/ f Sabrie G. Akin and the Labor Whrld , % • In Aprd 11, 1896, in Duluth, Minnesota, a 29-year- tity. In this, she was in company with other prominent 1 I old woman brought out the first issue of the La- Duluth feminists, including Sarah Burger Stearns, who \J bor World. Sabrie Goodwin Akin, a "lady orga was a statewide officer in temperance and woman's nizer" and the mother of a six-year-old boy, was the suffrage organizations, and Ida Thompson, who served biweekly newspaper's editor, publisher, and sole owner. the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) as Like many reform-minded citizens of the 1890s, she state superintendent of temperance and labor from was a Christian Socialist who saw the world as a battle 1899 to 1904.^ between the wealthy industrialists and the working Sabrie Akin was one of the warriors of Duluth's class. The Labor World, she promised, "wdl pat no one radical history, the city's most famous radical woman on the back to gain patronage or support. The labor of the 1890s. It was not in the interests of the main question will be handled without gloves by the LABOR stream, business-oriented media to retain a memory of WORLD, and if need be with knife in hand."' such fiery socialist critics. But it is in our interest to The Labor World's motto was "Thou Shalt Love restore Mrs. Akin, as ber friends affectionately called Thy Neighbor As Thyself." Akin wielded her editorial her, to Minnesota's historical memory. Her career pen against the robber barons, who did not live by the shows that, one quarter of a century before women Golden Rule. She called radroad magnate James J. Hill won the federal suffrage, socialists and feminists were "Pirate," "Slippery Hill," and "Infernal Hill and his respected members of the Minnesota reform commu lick-spittel hirelings." She referred to "Judas Iscariot nity. The fascinating question about her is: How did Rockefeller and his band of gilt-edged highwaymen." If she manage a career as a socialist speaker and publish a the poor did not find justice on earth. Akin warned, successful newspaper, when her audience was the they would be avenged in the hereafter: "the monopo rather cautious labor establishment in Duluth? list, the gold-bug and the slimy capitalistic robber will sink into an oblivion deeper and darker than hell itself, SABRIE AKIN learned leadership skills and demo there to remain till the crack of doom."^ cratic ideals at home as a child. Her Goodwin ancestors The way she preferred to use her given name, emigrated to Kittery, Maine, from Sussex County, Eng rather than her husband's, announced a feminist iden- land, in 1652 and lived in New England untd the 1850s. The family counted a governor and an admiral's wife 'Will and Probate Court records, Mrs. Sabrie G. Akin, among the its stars. Leadership was expected.* Jan. 23, 1900, St. Louis County Courthouse, Duluth; Labor Daniel Goodwin, Akin's father, was born in Ver World (LW), April 25, 1896; Duluth News Tribune (NT), mont in 1832. Esther Ann Van Patter, her mother, was May 12, 1895. Thanks to Cad Ross, director of the 20th- born in 1836 in Lower Canada, of English-American Gentury Radicalism in Minnesota project at the Minnesota parents from New York state. Esther and Daniel were Historical Society (MHS), for introducing me to Akin; Pat Maus, director of the Northeast Minnesota Historical Center married on the Fourth of July, 1859, in Cerro Gordo (NMHC), Duluth, for the clue that located Akin's newspaper County, Iowa. They bought a farm near Mason City portrait sketch; and Margaret M. Wellen (Iowa), Eleanor and had their first son, Charles H., in 1860. Roy M. Campbell (Illinois), and Virginia Hyvarinen (Duluth) for ge was born in 1863 and Ellen T. in 1865. Sabra (her birth nealogical research. name), the youngest, was born in 1867.^ ^Advertisement, Duluth City Directory, 1897-98, vol. M- Z, p. 554; LW, June 6, July 18, Aug. 15, May 23—aU 1896. The Goodwin children learned about economic and 'Minnesota White Ribboner, April, 1897, Minnesota personal vulnerability at home. The value of the family Woman's Christian Temperance Union Records, MHS. On Stearns, see Mrs. W. S. Woodbridge, "Tells Life Work of Duluth's Pioneer Clubwoman and Suffragist," unmarked ar Mary Pruitt, a counselor at Minneapolis Community Col ticle in clippings file, NMHC; Bessie Lathe Scovell, Yester lege, is also cojounder oj the college's women's studies pro years: A Briej History oj the Minnesota Woman's Christian gram. She holds a Ph.D. in American studies Jrom the Uni Temperance Union . . . to 1939 (St. Paul: Minnesota WCTU, versity oj Minnesota. 