Today in Wheeling History: July 23--Five hundred workers at the Wheeling Can Company went on strike demanding better wages and working conditions (1915).
On the sweltering morning of July 23, 1915, five hundred workers at the Wheeling Can Company's 48th Street plant on Wheeling's Southside walked off the job after management demanded added overtime and fired those who refused. Word spread quickly through handbills, and that evening strikers packed Scherwinski's Hall at 46th and Jacob Streets, where Walter B. Hilton, Socialist editor of the "Wheeling Majority," and L. M. Greer and Smith Calvert of the Ohio Valley Trades and Labor Assembly helped draft the strikers' demands: a nine-hour day, time-and-a-half overtime pay, restoration of 1912 wage rates, compensation for machine-breakdown downtime, union recognition, reinstatement of fired workers, and weekly pay. The next morning strikers formed a picket line that shut the plant down entirely. A second mass meeting that night, held at Polish Hall on Wood Street—the St. Ladislaus School auditorium—drew an even larger and more enthusiastic crowd from the neighborhood’s largely Polish immigrant workforce. Many of the strikers were young Polish women, who—after the demands were translated into Polish by Charles Ajmar of Bridgeport, Ohio—enthusiastically joined the union and paid their initiation fees. By early September, management had granted a wage increase, shorter hours, and union recognition, and the can workers formally joined the Ohio Valley Trades and Labor Assembly. The strike became a flashpoint in a broader struggle between Wheeling's Socialist labor movement and Father Emil Musial's Polish Catholic parish, St. Ladislaus, for the loyalty of South Wheeling's immigrant workers.
To learn more: West Virginia University – Subcultures in Conflict in Polonia: Class, Religion, and Ethnic Tensions in the Formation of Wheeling’s Polish Community, 1895–1917 (https://tinyurl.com/5n6fpz32), The Wheeling Majority – 500 Wheeling Can Workers Go on Strike (https://tinyurl.com/2s426b4e)(https://tinyurl.com/4vc8nxfr), Weelunk – The Rise and Fall of Wheeling’s First Labor Newspaper (https://tinyurl.com/4pn78an7), Wheeling Heritage – Made in Wheeling: Hazel‑Atlas Jars (https://tinyurl.com/3jmsh5kf), WV GenWeb – Ohio County – Joseph William Seigh & A History of the Wheeling Can Company (https://tinyurl.com/52e2u56c), Substack – The Small City Segment: Wheeling Steel (Wheeling, WV) (https://tinyurl.com/3zsse48h), Flickr – Ohio County Public Library – Continental Can Company Album (https://tinyurl.com/264mad86), WV GenWeb – Marshall County – Descendants of Christian Steinman (https://tinyurl.com/469vhtsb), Weelunk – The “Mabel Files” #8: When George Met Mabel (https://tinyurl.com/2p9vbpnk), Fourteenth Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor of West Virginia (1917) – Wheeling Can Company (https://tinyurl.com/523z9wxu), Poor’s Financial Records (1927), p. 1410 – Wheeling Can Company (https://tinyurl.com/3shku6b5), Report of the Commissioner of Labor of West Virginia (1910), p. 116 – Wheeling Can Company (https://tinyurl.com/3shku6b5), Canned Goods Trade – Volume 49 (1927), p. 30 – Wheeling Can Company (https://tinyurl.com/3rvbjvex), The Canning Trade – Volume 49, Part 1 (1926), p. 20 – Wheeling Can Company (https://tinyurl.com/3jnszsb4), West Virginia in History, Life, Literature and Industry (1928) – Wheeling Can Company (https://tinyurl.com/3jnszsb4), Ohio County Public Library – History of St. Ladislaus Church (1978) (https://tinyurl.com/4mj84ytw)
Photo credits: Ohio County Public Library Archives, Wheeling WV; WV GenWeb (Ohio County), Roman Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, The Wheeling Majority, Google Books
On the sweltering morning of July 23, 1915, five hundred workers at the Wheeling Can Company's 48th Street plant on Wheeling's Southside walked off the job after management demanded added overtime and fired those who refused. Word spread quickly through handbills, and that evening strikers packed Scherwinski's Hall at 46th and Jacob Streets, where Walter B. Hilton, Socialist editor of the "Wheeling Majority," and L. M. Greer and Smith Calvert of the Ohio Valley Trades and Labor Assembly helped draft the strikers' demands: a nine-hour day, time-and-a-half overtime pay, restoration of 1912 wage rates, compensation for machine-breakdown downtime, union recognition, reinstatement of fired workers, and weekly pay. The next morning strikers formed a picket line that shut the plant down entirely. A second mass meeting that night, held at Polish Hall on Wood Street—the St. Ladislaus School auditorium—drew an even larger and more enthusiastic crowd from the neighborhood’s largely Polish immigrant workforce. Many of the strikers were young Polish women, who—after the demands were translated into Polish by Charles Ajmar of Bridgeport, Ohio—enthusiastically joined the union and paid their initiation fees. By early September, management had granted a wage increase, shorter hours, and union recognition, and the can workers formally joined the Ohio Valley Trades and Labor Assembly. The strike became a flashpoint in a broader struggle between Wheeling's Socialist labor movement and Father Emil Musial's Polish Catholic parish, St. Ladislaus, for the loyalty of South Wheeling's immigrant workers.
To learn more: West Virginia University – Subcultures in Conflict in Polonia: Class, Religion, and Ethnic Tensions in the Formation of Wheeling’s Polish Community, 1895–1917 (https://tinyurl.com/5n6fpz32), The Wheeling Majority – 500 Wheeling Can Workers Go on Strike (https://tinyurl.com/2s426b4e)(https://tinyurl.com/4vc8nxfr), Weelunk – The Rise and Fall of Wheeling’s First Labor Newspaper (https://tinyurl.com/4pn78an7), Wheeling Heritage – Made in Wheeling: Hazel‑Atlas Jars (https://tinyurl.com/3jmsh5kf), WV GenWeb – Ohio County – Joseph William Seigh & A History of the Wheeling Can Company (https://tinyurl.com/52e2u56c), Substack – The Small City Segment: Wheeling Steel (Wheeling, WV) (https://tinyurl.com/3zsse48h), Flickr – Ohio County Public Library – Continental Can Company Album (https://tinyurl.com/264mad86), WV GenWeb – Marshall County – Descendants of Christian Steinman (https://tinyurl.com/469vhtsb), Weelunk – The “Mabel Files” #8: When George Met Mabel (https://tinyurl.com/2p9vbpnk), Fourteenth Biennial Report of the Bureau of Labor of West Virginia (1917) – Wheeling Can Company (https://tinyurl.com/523z9wxu), Poor’s Financial Records (1927), p. 1410 – Wheeling Can Company (https://tinyurl.com/3shku6b5), Report of the Commissioner of Labor of West Virginia (1910), p. 116 – Wheeling Can Company (https://tinyurl.com/3shku6b5), Canned Goods Trade – Volume 49 (1927), p. 30 – Wheeling Can Company (https://tinyurl.com/3rvbjvex), The Canning Trade – Volume 49, Part 1 (1926), p. 20 – Wheeling Can Company (https://tinyurl.com/3jnszsb4), West Virginia in History, Life, Literature and Industry (1928) – Wheeling Can Company (https://tinyurl.com/3jnszsb4), Ohio County Public Library – History of St. Ladislaus Church (1978) (https://tinyurl.com/4mj84ytw)
Photo credits: Ohio County Public Library Archives, Wheeling WV; WV GenWeb (Ohio County), Roman Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, The Wheeling Majority, Google Books
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