Damned Pretty Things is now OUT! Available at Aqueduct Press's online store, independent book shops online, and amazon dot com.
Discovering the people of Seattle's Roosevelt neighborhood in the 1910 Census
Friday, November 20, 2020
Thursday, August 20, 2020
Well, this blog is certainly moribund. Not 1910 news, but writing news nonetheless, yesterday I received the advanced readers copies of my novel Damned Pretty Things, to come out in November from Aqueduct Press. I'm pretty excited! Part of the novel is very Seattle, if not the Roosevelt neighborhood.
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Two Streams Converge - 829 NE 67th - George Washington and Jennie Rawles
At the time of the 1910 federal census, George Washington and Jennie E. Rawles were one of three African American households in enumeration district 188 – the area spanning Weedin Place to 15th Avenue NE, NE 62nd Street to NE 70th Street, that formed the heart of the neighborhood we now call Roosevelt. Widowed, they married each other late in life – George was 62 and Jennie 55. Two streams of migration merged in their marriage, two lives of contrasting circumstance and experience.
George Washington Rawles (in various records
his surname appears as Rawls, Ralls, and Rowels) was born into slavery in South
Carolina, May of 1846. He married his first wife, Jane Jordan, in 1867, and
farmed in Chester County, South Carolina, at least through 1880. The 1885
Kansas Census found George, Jane, and their five surviving children in
Ellinwood, Kansas, where George worked as a laborer. By 1892, the family had
moved again, to Leadville, Colorado, where George worked as a general laborer
and hod carrier.
By the time of the 1900 census, only two of
George and Jane’s nine children were still living. Daughter Mary, divorced, and
her two daughters shared George and Jane’s household in Leadville. Daughter
Mattie, who had married James H. Allen and begun a family of her own, lived
several houses down the street.
Jennie E. Carter was born in Canada in 1853.
Her Virginia-born parents most likely escaped slavery via the Underground
Railroad. Jennie married Thomas A. York, a barber, in 1877. Thomas, also born
in Canada, had moved with his family to Ypsilanti, Michigan - a major stop on the
Underground Railroad - in the late 1850’s. Thomas’s older brothers, David and
George, had served in the Union army as privates in Company B, 1st Infantry
Colored Regiment Michigan.
By the time of the 1900 Census, Thomas,
Jennie, and their three daughters had moved from Ypsilanti to Indianapolis.
Frances and Hattie, the two oldest girls, worked as servants. On Christmas Eve,
1900, Francis married Henry M. Terry.
With perhaps more urgency than any other
group, African Americans were drawn to Seattle in hopes of a better life.
Unlike the South (and neighboring Oregon), Washington State had no
segregationist legislation. However, the comparative civil and political
freedom was offset by the lack of economic opportunities. Labor unions, for
example, excluded African Americans. Skilled tradesmen found themselves limited
to jobs in service, as barbers, bootblacks, and porters. Women found employment
as cooks, maids, and (non-union) laundresses.
Jennie, widowed, came from Indianapolis in
late 1902 or early 1903 with Hattie, and Frances and Henry. Henry, a
bricklayer, was able to practice his craft in Seattle. Jennie and Hattie found
work as cooks. By 1903, George and Jane Rawles had moved to Seattle and were
living in the house at 829 NE 67th.
Mattie and James Allen lived nearby at 1007 NE 68th. George continued to
work as a laborer. His son-in-law, James, worked as a bootblack, janitor, and
porter.
Jane Rawles died in December of 1907. In
September of 1908, George and Jennie married. They remained at 829 E. 67th until
1912 (the house currently at that address was built in 1913). Along with
Francis and Henry Terry, they moved to Tacoma, where they spent their remaining
years. George died in 1922, aged 76. Jennie died in 1927, aged 73.