1939), 9, 216, 237. 'LW, Mar. 10, 1900. MARY t M in 'Here and below, see marriage records, 1855-1880, Cerro Gordo County Courthouse, Mason City, Iowa; United States, manuscript census, Cerro Gordo County, Lake Township, Iowa, 1860, p. 864; 1870, p. 404; John Samuel Goodwin, comp.. The Goodwins oj Kittery, York County, Maine (Maryland and Virginia: Orrin Sheller Goodwin, 1898), 97; LW, Mar. 10, 1900. Bustling Superior Street in Duluth, 1899 farm decreased from 900 to 800 dollars between 1860 When she was in her early twenties, Sabrie and 1870. Tragedy struck both parents. Daniel Goodwin married and had a boy, Charles. Either be Goodwin "died a young man." Esther faced the chal cause of a divorce or the death of her husband, a Mr. lenge of hearing impairment, although she was able to LeFeure about whom little is known today, she had to read and write. Sabrie showed literary promise early in support herself and the baby. In 1892, when her son life, and both she and Roy eventually chose careers that was about three, Sabrie married Theodore C. Akin, a were built with words. traveling insurance agent.* The Goodwins left Iowa, perhaps for northwestern In early 1895 T. C. Akin moved to Duluth, perhaps Minnesota, by 1880. The next year, at age 18, Roy to capitalize on business opportunities. In 1885 the Goodwin began his railroad career as a switchman in city's population had been 18,036; ten years later, with St. Vincent, Minnesota. In the early 1890s Sabrie found 59,396 residents, it was a boom town. In the mid-1890s employment in nearby Fargo as labor editor at the Duluth's public transportation system converted to Daily Republican, a leading newspaper of the day." Workers like her brother Roy at nearby railway hubs were the audience for her labor column. ""Biographical," Railway Times (Terre Haute, Ind.), For both Roy and Sabrie, vocational training came Sept. 2, 1895, copy in State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison; Fargo City Directory, 1893. The Goodwins were on the job. In her Labor World in 1897, Akin thanked not in the 1880 census for Cerro Gordo County. her former editor, recalling that "under the editorial 'LW, Feb. 13, 1897. supervisal eye of J. J. Jordan . . . many a time [his] 'Marriage license, Sabra Goodwin LeFeure and Theodore blue pencil caused [me] to look with regret on the result Charles Akin, Dec. 20, 1892, Cass County Courthouse, of many hours of laborious work."' Fargo. 208 MINNESOTA HISTORY electric streetcars, but mule-drawn cars stdl ran on Park Point. Once, a hastily budt house slipped a little way down the hill. Since housing was in short supply, T. C. Akin lived in a rooming house.° Sabrie followed in March, 1895, but she left her son in Fargo with friends until the fall. It was when she arrived in Duluth that Akin changed her name Sabra to Sabrie and claimed her birthdate to be 1869, not 1867. After moving several times, the Akins settled in a multi- ple-famdy dwelling at 1320 East Second Street, in the fashionable Endion neighborhood.'" TO DULUTH Sabrie Akin brought a Jeffersonian ide alism that made her speeches and, later, her essays at tractive to her new audience. She envisioned an Ameri canized style of socialism where, she wrote, "the people themselves" would have collective ownership "of the wealth of the country." Akin blended this socialist ideal The seven jailed American Railway Union with democratic means. "The ballot is our weapon," officials, including Roy Goodwin (bottom row, she declared." third from left); Eugene Debs (bottom, right); By the time Sabrie settled in town, Duluth unionists and Sylvester Keliher (top, right). had already met her brother Roy. In 1894 he had re signed as yard master at the Great Northern hub in Grand Forks, North Dakota, to sign on as an organizer of the bold new American Railway Union (ARU). Like Ida A. Harper, and Mary E. Lease were published in the Knights of Labor and populist giant Ignatius Don the ARU newspaper. Railway Times. Such inclusive- nelly, who supported them, the ARU had heart. It re ness suited young idealists such as Sabrie Akin and cruited the young and the unskilled. It included in its Roy Goodwin.'