The Baltimore-built American Liberty Ship S. S. John W. Brown at the Maine State Pier in Portland in August of 2007. Associated Press file photo
Today, labor unions are well established in the Midcoast. But it was not so long ago that one man helped lead the fight to bring organized labor to Bath.
Although John William Brown was born at Somersworth, Prince Edward Island, in 1870 he was – like his Massachusetts-born father – a true American. By 1903, John married Eva May Fanion in Worcester, Massachusetts, and the couple soon moved to a farm on the Barley Neck Road in Woolwich.
John W. Brown Image courtesy of the S.S. John W. Brown website
When Brown took a job at Bath Iron Works as a “joiner” he found himself interested in issues of labor and old-age pensions.
By April of 1920, Brown spoke publicly, encouraging a group of retail clerks to unionize, reasoning that “anybody going anywhere in America is organized” he said. “Even the criminals are organizing.”
When shipyard administrators got word that one of their employees was trying to unionize, they took immediate action. Shortly after his talk, Brown discovered he no longer had a job and he could “no longer find a hall” in which to meet and lecture.
Brown was not alone in his efforts to unionize the shipyard, a strong pro-labor movement was growing across the United States and a number of men in Bath were also leading the local charge.
Aside from organizing, Brown also worried for the elderly who were too old to work and had no other means of support during the Great Depression.
By February of 1930, Brown formed an “Old Age Pension League,” in Bath and was immediately voted in as president. The League then set out to pass “an old-age pension law” at the state level.
Within two years, Brown’s name was formally entered as a candidate in the Republican Party for the Maine State Legislature and his “pension plan” was at the center of his progressive platform.
Though Brown was not successful in winning the nomination, an old-age pension plan would be established by law in 1936 as Social Security, a centerpiece of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal.”
Brown was still busy with efforts to organize in Bath and he was writing a column in the “Yard Bird” newspaper. And, in August of 1933, Brown served as keynote speaker for over 300 at “the first general meeting of ship fitters,” who then signed with Brown and joined the Union.
By October of 1934, organized labor at BIW “was issued a charter” but still lacked an official collective bargaining agreement. But that would change in 1935 when President Roosevelt signed the Wagner Act into law.
On April 21, 1937, a group of “mostly women” shoe workers in Lewiston were attacked by police as the peaceful marchers protested, and Gov. Lewis Barrows was forced to call in the Maine National Guard to “restore order.”
Soon the Yard Birds at Bath grew beyond 500 as “two decades of bitter rivalry” grew feverish between the factions of the AFL and CIO, and local leaders worried about more potential violence. But, John W. Brown publicly urged his membership to “mark time” as he called for peace and cooperation.
By February of 1939, Brown was elected as a national organizer of Local 4, while the local sought official “certification as a bargaining agency.” But fear of job losses forced many to vote against organizing until the opening of World War II saw much of Brown’s work realized when nearly 20,000 shipyard workers finally unionized.
Back in Woolwich, now 70 years of age, John W. Brown still advised Local 4, but now he was mostly retired and spent his days puttering around his “large farm.” There, John’s wife Eva had “… a large number of furred and feathered friends” she fed daily. But, one errant critter was constantly “ravaging the garden,” forcing Brown’s hand.
On June 19th of 1941, Brown sat down on his back porch with a loaded shotgun resting between his knees, while he awaited the elusive critter. Suddenly, the gun went off, fatally wounding Brown in the head.
That evening, BIW union representatives notified workers of Brown’s death over the loud speaker. “He was … an outstanding American,” the voice declared, “John W. Brown will remain an immortal in the ranks of American Labor.”
Three days later, with union members as pall bearers, John W. Brown was laid to rest in the family plot at the Riverview Cemetery, at Day’s Ferry, in Woolwich.
On Aug. 16 of 2007, a World War II Liberty museum-ship tied-up at the Maine State Pier. The ship had come to visit the home state of her namesake, Maine’s own John W. Brown, whose work still lives on today as one of our most organized Stories From Maine.
Lori-Suzanne Dell is a Brunswick author and historian. She has published four books and runs the “Stories from Maine” Facebook page.
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