The Great Shoe Strike

The Great Shoe Strike. Marlborough, Massachusetts. Marlborough's “Great Shoe Strike” was a battle that had serious negative impact on the city for decades, resulting in personal and business bankruptcies, losses in revenue, purchasing power and credit, plummeting property values, and home foreclosures. , In autumn of 1898, a long tradition of successful negotiation between unions and owners in the Marlborough shoe industry was irretrievably broken. Owners, led by William Rice, locked out workers on November 10th, insisting that contracts would be negotiated only with individuals and not with unions. This lockout was preceded by a strike by the Middlesex Factory stitchers who walked out because of abusive treatment by their supervisor. , At first, the unions attracted much sympathy, even outside New England, but threats of violence and State Police intervention to quell attacks on replacement workers brought negative public reaction. Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, came to Marlborough in January of 1899. He spoke to 3,000 workers and sympathizers shoring up their resolve to continue the strike. However, on the same evening, city merchants overwhelmingly voted to end direct support of union workers. , After numerous failed efforts at arbitration, strikers were forced to capitulate. But the strike's economic effects lasted for years. Of the 3,500 original strikers, only 1,200 returned to their jobs, and the population of Marlborough would remain stagnant until the post-World War II economic resurgence. , [Captions (bottom, from left)] William B. Rice, co-owner of Rice and Hutchins shoe factory . Samuel Gompers, president AFL