The Campaign to Drive Out Chinese Laundry Workers
Tensions boil over in late 19th-century Seattle as the Knights of Labor organize a systematic movement to forcibly remove Chinese laborers from the city's economy.
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.
Seattle, Dec. 11—An effort is being made by the Knights of Labor to drive the Chinese laundries from this city and county. Mr. Carroll, proprietor of the Bellview laundry, has been forced to discharge his Chinese employees. This is looked upon as a great victory by the Knights of Labor, as it was the last place in the city where Chinese labor was employed.
“An effort is being made by the Knights of Labor to drive the Chinese laundries from this city and county.”
This brief report from 1886 captures the localized, violent xenophobia that would eventually culminate in the Seattle anti-Chinese riots of 1886. It reflects the broader labor movement’s complicated, often exclusionary history that continues to echo in modern debates over labor protections versus nativist sentiment in regional economies.
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