![]() Significant improvements in the lives of American workers. The years after the Pratt & Whitney strike saw Twenty-one weeks, the company eventually settled, agreeing to a 12-cent raise. Thousands of Pratt & Whitney workers led mass pickets at the plant. Despite concerted opposition from management, and tensions with local authorities, In 1946 alone, as many as four million workers walked off the In the years 1945-1946, the United States saw the largest strike wave in the Worker’s demands, citing labor costs and supply shortages left over from Worldīut the striking workers had the wind at their backs. They aimed to raise their pay 18 ½ cents an hour, equal Workers of America, several thousand workers refused to work in an effort toĪchieve higher wages. Organized by Unity Lodge 251 of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Niles-Bement-Pond Company had greater success when they went on strike in 1946. Workers at the Pratt and Whitney Division of the Yet despite new laws protecting collective bargaining, theĬompany refused to negotiate with the workers and the strike was eventually Students from Yale and Wesleyan University even joined the The strike was a raucous affair, involving violenceĪnd intimidation against workers, as well as an attempted bombing of the plant Holidays, no vacation, no sick days, no time and a half.” Striking worker, Leo LaForge, later recounted, “There was, in them days, no And the workers at the Colt plant had good reason to strike. Routinely used work stoppages and picket lines to improve their workingĬonditions. In the middle of the Great Depression, workers One early example was the 1935 strike of 1,000 workersĪt the Colt Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company located along theĬonnecticut River in Hartford. Home to a fair share of labor unrest, much of it well documented in theīusiness and labor collections held by Archives & Special Collections. The Great Railroad Strike ended in failure, labor militancy continued in theįollowing decades, and the strike remained an essential tactic for workers.Īs a leading industrial state, Connecticut has been To government officials intent on breaking the power of workers. In these grisly skirmishes, armories proved useful When local police refused to break up strikes, governors called in state But capitalists and their politicalĪllies had weapons of their own, and they didn’t hesitate to use them.ĭuring the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, for example, The country began to organize and agitate for higher wages, improved workingĬonditions, and a better quality of life. In the late nineteenth century, working people across They were designed to help defend the country, though not from distant Yet as the historian Jeremy Brecher reminds us, sturdyīrick-buildings like Hawley Armory once appeared across the United States for another Built in 1915Īnd named after Willis Nichols Hawley, a UConn graduate who died of yellowįever in the Spanish-American War, the armory has long served as a site for athleticĮvents, campus gatherings, and military exercises. Near the center of the University of ConnecticutĬampus sits Hawley Armory, one of many oblong brick buildings.
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