^ ranks female clerks and advocated for them equal The ARU played well to a midwestern audience. wages for equal work. Women won a public presence in Using familiar imagery. Railway Times characterized the ARU, which counted their groups among the so the two-year-old union as a "young Sampson" fighting cialist, populist, temperance, and other movements in numerous foes: "the defiant" J. J. Hdl; the bootlicking its coalition. Lizzie M. Holmes, Eva McDonald Valesh, "old and effete" railroad brotherhoods; "the monster of depravity," George M. Pullman; the "bdlions of capi tal" controlled by the railroad owners' General Man agers' Association; corrupt federal courts; and the Na Wr, Jan. 1, 1896; Duluth Evening Herald (EH), Feb. 20, tional Guard. In 1894 Minnesota boasted 31 ARU 24, 1896; Duluth City Directory, 1895. chapters, including 13 in the Twin Cities and others in '"EH, Mar. 9, Aug. 17, 1895, Jan. 24, 1900; LW, Mar. 10, 1900; United States, manuscript census, Cerro Gordo Duluth, nearby Two Harbors, and Proctor Knott.'^ County, 1870, p. 404; Fargo City Directory, 1893; Duluth Socialistic unions like the ARU had a radical City Directory, 1895, 1896-97, 1898-99, 1900. agenda and a strong following. Such radicalism was "LW, Feb. 1, 1897, June 6, 1896; Mari Jo Buhle, Women not unique during this era. The American Federation and American Socialism, 1870-1920 (Urbana: University of lUinois Press, 1981), 74-75; Howard H. Quint, The Forging of Labor (A.F. of L.) had turned away from socialist oj American Socialism: Origins oj the Modern Movement ideals by 1894, but its platform of the previous year (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1953), 76-79, 95. included resolutions for nationalization of the rail '^"Biographical," "A Great Bargain," cover illustration, roads, telegraphs, telephones, and mines as well as for and articles by Valesh, Harper, and Lease—all in Railway municipal ownership of waterworks, streetcars, gas Times, Sept. 2, 1895; the Holmes article is in the June 1, and electric plants.'" 1897, issue. See also Nick Salvatore, Eugene V. Debs, Citizen and Socialist (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982), The ARU lost its 1894 strike against George Pull 121-123; Philip S. Foner, History oj the Labor Movement in man's palace car factory and his brutal company town. the United States, Vol. 11 (New York: International Pub For refusing to obey an injunction against organizing, lishers, 1975), 255-257. Foner wrote that "the one blot on the Roy Goodwin, Sylvester Keliher (who was born in Lake A.R.U.'s constitution" was "the ban against Negro members." City), and four other ARU officers were sentenced to '^"A. R. U. History," Railway Times, Sept. 2, 1895; see also issue of Oct. 1, 1894. three months in jail. Union president and labor hero '•'Quint, Forging oj American Socialism, 66. Eugene V. Debs was sentenced to six months. Many SUMMER I99I 209 ARU leaders, including Roy Goodwin and Akin's friend the next two years, five women won elections as dele in West Superior, Ellis B. Harris, were blacklisted from gates to the Duluth Federated Trades Assembly: the railroad work for the rest of their lives, despite the Laundry Workers' May S. Gahill and Eva Quade, and findings of a presidential commission, appointed soon the Hotel and Restaurant Waitresses Protective Union's thereafter by Grover Cleveland. Citing testimony by Gelena Bonlore, Gertrude Catlin, and Mary "many impartial observers," the commission concluded Fleishman. Mrs. Akin and her waitresses and laun that the ARU workers' grievances should have been at dresses wedged cracks in the wall that kept women out tended to and that their civil rights had been abrogated of men's spaces. That wall, as feminist historian Linda by the industrialist giants.'^ K. Kerber recently wrote, was not a natural construc In early 1895, with his jad sentence "hanging over tion. It was a social construction.* his head," Roy Goodwin traveled to Duluth to arrange Akin challenged social customs throughout 1895. for Debs's January 6 speech at the Temple Opera Canvassing Duluth business owners, she raised $80 for House. The month that Akin moved to town, the "Per striking miners in Ishpeming, Michigan. On behalf of sonals" column in the Duluth Evening Herald noted a the trades assembly she investigated the working condi visit from her sister-in-law, Mrs. R. M. Goodwin. tions of the department-store clerks and addressed the Through her brother and his association with Debs, newly organized Painters and Decorators Union. The Akin earned a position in the extended family of labor right-wing Duluth News Tribune reported that Akin heroes. These ties lent her courage to be herself in a spoke on a Saturday evening to "those hustlers and loyal new setting, for the rank and file identified with the members of organized labor, the longshoremen." She ARU. The Railway Times reported that when Debs was the only woman to join McCallum from the trades spoke in 1895 at the Labor Temple in Minneapolis, the assembly and the body's organizer J. W. Nichols on the vast throng responded to him with '"a tumultuous up speakers' platform.