Hudson River Mill (ca. 1898)

The origins of the labor movement in the pulp and paper industry coincided with the capitalization of the industry. This process was best represented by the formation of the International Paper Company in 1898 which was accomplished through the acquisition and merger of seventeen mills throughout the Northeast. Paper workers responded to the consolidation of the industry by organizing labor unions to advance their collective interests. The Hudson River Mill was quick to participate in the labor movement in the pulp and paper industry as it struggled for identity and purpose in the late 1890's and early 1900's. Even before industry unions gained a foothold at the Mill, the Corinth Alllied Trades Assembly - which included skilled papermakers among its membership - managed to secure an AFL charter in 1903.

For the first few decades of the 20th century the Hudson River Mill was commonly referred to as the Palmer Mill, and its unions were called the "Palmer locals." Palmer Local No. 7 of the International Brotherhood of Paper Makers (IBPM), and Local No. 4 of the International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers (IBPSPMW), were among the first to form in the their respective Internationals, and from that early start the workers at the Hudson River Mill remained actively involved in the union movement. This was especially true after 1910 when a strike by the Palmer locals over the arbitrary dismissal of a Hudson River Mill papermaker spread to other International Paper Company mills and resulted in the first union contract with the Company.

Paperworkers (1897)

The Palmer locals were among the most active in the industry during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Jeremiah Carey, who served as President of the IBPM from 1905 to 1923, provided a strong and lasting influence. Carey had moved from the central Adirondacks to Corinth in the 1880's to find work at the Hudson River Pulp and Paper Company. By the mid-1890's he had matured into a skilled papermaker, having achieved the position of machine tender, the highest paid hourly occupation in the Mill. Although the details of his early life are obscure, Carey married a Corinth woman who gave birth to five children who were all raised in Corinth between 1896-1905. During the time that he lived in Corinth and worked at the Hudson River Mill, Carey held several union offices and also served as Treasurer of the IBPM. This position gave him privileged access to information about the industry and the labor movement that he no doubt shared with the members of the Palmer locals.

Carey's election to the Presidency of the Paper Makers in 1905 necessitated his move from Corinth to the IBPM International headquarters at Watertown, New York. Evidence suggests, however, that Carey may have conducted much of the work of his Presidency from his home in Corinth for extended periods of time, especially during the period 1906-1910 when a secessionist movement centered in nearby Ft. Edward challenged the primacy of the IBPM.

The exact nature of Carey's engagement with the Palmer locals during this period is purely speculative as early IBPM records were destroyed in a fire at its Albany headquarters sometime in the 1930's. Yet the support that Hudson River Mill workers would provide Carey during the turbulent 1920's - especially during his scandalous fall from the IBPM Presidency in 1923 - suggests that their allegiance to him was more likely the product of long-standing admiration and individual friendships rather than a firm agreement with his union policies and administrative style.

The German-American House in Corktown (n.d)

Nonetheless, Carey's outspoken criticism of paper industry management, and his rhetoric depicting the plight of labor in battle with capital, must have found an enthusiastic audience in Corinth's "Corktown", the eastern- most section of the community where Irish, German and other immigrant families settled in the 19th Century with the Hudson River Mill literally in their backyards. Although the influences on the shaping of Carey's class-consciousness are unknown, his ability as a skilled papermaker, organizing skills, and his dedication to the union movement had a powerful impact on Hudson River Mill workers.

Cutter Girls Among Finishing Room Workers (1904)

Until 1905 most unionized workers in the paper industry were represented by the IBPM, an organization originally committed only to the industry's skilled paper makers. Ultimately the AFL gave the IBPM jurisdiction over the semi-skilled and unskilled workers, referred to as Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers. By 1905 these workers comprised nearly eighty percent of the IBPM, but the bylaws of the union assigned the group a secondary status since its members were barred from holding the office of IBPM President. Women who worked in the paper industry, like the "cutter girls" who labored in the Hudson River Mill's finishing room, were excluded altogether from membership.

