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Divided Loyalties: Immigrant Padrones and the Evolution of Industrial Paternalism in North America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Gunther Peck
Gunther Peck
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
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Extract

When industrialist John D. Rockefeller visited the new open-pit mining operation of his competitor, Daniel J. Guggenheim, in Bingham Canyon, Utah, in 1910, he declared with genuine envy and admiration,“it's the greatest industrial sight in the whole world.” What most impressed Rockefeller were the massive steam shovels that had revolutionized the process of copper extraction by enabling firms to mine and smelt tons of previously worthless low-grade copper ore. Equally impressive was the fact that, where skilled American miners had very recently toiled underground in search of rich veins of copper, unskilled immigrants now worked aboveground, loading tons of newly blasted copper ore onto train cars. Rockefeller was not alone in expressing wonder at this new man-made marvel. Hundreds of sight-seeing tourists also traveled to the mine by train each week to experience the thrill of industrial America's newfound ability to move mountains. Like Rockefeller, they saw nothing but progress and modernity in the great open-pit mine.

Type
Patronage, Paternalism, and Company Welfare
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 53 , Spring 1998 , pp. 49 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1998

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References

NOTES

1. Arrington, Leonard, The Richest Hole on Earth (Logan, 1963), 8;Google ScholarO'Connor, Frank, The Guggenheims: The Making of an American Dynasty (New York, 1937), 269;Google ScholarHiggins, Will, “Tearing down Mountains at Bingham”, The Salt Lake Mining Review 10 (07 30, 1908):1.Google Scholar

2. Utah Copper Company, Annual Report, 1907, 19, in Arrington, The Richest Hole on Earth, 55.Google Scholar

3. On the Italian padrone system, see Nelli, Humbert, “The Italian Padrone System in the United States”, Labour History 5 (1964): 153–67;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHarney, Robert, “Montreal's King of Italian Labour”, Labour/Le Travaille 4 (1979): 57–84;CrossRefGoogle ScholarGabaccia, Donna, “Neither Padrone Slaves, Nor Primitive Rebels”, in “‘Struggle a Hard Battle’: Essays on Working-Class Immigrants, ed. Hoerder, Dirk (Dekalb, 1986), 95–120.Google ScholarOn Greek padrones, see Papanikolas, Helen, “Toil and Rage in a New Land: The Greek Immigrants of Utah”, Utah Historical Quarterly 38 (1970): 100–204;Google Scholarand Saloutos, Theodore, The Greeks in the United States (Cambridge, 1964).Google ScholarOn “enganchados”, the padrone's counterpart among transient Mexican immigrants, see Garcia, Mario, Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso, 1880–1920 (New Haven, 1979).Google ScholarPerhaps the best case study of a padrone, by Robert Harney, assesses his relationship to industiral capitalism but unfortunately concludes that padrones were “preindustrial men”. Harney, “Montreal's King”, 70. On connections between padrones and capitalist economic development, see Montgomery, David, The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865–1925 (Cambridge, 1987), 75–78;CrossRefGoogle Scholarand Peck, Gunther, “Reinventing Free Labor: Immigrant Padrones and Contract Laborers in North America, 1885–1925”, Journal of American History 83 (1996): 848–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. On the modern origins of industrial paternalism, see Flamming, Douglas, Creating the Modern South: Millhands and Managers in Dalton, Georgia, 1884–1984, (Chapel Hill, 1992), xxvii–xxviii;Google ScholarCrew, David, henomenon that originated in received, traditional values, see Gerald Friedman, “The Decline of Paternalism and the Making of the Employer Class: France, 1870–1914”, in Masters to Managers: Historical and Comparative Perspectives on American Employers, ed. Jacoby, Sanford (New York, 1991), 153–72;Google ScholarWay, Peter, Common Labour: Workers and the Digging of North American Canals, 1780–1860 (Cambridge, 1993), 263ff;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBowman, Shearer Davis, Masters and Lords: Mid-19th-Century US Planters and Prussian Junkers (Oxford, 1993), 166;Google ScholarWingert, Mary, “Rethinking Paternalism: Power and Parochialism in a Southern Mill Village”, Journal of American History 83 (1996): 872.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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6. Flamming, Creating the Modern South, 360–61.Google Scholar

7. I use the term “industrial paternalism” to describe not simply modern corporate policies of nonwage benefits but also the ideological fictions that infused their implementation: in particular, the notions that bosses and corporate managers were personally invested in workers' welfare and that a harmony of interests bound them together in hierarchical but loving fashion. Manifestations of personalism did not merely “complicate” industrial paternalism, as suggested by David Flamming, but more fundamentally constituted and defined it. On the semantic varieties of paternalism, see Wingert, Mary, “Rethinking Paternalism”, 872.Google Scholar