-' roar and applause."'" As the News Tribune reminded Duluth readers, Sabrie Akin lost no time in marching, apparently women found themselves segregated from men in most unafraid, into male-dominated spaces. In early May, of the wage-earning world. A newspaper dlustrator 1895, she was first introduced to the Duluth Federated portrayed the Bethel, a popular meeting place that Trades Assembly as "a lady organizer," sister of Roy stood in the center of Duluth's business district. At Goodwin." lunchtime the businessmen occupied a lively, open Later that month, she addressed the trades assem space. Women lunched in a small space cut off from the bly on socialism and announced her intention to pub main room by a heavy curtain.^^ lish a labor newspaper. The Evening Herald reported her promise that her paper "would be "red hot' and 'first, last and all the time' be for public ownership of all corporations." The trades assembly elected her an '^"Biographical" and "The A.R.U. Memento," Railway Times, Sept. 2, 1895; LW, June 20, 1896; O. D. Boyle, His honorary delegate on the spot.'* tory oj Railroad Strikes (Washington, D.C: Brotherhood In publishing a paper Akin recognized an opportu Publishing Co., 1935), 59, 61-62; Salvatore, Debs, 138. nity to empower the labor community by reporting "EH, Jan. 5, Mar. 9, 1895; "At Minneapolis," Railway fast-breaking public questions from labor's point of Times, June 15, 1895. view. That community was a big factor in Duluth's 'Wr, May 12, 1895. "EH, May 25, 1895; NT, May 26, 1895. boom-town growth. Trades assembly President Alfred "LW, Mar. 10, 1900; EH, Jan. 18, Mar. 31, 1896. During McCallum announced that in the mid-1890s union this era Duluth labor sought reforms including the eight-hour members and their famdies accounted for one-fifth of day, child labor protection, burial of miners after work acci the city's population. The Evening Herald called the dents, and Saturday "half-holidays" in summer; see, for ex trades assembly "one of the most powerful labor bodies ample, EH, Feb. 18, May 30, 1896; NT, May 24, June 21, 1896; LW, June 6, 1896, Feb. 1, 1897. in the West."'" '"NT, Aug. 31, 1929, June 16, 1895; EH, June 24, 1895, Sept. 26, 1896, Mar. 10, 1897; LW, Mar. 10, 1900, Jan. 16, IT WOULD BE less than a year before Sabrie Akin 1897; Kerber, "Separate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman's Place: The Rhetoric of Women's History," Journal oj Ameri made good her publishing promise. During that inter can History 75 (June, 1988): 28, 37-39. val she managed to do what the men had failed to do: "NT, July 21, Sept. 15, Oct. 6, 1895; EH, Sept. 29, Oct. 5, organize the waitresses. The Waiters Union elected her Nov. 9, 1895; Ronald K. Huch, " 'Typhoid' Truelson, Water, as a delegate in her own right. Akin was the first female and Politics in Duluth, 1896-1900," Minnesota History 47 among the 150 men in the trades assembly, representing (Spring, 1981): 192, 196. No other female speaker was men 4,000 men and women in more than 50 unions. In all, tioned in the Tribune's or Herald's labor columns. "NT, April 28, 1895; CarroU Smith-Rosenberg, Disor she served three six-month terms as a delegate from the derly Conduct: Visions oj Gender in Victorian America (New Waiters and the Street Radway workers unions. Within York: A. A. Knopf, 1985), 245. 210 MINNESOTA HISTORY adopted a more capitalistic orientation. Mrs. Akin ex pressed her political judgment of Gompers at the 1895 Minnesota Federation of Labor convention in Winona. She stood among the minority of delegates who voted against Gompers for A. F of L. president.^ LATE in 1895, Duluth's city council established a re trenchment committee to slash salaries of municipal employees in order to reduce taxes. The trades assembly picked Sabrie Akin as its committee representative. The lone woman among six men from the Commercial Club, the Jobbers (wholesalers) Union, and other prominent businesses, she more than held her own in another male-defined space.