Recommended reading:
Seattle’s Black Victorians: 1852 – 1901, Esther Hall Mumford, Ananse Press, 1980
The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle’s Central District from 1870 through the Civil Rights Era, Quintard Taylor, University of Washington Press, 1994
The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle’s Central District from 1870 through the Civil Rights Era, Quintard Taylor, University of Washington Press, 1994
Monday, October 27, 2014
1312 East 65th - A personal connection
 |
| The little white house at 1310 NE 65th Street, with the former Åkerlund house to the right. Undated image courtesty of King County Department of Assessments |
Mrs. Peterman lived in the former Åkerlund house. I don't remember much about her, except that she was nice and that she had a Maine coon cat named Elliot whom we adored. She told us, more than once, that the man who used to own our house kept his yard looking "just like a park". (My guilty conscience might have only imagined the significant glances. We were good tenants, but essentially apartment-dwellers who had no experience with yard work. Fortunately, our other next-door neighbor, Bob, mowed our lawn for us.)
I was sad, but not surprised, to learn that Hugh Sisley had acquired 1312. It's subsequently suffered the degenerative fate of all Hugh houses. I won't be posting a "now" photo of the house. It makes me too angry.
"... the happiest in her life." - 1312 East 65th - August, Anna, and Glen Åkerlund
House built: 1910
BEG 429.32 FT W & 36.35 FT N OF SE SEC COR TH N 102 FT TH W 30 FT TH S 102 FT TH E 30 FT TO BEG
Plat Block: ?
Plat Lot: ?
1910 Address: 1312 East 65th
Current address: 1312 NE 65th
August Åkerlund, age 34, born in Sweden, house carpenter
Anna Åkerlund, age 31, born in Sweden
Glen Åkerlund, age 2, born in Washington
August Åkerlund was 29 years old and single when he sailed from Liverpool to Boston on the S. S. Saxonia in May of 1905. He listed his trade as "carpenter", had $250 in his possession, and was headed for Minneapolis. According to the ship's manifest, he'd been to the US once before, in Chicago.
On 11 May, 1907, he married Swedish-born Anna Gustafson in Minneapolis. Some time later they moved to Seattle. On 14 August 1908, Anna gave birth to her first son, Glen Oskar.
Inga Åkerlund, Glen's daughter-in-law, wrote to me that the family returned to Sweden in 1912. August had promised his parents that he would return to care for them when they could no longer manage their small farm. "They actually had tickets for returning with Titanic," she wrote, "but must wait for new booking". August struggled with the farm, but returned to his profession as a carpenter. The family moved to Västerås for the sake of Glen's education.
Glen was ordained in 1936, and went on to become a dean in the Västerås diocese. He died on 23 January, 2003, at the age of 95. Read more about him (translated, or in the original Swedish).
The public record of the Åkerlund family's life in the United States is practically non-existent, limited to the census record from 1910, the marriage record, the ship's manifest. I haven't been able to find a directory listing for them, nor any mention of them in the newspapers.
This photograph makes up for any perceived loss. It's a beautiful portrait of a young family and their new home, and a rare glimpse of a neighborhood young enough to still have space to breathe.
Anna once told Inga that "the years in America were the happiest in her life." I'm grateful to Inga and Anders Åkerlund for sharing this treasure.
BEG 429.32 FT W & 36.35 FT N OF SE SEC COR TH N 102 FT TH W 30 FT TH S 102 FT TH E 30 FT TO BEG
Plat Block: ?
Plat Lot: ?
1910 Address: 1312 East 65th
Current address: 1312 NE 65th
August Åkerlund, age 34, born in Sweden, house carpenter
Anna Åkerlund, age 31, born in Sweden
Glen Åkerlund, age 2, born in Washington
 |
| Anna, August, and Glen Akerlund, circa 1910 - reproduced with kind permission from Anders and Inga Åkerlund |
August Åkerlund was 29 years old and single when he sailed from Liverpool to Boston on the S. S. Saxonia in May of 1905. He listed his trade as "carpenter", had $250 in his possession, and was headed for Minneapolis. According to the ship's manifest, he'd been to the US once before, in Chicago.
