The Stonecutters
Imported Stone
In the summer of 1897 Minnesota newspaper writers were up in arms over the impending
decision to use Georgia marble on the state’s new Capitol building. The legislation establishing the
Capitol Commission back in 1893 stated that “preference shall in all cases be given to Minnesota
materials and labor,” and many felt this required the use of stone from the state.1 Organized Labor was
also supposedly strongly in favor of the use of Minnesota stone and some union organizations passed
resolutions advocating using only stone from Minnesota on the building.2 There was, in fact, a “mass
meeting” in St. Paul on June 25, 1897 at which union leaders and local politicians spoke out against the
use of Georgia marble. Speakers at the rally, however, remarked on the absence of St. Paul
businessmen and union members.3 The rally was purportedly called by the Stonecutters’ Union
however there was no speaker from that union mentioned. The Minnesota stone issue seemed to be of
the sort that politicians could use to look good to both labor and business and there was much political
chest thumping over the matter. Maybe it was difficult for St. Paulites to see how it would make much
difference to them. Much of the Union push for Minnesota stone appears to have come from the St.
Cloud Central Labor Body, which represented the Granite Cutters’ Union in that area, and officials from
Minneapolis who saw St. Paul as their chief rival in the struggle over government dollars. 4 Granite
Cutters’ Union members worked exclusively on granite and did not even have a local in the city while St.
Paul’s stonecutters worked in the local limestone industry and were members of a different union. The
country had been suffering through a prolonged economic depression and unemployed stonecutters
may have felt the huge Capitol project was now poised to provide them with little relief. The building
was contracted in stages, and when St. Paul contractor, George Grant, had won the bid for the
foundation of the Capitol the previous year, he had used some local material but mostly huge blocks of
limestone which came fully dressed from Winona, Minnesota.5 The new Federal Courts building (now
Landmark Center) was also under construction and the contractor had gone to St. Cloud in 1893 and
opened a granite quarry to furnish the material; and now there was pressure to use granite for the
Capitol as well.6 By August of 1897 the Capitol Commission had still not hired a contractor for the
superstructure. At their last meeting before awarding the contract labor leaders from Minneapolis and
the Granite Cutters’ Union urged the Commission to insist on Minnesota stone. The President of the
Minneapolis branch of the Journeymen Stonecutters’ Association, W.R. Worden, however, submitted a
letter in which he argued that using “soft stone,” i.e. marble, limestone or sandstone, would actually
1
Board of State Capitol Commissioners, An Act to Provide for a New Capitol for the State of Minnesota being
Chapter 2 of the General Law of 1893 (St. Paul: St. Paul Dispatch, 1894), 11, found in Minnesota State Board of
Capitol Commissioners Records, MHS.
2
Minneapolis Tribune, June 24, 1897, p.7.
3
St. Paul Globe, June 25, 1897, p.2. The Executive Board of the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly met with
representatives of the St. Cloud Granite Cutters’ Union and at their urging passed a resolution favoring the use of
Minnesota stone and convened this rally. St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly Minutes, Volume 2, p. 215, Sept. 25,
1898, in the Minnesota Historical Society.
4
St. Paul Globe, August 29, 1897, p.2.
5
St. Paul Globe, May 1, 1996, p. 8.
6
Eileen Michels, A Landmark Reclaimed (St. Paul: Minnesota Landmarks, 1977), p.31.
employ more Minnesotans, (namely, his members), than granite, since the size of the job would require
importing many granite cutters from out of state to do the work.7 Although Worden was bitterly
denounced for his views, it should be noted that St. Paul Labor did not weigh in on the marble
controversy at this point. The foundation had been finished the previous year and the summer building
season had been lost while the politicians debated; first over the appropriation of money for the
building, and now over the type of material. Apparently St. Paul businesses and workers just wanted
the talk to end and the work to begin.
Hundreds of people were involved in the construction of the Minnesota “Peoples’ House”
between 1896, when ground was first broken, and 1907, when the sidewalks and grading were
completed. The roles of the politicians and he architect in this process have been well documented.8
During the celebration for the Capitol’s centennial in 2005 however it became apparent that the story of
the people actually engaged in doing the construction work was yet to be told. So the project, Who Built
Our Capitol?, was launched with the goal of telling shedding light on the lives of these workers. My 30
year experience as a carpenter gave me an idea of the variety of occupations in the construction
industry. Carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers, sheet metal workers, ironworkers and hoisting engineers
were all trades that were familiar to me, but when one looks at the Capitol the most obvious feature is
the enormous quantity of precisely cut and carved marble. Ginny Lackovic, an architect who has been
involved in restoration work on the Capitol since 2005, reflected on the character of the building: “This
building is really a monument made of stone…. The exterior is about stone. The interior is also stone.
There are 38 different types of marble, but one type of wood.”9 The stonecutters were possibly the
most important craftsmen working on that job yet I had never come across any in my years of work.
They worked not only on the shaping and carving of the exterior stone, but also the interior stone
staircases, balusters and handrails. A hundred years ago the stonecutters and carvers were well known
and respected members of the building trades and, although the evidence of their expertise endures,
little is known today about the stonecutting trade and the lives of these artisans.
On September 1, 1897 the contract for the superstructure of the Capitol was finally awarded to
the Butler-Ryan Company of St. Paul.10 The specifications required that the walls be constructed of
granite on the basement level and two feet of brick faced with four inches of marble on the upper
floors. The decision to go with a St. Paul contractor was celebrated by the St. Paul Globe; however the
use of marble was bitterly condemned by the Minneapolis papers. To mollify the business interests and
newspapers which had been pushing for the use of Minnesota stone, Channing Seabury, the vicepresident of the Board of State Capitol Commissioners, stressed that the contract included 250,000
cubic feet of Minnesota granite, limestone and sandstone as opposed to 141,000 feet of marble and
7
St. Paul Globe, August 31, 1897, p.2.