^^ Acting on explicit instructions from the trades as sembly. Akin suggested that the city cut salaries of ad ministrators before reducing laborers' and teachers' pay. Her other proposal for cutting taxes earned her her first Duluth headline: "Mrs. Akin Suggests the National Guard Company Be Disbanded." The mditia had pro voked violence in the Pullman strike, and Akin and the trades assembly were still mad. At an earlier assembly Workers at the Duluth coal docks, about 1900 meeting, one delegate had said that the city could cut costs by not renting a drill hall. The guard, he thought, could drill on the ice.^' Akin's energetic style of leadership attracted atten The waitresses whom Mrs. Akin organized met on tion. Soon, incoming Mayor Caspar H. Truelson and equal terms with the waiters at the Bethel one evening the city council were convinced of the political disad in June. Within one year they won raises of 70 cents per vantage of cutting the salaries of rank-and-fde city week and the right to sign union-scale contracts with workers. Even the News Tribune used Mrs. Akin's every major restaurant in Duluth." arguments for maintaining present salaries for the While Akin established her reputation as a labor lowest paid.^ leader, her brother spent June, July, and August, 1895, in the McHenry County jail in Woodstock, Illinois, with Debs and five other ARU officers. Two months after his release, Goodwin went west to organize along The Bethel, as portrayed in the the Great Northern rail lines. When he was jailed in News Tribune, 1895 Kalispell, Montana, in November, 1895, the Evening Herald featured a story on "agitator" and "ringleader" Goodwin and this, another failed strike.'" During these 1894 and 1895 strikes, A. F of L. President Samuel Gompers moved to the right on the political spectrum. Gompers deserted the ARU, de nounced socialism, rejected political activism, and ^JVT, June 2, 23, Sept. 22, 29, 1895; LW, July 18, 1896. ""On August 22nd," Railway Times, Sept. 2, 1895; EH, Nov. 5, 1895. ''EH, Nov 9, 23, 1895; Quint, Forging oj American So cialism, 69-71. '"EH, Sept. 7, Nov 9, 16, 1895, Jan. 2, 1896. "Duluth Federated Trades Assembly, Minute book, vol. 1, Jan. 10, 1896, Duluth Federated Trades & Labor Assembly Papers, MHS; EH, July 6, 1895, Jan. 11, 1896; "StiU On," Railway Times, Aug. 1, 1894. jt)'\'i^(: Oii<lha, f^oorq '^NT, Feb. 9, 17, Mar. 2L 22, 1896; EH, Mar. 21, 1896. / SUMMER 1991 211 ;^j{5f-v-«- ' ii hi '^'P ii i' 'i^:J-:*'^. ' 1 Vn,.. 1. DULUTH ANT) SUIMiKIOR, APRIL 11, IS'JG. No. 1. Sabrie Akin kept up the pressure. She issued a bold and the Herald wishes her a large measure of the suc minority report objecting to the committee's recom cess which she deserves." The Superior Evening Tele mended wage reductions to "rank and file of school gram predicted that the Labor World would lead la teachers, firemen, policemen, the day laborer." Female borers to "think intelligently on the prominent teachers were especially vulnerable, making $56.74 per questions." A News Tribune editorial called Akin "a month to male teachers' $104.00 in 1895. The council thoroughly practical newspaperwoman, a worker with would not give Akin's report a public hearing, but the workers' interests at heart and she employs [her] pen in News Tribune published it. She penned this stinging vigorous or entertaining style as the subject in hand socialist criticism: "Your delegate respectfully urges merits. The Labor World is well patronized and bids upon your honorable body ... to discontinue the fair to be a prosperous factor in the local field."^' granting of privileges to corporations run in the interest Like J. A. Wayland, socialist editor of the Kansas of private parties, whereby money may be extorted paper Appeal to Reason, Akin was primarily an educa from the people, while such corporations escape their tor, not a theoretician. Along with the populists in her just share of the public debt."-' own generation and Nonpartisan Leaguers in the next, she believed that ordinary people were the foundation TWO MONTHS after Akin's minority report appeared of democracy. The Labor World reassured workers of in the News Tribune, she brought out her first issue of this basic democratic ideal. The first issue boasted: the Labor World. The paper's masthead personalized "The school house is planted in every district, reading the traumas of the Industrial Revolution. Laborers, in cluding young boys, worked the iron mines. Waiters and drivers served the ruling class, whose squires were depicted at their leisure. There was nothing abstract '"NT, Feb. 18, 1896; Board of Education, City of Duludi, about the human cost of progress. When the father was 25th Annual Report, July 31, 1895, p. 105 unemployed, the whole family suffered. The masthead '"LW, April 11, 1896. wreathed the rich in roses. The working classes were "EH, April 16, 1896; Superior Evening Telegram, quoted in LW, June 20, 1896; AfT, April 15, 1896. The Herald, April wreathed in thistles.