Volunteer cast to reenact New Bedford’s Textile Strike of 1928

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In New Bedford’s Gallery X, several volunteers are hard at work retelling New Bedford’s oft-forgotten history in the textile industry. Actors, writers, and costume-makers are remastering a play about the Strike of 1928, which was first performed six years ago.

The all-volunteer cast and crew have been rehearsing through the summer to bring this story to life. Along the way, they’ve become a makeshift family, cast members said. They’ve also reconnected to this chapter of the city’s history and are looking to bring the story back into the memories of all New Bedford residents.  

The play opens with actors Tara Greenwood, Lucy Bly, and Lloyd Perry at a dinner table with rationed food, as a husband and wife argue with their retired mother, who is prying into the family’s financial struggles. 

Tempers flare among the characters until they are interrupted by a strike leader, played by Liz Rapoza. The leader offers an alternative to struggling for low wages and dangerous work: join the strikers and fight off a ruinous 10% wage cut.

“That’s it. It flows nicely, that’s hot!” a voice bellows throughout the gallery. Russell Ramos, playwright and director, is impressed with his crew’s efforts.

This summer marks 97 years since the Strike of ’28. Led by Ramos, a longtime New Bedford resident and Screen Actors Guild member, New Bedford’s yesteryear is finding its way back to the stage. 

Finding and writing the history of the Strike of ‘28

Ramos has appeared in multiple films and television shows, including “Into the Deep: America, Whaling & the World,” a documentary about the Ernestina-Morrissey and the whaling industry.

From a young age, Ramos knew that he wanted to be involved in theater. Since his first elementary school production, “Stone Soup,” Ramos has carried a motivation to tell stories as authentically as he can.

“Telling real human stories,” Ramos summarized. “As a director, I can’t come into it with a bias. I can’t put frosting on an entire era.” 

After reading “The Strike of ’28,” Ramos approached co-author Daniel Georgianna and suggested using the book as background for a play. Georgianna was intrigued. 

Ramos recalled their conversation. “[Georgianna] said, ‘Why don’t you give me the script and I’ll read it.’ And then his eyes lit up.”

Georgianna, like Ramos, has an appreciation for local history. For 20 years, the former UMass Dartmouth professor researched New Bedford’s past. His students first brought the strike to his attention in the 1970s. Many strikers were still alive, and an estimated 60 individuals were interviewed for the book, Georgianna said.

“We really worked hard to find people who experienced the strike and worked through [it],” he said.

The textile industry has not received the same attention as New Bedford’s whaling industry, which made the city one of the wealthiest in the United States before the Civil War. 

The discovery of alternative fuel sources eventually led to the whaling industry’s steep decline. Fortunately for New Bedford, a pivot into the textile mill industry, which had been dominated by England and the Southern states, was the lifeline the city needed.

The textile boom and the workers’ revolt

The two men credited with establishing New Bedford’s textile industry were Thomas Bennett Jr. and Joseph Grinnell, in 1848. Soon after, many of New Bedford’s whaling families started to dock their ships and invest in the small city, leading to the population tripling from 40,000 to 120,000 between 1880 and the 1920s.

This period of transition was marked by the arrival of many working-class immigrants. Each wave introduced different ethnicities and nationalities from around the world, including Portuguese, Irish, German, Polish, Syrian, French-Canadian, and Cape Verdean.

The textile industry’s rise was much like whaling’s, in that it was anything but smooth sailing. Workers went on strike in 1877 and 1898, but they were largely unorganized. These years saw continuous wage cuts and long, grueling hours for working families.

These earlier work stoppages were precursors to New Bedford’s largest textile strike, when 35,000 mill workers walked off the job on April 9, 1928 — Easter Sunday. 

Owners were threatening another 10% wage cut. It would affect 27 different mills within a week, including the Kilburn and Wamsutta mills, on Monday, April 16. This broke an agreement between the workers’ unions and the mill owners that all future wage cuts would have 30-day advance notification. It also threatened to plunge many struggling workers below the poverty line.

This time around, workers organized into unions. The Textile Council (TC) union, led by skilled English workers, including William E.G. Batty and Frank Manning, was a voice of reason between skilled workers and the mill owners. 

After unsuccessful negotiations between Mayor Charles Ashley and the TC to table a strike, a vote was held for the workers to strike on Thursday, April 12. The vote resulted in 2,571 in favor of a strike, and 188 against. 

