Today in History

History & Celebrations Today – September 8

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Celebrations Today – September 8

Holidays and observances

Celebrations Today – USA: September 8

National Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Nurses Day
National Ampersand Day
Stand Up To Cancer Day – Second Friday in September
International Literacy Day
National Pledge of Allegiance Day
National Pardon Day
National Virgin Mary Day
World Physical Therapy Day

Today in US History: September 8

The Galveston Storm


Water Front, Galveston, Texas,
1910.
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991

On September 8, 1900, hurricane winds estimated at speeds of up to 120 miles per hour ripped across the Texas coastline of the Gulf of Mexico, killing more than 6,000 people and decimating the city of Galveston. During the storm, water swept through sea-level streets; destroyed homes and buildings; and wiped out electricity, roads, and communication systems. As news of the disaster spread, supplies for the residents left homeless poured into Galveston from across the nation. Clara Barton and workers from the American National Red Cross arrived soon after the storm to help coordinate relief efforts.


Seawall and Beach, Galveston, Texas,
circa 1910-20.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920

Rebuilding Galveston involved constructing a reinforced concrete seawall and raising the city above sea level, to protect it against future flooding. Seventeen feet high, and initially over three miles long, the massive seawall, now extending over ten miles, repels Gulf winds and water. Sand from the Gulf of Mexico was used to lift the city far above its previous grade.

Not long after the storm, the governor of Texas, at the behest of local businesspeople, appointed a mayor and four commissioners to manage the city’s recovery. Initially viewed as an emergency measure, the commission form of government was in place in Galveston for roughly sixty years. The “Galveston Plan” was widely imitated by other cities and became, briefly, a model for early twentieth-century municipal reform.

Learn more about Galveston on the Library of Congress’ Web site:

Quarry Workers’ International Union of North America


The North End Granite Plants,
Barre, Vt.,
1917.
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991

The American Federation of Labor granted a charter to the Quarry Workers’ International Union of North America, headquartered in Barre, Vermont, on September 8, 1903. Granite had been quarried in Barre since just after the War of 1812. In the late nineteenth century, new waves of immigrants—mostly from the quarry districts of Europe—particularly  Northern Italy and Scotland, came to Barre to quarry, cut, and carve the high-quality gray granite prevalent in the area. They brought a strong tradition of trade unionism to their new country.

Writers from the Federal Writers’ Project interviewed Barre quarrymen in the early 1940s and documented the lives of workers whose union standards outpaced the rest of the country. Many of these interviews are in the American Memory collection American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940.

Take granite out of Barre, and it would be like taking the Capitol out of Montpelier.
“President of Barre Chamber of Commerce,”
circa 1940.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940

One of the workers’ chief concerns was stonecutters’ tuberculosis (silicosis), a debilitating and often deadly lung disorder caused by inhaling airborne granite particles produced by the pneumatic stone-working tools. Labor unions organized to insist that employers install dust-removing equipment. One Vermont granite worker explained, the workers were “pretty well resigned to their fate. These stonecutters expect that one day sooner or later they will get [stonecutters’ tuberculosis].” Interviewed in an era when workers’ rights were very narrowly construed, he recounted:

The big worry of some of [the quarrymen] is that they’ll die before they have made good provision for their families. That’s the real reason behind the strikes. They feel that since they’re ‘marked’ men with perhaps less time to provide for their families than the average man, that they are entitled to higher wages. Besides there are certain periods in the year – we call them slack time and dead time – when there is little work to be done. Sometimes only a few men work during these slow weeks; sometimes, none at all.”Granite Worker,”
Montpelier, Vermont,
Mary Tomasi, interviewer, 1938-39.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940


Channeling,
a New England Granite Quarry,
1908.
Touring Turn-of-the-Century America: Photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920


Barre, Vermont (the Granite City),
Drawn and published by George E. Norris,
1891.
Panoramic Maps

Each stonecutter’s death was mourned by the community of laborers. Interviewer Mary Tomasi recounts the sadness Giacomo Coletti felt on the loss of his friend and fellow stonecutter Pietro:

Tonight he does not feel the wretched guilt that the news of Pietro’s death first brought him. It was Giacomo’s glowing letters (22 years ago) of excellent wages paid in America that persuaded Pietro to cross the ocean and learn this granite-cutting trade. These last two nights were an excruciating nightmare of thinking that if Pietro had stayed in the old country perhaps he would not now be lying dead from this stone-cutters’ TB. It took Nina and the children to convince him that the Dio’s will called Pietro from this world, and he would have been forced to answer had he been in Italy, Africa, or the very ends of the earth.”Giacomo Coletti,”
Montpelier, Vermont,
1938-39.
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940

Learn more about the stonecutter’s life:

Today in History – September 8-External Links

Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia

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