8. Throughout this essay, I use the words patron and patronage to describe a set of interactions between two parties in which the patron provides a servie—employment, cash, translations, political representation, legal help, a cultural environment—in return for some kind of fee from the client. Although patren–client relations have become imbued with ideological assumptions about the the patron's personalism or his/her paternal superiority, such meanings do not necessarily inhere in all patron–client relations. Not all patrons were corporate employers or paternalists. To the contrary, patrons to workers could mobilize their class interests and energies. In making distinctions between patronage and paternalism, I am indebted to the work of Gerard Noiriel, although I do not imbed the difference as the does within the peculiar teleologies of French industrial development in the nineteenth century.Google ScholarSee Noiriel, Gerard, “Du ‘patronage’ au ‘paternalisme’: La restructuration des formes de domination de la main-d'oeuvre ouviêre dans l'industrie metalurgique français”, Le mouvement social 144 (1988): 17–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Alger, Horatio, Phil, the Fiddler: Or, the Story of a Young Street Musician (Boston, 1872), 16–17.Google Scholar

10. Harney, Robert, “The Padrone and the Immigrant”, Canadian Review of American Studies 5 (1974): 108, 110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. On the important role of saloon keepers as working-class patrons and leaders, see Roy, Rozenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870–1920 (Cambridge, 1983), 49–51.Google Scholar

12. Koren, John, “The Padrone System and Padrone Banks”, U.S. Department of Labor, Bulletin #9 (Washington, 1897), 1;Google ScholarSheridan, Frank, “Italian, Slavic, and Hungarian Unskilled Laborers in the United States”, U.S. Department of Labor, Bulletin #72 (Washington, 1907), 435, 444–45, 482.Google Scholar

13. See Panunzio, Constantine, The Soul of an Immigrant (New York, 1921), 78–79;Google Scholaralso cited in Harney, Robert, “The Padrone and the Immigrant”, 103.Google Scholar

14. Rosenzweig, Roy, Eight Hours for What We Will, 51.Google Scholar

15. On Gonzalez's relations with the Holmes Supply and the L. H. Manning companies, see Stone, Frank to Sargent, Frank, commissioner general of immigration, June 30, 1910, File #52546/31, Box 125, Records of the Department of Immigration and Naturalization, U.S. National Archives, Washington, DC; Zarate-Avina Employment Office Interview by Paul S. Taylor, 1928, Field Notes 17–189, BANC-MSS 74/187c, Taylor Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley (hereafter, Taylor Papers).Google Scholar

16. On Gonzalez's boarding house in Ciudad Juarez, see Stone, Frank R. to Commissioner General of Immigration, 06 30, 1910, pp. 35–41, File #5246/31, Box 125, RG 85, Records of the Department of Immigration and Naturalization, National Archives, Washington, DC. On his boarding operations in El Paso, see The State of Texas v. R. G. Gonzalez and the Sultana Athletic Club, #13458, 04 10, 1916, Records of the District Civil Court, El Paso County, El Paso County Courthouse, El Paso, Texas.Google Scholar

17. On Gonzalez' career as a policeman, see El Paso City Council, Minutes, 05 23, 1901, 181; 01 30, 1902, 511; 10 17, 1906, 562; Southwest Collection, El Paso Public Library, El Paso, Texas.Google Scholar

18. On Gonzalez's personal connections to Mexican workers, see the testimony of Murillo, Juan, June 28, 1910, Board of Special Inquiry, El Paso, Texas, Frank Stone to Sargent, Exhibit 14, File #52546/31, Box 125, Records of the Department of Immigration and Naturalization, National Archives, Washington, DC. Labor agents in El Paso stayed in business just 1.4 years, on average. On turnover among them, see El Paso City Directory, 1905–1930, Southwest Collection, El Paso Public Library, El Paso, Texas.Google Scholar

19. Edson, George L., “Mexicans at Fort Madison, Iowa”, 03 8, 1927, “Interviews with Labor Contractors” file, BANC-MSS 74/187c, Taylor Papers.Google Scholar

20. Ibid.

21. Fenton, Edwin, Immigrants and Unions, A Case Study: Italians and American Labor, 1870–1920 (New York, 1975), 226;Google ScholarMontgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor, 94.Google Scholar

22. Fenton, Immigrants and Unions, 224–34, 239.Google Scholar

23. On Cordasco's career, see the Canadian government's exceptionally rich investigation, The Royal Commission Appointed to Inquire into the Immigration of Italian Labourers to Montreal and the Alleged Fraudulent Practices of Employment Agents (Ottawa, 1905), 167;Google ScholarHarney, “Montreal's King”, 57.Google Scholar

24. Testimony of Burns, George, Royal Commission, 41–43, 62; Harney, “Montreal's King”, 70.Google Scholar

25. On Cordasco's business activities prior to 1901, see Royal Commission, 73.Google Scholar

26. Cordasco, Antonio, “To the Army of Pick and Shovel”, Corriere del Canada, 02 20, 1904, 2; quoted in Royal Commission, 106.Google Scholar

