A Warning to Labor: Everett's Carpenter Surplus
As unemployment hits the building trades, the local Labor Journal warns workers from other cities to stay away.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Work in the carpenter line at the present time is slack and men coming from other cities just now with the hope of finding employment will be doomed to disappointment. We hope it will be better soon, but there is no use in disguising the situation and filling the city with idle men. Forty carpenters, it is estimated, are idle at the present time.
“There is no use in disguising the situation and filling the city with idle men.”
Everett has a long history of boom-and-bust cycles tied to the timber and construction trades. Just as in 1910, the city often struggles to manage the tension between attracting a skilled workforce and avoiding the humanitarian strain of a sudden surplus of unemployed laborers during downturns.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.