Within a few days, the mills closed their doors, and picket lines were established. Workers dressed in their best clothing, campaigning for others to join the strike. Women led the picket lines, and bread and soup kitchens were ready to feed the masses. Many local businesses and tenants openly supported the strikers in their efforts.

However, unskilled workers were not backed by the TC. Workers of Portuguese or Cape Verdean descent represented about 50% of mill workers in 1926, but they held less than 10% of skilled jobs. English mill workers continued to have a tight hold on the TC’s leadership positions and skilled jobs.

The Portuguese and Cape Verdean workers found support from the Textile Mill Committee (TMC), led by Communists Fred Beal and William Murdoch. The TMC was formed out of the Socialist Party in 1919, which held views that were considered radical for the time: a 20% pay increase, equal pay for women, and a 40-hour work week.

The strikes raged on for six months, but finally the battle came to an end in October 1928. Batty negotiated with the mill owners down to a 5% wage cut, but the vote failed.

When Mill owners agreed to comply with the 30-day notice of all future wage cuts, the vote to end the strikes with a 5% wage cut passed.

The Socialist TMC was an afterthought in all of these negotiations, and they were unable to vote against the decision either time. This resulted in the mill doors reopening on Oct. 8. Thousands of people were hungry, tired, and in dire need of work once again, and they returned with little resistance.

Yet Georgianna, throughout his research and interviews, found a surprising amount of optimism in the faces of the strikers.

“For a lot of people, this was the high point of their lives,” he said. “These were joyful people. They were hardworking, living on eight or nine dollars a week.” The strikers held many community gatherings, including picnics at Hazelwood Park, poker tables in event halls, and weekly dances at the Sharpshooters Hall. All of which were meant to unify the strikers outside of their working confines.

The faces bringing the story to life

That sense of community that assembled the workers together is precisely what unites Ramos and the stage volunteers today. 

“We’re here together,” said Greenwood, one of the actors, about her castmates.

Greenwood said that acting was fun, but her love of history is what made her join the play. As an actress, Greenwood has worked with Ramos previously, making her a steadier hand among the group of volunteers.

Greenwood’s sister, Donna Medeiros, is also part of this year’s cast. “The courage that it took for these women to be together… I feel like they’re pioneers of the workplace. They are the ones that started that,” Medeiros said. She referred to the TMC’s Eulalia Mendes, an outspoken voice for women risking their lives to strike. “[They were] pioneers so we today have better work experiences.”

Barbara McDonald, another actress, has family ties to the strikes. McDonald’s grandfather was an overseer, and her grandmother was a weaver. “It’s almost like I’m reliving what they experienced,” McDonald reflected.

Like Greenwood, McDonald is a veteran of local historical plays, having portrayed Lizzie Borden in the Fall River Celebrates America festival. 

Each of the volunteers breathes life into their characters, but they must also look the part. And no production is complete without its costumes. Chris Duval, the owner of Circa, supplied the costumes in the original production. So when Ramos asked Duval to help out once again, he was receptive.

“It’s important that [Ramos] is doing this,” said Duval.

Duval has been in the vintage fashion business for 40 years, long before its modern renaissance. He first opened his doors in 1986 in Fairhaven, his hometown. He has since relocated to his current space on Court Street in New Bedford. The motivation for his work is “fostering self-expression through clothing,” Duval said.

Duval, although not a costume designer by trade, has gained experience working with productions like Ramos’.

“I’m really good at sizing people now,” reflected Duval. “We want the details to be just right.” He attributes some of this skill to working alongside Ramos to create costumes for both productions.

This time around, Duval noticed there was a difference with Ramos. “[Ramos] is a lot more organized now,” Duval quipped. “He gave me months in advance to plan it out.”

Although the original play was a success, Ramos attributes the success of this newfound organization to UMass Dartmouth’s Labor Education Center and the Greater Southeastern Mass Labor Council.

“Being backed up financially is the difference this time,” he said.

Ramos had self-funded his original production. This time around, with the financial backing and support of returning faces and new ones, he is certain that things will be much improved. A much larger production for the 100th anniversary of the strikes in 2028 isn’t out of the question for Ramos. A larger production could take a musical approach, Ramos speculated.

The play, based on the book “The Strike of ’28” by Daniel Georgianna with Roberta Hazen Aaronson, is currently scheduled to be performed in Gallery X during AHA night on Thursday, Sept. 11, at 4 p.m. Anyone attending the event is encouraged to wear 1920s work attire and is invited to march outside the gallery with the cast at the end of the play.

Brenton Jackson is a summer intern with The New Bedford Light, as part of the South Coast Internship program, designed for local students.