On 11 May, 1907, he married Swedish-born Anna Gustafson in Minneapolis. Some time later they moved to Seattle. On 14 August 1908, Anna gave birth to her first son, Glen Oskar.
Inga Åkerlund, Glen's daughter-in-law, wrote to me that the family returned to Sweden in 1912. August had promised his parents that he would return to care for them when they could no longer manage their small farm. "They actually had tickets for returning with Titanic," she wrote, "but must wait for new booking". August struggled with the farm, but returned to his profession as a carpenter. The family moved to Västerås for the sake of Glen's education.
Glen was ordained in 1936, and went on to become a dean in the Västerås diocese. He died on 23 January, 2003, at the age of 95. Read more about him (translated, or in the original Swedish).
The public record of the Åkerlund family's life in the United States is practically non-existent, limited to the census record from 1910, the marriage record, the ship's manifest. I haven't been able to find a directory listing for them, nor any mention of them in the newspapers.
This photograph makes up for any perceived loss. It's a beautiful portrait of a young family and their new home, and a rare glimpse of a neighborhood young enough to still have space to breathe.
Anna once told Inga that "the years in America were the happiest in her life." I'm grateful to Inga and Anders Åkerlund for sharing this treasure.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
The Recently Departed, Part II - 816 E. 67th - Robert, Fannie, and Johanna Hilts, and Oran Harper
House built: 1901
Woodlawn Add to Green Lake
Plat Block: 52
Plat Lot: 9
1910 Address: 816 E 67th
Current address: Demolished late August – early September 2014
Robert Loren Hilts, age 51, married 30 years, carpenter, born in Oregon to Canadian-born David Hilts and Indiana Hilts (born in Indiana).
Fannie NORMAN Hilts, age 50, born in Missouri to Saul Norman (born in Indiana) and Hepzibah FRAKER Norman (born in Missouri).
Joanna Hilts, daughter, age 18, single, born in Washington, working as a salesman (sic) in a department store.
Oran Harper, step-grandson, age 12, born in Missouri, birthplace of parents unknown.
Let's just put this out there right now. Fannie Norman Hilts lived to be 99 years old, and if she'd held on a month and a half longer, she would have lived to be 100. She was born on 22 February, 1860, in Gentryville, MO. Her father was killed during the Civil War, fighting for the Union Army. "My people helped free the slaves," she told a reporter from the Seattle Times. In the same interview, she also mentioned hearing the guns booming during the Battle of Charleston (Missouri). Since she would have been less than two years old, I suspect it was a family story, told so often, and in such detail, that it assumed the solidity of memory for her.
The Times story includes her photo. She's a pretty, round-cheeked, bright-eyed lady who could more easily pass for 67 than 97. She outlived her husband and four of her five children, but she appears unbowed by grief. She worked from age 5 – "taking care of babies near Unionville, MO. Later I dropped (seeded) corn. When I was 10 I did housework." – but she regretted her failing hearing and eyesight because it prevented her from working.
Work – constant, physical, and at any job that came to hand – was reality, was life. Robert Hilts began his (official, recorded) working life as a carpenter in Union County, Oregon. He married Fannie, whose family had come to Oregon in a wagon train, in November of 1879. By the 1887 Washington Territory census, the family was farming in Stevens County. He also served as County Commissioner in 1892.
In 1904, the family moved to Seattle, and to the house at 816 E. 67th. Robert's occupations ranged from farmer to carpenter to timber clearing contractor and logger. He died in Darrington, WA, on 23 May 1916, at age 60.
Fannie lived with her children after that – with a son, Rupert Leelen Hilts, who was a fisherman in Wrangell, Alaska; with a daughter, Lena, whose husband was a dealer in wood; with Joanna. She died in 1960, in a nursing home, after a long illness.
