Violence Evolved from Employee Requests vs. Owner and Police Responses
By TOM BEER
“Massacre at Flour City: The Deadly Battle over Labor rights Summer 1935.”
This exhibit tells the story of when “All Hell broke loose” in the south Minneapolis area nicknamed the Hub of Hell at 26th Av. & 26th St. 90 years ago, September 11, 1935. The graphic historical display uses photos, newspaper clippings, maps, and first-hand accounts to recount the local, violent labor struggle. It will be shown at the Vine Arts Gallery in the Ivy Building for the Arts, 2637 27th Av. So.—the former Flour City Ornamental Iron— where the dramatic events described here, happened.
Saturdays July 12, 19, & 26 at Vine Arts Center 11:00 to 5:00. Free and open to all.
May 1934
In May 1934 the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union Local 574 went on strike to demand union recognition, wage increases, and improved working conditions in The Market District of Minneapolis. The strike evolved into a major event in Minneapolis history, marked by violence, police clashes, and ultimately, a victory for the Union; it was a “Turning Point” in Mpls. Labor History.
July to September 1935
One year later, 90 years ago, another local union made history at that one location within the southside working-class neighborhood now officially named Seward Neighborhood. Led by Machinist Local 1313, workers at the Flour City Ornamental Iron Works went on strike in July 1935. After a stubborn, tough, and violent summer-long fight, another “Turning Point” happened for organized labor in September 1935.
Industry and Railroads Meant Jobs and Housing in Phillips and Seward Areas
The Flour City Ornamental Iron foundry building is two blocks north of what was the Chicago Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad yards bordering 29th Street and the Minneapolis-Moline Power Implement Company— currently the site of retail stores, a school, and parking lots. The building is now called The Ivy building.
Industry and the Railroad came to south Minneapolis in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Jobs were plentiful in the areas near industries of metal, lumber, and flour clustered alongside railroad tracks. Skilled workers could support themselves and their families working at the yards, mills, and factories.
Transient and un-skilled workers could find jobs, less well paid and often dangerous, but paying work nonetheless. Shelter was available at rooming houses, cheap hotels, and modest houses built nearby in the areas now officially named Seward, Phillips, Cedar Riverside, Longfellow, and Corcoran Neighborhoods.
The notorious Hub of Hell at 26th Av. & 26th St. and the Schooner Tavern, the oldest Mpls. pub-house and bordello at 27th Av. & 29th St. were blocks away from the industrial plants and rail yards. It was a gritty and vibrant working-class community. “From its little box homes to its beer-and-bump bars, the Seward neighborhood was built on a working-class foundation.” (A People’s History of the Seward Neighborhood, p. 61)
Ornamental and Utilitarian Metal Fabrication Coexisted
Flour City Ornamental Iron Works was something of an outlier, with a national reputation for extremely ornate creations; locally, including Lakewood Cemetery and Chapel, the Walker Art Gallery, the Cathedral of St. Paul, Donaldson’s Department Store, the Foshay Tower; out-state, at Mayo Hospital’s Plummer Building; and nationally, at Cleveland’s Union Depot and Chicago’s Palmer House. The firm boomed, and by 1929 employment was over 600 employees. The firm eventually diversified into armament and boat building.
An Immigrant Industrialist
Eugene Tetzlaff, Foundry owner, from Prussia with Slavic roots built the business from a blacksmith shop, hiring skilled immigrant metal artisans who stayed in his employ despite Four City’s anti-union open-shop. The bulk of the Foundry’s workforce did the heavier labor-intensive jobs.
Industrialists’ Union
Strongly pro-business and against labor organizing, Tetzlaff was a vocal defender and member of the Minneapolis Citizens’ Alliance. In Minneapolis, rocked by worker agitation and expectations, and the Great Depression, Tetzlaff stiffened his anti-union resolve.
The Union’s campaign at Flour City was frustrated by Citizens’ Alliance spies and Tetzlaff’s firing pro-union employees. Flour City was the largest of eight foundries Local 1313 was organizing. Led by Scandinavian unionists, some socialists and others accused communists, Tetzlaff refused to negotiate. The Union had done a credible job of in-plant organizing, and received solid worker support for the walk-out and demands of minimum wages, an eight-hour day and overtime.