The fiery and charismatic James Fitzgerald, a leader among IBPM's semi-skilled and unskilled workers, organized a successful secession movement to form the International Brotherhood of Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers (IBPSPMW) in 1906. Establishing a headquarters in his hometown of Ft. Edward, New York where an International Paper company mill was located, the new union worked hard to increase its membership to 4000 and to obtain an AFL charter. Its efforts were frustrated by strong resistance from IBPM President Carey, and from a challenge made by a newly formed union of semi-skilled and unskilled workers that originated within the IBPM local at the Hudson River Mill. Neither of the two new unions, however, was successful in challenging IBPM supremacy as both failed to secure an AFL charter.

Machine Shop Workers at the Hudson River Mill(1897)

IBPSPMW members once again were placed under IBPM jurisdiction by the AFL. From the time of the IBPSPMW secession in 1906 to the successful strike against International Paper in 1910, the strong craft-consciousness of the IBPM, in its reluctance to accept unskilled and semi-skilled paperworkers as full partners in the International, continued to impose serious limitations on the industry's union movement. A dramatic example occurred during a 1908 strike against International Paper when skilled and unskilled IBPM members were unable to sustain a united position and actually worked against one another, resulting in a defeat that had severe repercussions throughout the entire industry. IBPM membership fell from 8800 before the 1908 strike, to about 2000 members by early 1910. The IBPM failed in its first post-secession test to demonstrate that it could establish unity among its diverse membership and maintain a united front against an industry giant like International Paper.

The activism of the paperworkers at the Hudson River Mill in the first decade of the 1900's developed in a climate that was rich with progressive ideas about labor unions. The pulp and paper mills in the southern Adirondacks proved to be a fertile ground for the initial organizing efforts made by both the IBPM and the IBPSPMW. Paperworkers in the nearby communities of Hudson Falls, Fort Edward, and Glens Falls, whose mills shared the energy provided by the Hudson River, were among the first locals formed by the IBPM and IBPSPMW, thereby creating a strong sense of regional brotherhood that covered a twenty-mile radius to include the Hudson River Mill. By 1921 there were at least fifteen locals from both Internationals within the region, plus additional locals comprised of Oilers, Firemen, Machinists, and Carpenters whose members were employed by paper companies. Throughout this period the city of Glens Falls served as the site for mass meetings of the locals from mills in the upper Hudson River valley north of Albany, a central location where public displays of solidarity were achieved in parades and through other forms of public activity.

The potential for Hudson River Mill workers to fraternize with other unionized paperworkers was enhanced by Corinth's proximity to the headquarters of both the IBPM and IBPSPMW. Carey relocated the IBPM's office from Watertown, New York to Albany, fifty miles south of Corinth, sometime in the 1910's. IBPSPMW headquarters was located at Ft. Edward, New York, just fifteen miles from the Hudson River Mill. The membership of the Palmer locals thus had easy access to the International officers of both unions.

Geographic proximity was especially crucial in the relationship between the Palmer Mill's IBPSPMW local and its executive officers. Correspondence in IBPSPMW files between members of Local No. 4 and IBPSPMW officers suggest in the period between 1906 and 1921 that each held each other in high mutual regard. Friendship was extended that transcended union business, ranging from trips to Corinth by IBPSPMW President James Fitzgerald for summertime boating on the Hudson, to his receipt of fresh venison in the fall from admiring paperworkers. President John Burke even made personal loans to support Hudson River Mill workers and their families during the 1921 strike.

The short distance between Ft. Edward and Corinth also permitted IBPSPMW headquarters to react quickly to local crises at the Hudson River Mill, an ability that was crucial to the success of the 1910 strike. The self-confidence that the Palmer locals developed in the first two decades of the 20th century, and the solidarity that would be experienced during the 1921 strike, can be explained partly by the personal relationships between officers and paperworkers, and by the proximityof the Hudson River Mill to the IBPM and IBPSPMW headquarters and other locals.

Solidarity did not develop easily between the paper makers and the semi-skilled and unskilled laborers in the industry. The inability of labor to develop a strong sense of class-consciousness in the pulp and paper industry often resulted in self-destructive jurisdictional disputes and personal rivalries that limited union success. Indeed, the formation of the IBPSPMW was product of this divide. The result of the 1910 strike against International Paper, however, signaled a departure from a pattern of self-defeating labor practices and demonstrated to paperworkers for the first time the practical and immediate benefits of organization. The 1910's would be good years for labor.