日志
Chinese Cigar Workers
||
“The Smasher” lithograph adorns a cigar box. Union label cigars made by white labor often featured anti-Chinese cartoons.
“There were both white-owned and Chinese-owned factories employing Chinese labor. In 1881, Chinese made about one-sixth of the entire production in California.[ ] In 1904-05, there were five factories in San Francisco with 80 Chinese out of 140 workers.[ ] In contrast to their dominance in the cigar industry, only a small number of Chinese engaged in the allied cigarette industry.[ ]”
– from A History of the Chinese in California: A Syllabus, Thomas W. Chinn, Editor, pub. Chinese Historical Society of America (1969)
Although the enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Act and its extension in 1892 had begun to reduce the Chinese labor force substantially, the harassment of Chinese cigar makers in San Francisco Chinatown by trade unions, police, and the city’s Board of Health continued.
To read more about old Chinatown's cigar factories, go to my blog here:
“There were both white-owned and Chinese-owned factories employing Chinese labor. In 1881, Chinese made about one-sixth of the entire production in California.[ ] In 1904-05, there were five factories in San Francisco with 80 Chinese out of 140 workers.[ ] In contrast to their dominance in the cigar industry, only a small number of Chinese engaged in the allied cigarette industry.[ ]”
– from A History of the Chinese in California: A Syllabus, Thomas W. Chinn, Editor, pub. Chinese Historical Society of America (1969)
Although the enactment of the Chinese Exclusion Act and its extension in 1892 had begun to reduce the Chinese labor force substantially, the harassment of Chinese cigar makers in San Francisco Chinatown by trade unions, police, and the city’s Board of Health continued.
To read more about old Chinatown's cigar factories, go to my blog here:
“The Coming Man – A Chinese Cigar Manufactory in San Francisco – Preparing the Tobacco-leaf and Making Cigars,” from a drawing in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, May 21, 1870 (from the collection of The Library of Congress).
Historian Thomas W. Chinn:
“During the 1870’s, through the years of the most violent anti-Chinese agitation in California, Chinese labor was predominant in the cigar-making industry.
“In the mid-1880’s the Cigar-Makers Union (white) aided by the anti-Chinese sentiments of the time, and by the Chinese Exclusion Act, finally succeeded in virtually eliminating Chinese from the cigar industry. However, with the passing of the Chinese from the scene, the cigar industry itself in California also declined. . . ."
To read more about the cigarmakers of old San Francisco Chinatown, go to my blog here:
Historian Thomas W. Chinn:
“During the 1870’s, through the years of the most violent anti-Chinese agitation in California, Chinese labor was predominant in the cigar-making industry.
“In the mid-1880’s the Cigar-Makers Union (white) aided by the anti-Chinese sentiments of the time, and by the Chinese Exclusion Act, finally succeeded in virtually eliminating Chinese from the cigar industry. However, with the passing of the Chinese from the scene, the cigar industry itself in California also declined. . . ."
To read more about the cigarmakers of old San Francisco Chinatown, go to my blog here:
“Cigar Making in Chinatown, San Francisco” lithograph from the collection of The Bancroft Library. In 1885, the special supervisors’ committee charged with mapping Chinatown found 427 sites for cigar making.
To read about the era during which San Francisco Chinatown rolled it own, go to my blog here:
To read about the era during which San Francisco Chinatown rolled it own, go to my blog here:
“Chinese Cigar Manufactory on Merchant Street, San Francisco” as drawn for the Illustrated San Francisco News, 1869 (from the collection of The Bancroft Library).
Excluded from white unions, Chinese cigar workers formed their own labor organizations. The late historian Thomas W. Chinn wrote about the cigar makers for the Chinese Historical Society of America as follows:
“A typical Chinese cigar factory is a fifteen foot by twenty foot room with a gallery for greater space utilization, where nearly fifty men worked.[ ] Chinese cigar workers were usually paid on a piece-work basis. The pay scale varied from fifty cents to seventy cents per hundred, and a worker made about two hundred cigars a day.[ ]
“The Tung Te Tang (Tung Dak Tong, “Hall of Common Virtue”) [同德堂?] was the labor guild to which Chinese cigar workers belonged. The rules of this guild stipulated that guild members shall not work alongside non-guild members. When a controversy occurred between an employer and his employees, the guild agent would report the incident to the guild. The guild then appointed a committee to investigate and if the investigators found that a grievance existed, a strike was then declared. . . ."
On this Labor Day, and to read about old San Francisco Chinatown's cigar story when the Chinese rolled their own, go to my blog here:
Excluded from white unions, Chinese cigar workers formed their own labor organizations. The late historian Thomas W. Chinn wrote about the cigar makers for the Chinese Historical Society of America as follows:
“A typical Chinese cigar factory is a fifteen foot by twenty foot room with a gallery for greater space utilization, where nearly fifty men worked.[ ] Chinese cigar workers were usually paid on a piece-work basis. The pay scale varied from fifty cents to seventy cents per hundred, and a worker made about two hundred cigars a day.[ ]
“The Tung Te Tang (Tung Dak Tong, “Hall of Common Virtue”) [同德堂?] was the labor guild to which Chinese cigar workers belonged. The rules of this guild stipulated that guild members shall not work alongside non-guild members. When a controversy occurred between an employer and his employees, the guild agent would report the incident to the guild. The guild then appointed a committee to investigate and if the investigators found that a grievance existed, a strike was then declared. . . ."
On this Labor Day, and to read about old San Francisco Chinatown's cigar story when the Chinese rolled their own, go to my blog here:
