The Snohomish County Grange Fair Roots for Union Labor
While the Grange fair celebrates the county's harvest, the Women's Label League uses the space to educate visitors on the origins of the union label.
The Snohomish County Grange Fair opened with success, featuring impressive displays of local produce, art, and manual training work from school children. A standout feature is the booth maintained by the Women's Label League. Using banners from the local Labor Day celebration, the League is campaigning against 'rat shops,' sweatshops, and child labor. They note that the union label originated in 1874 specifically to combat the use of coolie labor in San Francisco manufacturing, offering consumers a guarantee of sanitary working conditions. The fair also features a permanent booth for the Carpenters' union.
“During the agitation for Chinese exclusion in 1874 unfair manufacturers were employing coolie labor in certain San Francisco shops... so the union label was launched.”
This article provides a rare, explicit historical link between anti-Chinese exclusion rhetoric and the origins of the American labor union label, framing it as a 'guarantee of sanitary conditions'—a common justification used during that era to justify exclusionary policies.
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