<\/p>\n
One of my favorite years for historical items in 1909, because that was the year when I entered Colby College as a freshman. Whenever I learn of any special event that happened in Maine in 1909, I like to take note of it. Such an event occurred here in Central Maine in connection with organized labor.<\/p>\n
Labor Day had been celebrated, of course, earlier than 1909, but it had been only a few years before that the larger industries had consented to give their employees the holiday. In fact there was no general closing of stores or small industries here in Waterville, even in 1909, as is indicated by a statement in the printed pamphlet I want to talk about tonight. In that pamphlet appear the words: “The committee wishes to thank the owners of stores and factories that agreed to close for the day.” The implication clearly is that there were others which did not close.<\/p>\n
The pamphlet is the Official Souvenir Program for a Labor Day Celebration, sponsored by the Central Labor Union of Waterville, held at China Lake on Monday, September 6, 1909. At the invitation of the Waterville union, the unions of Augusta, Gardiner and Hallowell joined in the celebration.<\/p>\n
At that time the President of the Central Labor Union of Waterville was F. A. Stephens of Carroll Street, a well known local carpenter; and he was chairman of the celebration committee. His associates were F. A. Tupper of the Painters Union, J. M. Bartlett of the Machinists, I. V. Carter from the Car Workers, H. H. Prescott representing the clerks, and another carpenter, C. C. Smith.<\/p>\n
The afternoon was devoted to sport events, for which merchants of the four cities had contributed prizes. The winner of the fifty yard dash got a $4 pair of Walkover shoes; the couple who won the three-legged race each received a fountain pen. What was called a shoe race brought its winner a $3.50 pair of Walk-well shoes. First prize in the potato race was a $2.50 razor, and second was a pair of Union Made gloves. Likewise for the sack race were offered a razor and Union Made stockings. An event of special interest was the Ladies’ Nail Driving Contest, for which the prizes were a pair of Union Stamped shoes and a box of candy. For the Tug of War the Waterville Machinists so outnumbered the carpenters that the latter had to combine with the Augusta carpenters to compete with the local machinists’ union for a box of Regal cigars. The losers were consoled by a bunch of bananas. During the afternoon there were two baseball games. The carpenters of Augusta played the carpenters of Waterville for a box of Rand M Regalia cigars. The Machinists played the retail clerks to see which would get a box of Cascade cigars.<\/p>\n
The celebration ended in the evening with a grand ball, the committee for which was J. M. Bartlett, H. H. Prescott and M. F. Kitchen. In the afternoon there had been two speeches — one by J. F. Cary of Boston, the other by the man who later became the State Librarian, A. H. Dunnack of Augusta. The souvenir program contained five full-page pictures. One was of F. A. Stephens, President of the Waterville Central Union; another showed Frank Maxwell, President of the Central Labor Union of Augusta. The other three pictures presented the mayors of Waterville, Augusta and Gardiner: Frank Redington, Treby Johnson and Charles Gray.<\/p>\n
My well known interest in old advertisements led me to give some attention to the many advertisers in this program of just fifty years ago last fall. It goes without saying that the promoters of the event showed preference for union made products, as indicated by the list of prizes. But I should like to know something more about those prize cigars.<\/p>\n
An ad in the program tells us that the R & M Regalia was a ten cent cigar of which the ad said: “The best smoke in the city is the strictly union made R & M Regalia.” Another ad concerns the Regal, and says: “Smoke the popular Regal Cigars, Union Made, five cents.” The Cascade was also a five cent cigar made in Watervil1e by Larkin and Dignam. Can any listener tell me where the R&N Regalia and the Regal cigars were made?<\/p>\n
The Central Maine Power Company did not control electrical utilities in this area as early as 1909. One local company was then the Waterville and Fairfield Railway and Light Company, and it put a half-page ad in the Labor Day Program, which said: “If you contemplate establishing any business requiring power in Waterville or its suburbs, it will be to your advantage to talk with us before placing your orders for motors or machinery. Advantages in the cost of producing power in Waterville in comparison with other cities in Maine enable us to make the lowest rates and give the best service in supplying light, heat or power.” Also doing business in Waterville was the Messalonskee Electric Company.<\/p>\n
Newspaper employees had not been effectively unionized in 1909. So the labor leaders were proud to print in their program an ad which said: “The Waterville Morning Sentinel is the only daily newspaper in Maine carrying the union label.”<\/p>\n
In 1909 the G. S. Flood Company was G. S. Flood and Company. At that time no one had ever heard of fuel oil, and what is more, the Flood ad was not headed “coal and wood”, but rather “wood and coal”. In 1909 that company sold several thousand cords of wood. They also sold lime, cement, hair, drain pipe, pressed hay and straw. The central office at their yard at the corner of Main and Pleasant Streets was not their only place of business. Of course the telephone had come to Waterville a decade before 1909, but it was not a common installation in homes until considerably later. So a company like Flood needed several offices distributed for the convenience of customers. Flood had a down town office at W. P. Stewart and Company on Main Street, an uptown office with E. L. Gove, a Plains office in Arthur Daviau’s Pharmacy on Water Street, and a Winslow office at Allen’s East Side Market.<\/p>\n