A word about Oran Harper, the "step-grandson": it appears his father was Stanford Harper and his mother was Amanda Jane (or Manda, or Mandy Jane) Norman. I couldn't find a connection between Amanda Jane's family and Fannie's. Maybe I just didn't look hard enough, or in the right places. For now, he will remain a mysterious presence.
A word about footnotes: blogger keeps breaking them, even when I make wholly-unrelated-to-footnotes edits. So I am kicking the footnotes to the curb. See my sources below.
Sources:
"Child Who Heard Guns Boom in Civil War Turns 97th Birthday Leaf Here", The Seattle Times, February 24, 1957
"Mrs. Robert L. Hilts, 99, Pioneer, Dies", The Seattle Times, January 15, 1960
Woodlawn Add to Green Lake
Plat Block: 52
Plat Lot: 9
1910 Address: 816 E 67th
Current address: Demolished late August – early September 2014
Robert Loren Hilts, age 51, married 30 years, carpenter, born in Oregon to Canadian-born David Hilts and Indiana Hilts (born in Indiana).
Fannie NORMAN Hilts, age 50, born in Missouri to Saul Norman (born in Indiana) and Hepzibah FRAKER Norman (born in Missouri).
Joanna Hilts, daughter, age 18, single, born in Washington, working as a salesman (sic) in a department store.
Oran Harper, step-grandson, age 12, born in Missouri, birthplace of parents unknown.
 | |
| Photo taken 20 August 2014 |
 | ||||
| Undated photo courtesy of the King County Department of Assessments |
Let's just put this out there right now. Fannie Norman Hilts lived to be 99 years old, and if she'd held on a month and a half longer, she would have lived to be 100. She was born on 22 February, 1860, in Gentryville, MO. Her father was killed during the Civil War, fighting for the Union Army. "My people helped free the slaves," she told a reporter from the Seattle Times. In the same interview, she also mentioned hearing the guns booming during the Battle of Charleston (Missouri). Since she would have been less than two years old, I suspect it was a family story, told so often, and in such detail, that it assumed the solidity of memory for her.
The Times story includes her photo. She's a pretty, round-cheeked, bright-eyed lady who could more easily pass for 67 than 97. She outlived her husband and four of her five children, but she appears unbowed by grief. She worked from age 5 – "taking care of babies near Unionville, MO. Later I dropped (seeded) corn. When I was 10 I did housework." – but she regretted her failing hearing and eyesight because it prevented her from working.
Work – constant, physical, and at any job that came to hand – was reality, was life. Robert Hilts began his (official, recorded) working life as a carpenter in Union County, Oregon. He married Fannie, whose family had come to Oregon in a wagon train, in November of 1879. By the 1887 Washington Territory census, the family was farming in Stevens County. He also served as County Commissioner in 1892.
In 1904, the family moved to Seattle, and to the house at 816 E. 67th. Robert's occupations ranged from farmer to carpenter to timber clearing contractor and logger. He died in Darrington, WA, on 23 May 1916, at age 60.
Fannie lived with her children after that – with a son, Rupert Leelen Hilts, who was a fisherman in Wrangell, Alaska; with a daughter, Lena, whose husband was a dealer in wood; with Joanna. She died in 1960, in a nursing home, after a long illness.
A word about Oran Harper, the "step-grandson": it appears his father was Stanford Harper and his mother was Amanda Jane (or Manda, or Mandy Jane) Norman. I couldn't find a connection between Amanda Jane's family and Fannie's. Maybe I just didn't look hard enough, or in the right places. For now, he will remain a mysterious presence.
A word about footnotes: blogger keeps breaking them, even when I make wholly-unrelated-to-footnotes edits. So I am kicking the footnotes to the curb. See my sources below.
