvin C, Shefftz “The Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act of 1927: The Aftermath of the General Strike.” The Review of Politics 29, no. 3 (1967): http://www.jstor.org/stable/1405763.
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4.  James Klugman, “Marxism, Reformism, and the General Strike” in The General Strike 1926, ed. Jeffery Skelley, (London, UK: Lawrence and Wishart, 1976), 59-60. 
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5. Shefftz, “Trade Disputes”,http://www.jstor.org/stable/1405763. ︎
6. Shefftz, “Trade Disputes”, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1405763. ︎
7.  D. H. Robertson. “A Narrative of the General Strike of 1926.” The Economic Journal 36, no. 143 (1926): 375–93. https://doi.org/10.2307/2959789. ︎
8. Dumenil, Modern Temper, 72-73. ︎
9.  “5,000 Strikers Rush Police Defence With Truncheons” , Daily Mail (London, UK), 6 May, 1926, https://cdm21047.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/strike/id/81/rec/2
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10.  “A Sudden Police Raid”, The British Worker, (London, UK), 6 May, 1926, https://cdm21047.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/strike/id/9/rec/3
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11. Dumenil, Modern Temper, 63 ︎
12. John Foster, “Imperialism and The Labor Aristocracy”, in The General Strike 1926, ed. Jeffery Skelley, (London, UK, Lawrence and Wishart, 1976), 40.
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13. Robertson. “A Narrative”, https://doi.org/10.2307/2959789. ︎
14. Shefftz, “Trade Disputes”, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1405763, 381 ︎
15. Robertson. “A Narrative”, https://doi.org/10.2307/2959789. ︎
16. Shefftz, “Trade Disputes”, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1405763 ︎
17. Robertson. “A Narrative”, https://doi.org/10.2307/2959789. ︎

Bibliography

“5,000 Strikers Rush Police Defence With Truncheons”. Daily Mail. London, UK: 6 May, 1926, https://cdm21047.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/strike/id/81/rec/2.

“A Sudden Police Raid”. The British Worker, London, UK: 6 May, 1926. https://cdm21047.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/strike/id/9/rec/3.

 Cronin, James, E., Industrial Conflict in Modern Britain, London, UK: Croom Helm Ltd, 1979. 

Dumenil,Lynn. Modern Temper, Lynn. New York: Hill and Wan. 1995.

Foster, John,“Imperialism and The Labor Aristocracy”, In The General Strike 1926, edited by Jeffery Skelley, London, UK: Lawrence and Wishart. 1976.

 Klugman, James “Marxism, Reformism, and the General Strike” In The General Strike 1926, edited by Jeffery Skelley. London, UK: Lawrence and Wishart. 1976.

Robertson, D.H. “A Narrative of the General Strike of 1926.” The Economic Journal 36, no. 143. 1926: https://doi.org/10.2307/2959789. 375-93.

 Melvin C, Shefftz “The Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act of 1927: The Aftermath of the General Strike.” The Review of Politics 29, no. 3. 1967: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1405763. 387-406

More Resources

https://cdm21047.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/strike

https://libcom.org/article/1926-british-general-strike

Jane Addams (1860-1935) was a well-known social reformer, suffragist and the founder of the Hull-House settlement. During World War I, Addams became one of the United States’ best-known pacifists. She founded the Woman’s Peace Party in 1914 and the International Committee of Women for a Permanent Peace at the International Congress of Women in 1915, which became the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in 1919. Addams never wavered from her commitment to peace, even after the United States entered World War I. After the war, Addams and other pacifists sought to have women’s voices heard in the creation of a new international society. But neither the Paris Peace Conference or the ensuing League of Nations viewed the problems facing society the same way. In America, the Senate rejected the Paris Peace Treaty on November 19, 1919, and opposed American entry into the League of Nations. Many Americans opposed further foreign entanglements. Addams saw danger in the widespread poverty in Europe after the war and spoke widely on how a different view of internationalism could improve conditions in the world. This article was published by the New Republic on November 24, 1920 and also delivered as a speech before the Labor Forum in Detroit on November 28, 1920.

