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188 stories matching foreman
- A Section Foreman's Death at Gilman, and the $100 He Sent Home to Ireland
J. G. Caroian, a Lake Shore road foreman, was killed switching cars at Gilman. His Odd Fellows lodge will bury him at Marysville; his aged mother in Ireland will get no more Christmas money.
- The Section House Shootout
Fed up with a string of thefts, a railway foreman takes the law into his own hands and shoots a intruder on the tracks.
- A Foreman’s Reckless Gamble with Dynamite
A Fairhaven clearing crew foreman ignores safety warnings and suffers catastrophic injuries during a stump-blasting operation.
- Fired for Being 'Dutch' on a Lake Union Street Crew
A laborer's attorney asks whether an Irish foreman drove a family man off a city water job; the superintendent says he simply couldn't keep up.
- The Night a Streetcar Powerhouse Fire Left Half of Seattle Dark
A pre-dawn blaze at Fifth and Pine gutted the Consolidated Street Railway plant, destroyed nearly all its cars and dynamos, crippled three lines, and blacked out everything north of Pike Street.
- A Fortune Arrives Too Late for Tunnel Foreman
N. Wickstrom, a careful and sober tunnel foreman, was crushed by falling rock at Blueslide — on the same day a letter told him a long-awaited court judgment had come through.
- Ballard’s Fire Chief Killed by a Falling 1,200-Pound Head-Block
Frank Finnerin was guiding five men across a mill tramway when the stringer gave way. He died fifteen minutes later in the boarding house, leaving a wife and three small children.
- Tragedy in the Ashford Coal Mine
A foreman dies in a heroic but doomed effort to rescue his colleagues trapped by an explosion of fire damp deep beneath the earth.
- The Blasting Accident That Halted the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway
A foreman’s mistake triggers a deadly rockslide, marking a grim day of labor on the outskirts of 1888 Seattle.
- Hand Car Collision Kills Laborer Near Harrington
A supervisor's warning went ignored as four hand cars telescoped on the tracks, ending in a fatality for one of the track workers.
- Freak Rail-Cutting Accident May Cost Foreman His Eye
A. L. Bird, section foreman at Hay, was struck in the eye by a flying piece of metal while cutting a railroad rail. He traveled to Colfax and then Portland for treatment, but doctors fear the eye cannot be saved.
- A Wharf Foreman Tied an Iron Bar to His Neck and Stepped Into the Bay
James Mobley, foreman for the Port Blakely Mill Company, left his hat on the wharf as the only clue — a private collapse in a company mill town.
- The Peril of the Eleventh Street Grandstand
A foreman's decision to add weight to an already overloaded scaffold leads to a dangerous collapse at the Tacoma baseball grounds.
- Seattle’s Volunteer Firefighters Organize for Protection
Citizens and council members gather to establish the first official fire company for a growing city.
- The Judge Who Was Both Defendant and Accused
In a stunning legal double-header, Judge Wickersham is convicted of seduction in one court, then immediately indicted for perjury by the federal grand jury in the very same day.
- Pay for a Job That Wasn't There: Seattle's Employment-Agency Scam
A city council committee heard workers describe paying fees to G.W. Crane's employment office and arriving to find no jobs, with agents accused of splitting fees with contractors.
- The Newcastle Lockout: When Knights of Labor Shut Down the Mine
A bitter dispute over union recognition and foreman selection turned violent in Newcastle, Washington, as miners refused to work under non-union leadership and arrested rioters.
- The Sewer Blunder Heard 'Round Seattle
A multi-thousand dollar engineering failure exposes political cronyism and a laughable construction mistake on Front Street.
- A Christmas Eve Killing in the Woods
A railroad foreman is murdered in a Pe-Ell camp, sparking a failed attempt by a lynch mob to claim the shooter.
- The Mother Who Disowned Her Son for Crossing the Picket Line
When a young foreman chose to break a strike rather than stand with his union, his mother publicly rejected his 'blood money' and reminded him of the solidarity that had saved their family.
- The Rising Voice of Labor in Washington Territory
William Lee, foreman of the Knights of Labor, details a plan to unite farmers and workingmen to challenge the state's political establishment in 1892.
- The Blundering Firefighters of Pioneer Square
A satirical look at a day when a local livery stable fire turned into a slapstick comedy of errors for Seattle's volunteer hook and ladder company.
- The Sewer Tunnel Brawl
A physical confrontation between a city commissioner and a foreman reveals deep-seated tensions over patronage, naturalization, and the hiring of a Canadian family for city work.
- The Fugitive Foreman of Franklin
A man working at the Oregon Improvement Company’s stables in Franklin is revealed as a wanted fugitive for a fatal land dispute in Indian Territory.
- Tragedy in the Spokane Excavations
A laborer is killed and his foreman injured after a delayed dynamite blast detonates during construction work on First Avenue.
Also about this, in other words
- The Grooming of a Section Foreman
When a railroad boss demanded a married man for a section-house job, an applicant didn't let a minor detail like bachelorhood stop him from closing the deal in an hour.
- Labor Clash at Schwabacher’s Wharf
A schooner captain's attempt to use non-union crew to unload freight leads to police intervention and a tense standoff.
- The Unseen Labor of a Male Housekeeper
A rare 1888 account reveals a 'male housekeeper' performing the exhaustive, often back-breaking daily labor typically expected of women, in a time when such roles were strictly gender-segregated.
- The True Cost of a Hired Hand
A frank critique of the era's labor relations, arguing that farmer complaints about hired help often stem from poor treatment and meager food rather than a decline in worker character.
- The Hustle for Labor in 1885 Seattle
A local employment agent targets the booming industries of the frontier, promising 'all other classes of labor' on short notice.
- Keeping the Miners Fed When the Coal Market Collapsed
Receiver John H. Bryant asks a judge to spend $500 clearing company land near the Gilman mines so idle miners can grow hay for the company's horses — and keep drawing wages through the slump.
- A Union Send-off for the Ranch-Bound
Everett linemen gather at the Labor Temple to toast two of their own before they trade climbing poles for farm life.
- The Ironclad Oath of Labor
When the founder of the Ancient Order of United Workmen visited Seattle in 1885, he brought a philosophy of 'paternal' cooperation to reconcile the brewing tensions between labor and capital.