Sources:
"Child Who Heard Guns Boom in Civil War Turns 97th Birthday Leaf Here", The Seattle Times, February 24, 1957
"Mrs. Robert L. Hilts, 99, Pioneer, Dies", The Seattle Times, January 15, 1960
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Badly-Behaved Women, Part I - The Laundry Girl - 816 E 67th - Joanna (Johanna) Hilts
House built: 1901
Woodlawn Add to Green Lake
Plat Block: 52
Plat Lot: 9
1910 Address: 816 E 67th
Current address: Demolished August - September 2014
1910: Joanna Hilts, age 18, single, working as a salesman (sic) in a department store
Joanna I. Hilts was born in 1891 in Stevens County, Washington, the fourth child of Robert and Fannie NORMAN Hilts. By 1905, these hard-working farmer folks had moved to Seattle and purchased the house at 816 E 67th from Robert Scrunton.
Joanna's occupations ranged from clerk in 1908 to department store salesman in 1910; nurse in 1912; and finally, laundry worker in 1913. And it was as a laundry girl that Joanna made her mark and earned a place in local labor history.
As part of a series on "Seattle Women Who Maintain Their Own Independence", the May 28, 1905 Seattle Times printed "The Girl in the Steam Laundry",1 a profile of Harriet Graban of the Queen City Laundry. At that time, the laundry girl worked 10-hour days, six days a week, with Sundays and holidays off. Graban, who had worked at the Queen City Laundry for four years, had reached the point of making $15 a week. As she told the Times, "... a girl will like the work, pay attention and then the proprietors will raise her salary until she could support herself on her wages." (Emphasis mine.)
A quick search of the "Help Wanted - Female" ads of the time reveals the degree of specialization within the laundry. Ads called for shirt waist and neckband ironers, shirt finishers, ladies' clothes ironers, mangle girls, starch and flat work sorters, starchers, collar girls, and more.
Joanna had worked for the Troy Laundry for about a year when she was subpoenaed to testify before the Industrial Welfare commission in Olympia regarding setting a minimum wage for women laundry workers.
There she distinguished herself with her determination and wit. Taking to task laundry owner Frank Nixon, who thought the girls needed only 10 cents for each meal, she said "It's easy enough for you to say that girls can eat on 10 cents a meal. Talking that way doesn't hurt your stomach and it doesn't make your heart faint and your head swim as you slave, slave, slave. Your meal at noon today cost $2.40 for yourself. You've allowed yourself at one sitting more than you would give a laundry girl all week."2
(Nixon wasn't the only one who thought the girls should be kept hungry. Rev. H. R. McGinnity of Tacoma, at the conference as a representative of the disinterested public, had claimed that "working girls should not have coffee with their meals, that a 'horn of milk and a potato' had been good enough for working people" in Ireland.)3
Nixon estimated the annual cost of living for the laundry girl at $372. Joanna estimated $609.4 On May 16, the five male conference members outvoted the four female conference members to pass a resolution recommending $8.50 as the minimum wage.5 The Industrial Welfare Commission rejected it unanimously and called for a new conference: "Investigation has revealed the fact that $8.50 is not sufficient for a woman to maintain herself in health and comfort."6
(In May of 1914, the minimum wage for women working in stores was $10 per week, and had just been set at $8.90 per week for women factory workers. "Members of the welfare commission take the ground that there is little difference between the amount necessary to support a working girl in a factory or laundry, and they do not believe a marked difference in wages between the two industries would be justified.")7
Joanna returned home from Olympia at the close of the conference, but discovered when she reported to work at the Troy Laundry that she had been fired. The populist Seattle Star (in contrast to Colonel Blethen's Seattle Times, which allowed one grudging column to cover labor issues) made her dismissal front-page headline news.8
The Star editorialized on her firing,9 and reported on her subsequent blacklisting by every laundry in Seattle.10 Labor Commissioner E. W. Olsen investigated the case and demanded that B. F. Ivy and W. H. Kuhlemeier, proprietors of the Troy Laundry, reinstate Joanna. When they failed to promise to comply, Olsen decided to make a test case by prosecuting the proprietors and forewoman May Jeffries. Would the new state law authorizing a minimum wage for working women be "broad enough to protect from arbitrary discharge an employee who offends her employer by assisting the industrial welfare commission in fixing the minimum wage for workers in her craft"?11
In early July 1914, Justice of the Peace John B. Gordon found B. F. Ivy guilty of violating the state industrial commission act. Ivy was fined the maximum of $100.12 The Seattle Star lamented that the fine was nothing more than a slap on the wrist.13
The state, however, couldn't compell the Troy Laundry to rehire Joanna. It couldn't protect her from being blacklisted. She may not have worked again until the opening14 of the union-owned Mutual Laundry in December of 1914.