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Document Text

In Bertrand Russell’s¹ recent report of his experiences in Russia, he said: “Contact with those who had no doubts, had intensified a thousandfold my own doubts not only of communism, but of any creed so firmly held that for its sake men are willing to inflict wide-spread misery.”²

The statement recalls a similar one put into the mouth of Danton by Romain Rolland in his play of that name: “There is no danger in any state as great as that of men with principles. They don’t try to do good but to be in the right; no suffering troubles them. Their only morality, their only political ideal, is to impress their ideas upon others.”³

Have the advocates of the League of Nations fallen into the state of mind thus described? Does the common man distrust the League because it is slow to relieve the wide-spread misery in Europe;⁴ because it so cautiously refuses to become the tentative instrument of a longed for new era; because it threatens to become one more of those abortive efforts “to end war” which fails because they have nothing tangible and human upon which to focus scattered moral energies and no popular drive with which to make effective moral ideas upon a more extended scale than that to which the time has become accustomed?

As the revolutionists have learned from the war the ready use of arms in pressing their claims, is it not possible that the united governments from their war experience in the increased production and distribution of foods, may have learned what the great underlying demand of the oppressed actually is, and also to use the training of war to meet it reasonably and quickly?

If this demand could be recognized and acknowledged as in a great measure valid, what a much needed change in the world’s affairs might take place, not as it now threatens to occur under the leadership of men drive desperate by hunger, but with the help of men who are trained in the daily processes of world wide commerce; men working wholeheartedly to meet adequately and scientifically a world obligation but newly formulated on an international scale, although long recognized in piecemeal fashion. The great danger ahead of the League of Nations is implicit in the fact that its first work involves the guaranteeing of a purely political peace and a dependence upon the old political motives. ⁵ Whereas if from the very first it could perform an act of faith, if it evinced the daring to meet new demands which could be met in no other way, then and then only would it become the necessary instrumentality to carry on the enlarged life of the world and gradually be recognized as indispensable.

Since the cessation of war, there is all over the world a sense of loss in motive power, the consciousness that there is no driving force equal to that furnished by the heroism and self-sacrifice demanded in war-time. Yet the great purposes of the League of Nations could be made sufficiently appealing to absorb these to the full. What could afford a more primitive, genuine and abiding motive than feeding the people of the earth on an international scale? It would utilize all the courage and self-sacrifice  evolved by warfare and turn it into immediate efficiency all that international cooperation which performed such miracles of production in the prosecution of the war. Both are ready to its hand. The British Labor party⁶ has pointed out the beginning of international order as follows: “During the period of the war we had great international bodies for the control and distribution of shipping, credit, and raw material in accordance not with capacity to pay, but with vital need. Only so could the common enemy be met. There was in these arrangements the beginnings of an organized economic government of the world, a real international society, subjecting to a common control those things essential to the common life. Here was a world-government actually in being.”

If the League of Nations had maintained the system, remedied its defects, enlarged its functions, and democratized its administration, the de facto beginnings of an organized economic government of the world would have been constituted. The eighteenth century phrases in which diplomatic intercourse has been so long conducted would have dropped away as not fitted to discuss the need of an internationally guaranteed loan, the functions of an Economic Council for the control of food stuffs and raw material, the fuel shortage, credits granted to enemy and liberated countries alike for reconstruction purposes, the effect of malnutrition on powers of production, the irreparable results of “hunger oedema.”⁷ Some brave spirit might even point out that it is useless to hold an International Labor Congress in order to raise the standard of life and wages throughout the world, if famine continues steadily to depress that standard throughout the great manufacturing regions of Europe. Out of his wide experience in feeding devastated Europe, Mr. Hoover once, perhaps hastily, said: “There are certain foundations of industry in Europe that, no matter what the national or personal ownership or control may be, yet partake of the nature of public utilities in which other nations have a moral right.”⁸ Certainly such a situation presents material for a statesmanship which is genuine and straightforward, and contains a tremendous appeal to the common man.