™ 6, 1896, stated that J. M. Murray of the trades assembly The Evening Herald editorialized that Akin "has would be business manager of the Labor World; no subse been prominent in labor matters here for a long time, quent reference to him in this role has been found. 212 MINNESOTA HISTORY your enemy, the capitalist, is undermining you every day."'^ T he Ld^bor W o r ld Akin proved her professionalism by giving a hearing to all sides of a controversy, writing with wit and style. A BI-WEEKLY JOURNAL. For her more conservative audience, the first issue fea tured a front-page article on C. M. Thomas, current Office, 215 Woodbridge Bldg., Duluth. president of the Duluth Federated Trades Assembly, and his "union mercantile" store. On page five she pub SUBSCRIPTION: lished a profile of the assembly's first president, Emil One year, in advance $1.00 A. Applehagen, a personal friend and former shopmate Six month, " . - - 50 of Samuel Gompers.^^ Three month '• - - - 2S For her more radical audience. Akin drew upon her Single copies, 5 cents. connections to the American Railway Union and its Advertising rates made known on application heroes. Also on page one of her first issue was Debs's "Is Solidarity of Labor Impossible?" and a poem, "The Labor World," written for her new paper by her friend Ellis B. Harris. Later issues noted correspondence from Harris when he ran into Roy Goodwin on union busi SABRIB G. AKIN, Editor and Publisher. ness in Buffalo, New York. When two blacklisted St. Cloud ARU train dispatchers called on Mrs. Akin at the Letters and articles relating to the social Labor World, she editorialized that they were fired problem are solicited. "because they dared to be men and not sneaks and cowards at the time of the A.R.U. strike." Working-class men and women read Akin's Labor World because she helped them to make sense out of the controversies of the day. Socialism was not a "scare word," Akin asserted, but a familiar presence. "The matter is accessible to the poorest and every political post office," she wrote, "public highways, postal money and social problem now arising in the nation is dis order, school loan fund, bonded warehouses, the green cussed in the humblest hovel in the land. It follows as a back, river and harbor improvement, and so on, are all day follows night, that some time, and not many years more or less socialistic."'^ hence [workers] will take the reins in their own hands." Akin was particularly careful to clarify an argu Akin customarily laced her editorials with an intensity ment when she was in the thick of it. In June of 1896 that made her audience feel that the future was up to she was one of five female delegates to the Minnesota them. Addressing longshoremen in May, 1896, she said: Federation of Labor convention in Minneapolis. As a "Now whoop 'em up boys! Don't put your name down, delegate from the street railway union. Akin sided with pay your dues and think that is going to raise your the socialists and voted for a controversial resolution wages or hold them at the present scale. . . . Don't stay calling for "possession of the means of production' and away from meetings and then complain because things "collective ownership" by the Minnesota working class. are not run to suit you. . . . come in at the door and do Trades unionists who voted against the measure wanted not stand on the sidewalk and do your debating. . . . to limit the influence of fiery socialists, whom they Remember that while you are loitering along the way judged. Akin explained, would cause "the disruption of organized labor's ranks." The resolution failed, she wrote, "after the fight of the mighty 'gladiators,'" 40 to 59. Akin was the only Duluth delegate to vote for the '^Larry Remele, " 'Things As They Should Be': Jefferso socialist measure.'