Though now securely employed by the city's first cooperative, Joanna continued to fight for the rights of the average laundry girl. In February of 1915 she appeared before a joint committee on labor and labor statistics, speaking of the fear of retaliation that kept the state's 2,000-some laundry girls from protesting the proposed amendment to the 8-hour law.15
By 1916, Joanna and her mother had moved to 514 Prospect on Queen Anne Hill (the Mutual Laundry was located at 714 Broad). Joanna's father, Robert L. Hilts, had died in Darrington, where he had been employed as a logger, in May of that year. In 1917, she and her mother had moved to L112 Valley, still on Queen Anne Hill, and Joanna had been hired as Business Agent for the Mutual Laundry.16 She had been serving as financial secretary, but when the previous business agent left, the two positions were merged to make a salaried, full-time job. In that capacity, Joanna continued to work for the laundry girl, speaking, for example, to the laundry workers of Everett who wished to form a union.17
On 18 May 1918, Joanna married Robert Edgar Wall, a Canadian-born iron moulder. She appears to have dropped out of public life after her marriage. She and Robert had three children together - Robert jr., Lena, and John - and lived in South Seattle for the entirety of their marriage.
Joanna died on 27 January 1961, in Duarte, CA, while visiting her son Robert.
Further reading:
Report of Commission on Industrial Relations, Olson Exhibit No. 3 - Laundry Conference, Senate Chamber, Capitol Building, Olympia, Wash., May 14 and 15, 1914
Home & Dry Gazette - The Story of the Seattle Empire Laundry
"Laundry Workers Struggle for Recogniztion", Kimberley Reimer, Seattle General Strike Project
1 "Seattle Women Who Maintain Their Own Independence - The Girl in the Steam Laundry", Seattle Times, May 28, 1905, Magazine section, pages 1 and 5↩
2 Johanna Hilts Fired" (headline, front page), The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 20 May 1914. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.↩
3 "Labor To Watch Scale Hearings", The Seattle Times, May 21, 1914↩
4 "Minimum Wage May Be Only $8", The Seattle Times, May 15, 1914↩
5 Ibid.↩
6 $8.50 Wages For Laundry Girls Too Low", The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 16 May 1914. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.↩
7 "Minimum Wage May Be Only $8"↩
8 Johanna Hilts Fired", The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 20 May 1914. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.↩
9 The Case of Johnna (sic) Hilts, The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 21 May 1914. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.↩
10 Johanna Hilts On Black List; Can't Get A Job", The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 28 May 1914. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.↩
11 "State Comes To Aid of Worker", The Seattle Times, May 21, 1914↩
12 "Laundry Manager Fined", The Seattle Times, July 7, 1914↩
13 A Slap on the Wrist", The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 08 July 1914. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.↩
14 Model Laundry Completed; Organized Labor Dances To Celebrate Its Success", The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 12 Dec. 1914. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.↩
15 Girls Afraid To Protest 8-Hour Bill", The Tacoma times. (Tacoma, Wash.), 11 Feb. 1915. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress↩
16 "Laundry Workers Get Girl Business Agent", The Seattle Times, May 11, 1917↩
17 Laundry Workers Organize Union", The labor journal. (Everett, Wash.), 22 June 1917. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.↩
Woodlawn Add to Green Lake
Plat Block: 52
Plat Lot: 9
1910 Address: 816 E 67th
Current address: Demolished August - September 2014
1910: Joanna Hilts, age 18, single, working as a salesman (sic) in a department store
Joanna I. Hilts was born in 1891 in Stevens County, Washington, the fourth child of Robert and Fannie NORMAN Hilts. By 1905, these hard-working farmer folks had moved to Seattle and purchased the house at 816 E 67th from Robert Scrunton.
