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Recruiting Contract Laborers for the Amoskeag Mills1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Daniel Creamer
Daniel Creamer
Affiliation:
Washington, D. C.
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Extract

Much has been written concerning the fraudulent and coercive practices that frequently attended the importation of contract laborers into the United States during the latter half of the nineteenth century. In an effort to eliminate these abuses, a great deal of publicity was given to these unsavory practices. In contrast, there is a dearth of documentary evidence on cases in which a contract arrangement was mutually advantageous to both the contract laborer and the employer. Yet there must have been many such instances.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , May 1941 , pp. 42 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1941

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References

2 One student of the problem was of the opinion that “such ‘contracts,’ have often given real advantages to both parties and have no doubt commonly been carried out. To the emigrant they seem to offer both passage money and the assurance of a job. To the employer they seem to offer a supply of selected workers likely to serve contentedly at rates below those prevailing in the high wage country.” Goodrich, Carter, “Contract Labor,” Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York, 1931), IV, 342Google Scholar.

3 For the extent of interlocking directorates among New England textile mills, see Vera Shlakman, Economic History of a Factory Town, A Study of Chicopee, Mass. (Smith College Studies in History, Vol. XX, Nos. 1–4, October 1934-July 1935, Northampton, Mass.), Table 1, pp. 39–42.

4 Manchester Daily Union, September 4, 1865.

5 The Newburyport Herald as quoted in the Manchester Daily Union, July 24, 1865.

6 Dollar Weekly Mirror (Manchester, N. H.), January 30, 1864.

7 Ibid., April 23, 1864.

8 Report of Hon. D. A. Wells, Special Commissioner of the Revenue, December 1866 U. S. 39th Congress, 2d session, Senate Ex. Doc. No. 2), pp. 21–23, quoted in Historical Aspects of the Immigration Problem: Select Documents by Edith Abbott Chicago, 1926), 353.

9 For a brief history of Amoskeag's labor supply, see Creamer and Coulter, Labor and the Shut-Down of the Amoskeag Textile Mills (Report No. L-5, WPA, National Research Project, Philadelphia, Pa., November 1939), Appendix A, 148–171.

10 For a brief discussion of the organization and activities of the American Emigrant Company see Commons and Andrews, Documentary History of American Industrial Society (Cleveland 1910), IX, 74–80Google Scholar.

11 Probably the most important provision of this Act was Section 2. It provided “That all contracts that shall be made by emigrants to the United States in foreign countries, in conformity to regulations that may be established by the said Commissioner, whereby emigrants shall pledge the wages of their labor for a term not exceeding twelve months, to repay the expenses of their emigration, shall be held to be valid in law, and may be enforced in the courts of the United States, or of the several States and Territories; and such advances, if so stipulated in the contract, and the contract be recorded in the recorder's office in the county where the emigrant shall settle, shall operate as a lien upon any land thereafter acquired by the emigrant, whether under the homestead law when the title is consummated, or on property otherwise acquired, until liquidated by the emigrant; but nothing herein contained shall be deemed to authorize any contract contravening the Constitution of the United States, or creating in any way the relation of slavery or servitude.” (An Act to Encourage Immigration approved July 4, 1864, chap. CCXLVI.) The entire Act was repealed March 30, 1868. Congressional Globe, Appendix, 40th Cong., 2d Sess., 504–505.

12 The Gleaner (Manchester, N. H.), September 9, 1843Google Scholar.

13 Manchester Daily Union, June 15, 1868.

14 This was true not only of the textile industry in general but of Amoskeag in particular. For example, with the discontinuance of operations in the print cloth division by Amoskeag in 1906 a local newspaper noted that “in 1845 the first mill for printing cloth was erected here and went into operation the following year. At that time the class of help needed was brought here from Scotland or England, and the workmen who have just finished their work as Amoskeag employees in the printing department, are largely descendants of those who came here at first to do the engraving, sketch making and printing.” Manchester Union, March 7, 1906.

15 Since this letter gives some of the agent's reaction to the business of recruiting, it is quoted in part:

Patrick April 9th 1870

Messrs. G. Brewer & Coy

Gentlemen

… Tonight I engage the last lot of 10 completing the 40 which I was desired to engage, and if the selection pleases Mr. Straw [mill agent of Amoskeag in charge of manufacturing operation] and the Coy in need of more, I have still a list of 112 applicants to draw from, many of whom seem very likely women. Although there is a great amount of trouble, and not a little unpleasantness connected with making these engagements, and the necessary inquiries regarding them, still, as I feel it is to be benefiting the girls in times like these, and if it is of advantage to the Coy I am quite willing to make another selection if desired, later on in the year. …

I am

Yours very respectfully

George Thomson.

16 This contract is also quoted in Labor and the Shut-Down of the Amoskeag Textile Mills, 159–160.

17 It might be of interest to note the cost of ocean transportation charged to the Stark mills by the American Emigrant Company. The following item was published in the Amoskeag Bulletin, May 15, 1920. It was not found among the original documents. Although this itemized statement as published in the Bulletin was not dated, presumably it relates to contract laborers brought from Liverpool, England, to Manchester, at about the same time as those described in the first part of these notes.

18 The following may be considered typical:

Patrick April 9th 1870

E A Straw Esq

Dear Sir:

This serves to introduce to you James B ——and his wife. They are of good moral character. He is a good tenter and can weave also. She is a first class check weaver.

If you can find employment for one, or both of them, I will esteem it a favor.

I am

Very truly yours,

George Thomson

19 Contracts were found for only 84–43 in 1868 and 41 in 1870.

20 In later years the mainstay of Amoskeag's reputation and prosperity was its high quality ginghams. The company's inability to shift its production to other types of cloth when ginghams lost their popularity played no small part in its postwar difficulties. See Labor and the Shut-Down of the Amoskeag Textile Mills, chapter II, “Competitive Problems at Amoskeag and in the Textile Industry,” 8–37.