^ nian Idealism and Rural Rebellion in Minnesota and North The ascendancy in 1896 of the antilabor team of Dakota, 1910-1920," Minnesota History 51 (Spring, 1988): President William McKinley and Republican party 15-17; Quint, Forging oj American Socialism, 38, 208—209; LW, April 11, May 23, 1896. Akin built her newspaper on boss Mark Hanna signaled to many the acceptance of durable ideals. See Curtis S. Miller (Labor World editor, labor bashing. During the election campaign. Akin re 1951-65) interview with Barbara Sommer, Duluth, Jan. 27, ported that "In the elevators and mills the men are 1981, tape recording in collections of NMHC. given to understand that if they want a cinch on their "Here and below, see LW, April 11, Aug. 1, 29, 1896; NT, jobs they must sign the McKinley-Morris club roll." The May 16, 1895. women, she continued, "are often more rebellious than "LW, Aug. 29, 1896. "LW, June 20, 1896, Mar. 10, 1900. the men. One lady is reported as saying that she . . . SUMMER 1991 213 The Minnesota White Ribboner. ^'iirity; iu ttvc ^oinc mid (5oCi in (Soucnimciit. Vol. I. MINNEAPOLIS, illXN"., JULY 15, 181)0. Ko. 2. would starve rather than have [her husband] put a gag wear the crown of victory. The socialists owe their de in his mouth."'" feat to the Duluth delegation, who voted solidly Before the next federation of labor convention in against seating the S.L.P. [Socialist Labor Party] dele December, 1896, the Duluth delegation called a strat gates." The next paragraph continued: "The tadors un egy session to solidify its opposition to the socialists who ion of Duluth could not afford to send a delegate to the advocated political action by the unions. The main State Federation. A letter was read at the convention, stream papers also intensified their opposition to social however, stating that their union voted unanimously in ism, writing that political activism by trades union favor of [the socialist resolution]." The tailors had a members, as proposed by the Socialist Labor party in voice, if not a delegate. In Duluth, that voice was the Twin Cities, was ""a menace to progress" for orga heard only in Akin's labor press.*' nized labor. The News Tribune hounded Akin's friend Until spring of 1897 Akin published a 20-page mag George C. Findley, a former newspaper editor, secre azine, including literature and costly illustrations. By tary-treasurer of his typographical union local, and its June, she scaled down the Labor World to a tabloid delegate to the trades assembly. A typical headline style of four pages or more. She bought up The Hustler cried: "Is Mr. Findley a Socialist?"'" (Duluth), the Mountain Iron Manitou, the Duluth Cit Akin's Labor World, then eight months old, gave izen, and the Duluth Press. This move placed her paper such detailed labor coverage that it provided brisk com on a firmer financial base. Her friend Ida Thompson petition for the Evening Herald and News Tribune. recalled that among Akin's best qualities were her abdi- When the newspapers mounted this antisocialist cam ties as a practical businesswoman.*- paign, their attack represented both a political and a Controversy did not dampen Akin's spirit. The anti- commercial battle. First, the News Tribune planted socialist fervor intensified again in 1897 when Eugene seeds of a controversy. The next day an Evening Herald Debs delivered his first thoroughly socialist address. headline screamed "OBJECT. Mrs. Akin's Akin dubbed it "Debs' Great Speech" and published all Credentials . . . Her Socialistic Views Are Responsible of it, which took up nearly one-third of her newspaper. For Stirring Up the Trouble." She was rumored to be a In that June, 1897, issue Akin lectured her audience. delegate to the upcoming state labor convention. The Don't assume, she warned, that Debs and all other papers implied that she would vote for socialist socialists wear the same political stripes as the doctri measures.''^ naire Socialist Labor party. Her own socialist ideals Akin knew how to use the press to defend herself. foresaw the ownership of labor and of commodities She dashed off a letter protesting that the labor com produced, not of the machinery used for production. munity knew that she had not been a candidate for Akin concluded the editorial in an exasperated tone, delegate. She did not temper her socialist commitment, writing: "There is a horrible confusion of mind among just set straight the facts. Mrs. Akin's denial made the the people of this country on this question. Men should front page of the Herald.''^ Findley also wrote to the Herald and insisted that everyone in Duluth already knew that Akin was a so '"LW, Aug. 15, 1896. On coercing voters, see George W. Lawson, History oj Labor in Minnesota (Minnesota State cialist; that she never attempted to hide her convic Federation of Labor, 1955), 24-25. Robert R Morris was a tions; and that she never shied from controversy. In a Duluth Repubhcan elected to the U.S. Congress. sarcastic tone, Findley marveled at the "forty or fifty "NT, Nov. 15, Dec. 6, 7, 12, 1896. On Findley, see LW, husky anti-socialists in the Duluth delegation [who] June 6, 1896. ought to have little difficulty in protecting themselves "EH, Dec. 5, 1896. '"EH, Dec. 7, 1896. against the machination of one solitary, little woman."