Joanna's occupations ranged from clerk in 1908 to department store salesman in 1910; nurse in 1912; and finally, laundry worker in 1913. And it was as a laundry girl that Joanna made her mark and earned a place in local labor history.
As part of a series on "Seattle Women Who Maintain Their Own Independence", the May 28, 1905 Seattle Times printed "The Girl in the Steam Laundry",1 a profile of Harriet Graban of the Queen City Laundry. At that time, the laundry girl worked 10-hour days, six days a week, with Sundays and holidays off. Graban, who had worked at the Queen City Laundry for four years, had reached the point of making $15 a week. As she told the Times, "... a girl will like the work, pay attention and then the proprietors will raise her salary until she could support herself on her wages." (Emphasis mine.)
A quick search of the "Help Wanted - Female" ads of the time reveals the degree of specialization within the laundry. Ads called for shirt waist and neckband ironers, shirt finishers, ladies' clothes ironers, mangle girls, starch and flat work sorters, starchers, collar girls, and more.
Joanna had worked for the Troy Laundry for about a year when she was subpoenaed to testify before the Industrial Welfare commission in Olympia regarding setting a minimum wage for women laundry workers.
There she distinguished herself with her determination and wit. Taking to task laundry owner Frank Nixon, who thought the girls needed only 10 cents for each meal, she said "It's easy enough for you to say that girls can eat on 10 cents a meal. Talking that way doesn't hurt your stomach and it doesn't make your heart faint and your head swim as you slave, slave, slave. Your meal at noon today cost $2.40 for yourself. You've allowed yourself at one sitting more than you would give a laundry girl all week."2
(Nixon wasn't the only one who thought the girls should be kept hungry. Rev. H. R. McGinnity of Tacoma, at the conference as a representative of the disinterested public, had claimed that "working girls should not have coffee with their meals, that a 'horn of milk and a potato' had been good enough for working people" in Ireland.)3
Nixon estimated the annual cost of living for the laundry girl at $372. Joanna estimated $609.4 On May 16, the five male conference members outvoted the four female conference members to pass a resolution recommending $8.50 as the minimum wage.5 The Industrial Welfare Commission rejected it unanimously and called for a new conference: "Investigation has revealed the fact that $8.50 is not sufficient for a woman to maintain herself in health and comfort."6
(In May of 1914, the minimum wage for women working in stores was $10 per week, and had just been set at $8.90 per week for women factory workers. "Members of the welfare commission take the ground that there is little difference between the amount necessary to support a working girl in a factory or laundry, and they do not believe a marked difference in wages between the two industries would be justified.")7
Joanna returned home from Olympia at the close of the conference, but discovered when she reported to work at the Troy Laundry that she had been fired. The populist Seattle Star (in contrast to Colonel Blethen's Seattle Times, which allowed one grudging column to cover labor issues) made her dismissal front-page headline news.8
The Star editorialized on her firing,9 and reported on her subsequent blacklisting by every laundry in Seattle.10 Labor Commissioner E. W. Olsen investigated the case and demanded that B. F. Ivy and W. H. Kuhlemeier, proprietors of the Troy Laundry, reinstate Joanna. When they failed to promise to comply, Olsen decided to make a test case by prosecuting the proprietors and forewoman May Jeffries. Would the new state law authorizing a minimum wage for working women be "broad enough to protect from arbitrary discharge an employee who offends her employer by assisting the industrial welfare commission in fixing the minimum wage for workers in her craft"?11
In early July 1914, Justice of the Peace John B. Gordon found B. F. Ivy guilty of violating the state industrial commission act. Ivy was fined the maximum of $100.12 The Seattle Star lamented that the fine was nothing more than a slap on the wrist.13
The state, however, couldn't compell the Troy Laundry to rehire Joanna. It couldn't protect her from being blacklisted. She may not have worked again until the opening14 of the union-owned Mutual Laundry in December of 1914.
