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The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by jailhousedoc on Mon Oct 26 15:17:00 2020 my father and a friend of his - both now long deceased - worked for the IRT as station cleaners starting around 1929/ They became the first African American men to become platform conductors in mid to late 1937. Was the Brotherhood of Pullman Porters involved with the IRT in any way ? Was there a civil service test for the jobs in the subways around those times ? |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Elkeeper on Mon Oct 26 15:32:47 2020, in response to The IRT pre-unification, posted by jailhousedoc on Mon Oct 26 15:17:00 2020. No! Both the IRT and the BMT were private companies prior to Unification in June, 1940. They had their own hiring/firing practices which were probably similar to the regular railroads at that time. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by jailhousedoc on Mon Oct 26 16:43:18 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Elkeeper on Mon Oct 26 15:32:47 2020. the granddaughter of one of those men believes that there was a civil service test for the job of conductor / platform man - I told her no, that there was no civil service test in 1937. I also told her that during that time, Hitler was running Germany along with Mussolini in Italy. The world was a very different place. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Joe on Mon Oct 26 17:58:27 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by jailhousedoc on Mon Oct 26 16:43:18 2020. I recommend the book by Joshua Freeman, "In Transit: the Transport Workers Union in New York City." I read it as a public library book, and I am quite certain that the platform workers question was covered. The job of porter was not a nice job, as it involved clean-up of vomit and feces. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by jailhousedoc on Mon Oct 26 19:12:41 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Joe on Mon Oct 26 17:58:27 2020. The IRT stations on the Third Ave., Second Ave., Ninth Ave., Livonia Ave., Jerome Ave., White Plains Road., Flushing Line and Pelham Bay lines were the places that had to be cleaned 12 hours a day, one day off per month. The pay was low, but the alternative during the depression was worse, so no questions were asked. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by randyo on Mon Oct 26 21:32:51 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by jailhousedoc on Mon Oct 26 16:43:18 2020. There were civil service tests for all subway jobs on the IND only since prior to unification it was the only subway system under the control of the city of NY. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Joe on Mon Oct 26 22:13:10 2020, in response to The IRT pre-unification, posted by jailhousedoc on Mon Oct 26 15:17:00 2020. I read Joshua Freeman's book twice, once when it came out and again in August, 2019, from the Franklin Square library. I recall no reference to the Brotherhood of Pullman Porters on the Interborough or the BMT. The author does not avoid the topic of discrimination in jobs. I could be wrong, but I think the Civil Service system meant less union organizing on the Independent than other places, with the exception of strong participation at the 207th Street shops.--- The book's focus is Mike Quill. Again following memory, the Irish who disliked the Free State managed a technique of secret societies, whereby one cell did not know another cell, and few people knew who was really calling the shots. It so happened that New York Communists also used a similar cell system. After World War II, Quill and other transit leaders would succeed in claiming they were never Communists, but there was always a lingering doubt because of cell structure. --- |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by IRTRedbirdR33 on Tue Oct 27 09:28:05 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Elkeeper on Mon Oct 26 15:32:47 2020. Mike: I'm surprised that we haven't heard from Tunnelrat on this one. He used to work as a cable greaser on the original Ninth Avenue El. Larry, RedbirdR33 |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by qveensboro_plaza on Tue Oct 27 10:49:11 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by jailhousedoc on Mon Oct 26 16:43:18 2020. My father began working for the IRT Company in 1938. The way he got his job was this --In those days, the employees of the IRT were overwhelmingly Irish Catholic. My father grew up in Hell's Kitchen, and Sacred Heart Church was his parish. A priest in the parish learned that my father was looking for work and referred him to a Monsignor McEntegart at the Archdiocese chancery office. (McEntegart had been a priest at Sacred Heart and later became Bishop of Brooklyn.) My father met with the monsignor, who wrote down a man's name on a piece of paper and told him to make an appointment see that man at the IRT Company. He did so, and was hired to work there, eventually becoming a motorman and working 35 years before retiring. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by jailhousedoc on Tue Oct 27 11:23:09 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by qveensboro_plaza on Tue Oct 27 10:49:11 2020. my father arrived from Trinidad in the Caribbean in 1929 - he could not find work as an automobile mechanic , so he being Catholic contacted the Holy Name society - he had brought with him proof of membership in his local parish. He was then referred to the IRT, but was allowed only to work as a cleaner as jobs like conductors and motormen were prohibited to him. He went into the US Army in 1942 , served until 1944, and returned to the IRT after his service where he worked as a conductor until 1971, when he retired. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Elkeeper on Tue Oct 27 13:10:49 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by IRTRedbirdR33 on Tue Oct 27 09:28:05 2020. You have to give him credit, Larry. Not too many people could transition from cable, to steam Forneys, to electric third rail, the way he did! |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by IRTRedbirdR33 on Tue Oct 27 13:26:10 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Elkeeper on Tue Oct 27 13:10:49 2020. Not too many people could transition from cable, to steam Forneys, to electric third rail, the way he did! Steve is truly a "Renaissance Man". (And he is old enough to remember it) Larry, RedbirdR33 |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by qveensboro_plaza on Tue Oct 27 13:28:59 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by jailhousedoc on Tue Oct 27 11:23:09 2020. Sad to say, there was a lot of racism within the IRT, and it lasted a very long time. Minorities moved in large numbers into the better paying jobs like motorman and conductor only after the 1966 transit strike.The contract that resulted from the strike had such generous pension provisions that a huge number of the old 'Hibernians' (my father's name for his native Irish co-workers) retired en masse. Within a couple of years my father's seniority went from being in the 300s to 30. With such a large number of job openings, they could no longer exclude minorities. And the passage of the Civil Rights Act put teeth in the anti-discrimination laws. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Elkeeper on Tue Oct 27 15:47:14 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by IRTRedbirdR33 on Tue Oct 27 13:26:10 2020. He really felt safest riding in those old shad-belly cars! |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by jailhousedoc on Tue Oct 27 16:32:01 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by qveensboro_plaza on Tue Oct 27 13:28:59 2020. the IRT was bad, but the BMT was worse. Still, many got in and my father became a conductor, sent me to Catholic school ( another story in there ) and I got into college on a NY State Regents scholarship. Then after that, medical school at NYU. His friend sent his daughter to college at Hunter, then to Howard University Medical school - where she went on to become an ophthalmologist. She invented laser eye surgery and became a millionaire due to that. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Jackson Park B Train on Tue Oct 27 16:34:04 2020, in response to The IRT pre-unification, posted by jailhousedoc on Mon Oct 26 15:17:00 2020. Thanks for starting this thread. The details of using Catholic Church connections are fascinating. It really has ever been thus in most organizations. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by randyo on Tue Oct 27 17:54:15 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by qveensboro_plaza on Tue Oct 27 13:28:59 2020. As long as you mentioned “connections” there were other organizations apart from the Holy Name society and local parishes that could pen doors. The reference to “Hibernians” doubtless refers to the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) an Irish Catholic organization founded in 1838 to combat anti Catholic sentiment that existed in the US at the time and to provide certain benefits to its members similar to those afforded to Freemasons. Since the AOH was at the time restricted only to the Irish and their immediate descendants, in 1882 an Irish-American Priest founded the Knight's of Columbus (K of C) a similar benevolent association for Catholics who were not of the Irish ethnicity. Membership in either or in some cases both of those organizations was often a definite help to obtain employment in various places, the transit companies among them. Initially, of course membership in those organizations was not an instant path to employment or advancement but over the years as the Irish worked their way up the ladder into supervision and eventually management in the transit companies, membership in those organizations took on increasing importance. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by qveensboro_plaza on Tue Oct 27 18:06:59 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by randyo on Tue Oct 27 17:54:15 2020. And a great many of those Hibernian were staunch supporters of the IRA. I remember there was one man who was a token agent at 82nd street on the Flushing line, who my father mentioned was in the IRA. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by randyo on Wed Oct 28 01:03:35 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by qveensboro_plaza on Tue Oct 27 18:06:59 2020. That’s true, and according to Mike Quill’s widow Shirley who wrote his biography, the Irish organizing the union had a rather sophisticated way of communicating union business via company phones by using code words familiar only to the Irish similar to those used in the Irish freedom fights. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Elkeeper on Wed Oct 28 15:19:42 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Jackson Park B Train on Tue Oct 27 16:34:04 2020. For Irish Catholics, it was a matter of necessity. They were fleeing from the religious persecution from the UK, the Church of England, poverty, and the Great Famine of 1848. like other immigrants, the first steps to assimilation were through their religious and social organizations here. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by alantrain on Wed Oct 28 16:37:20 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Elkeeper on Wed Oct 28 15:19:42 2020. Sounds familiar. Those who came made America Great- REFUGEES!!!!!! |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by randyo on Wed Oct 28 16:45:33 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by alantrain on Wed Oct 28 16:37:20 2020. Yes LEGAL ones! |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Fisk Ave Jim on Wed Oct 28 16:53:41 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Elkeeper on Wed Oct 28 15:19:42 2020. Yep. Thats the way it was. Fleeing religious persicution from England and the Church of Ireland only to find similar persecution and discrimination here in what was then (and probably still is) a basically Protestant America. But that was overcome with the police, fireman & railroad industry becoming at the time basic Irish institutions. