So...I made it to Marquette finally! After what seemed to be a drive that would never end I spent a few hours in the Archives at Northern Michigan University. Before I looked at the company records of Cleveland-Cliffs Company I was able to meet with the director of the archives who spoke to me about the mining industry and its effect on the surrounding communities. Because I have finally narrowed my research to the understanding of why labor disputes did not occur on the Marquette Range from 1900-1920 I was able to look through information that pertained directly to my topic.
Before coming to Northern Michigan I was going to argue that the lack of labor victories on the Marquette Iron Range was due to solely the corporate paternalism exhibited by CCI. However, after talking with Marcus (the archivist) I have added another source that attributes to unsuccessful attempts to reform labor, the Finnish community.
When I spoke with Michalee last week we were talking about narrowing my topic down and one facet of the Marquette Range that kept jumping out to me was the vibrant immigrant community. The Finns on the Range was the largest immigrant community, thus they held more power than others. Though they were the largest of immigrant communities on all mining ranges in the UP the one living in Marquette County held different ideologies towards labor and reform.
The Finns in Marquette were more conservative than those on the other ranges and this attributed to the unsuccessful attempt of the Socialist Party's attempt to promote radical labor reform. Along with the conservative tendencies of Marquette's Finlanders was the problem of factionalism. Different factions were created in the early 20th century among Finns in Marquette and they were surrounded around their leaders. These two factions were led by Frank Aaltonen who was a Socialist promoter and William Nisto who led the effort against the Socialist movement. Because they did not hold an united front when asking CCI for labor reform, they did not succeed. Though it seems as simple as this I know that there is a lot more information to look through. Tomorrow I will be looking through microfilms of the Iron Ore Newspaper based out of Ishpeming, Michigan which spoke often about the Socialist Movement on the Marquette Range.
I will keep everyone posted on what I find. Have a great weekend and GO GREEN!
Wow I can't believe you drove the whole way to Marquette, that's some intense drive/dedication to this class. I was planning on going to Battle Creek to look up some stuff for my paper but that's only going to take like an hour. And plus I was planning on hitting up western in Kzoo after I was done in Battle Creek to visit some friends. I figure might as well make this trip double useful.
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