Pressure mounted on Tetzlaff. In August, two other foundries reached agreement and employees returned to work. At Flour City, the Minneapolis Labor Review reported, pickets were “active and effective.” The local, AFL–American Federation of Labor coalition, the Minneapolis Labor Federation, helped with communications, pickets, and striker support.
Public Awareness by the Press
Press coverage stoked optimism and anger. Union and Owner agreement at the Mpls.-Moline plant was cheered. “Wives Forced to Slave When Flour City Workers are Fired,” the Labor Review wrote, touched a darker side. At the same time, Tetzlaff tried to reopen the Foundry with “scab,” substitute workers, escorted by police but thousands of organized, hostile pickets stopped it, pelting the building, police and strikebreakers with rocks and bottles. “Public sentiment is strongly with the strikers,” the Labor Review editorialized. Still tenacious, Tetzlaff threatened strikers with a revolver, and in violation of City Ordinance housed strike breakers inside the Foundry, which further enraged the many who picketed daily.
Local Politics
Minneapolis was at high tide of Farmer-Labor Party political influence in 1935, electing a Mayor, three City Council Members, Library and Park Board seats, and took control of the Public Welfare Board. The Party’s political and electoral strength were its Farmer-Labor Association clubs, which, along with the Minneapolis Labor Council’s political committee, watched over office holders.
When Farmer-Labor Mayor Thomas Latimer attempted to return non-strikers to work at Ornamental Iron, rank and file Farmer-Laborites fumed, claiming he was a “…great disappointment to the Farmer-Labor forces of the city.” Latimer was ousted from office after a two-year term.
The violent Strike climax came as strikers and supporters escalated the protests. Tetzlaff reacted, calling on the Mpls. Police, in a letter in the Minneapolis Tribune, to take “ … immediate steps to prevent gathering of such a mob…and prevent recurrence of these riotous demonstrations…” On the evening of September 10th and into the next morning, an estimated 5,000 strikers, pickets, Farmer- Laborites, neighbors and gawkers surrounded the Foundry including several hundred members of Teamsters Local 574 confronted by over a hundred police officers.
Two Bystanders Killed. Dozens Injured.
Two young men walking nearby were killed. Dozens others were injured by bullets and flying objects.
State Influence
Governor Floyd B. Olson, had a hands-off stance on the Strike, but threatened to send in the Minnesota National Guard and close the Iron Works.
Federal Influence
As with the 1934 Teamster’s Strike, Federal officials influenced a final settlement; at Flour City by threatening to void a contract for the Washington D.C. Library and producing parts for armaments. Although refusing to recognize the Union, Tetzlaff agreed to a 40-hour week with pay increases and overtime.
The Foundry Strikes ended in significance for Labor; its audacity, drama, and solidarity only eclipsed by the famous Teamster Rebellion of 1934, or the Hosiery Workers strike at Minneapolis Strutwear in 1935.
In the years preceding federal government recognition of union rights and the birth of the CIO–Congress of Industrial Organizations, “the abysmal conditions…across Minneapolis…provided the space for reawakening of radical protest.” (The Politics of Labor Militancy in Minneapolis) Local 1313 helped end the influence of the Citizens’ Alliance by creating power in another of the City’s industrial unions, and in so doing contributed mightily to Labor’s “Turning Point.”
Vine Arts Center
2637–27th Avenue S, Saturdays July 12th, 19th, and 26th
11:00 to 8:00 on 12th, 11:00 to 5:00 on 19th, 11:00 to 8:00 on 26th
Large storytelling display panels about the labor battle
Photographs from 1930s Seward
Images from the history of the Ivy Arts/Flour City building
July 12th
1:00: History Q&A: Seward History committee members
3:00: Talk: Unearthing the Story of Flour City Victims
5:00: Opening day party, wine, cheese, and tribute to Dick Westby
6:00: Solo concert by Larry Long.
July 19th
1:00: Talk: Are We Really Living in the Hub of Hell?
3:00: Panel: Workers and Bosses: What Caused the Riots?
July 26th
1:00: Talk: Flour City Ornamental Iron to Ivy Arts: 1902 to 2025.
3:00: Panel: Minneapolis in the 1930s: Hard Times.
5:00: Closing day party: Beer, peanuts, and conversation.
6:00: Performance: Twin City Labor Union Chorus