The larger Waterville manufacturers did not directly advertise in the program, but inserted complimentary ads in the names of their agents. One such ad voiced the compliments of W. H. Stobie, agent for the Hollingsworth and Whitney Company paper mills. Another gave the compliments of N. H. Barrows, agent of the Wyandotte Worsted Company mills. The Cushnoc Paper Company of Augusta was represented in the program, but the publication contained not a word about the Lockwood Mills.<\/p>\n
Is it possible that our cotton workers were not unionized as early as 1909?<\/p>\n
The Waterville Savings Bank had a big ad, with a picture of its new building at the corner of Main and Appleton Streets. It may arouse some longing for the old days when I tell you that the bank was then paying 4% interest on its deposits, and that commercial banks like the Ticonic, the Peoples and the Granite National of Augusta paid 4% on time deposits. In 1909 the President of the Waterville Savings Bank was Christian Knauff. The treasurer was Everett R. Drummond, and the assistant was his son, the man who is now Waterville’s venerable and deeply respected retired banker, Albert F. Drummond. Among the bank’s trustees were Josiah Bassett, the well known Winslow merchant; George K. Boutelle, grandson of Waterville’s most prominent citizen 100 years earlier; and Howard Morse, whose daughter now lives on Park Street and is our local authority on second hand books.<\/p>\n
It may surprise you to know that as long ago as 1909 a Waterville program had an automobile ad. It read: “Waterville Motor Company. Automobiles and Supplies. Garage and Salesroom, 243-249 Main Street.”<\/p>\n
Just to recall some of the people who were doing business in Waterville fifty years ago, let me mention some of the other advertisers. The F. H. Brown Clothing Company, in the Edith Building, manufactured suits, coats, ladies’ tailored garments and skirts. In the same building Dr. H. W. Mitchell had his dental offices, and across the street Frank Blanchard sold organs, pianos, phonographs, typewriters, and sewing machines. Augustus Otten, the baker, was still doing business on Temple Street. The People’s Laundry on Main Street advertised to wash overalls and frocks at 15 cents a suit, and it reminded people that dull finish was the fashionable way to do collars and cuffs. Kennison and Newell on Temple Street would give prompt attention to painting and papering. E. S. Durin and Company were Merchant Tailors at 6 Silver Street. Up on Maple Street F. C. Tillson sold boots and shoes, men’s furnishings, gloves and gauntlets and Union Made Whitefield overalls.<\/p>\n
The entire back cover of the program was taken by the Augusta Trust Company, which in addition to its central bank then had branches at Winthrop and Madison. With assets of $4,800,000, its president was George E. Macomber, and it advertised: “The way to save money is to make a start, and the place to start is with the Augusta Trust Company.”<\/p>\n
Some day I shall try to look up the news account of that Labor Day celebration in the contemporary issue of the Waterville Sentinel, but right now suffice it to say that F. A, Stephens and his Central Labor Union of Waterville had a big day at China Lake in 1909.<\/p>\n
There recently came to my hands a letter about 25 years ago by the New York portrait painter, Joseph Cummings Chase, among whose many excellent portraits was one of a prominent Waterville woman, Miss Exerene Flood. I find this letter of historical interest, not only because it mentions Miss Flood. but also because it has to do with one of my own favorite haunts in New York City, the Players Club on Grammercy Park. That famous club is located in the home of the great actor, Edwin Booth, who gave the house to the club in his will. Before his death Booth had founded the club. and from the beginning the membership was not restricted to actors and others connected with the theater, but included persons connected with art, literature and other professional pursuits. A dozen or more times between the two world wars I was entertained at the Players Club by one of its distinguished members, Grover Loud. telegraph editor of the New York Times. There, before the huge fireplace in the club parlor, at 5 o’clock tea I had the privilege of meeting such men as Walter Hampden, Maurice Evans and Edgar Lee Masters. Then I would always see one or more of the actors who came to Lakewood in the summer Owen Davis, Arthur Byron, Thurston Hall and many others.<\/p>\n
Once a year the Players Club held Ladies Day. At all other times women were scrupulously excluded from the premises. It is about that ladies’ day that Joseph Cummings Chase addressed the following letter to a certain Miss Porter: “It was mighty pleasant to see you at our Ladies’ Day yesterday afternoon. I trust you had a happy time. I was disappointed that I could not look after you myself. I was supposed to be ‘on the line’ at the bottom of the stairs to receive the cards of admission and to pass on each guest. giving her name to Howard Kyle. The fact is I was late arriving just behind you. The first word I heard as I entered was your name pronounced by one of the hall boys; so I threw my overcoat at the boy. passed you on the stairs. and took a place at the top of the receiving line just long enough to greet you. Five minutes later I was working at my my assigned job at the foot of the stairs. There I remained until quarter to five, when I taxied to Grand Central to catch a Stamford train to dine with Mrs. Chase and some guests. It is too bad that our nice Exerene has never managed to be in town for a Ladies’ Day. I am sure she would love it.”<\/p>\n
I, too, wish my friend, Miss Exerene Flood, before her death a year ago, had at least once in her long life, so devoted to the theater, had an opportunity to attend Ladies’ Day in the New York home of the greatest actor of her father’s generation, Edwin Booth.<\/p>\n
Year: 1960<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #451, Broadcast on March 13, 1960<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[766,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8066"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}