The Rise and Fall of Biracial Unionism in New Orleans
Creators: name: Rosse, Dominick
Publisher: name: University of Chicago
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Unionism
subject: Epistemology
subject: New Orleans
subject: Time Order
subject: Union
subject: 1880
subject: 1890
subject: American South
subject: Biracial
subject: Postbellum

description: New Orleans had the “most thoroughly organized” labor unions in the South and one of the strongest showings of biracial cross-trade unionism in the postbellum era, which grew outside the context of larger biracial organizations like the Knights of Labor. (Arnesen, 1994. 90. Bennets; 1972; 336-338) However, just months after reaching its “zenith” in what was called “one of the most important events in early Southern labor history” in the form of a general strike of 43 unions counting 27,000 members, or little over a third of the New Orleanian workforce it collapsed almost entirely. It would not reemerge in the city for over a decade. (Rosenberg, 1988 36-38; Blassingame, 1973. 235; Marshall, 1967. 62; Daily-Picayune Feb 25, 1893). What accounts for this? New material conditions emerged in postbellum New Orleans, resulting in an influx of black labor, and an unstable labor market on the docks prompted white and black workers to organize biracially after a period of segregated organization failed to produce results which produced an “interest convergence” among the two racial groups. From 1880 to 1892, two “toolkits” of knowledge about how unions should work were legitimated in a time-ordered sequence. One took a cooperative approach to merchants, while the other was more willing to strike and antagonistic. (Pierson, 2003. 20-36; Arnesen, 1994. 20, 57, 59, 65-69; Swidler, 1986; Bell, 1980; Blassingame, 1973, 220; Bennetts, 1972. 316, 326) The general strike of 1892 was the antagonistic faction going “all in” on their form of unionism; when the general strike failed, it prompted a counter-revolution of capital, the delegitimation of antagonistic unionism, and the legitimation of cooperative unionism. However, given the reduction in gains made by unions, and the reduction in the overall number of unions, it seems that cooperative unionism hinged on the power that antagonistic unionism brought to the table. With no positive gains to be had through organizing with black workers, white workers reverted to a hostile relationship with them, and biracialism was crippled in the city for over a decade. (Rosenberg, 1988. 30; Bennets; 1972. 432-433; Marshall, 1967. 63-64) This case illuminates how organizations develop new knowledge and the risks associated with it. We should consider individuals as making decisions based on lofty ideological goals, but neither should we consider them as merely making pragmatic choices in any given set of circumstances. Rather, people rely on preexisting understandings built in previous eras and modified by present ones. These understandings are tentative and contested by different groups with their own ideas about what is right, but the choices one can make are also constrained by the choices and knowledge developed in previous eras. (Pierson, 2003. 20-23; Marx, 1978. 72, 144; Simmel, 1974. 9-11) This is not to venture into moral relativism, but rather only to show that how people understand what is “right” has a constraining effect on what is possible in any given context, further, that in new cultural contexts, the same material conditions may send groups off onto divergent paths. (Hall, 2021; Althusser, 2005. 110-114)