Big Paul (I am Small Paul) was holding court at the head table in our dining room tonight. Paul is a surveyor from Illinois.
We were talking for some reason about the Bad Old Days and coal mine strikes. He mentioned that “Old Man Ziegler” hired the Odd Fellows to break up a strike.
Well, in the interests of peace and harmony, I let him talk, but that sounds like BS to me.
Any thoughts?
Interesting question. I had not heard of Fraternal organizations being used to break strikes, but some quick research brought up a few tantilizing tidbits.
The Odd Fellows was founded as sort of a counterpoint for the early craft guilds. Back in the day, most of the major skilled trades were organized into guilds…the forerunners of trade unions. In addition to setting wages and influencing work conditions, these guilds formed a benevolent society for members. They were social centers, charitable agencies among other things.
The Odd Fellows order was formed by the “odd men out”…freelancers, men in minor crafts and small towns that did not have their own guild, and especially ethnic minorities, which the guilds and later unions had resisted. Odd Fellows formed sort of a non-union union for these people.
Since minority groups and outsiders were usually the ones that were hired as strikebreakers, it’s certainly conceivable that owners of a mine under strike would approach the “outsider’s” fraternity as a group that could provide temporary labor.
SS
That’s really interesting. As an added benefit, they were probably cheaper than the Pinkertons.