^^ '"EH, Dec. 12, 1896. Akin covered the convention in her usual profes "LW, Dec. 19, 1896. sional manner. She editorialized: "Duluth can justly "LW, June 19, 1897, Mar. 10, 1900. 214 MINNESOTA HISTORY know what they are talking about, or keep their mouths shut. Study up."*' ON THE FOURTH of July, 1896, Akin bragged about the role of the dissident press in the labor movement. "The reform press," she wrote, "is the brains and the backbone of the reform movement. Encourage and sustain them; we will need them all before the fight is over." The dissident press was quite popular in the 1890s; historian John D. Hicks speculates that hundreds of newspapers reached hundreds of thousands of sub scribers. Midwestern examples alone included the Min nesota Farmer's Alliance's Great West, the St. Paul La bor Assembly's Union Advocate, and Kansas's socialist Appeal to Reason. Duluth's black community began the World of Duluth in 1896. Minneapolis boasted two reform papers: the Cooperative Age and C. St. John Cole's Rights of Man. The Labor World was in good company. In one 1897 issue alone, for example. Akin reprinted editorials from three midwestern radical pa pers: Ignatius Donnelly's Representative, Coxey's Sound Money, and Silver Knight." The leading women's reform paper in the state was the WCTU's Minnesota White Ribboner, which ran Frances E. Willard throughout the 1890s. Duluth's Mrs. Bessie Lathe Scovell served as editor from 1894 to 1897. The WCTU's national president, Frances Willard, was a Christian Socialist like Akin, and Akin published Wil "there were twenty-five women running country pa lard's ideas in her newspaper. Willard, who was a folk pers in Kansas." Sixteen Minnesota women were jour hero in her day, made more Duluth headlines than any nalists in 1890. By 1910 there were 100 of them.-"* other national female reformer.*^ Along with union and industrial growth, more Female newspaper editors like Scovell and Akin women were entering public life. Women did not win were no strangers to the industry: Rebecca Taylor the federal vote until 1920; in the 1890s the arena of edited the St. Paul weekly Truth; Mame Starr pub change was on school and library boards and in delib lished the Tracy Trumpet; Julia A. A. Wood ran the erative bodies like church conventions and labor assem Sauk Rapids Free Press. The Evening Herald called blies. By 1900, for example, Mrs. C. R. Keyes of West Nettie S. Hager the "editress" of the North Dakota Ea Duluth served on the library board.*' gle, and the News Tribune announced in 1895 that There was a wide range of reaction to women who effected this change. Many members of Duluth's wom en's clubs could not bring themselves to support one of "LW, June 19, 1897. This is the only known surviving their own for school board in 1899. Miss Mary B. Sta- issue of the LW between Feb. 13, 1897 and March, 1900. tham of the Twentieth Century Club said that they ^''Hicks, The Populist Revolt: A History oj the Farmers' Alliance and the People's Party (Minneapolis: University of needed more training to serve honorably. Club women, Minnesota Press, 1931), 131; Lauren Kessler, The Dissident Statham explained, did "not propose to force ourselves Press: Alternative lournalism in American History (Beverly there against the desires of the men."*' Hills: Sage Publicadons, 1984), 119; LW, Jan. 2, Feb. 1, 1897; Women had been serving on school boards in Min EH, Feb. 22, 1896; Quint, Forging oj American Socialism, neapolis since 1876. Journalists like Akin urged women 232,n.90; "Rights of Man," Railway Times, May 15, 1897. «ScoveU, Yesteryears, facing p. 24, 92; LW, Aug. 1, 1896. to get out and vote. By the 1890s, according to historian On Willard, see Ruth Bordin, Frances Willard, A Biography Eleanor Flexner, women had won the suffrage on mat (Chapel HiU: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 175. ters of school policy and local tax authority in 19 states. '"Bede's Budget (St. Paul) Dec. 6, 1896; EH, Feb. 6, Sept. Harriet Tailor Upton in a News Tribune column, 22, Nov 14, 1896; NT, May 7, 1895; U. S., Census, Popula "Motherless Institutions," argued in 1896 that the gov tion: 1890, part 2, p. 319; 1910, 4:120-121. erning boards of public schools, libraries, lunatic asy "White Ribboner, March-Aprd, 1900. "EH, Sept. 21, 1899. lums, and soldier's homes needed women's skills, con- SUMMER 1991 215