27. Testimony of Cilla, Michelle, Royal Commission, 37.Google Scholar

28. See testimony in Royal Commission of Morillo, Giovanni, 67; Cilla, Michele, 37; and Sciano, Vincenzo, 32. On the court cases see the following cases in the Records of the Superior Court of Montreal, Canadian National Archives, Montreal, Canada: Giuseppe d'Abramo v. A. Cordasco, Case #2787; Pietro Bazzani v. A. Cordasco, Case #1359; Michelle Cilla v. A. Cordasco, Case –2575; Fillip D'Allesandro v. A. Cordasco, Case #2357; Alfredo Folco v. A. Cordasco, Case #2223; Nicola Fondino v. A. Cordasco, Case #3127; Giuseppe Mignella v.A. Cordasco, Case #503; Benvenuto Missiti v. A. Cordasco, Case #1420; Salvatore Molla v. A. Cordasco, Case #2135; Donato Olivastro v. A. Cordasco, Case #2198; Domenico Poliseno v. A. Cordasco, Case #572; Giuseppe Teolo v. A. Cordasco, Case #990; Michelle Tisi v. A. Cordasco, Case #2513; and Antonio Cordasco v. Canadian Pacific Railway Company, Case –2195.Google Scholar

29. On Skliris's early business activity in Utah, see Walker Bros. v. Caravelis, Case –1938, Supreme Court Case Files, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City; and Eastern Utah Advocate, 04 9, 1915, 1; Skliris, Leon, “Workers of Utah”, O Ergatis, 10 13, 1907, 5 (translated by the author).Google Scholar

30. Letter to the editor signed by Voulgaris, Dimitrios, Karayiannopoulos, Apostolis, Prousalis, Fotis, Dimitriou, Alex, Papadopoulos, Dimitris, Lambrou, Miltos, Andreas, Gabriel, and Zaras, Ahileus. O Ergatis, 07 27, 1908, 3.Google Scholar

31. O Ergatis, 05 30, 1908, 1.Google Scholar

32. O Ergatis, 02 29, 1908, 3; 03 7, 1908, 1.Google Scholar

33. O Ergatis, 05 12, 1908, 5; Salt Lake Tribune, 06 17, 1908, 9; Deseret Evening News, 06 20. 1908, 3.Google Scholar

34. “Fifty Greek and Crete Men to Utah Government”, petition, 2 02 1911, File “G”, Box 10, William S. Spry Papers, Utah State Archives.Google ScholarOn the 1912 Bingham strike, see Peck, Gunther, “Padrones and Protest: ‘Old’ Radicals and ‘New’ Immigrants in Bingham, Utah, 1905–1912”, Western Historical Quarterly 24 (1993):157–78;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPapanikolas, Helen, “Toil and Rage”, 121–33.Google Scholar

35. Deseret Evening News, 09 23, 1912, 3; 09 24, 1912, 1; Salt Lake Evening Telegram, 10 2, 1912, 9.Google Scholar

36. For details of the Mexican agreements and their impact on Gonzalez's career, see Stone, Frank to Sargent, File #52546/31, Box 125, RG 85, Records of the Department of Immigration and Naturalization, National Archives, Washington, DC.Google Scholar

37. Edson, George, “Mexicans at Fort Madison, Iowa”, 03 8, 1927, BANCMSS-74/187c, Taylor Papers.Google Scholar

38. As Bruno Ramirez has documented, job turnover among the CPR's Italian employees remained very high before and after 1904 at all skill levels. See Ramirez, , “Brief Encounters: Italian Immigrant Workers and the CPR, 1900–1930,” Labour/Le Travail 17 (Spring 1986), 9–27.Google Scholar

39. On paternalism in southern mill villages of the Piedmont, seeHall, Jacquelyn Dowd, Like a Family: The Making of a Cotton Mill World (Chapel Hill, 1987):CrossRefGoogle ScholarWingert, Mary, “Rethinking Paternalism”; and Douglas Flamming, Creating the Modern South.Google Scholar

40. Arrington, The Richest Hole on Earth, 8.Google Scholar

41. Schlicter, Sumner, The Turnover of Factory Labor (New York, 1919), 283–84. Schlicter based his arguments on an article he quotes by sociologist Feiss, Richard A., 309.Google Scholar

42. Turnover among Greek patrons purchasing commercial licenses in Bingham Canyon was quite high between 1908 and 1913. Of the forty-seven Greek grocers, coffeehouse owners, butchers, milk dealers, and bakers who paid for commercial licenses, nineteen—or forty percent—went out of business within just three months. Between 1913 and 1916, by contrast, just one of twenty-five, or four percent, of Greek patrons failed in their first three months of operation. See Municipal Records of the Town of Bingham Canyon, Utah, Ledger Books, 1908–1916, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah.Google Scholar

43. Arrington, The Richest Hole on Earth, 82.Google Scholar

44. Patrons to immigrant workers did not disappear in 1930; they continued to exert a powerful effect on the evolution of corporate welfare policies and larger forms of state-crafted paternalism such as the New Deal, as Lizabeth Cohen has suggested. Although many ethnic leaders and patrons “failed”, financially speaking, to provide their clients much protection during the Great Depression, they prepared them to fight for protection from the state and to transform the New Deal in the process. See Cohen, Lizabeth, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 (Cambridge, 1990), 160–61, 238, 246.Google Scholar