Paperworkers

The Palmer locals at the Hudson River Mill played an active and influential role within the Internationals throughout the 1910's.  This was due to several factors: the crucial role that the locals played in the 1910 Strike; the political power that its large membership wielded at wage conferences and conventions; the Mill's status as International Paper's most productive plant; and even the strong paper-making tradition that existed within the Corinth community.  Indeed, as the Hudson River Mill expanded it operations over time, an increasing proportion of Corinth citizens came to link their personal fortunes with that of the paper industry.

This notion was manifest as public policy by the Corinth Village Board in 1911 when Congress was debating a proposal to permit the tariff-free entry of Canadian newsprint into the United States. The Village Board wrote a letter to the Senate Committee on Foreign Trade affirming that local jobs would be lost without a tariff protecting American-made newsprint. "Our main industry for many years has been the paper and pulp manufacturing, " the letter said.  "Many of our best citizens have worked during their whole lives in our mills and know no other business.  They are in industrious, frugal people, and could not easily learn another trade.  As the passage of this bill means ruin to our townsmen, and degradation to their families." In this letter the Board made a remarkable affirmation of the importance of the paper industry the entire Corinth community.

Families whose members worked at the Hudson River Mill shaped the economic and social welfare of the Corinth community. The kin networks that existed within the Mill, between fathers and sons, and sometimes daughters, also were extended to include grandfathers, uncles and cousins. These kin networks came to exemplify the economic and social role that paper-making occupied within Corinth, resulting in a rich fabric of interconnected and interdependent workers whose vision of the line that separated home from work was often blurred. 

The Jones family serves as an excellent example of how kin networks operated at the Hudson River Mill.  International Paper hired Ernest "Pete" Jones in 1920 at age sixteen.  His initial position was as a 5th hand on the No. 5 paper machine, or what was referred to as the "family machine."  His uncle, Maurice Jones, had been the leader of the 1910 Strike and was the machine tender on No. 5 during Pete's shift.  Pete, Maurice and the rest of their five-man crew were relieved at the end of their shift by a crew whose machine tender and shift boss was Bert Jones, Pete's father and Maurice's brother.  When Bert's shift ended, his crew was relieved by a crew whose machine tender was Harry Young,  Bert's brother-in-law.  After eight hours, Pete and his uncle Maurice would return to the mill with their crew to relieve Pete's Uncle Harry, the fourth family member to work on the No. 5 paper machine in a twenty-four hour period.

For young Pete Jones, the most skilled workers in the Hudson River Mill under whom he served during his apprenticeship as a papermaker were also members of his family, resulting in interconnected loyalties to kin, craft, and workplace.  The workplace served also as the site where Pete's uncle Maurice, who was clearly the most influential union leader within the Hudson River Mill locals, introduced young Pete to the principles of organized labor.

Paperworkers

The family relations that sometimes characterized singular worksites at the Hudson River Mill were often part of much larger kin networks that spread throughout the mill and involved a multitude of occupations.  The Cohans, Irish immigrants whose family members worked at a wide variety of jobs at the Mill, represent such a network. 

There were four Cohan brothers - John, Pat, Mike, and Dennis - who settled in in the 1870's "Corktown," a residential area in Corinth adjacent to the Hudson River Mill where immigrant families tended to reside.  Dennis, the eldest Cohan, was employed by the Hudson River Pulp and Paper Company beginning in 1876 and was continuously employed at the Hudson River Mill for forty-five years, until the 1921 Strike.  During the 1910 Strike, the four Cohan brothers and four of their children were named specifically in the court injunction that was brought by International Paper during. At least seven members of the Cohan family, all descendent from the original four brothers, worked at the Mill when the 1921 Strike was called, at jobs that included the beater room, clay shed, paper machines, and the finishing room.  As was the case with other Irish families who settled in Corktown - like the Doodys, Connollys, Careys, and Donovans - ethnicity often influenced one's identity as a paperworker.  But in the case of the Cohan family, the strength of ethnic loyalties also resulted in a requisite commitment to the principles of organized labor. Dennis Cohan was especially committed to enforcing family obeyance to union principles.

John D. Cohan recalled that when he went out on strike at the Hudson River Mill in 1921 at the age of twenty-three, his Uncle Dennis made it clear that he would regard it as a symbol of personal disgrace if anyone in the family returned to the Hudson River Mill to work before the strike was over.  The powerful message about family integrity and personal commitment to union ideals conveyed by Dennis Cohan to his family must have been a lesson learned well.  Company records show that not one of the seven Cohans who went out on strike in 1921 returned to the mill to work before the official termination of the conflict in 1926. This is significant in view of the fact that by late 1923 the strike was acknowledged as a loss by a growing number of Corinth strikers. Many, in fact, had begun to return to the Mill by 1923, three years before the strike was officially called off in 1926. 

The Cohans serve as a good example of how kinship networks among paperworkers at the Hudson River Mill, predicated on strong ethnic and family loyalties, might have served as conduits for adherence to the principles of organized labor.  The solidarity of the Cohans that was so vital in the life of each individual member was maintained even in death.  In Corinth's St. Mary's Cemetary, twenty-six members of the Cohan family, including the original four brothers who emigrated to America in the 1870's, lay buried side-by-side in a vast family plot.