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by jailhousedoc on Wed Oct 28 19:19:44 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Fisk Ave Jim on Wed Oct 28 16:53:41 2020. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by randyo on Thu Oct 29 02:24:47 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Fisk Ave Jim on Wed Oct 28 16:53:41 2020. Interestingly, although I am a Catholic, my Irish ancestors were Protestant and I have heard that they weren't liked any more than the Catholics. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by handbrake on Thu Oct 29 07:03:46 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by randyo on Tue Oct 27 17:54:15 2020. No to exclude the then Bell System, where Irish Irish immigrants were found at Long Distance operator jobs, and Central Office Frame positions, especially at NY Telephone Central Offices. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by qveensboro_plaza on Thu Oct 29 09:38:57 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by handbrake on Thu Oct 29 07:03:46 2020. And you can add the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company to that list. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Joe V on Thu Oct 29 09:49:08 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by qveensboro_plaza on Thu Oct 29 09:38:57 2020. I once worked for them. That was quite an Irish outfit back in the day, and nice people. It is mostly gone now and moved to NC. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Chris R16/R2730 on Thu Oct 29 10:30:31 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by randyo on Thu Oct 29 02:24:47 2020. I have ancestors on both sides. Ironically my grandmother, born in Cork in 1900 and more militantly Catholic than Francis Griffin (google him) married a Protestant born in Belfast. I was stunned to learn this given her hatred for Protestants (my Dad's marriage to my mom was always a source of contention, a Lutheran) and her open moral and financial support for the IRA and Sin Fein throughout her entire life. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Chris R16/R2730 on Thu Oct 29 10:32:57 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by alantrain on Wed Oct 28 16:37:20 2020. Country has changed. In the 2nd half of the 19th century the US had an extreme labor shortage and needed these refugees. Those days are over. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Joe on Thu Oct 29 11:38:05 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Chris R16/R2730 on Thu Oct 29 10:32:57 2020. "Those days are over." Not completely. I must point out the lack of Mexican workers on Wisconsin dairy farms. Also, who will do the unpleasant dirty work in our nursing homes? |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by jailhousedoc on Thu Oct 29 12:08:55 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by jailhousedoc on Wed Oct 28 19:19:44 2020. sorry about the blank post - internet access went out temporarily.So many things to find out about if we would only talk to each other. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Chris R16/R2730 on Thu Oct 29 12:41:55 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Joe on Thu Oct 29 11:38:05 2020. It bothers me that we feel the need to import foreigners to do work that we are told is beneath us. We don't need these workers, we have plenty of native labor.It's high time we stop romanticizing 19th century American immigration. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Elkeeper on Thu Oct 29 12:55:19 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Chris R16/R2730 on Thu Oct 29 12:41:55 2020. The trouble is that "native labor" considers cutting your lawn or wiping your kid's ass as beneath them. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Elkeeper on Thu Oct 29 13:05:12 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by randyo on Thu Oct 29 02:24:47 2020. That is true! The British occupiers looked down on all of the Irish, be they Catholic, Church of Ireland, or whatever. My grandparents always called the Church of Ireland members, "Puppet Anglicans". |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Chris R16/R2730 on Thu Oct 29 14:45:36 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by qveensboro_plaza on Tue Oct 27 18:06:59 2020. My grandmother gave them money all her life. I never understood the casual support for what was basically a terrorist organization by so many Irish ex-pats. Thankfully that ugliness seems to have been relegated to the past. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Fisk Ave Jim on Thu Oct 29 15:20:15 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Chris R16/R2730 on Thu Oct 29 10:30:31 2020. Are you familiar with the expression "took the soup"?? |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Spider-Pig on Thu Oct 29 15:57:02 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by randyo on Wed Oct 28 16:45:33 2020. Irrelevant. Back then anyone not a criminal and free of disease could show up and be let in. They could adopt that policy now and there would be no illegal aliens, but it wouldn't necessarily be a good thing. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Spider-Pig on Thu Oct 29 16:00:07 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Elkeeper on Thu Oct 29 12:55:19 2020. It's not a matter of those jobs being beneath natives, it's that natives are only going to want to do them for a much higher rate of pay than anyone is willing to pay. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Spider-Pig on Thu Oct 29 16:06:54 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Elkeeper on Thu Oct 29 12:55:19 2020. It's not a matter of those jobs being beneath natives, it's that natives are only going to want to do them for a much higher rate of pay than anyone is willing to pay. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Chris R16/R2730 on Thu Oct 29 17:11:17 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Fisk Ave Jim on Thu Oct 29 15:20:15 2020. Oh yeah. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by randyo on Thu Oct 29 17:19:40 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Elkeeper on Thu Oct 29 13:05:12 2020. A little more on topic, I knew 2 M/M from Derry (or as the Protestants would have called it Londonderry) who were brothers and emigrated to the US finding work, one on the BMT and the other on the IND. coincidentally they happened to meet 2 girls who were sisters and Catholic. the married the girls and converted. I used to hang out with one of them at 207 St after school and he mentioned that his brother was a BMT M/M. In my railfanning travels I ran into the brother on the Brighton Lcl and was introduced to him by another BMT M/M I knew. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Jackson Park B Train on Thu Oct 29 17:26:30 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Spider-Pig on Thu Oct 29 16:06:54 2020. Which is precisely why the US welcomed immigrants back then and de facto does now. Wages for most hourly workers have failed to keep up with either inflation or the real cost of living over the last 4 decades. Only the tech and money changer segments have done well by the economy. Despite all of the whining about illegals, they cut our grass, clean our buildings/homes, staff senior storage facilities,and are the majority both in the fields and onthe killing floor. The similar mass migration north from Africa signals the same lack of opportunity combined with kleptocratic police states. You would flee too. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by randyo on Thu Oct 29 17:36:38 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by handbrake on Thu Oct 29 07:03:46 2020. My mother worked for Ma Bell back in the day and often mentioned the number of Irish who worked for the Bell System’s various branches like NY Tel, A T & T and Western Electric. Although many young Irish and those with Irish roots are making attempts to learn the Irish language (Gaelic as some call it) the use of English forced on the Irish by the British gave Irish immigrants into the US an edge when it came to jobs involving interaction with the mainstream Americans like transit or telephone communications. When Mike Quill’s widow Shirley gave a lecture at the Irish Arts Center about the biography of her late husband, she mentioned the advantage the Irish had over other immigrants because they spoke English “in a way." |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by randyo on Thu Oct 29 18:10:07 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Spider-Pig on Thu Oct 29 16:06:54 2020. If the parents of the “natives” didn’t spoil them by giving them allowances instead of requiring them to go to work, they would have no choice but to take whatever jobs are available if they wanted any spending money. I read years ago that the old A & S dept store in downtown Bkln provided a bus service to take young people from the ghetto to the A & S in one of the Jersey malls because the spoiled children of the suburbanites felt they were too good to work the store jobs they felt were beneath them and the parents enabled that attitude. If the parents put their collective feet down an insisted, “no work, no spending money” there would be no trouble filling jobs without immigrants legal or otherwise.When I was in college, even though I had a NY Regents scholarship which took care of a number of things, I would get odd jobs time to time either as a messenger or, one holiday season, a package wrapper for Bloomingdale’s to give me spending money for various things I wanted. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by randyo on Thu Oct 29 18:19:19 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Chris R16/R2730 on Thu Oct 29 14:45:36 2020. At the risk of touching a bit on politics, one man’s terrorist is another man’s patriot. Even the Continental Army in America in the 1700s were terrorists in a manner of speaking but the USA was the result. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Fisk Ave Jim on Thu Oct 29 19:08:22 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by jailhousedoc on Thu Oct 29 12:08:55 2020. Yeah. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Jackson Park B Train on Thu Oct 29 20:31:01 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by randyo on Thu Oct 29 18:19:19 2020. correct. winners define history. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by Spider-Pig on Fri Oct 30 11:26:38 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by randyo on Thu Oct 29 18:10:07 2020. What a bullshit post. |
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Re: The IRT pre-unification |
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Posted by jailhousedoc on Sat Oct 31 10:10:52 2020, in response to Re: The IRT pre-unification, posted by Spider-Pig on Fri Oct 30 11:26:38 2020. I would like to know more about the IRT in pre-unification days. In 1937 my father and his good friend became two of the first four black men to become subway conductors on the IRT system. What were the working conditions like back then ? I know that the hours for work ere 12 hours per day seven days per week with one day off per month, or something like that, but what other conditions went on for workers then ? |
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