INTRODUCTION + AFTERWORD
(depending on when you read it)
In the late 1980s, working full time as a toolmaker in a local factory, I had also returned to college part-time to continue working on a Labor Studies degree. It was around then that I first read about these strikes in South River, a town in which I'd lived since the mid-1970s (having grown up in the nearby 'Spotswood' section of Monroe Twp). I remember it being in an interview with a ILGWU member in the local weekly newspaper (Sentinel?) who mentioned a "...strike in which several people were killed..." which happened "...several years..." before they'd joined the union in the late 1930s.
"Oh," I thought, "that sounds interesting."
I immediately went to Jesse Selover's history of the town in the South River Library and, even though his "1918" date didn't seem right considering the "several years" comment, I went looking for the events of the Herrmann, Aukum & Co. stitchers strike in microfilms of the local papers at the Rutgers and other local libraries.
At the time, coincidentally, I also lived in a duplex within sight of what was left of what was usually just called the "old silk mill", which turned out to be the Herrmann, Aukam plant, and would soon after buy a house on Main Street, making me "neighbors" of houses once owned by members of the Herrmann family.
Researching that strike, of course, turned out to be very frustrating since Selover's history has the strike date one year off! I finally found a brief mention of, I think, a trial of one of the strikers or maybe a comment on the acutual closing of the plant, and only then was able to go back a year to 1917 and find the strike. My initial research led to a short term paper (it was supposed to be 5 pages or less, but I'd already accumulated more information than that so I turned it in with the pages unnumbered). But it worked out OK...
I continued to research it on and off after that. At some later point I also "found" the 1932 strike (no doubt it being the one discussed by that ILGWU member in that Sentinel article) in a book entitled Twin Rivers: The Raritan and Passaic. Initially that was pretty confusing, and then somewhat frustrating to realize that I'd spent years researching the "wrong" strike.
Since then, and especially as more newspapers became both digitized and easily "searchable", and in some cases available online, I've continued to accumulate material and last December (2016), when I returned to my box of notes and microfilm article Xeroxes, in a burst of organizing - in part, realizing that 2017 would be the 100th Anniversary of the final Herrmann, Aukam & Co. strike - I decided it would be easier to sort and organize the material online as a sort of "Beta" version of a website.
Unfortunately, I'm not happy with some of the ways Google Sites "organizes" these pages alphabetically, rather than allowing me to arrange them chronologically but the price ($0.00) is right. Sorry for some confusion - and, remember, make frequent use your BACK button on your internet browser!
Happy to hear any comments, criticisms, additions or corrections. Always happy to have more contemporary images if available and will give credit, of course.
Thanks,
Steve - jesskidden@gmail.com
United Auto Workers
Pulp, Sulfite & Paper Mill Workers
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Industrial Workers of the World
In particular, I would love to find a copy of this book or a scanned copy:
Young Workers in Action: A Story of the South River Strike - Brown, Lloyd
(New York: Youth Publishers) 1931
.............................
NAMING
NAMES...
& SPELLING THEM
I will gladly "correct" comments on som e individual when I do not have full information, of course.
Spelling some of those name has proved to be a bit more complicated. 100 years ago, both newspapers and even official documents (legal items, maps, ads, etc) just weren't as concerned with spelling and, in the case of many foreign surnames, even the individuals families involved spelled them differently and first name were often, too, "Americanized".
I have chosen to list all people involved by name when available. All such names can be found on digitized or microfilmed contemporary newspaper and magazine articles.
The most notable name variations were the young boy killed in 1932, whose variety of "names" even got their own page -
The handkerchief company and the founding families members' name were often spelled alternately "Herrman", "Herman" and "Hermann"(ven a "Herriman") as was the side-street off Whitehead that I assume was named after them.
(Other SR addresses also varied - nearby Russel Street is also called "Russell" and Reid Street is spelled "Reed" and "Reade").
Their former partner's name also suffered this to a lesser extent, as "Aukum" or "Aukman", etc.
The family of Alexander Schak used that spelling on his headstone and he used it on his businesses, including embossed on the glass bottles used by his bottling firm, but later family members and even the nearby town street have changed it to "Schack".
The Herrmann-Aukam and Needle strikers' Russian and Polish names were routinely spelled differently. I have checked "official" documents when available and have tried - not always successfully - to use the same spelling in my text, one that agrees with the families' current usage.
Corrections welcome, of course.
The images that I have "collected" over the years were found available on Google Images - I have noted their current source when found, but continue to do so as I get closer to the original source (not often noted on secondary sources).
This is a non-profit, educational publication,
no advertising is permitted.