Though now securely employed by the city's first cooperative, Joanna continued to fight for the rights of the average laundry girl. In February of 1915 she appeared before a joint committee on labor and labor statistics, speaking of the fear of retaliation that kept the state's 2,000-some laundry girls from protesting the proposed amendment to the 8-hour law.15
By 1916, Joanna and her mother had moved to 514 Prospect on Queen Anne Hill (the Mutual Laundry was located at 714 Broad). Joanna's father, Robert L. Hilts, had died in Darrington, where he had been employed as a logger, in May of that year. In 1917, she and her mother had moved to L112 Valley, still on Queen Anne Hill, and Joanna had been hired as Business Agent for the Mutual Laundry.16 She had been serving as financial secretary, but when the previous business agent left, the two positions were merged to make a salaried, full-time job. In that capacity, Joanna continued to work for the laundry girl, speaking, for example, to the laundry workers of Everett who wished to form a union.17
On 18 May 1918, Joanna married Robert Edgar Wall, a Canadian-born iron moulder. She appears to have dropped out of public life after her marriage. She and Robert had three children together - Robert jr., Lena, and John - and lived in South Seattle for the entirety of their marriage.
Joanna died on 27 January 1961, in Duarte, CA, while visiting her son Robert.
Further reading:
Report of Commission on Industrial Relations, Olson Exhibit No. 3 - Laundry Conference, Senate Chamber, Capitol Building, Olympia, Wash., May 14 and 15, 1914
Home & Dry Gazette - The Story of the Seattle Empire Laundry
"Laundry Workers Struggle for Recogniztion", Kimberley Reimer, Seattle General Strike Project
1 "Seattle Women Who Maintain Their Own Independence - The Girl in the Steam Laundry", Seattle Times, May 28, 1905, Magazine section, pages 1 and 5↩
2 Johanna Hilts Fired" (headline, front page), The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 20 May 1914. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.↩
3 "Labor To Watch Scale Hearings", The Seattle Times, May 21, 1914↩
4 "Minimum Wage May Be Only $8", The Seattle Times, May 15, 1914↩
5 Ibid.↩
6 $8.50 Wages For Laundry Girls Too Low", The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 16 May 1914. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.↩
7 "Minimum Wage May Be Only $8"↩
8 Johanna Hilts Fired", The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 20 May 1914. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.↩
9 The Case of Johnna (sic) Hilts, The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 21 May 1914. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.↩
10 Johanna Hilts On Black List; Can't Get A Job", The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 28 May 1914. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.↩
11 "State Comes To Aid of Worker", The Seattle Times, May 21, 1914↩
12 "Laundry Manager Fined", The Seattle Times, July 7, 1914↩
13 A Slap on the Wrist", The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 08 July 1914. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.↩
14 Model Laundry Completed; Organized Labor Dances To Celebrate Its Success", The Seattle star. (Seattle, Wash.), 12 Dec. 1914. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.↩
15 Girls Afraid To Protest 8-Hour Bill", The Tacoma times. (Tacoma, Wash.), 11 Feb. 1915. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress↩
16 "Laundry Workers Get Girl Business Agent", The Seattle Times, May 11, 1917↩
17 Laundry Workers Organize Union", The labor journal. (Everett, Wash.), 22 June 1917. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.↩
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)