If this policy of feeding the hungry were once adopted, the League might at last feel the zeal, the tingle and excitement of reality and through the sheet processes of life become genuinely significant.

We are told by those familiar with the work carried on at the temporary headquarters of the League of Nations in London that “the economic section has for many months been engaged in a world wide study of such questions as coal, production, markets, food and the movement of raw material. At the first meeting of the Assembly a full report will be ready.”⁹ But how many people may starve to death before those reports are acted upon. It suggests a committee studying the best method of extinguishing fires while precious granaries are burning down.

It is quite obvious that the League must proceed carefully but there are times when even well considered delay is fatal. While these reports are being prepared, the starving people themselves have ceased to look to the League for help, it has lost all that popular confidence and hope which was its greatest asset. How many times do friends of the League say in its defense: “that is due to the Treaty, the League has not yet begun to function” only to receive the bitter reply, “the same men who wrote the Treaty, made the League.”

Much has been said during the war about primitive emotion and instinctive action, but certainly their use need not be reserved to the purposes of destruction. After all, the first friendly communication between tribe and tribe came through the need for food when one or the other was starving and too weak to fight, primitive human pity made the folk way which afterward developed into political relationships.

Why not open the gates and let these primitive emotions flood our devastated world? By all means let the beneficent tide be directed and canalized by the League of Nations which is, after all, the outgrowth of century-old dreams. The great stumbling block always in the way of its earlier realization and the crux of its actual survival now, is the difficulty in interpreting it to the understanding of the common man, grounding it in his affections, appealing to his love for humankind. To such men, who, after all, compose the bulk of the citizens in every nation participating in the League, the abstract policies of it make little appeal although they would gladly contribute their utmost to feed the starving, as two and a half million French trade unionists regularly tax themselves for the children of Austria; as the British Labor party insists that the British foreign policy shall rest “upon a humane basis, really caring for all mankind, including colored men, women and children”; as the German workmen recommend that “all commodities of first necessity be pooled so that each people gets its share”; or as the American Federation of Labor declares its readiness to “give a mighty service in common effort for all humankind.”

So far as the working man in any country has expressed himself, it is all in this direction. In addition to the organized workers, millions of earth’s humblest toilers whose lives are consumed in securing the daily needs of existence for themselves and their families, go stumbling towards the light of better international relations largely because “Man is constantly seeking a new and finer adjustment between his inner emotional demands and the practical arrangements of the world in which he lives.” It is absurd for us, as advocates of the League, to complain that it is difficult to endear it to “the people” when it is precisely the people who are most ready for an act of faith, to whom it seems most natural to feed the hungry. It may take years to popularize the principles of the League, but citizens of civilized nations have already received much religious instruction. “To do the will” on an international scale might result in that world wide revival which the war in spite of many predictions, has as yet failed to evoke. I would certainly establish the sort of League of which thousands of people dreamed when they hailed the President of the United States as the savior of Europe.¹⁰ Why are we, its advocates, so slow to tap this reservoir of moral power which along could adequately motive the great undertaking? We fail to remember that to confound principles with people, indicates that we understand neither religion nor our fellow-man. JANE ADDAMS

Source

Jane Addams, “Feed the World and Save the League,” The New Republic (Nov. 24, 1920): 325-327.

More resources

Jane Addams Digital Edition provides letters and other writings of Jane Addams.

The Covenant of the League of Nations. Yale Law School Avalon Project.

Frank Jacobs, “Map Shows U.S. Effort to Feed Europe After WWI,” Big Think, Oct.r 23, 2018.

Cathy Moran Hajo

Cathy Moran Hajo teaches Discovering Digital History at Ramapo College of New Jersey. She is the editor and director of the Jane Addams Papers Project, and formerly worked on the Margaret Sanger Papers Project. She is currently the Vice President and Archives Director of the Mahwah Museum.

digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/