Neil B. Thompson, Minnesota’s State Capitol: the Art and Politics of a Public Building (St. Paul: Minnesota
Historical Society Press, 2005) is the latest and best telling of this story.
9
Interview of Ginny Lackovic by Randy Croce, p.5.
10
Michael Ryan, feeling that the bonding requirements for the Capitol involved too much risk, left the partnership
and its successor, Butler Brothers Company, finished the job. Stated in an unpublished memoir by Emmett Butler
with Larry Fitzpatrick, Chapter 5, p. 7.
8
that all stonecutting and finishing would be done in state.11 Contractor, W. C. Baxter of Minneapolis,
had submitted a bid to build the entire structure of granite, but his bid, because of the greater expense
of working with the harder stone, had been quite a bit higher than Butler-Ryan’s. He was fortunate to
subcontract the material for the basement; that work was performed by Granite Cutters’ Union
members at his quarry in St. Cloud.12 The bulk of the work, however, would be done by the soft
stonecutters.
The stonecutters had their roots in the traditions of the European guild system whose members
had built medieval cathedrals and castles. In Scotland, even in the mid-19th Century, the stoneworker
was expected to be competent in all aspects of stone construction, from the quarrying of stone for a
building, to the decorative carving, and everything in between. The ambitious stonecutter could aspire
to eventually become a contractor and architect. The vocation and craft pride as well as a tradition of
independence fostered by having a skilled trade was passed down from father to son in many families.13
In America, as time went on, the stonecutting profession became more specialized and increasingly was
defined as the work performed after the stone was extracted by quarrymen and before it was set in the
building by stone masons. Stonecutters had a long tradition of banding together and establishing
standards for the trade, and, like many other skilled craftsmen of their day, they saw the rise of
industrial capitalism as a force eroding both the standards of their craft and their ability to control those
standards. From the Preamble to the 1890 Constitution:
At no period in the world’s history has the necessity for association on the part of labor become
so apparent to any thinking mind as at the present time; and perhaps in no country have the
working classes been so forgetful of their own interests as in North America…. Capitol has
assumed to itself the right to own and control labor for the accomplishment of its own greedy
and selfish ends…. It is an evident fact that if the dignity of labor is to be preserved, it must be
done with our united efforts…. Stonecutters, seeing the benefit and prosperity that may be
derived from so uniting have formed themselves into an association, through which they are
determined to guard and cherish the trade which gives them an honorable livelihood.14
Also known by the members as the General Union or G.U., the Journeymen Stonecutters’
Association of North America was founded on March 1, 1888, though it had been preceded by several
other attempts at national organization going back to the 1850’s. There was also a history of
independent local unions in cities including Washington D.C. and Newark, New Jersey as early as the
1820’s, and some historians credit the first strike in America to New York stonecutters who struck in
1823 to reduce their hours from twelve to ten 15 The St. Paul cutters first organized in 1885, while
11
St. Paul Globe, September 1, 1897 pp.1, 8.
Later, when the contract for the granite steps was let Baxter hoped to contract directly with the Capitol
Commission and eliminate the Butlers but he was unable to do this.
13
The Stonecutters’ Journal published a reminiscence by John Mortimer, a Scottish stonecutter, in June, July and
August of 1901.
14
1890 Constitution, (St. Paul: L.M. Fisher, 1890), Preamble
15
Stonecutters Journal June 1902 p.16; Minnesota Union Advocate, 13 January 1938, p. 5; Gary M. Fink ed., Labor
Unions (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1977) 44. There is some disagreement over the founding date.
12
Minneapolis pre-dated them by several years.16 Although their demand for recognition in the 1880’s
had first been met by staunch resistance, relations between Twin City stonecutters and their employers
were generally harmonious by the time of the Capitol construction. If a raise was sought the union
simply presented the new scale to the contractors at the beginning of the season and demands were
usually met with no opposition. In St. Paul stonecutters had no problem increasing their hourly wage
from 40 cents to 45 in 1900 and to 50 in 1902.17 Many of the bosses had come up through the ranks and
the workers felt a responsibility to promote the industry. The employers, in turn, were in sympathy with
the union’s goal of maintaining a high level of craftsmanship. A stonecutter served a four year
apprenticeship after which he was considered “practical stonecutter.” All-out strikes over wages or
hours were rare, and discouraged by the Constitution.18 Three quarters of the local members had to
vote for a strike then the action had to be approved by the General Union’s Executive Board. Strike pay
was only 5 dollars a week when a full time stonecutter might make over 20.19 One of the few conflicts
reported during the years of the Capitol construction was a short strike, (unsanctioned, I presume), in
Minneapolis in 1901 over the right to smoke at work. The Jones and Hartley Company attempted,
unsuccessfully, to ban smoking arguing that many of their employees had been working at the Capitol
where smoking had been prohibited by the contractors. The Minneapolis Journal reported that at the
end of the year the stonecutters of the city and their bosses got together and celebrated another
successful year.20
Although the G.U. was governed by a constitution and published an excellent monthly
magazine, the Stonecutters’ Journal, their central organization, with only two full time elected officers, a
President and a Secretary-Treasurer, was fairly weak. The General President, whose duties consisted
mainly of visiting the branches and helping negotiate their contracts, was paid “the current rate of
wages per day” plus rail fare and $2.50 for expenses.21 Disputes were handled by the Executive Board,
elected representatives from seven geographical jurisdictions; and their deliberations were conducted
by mail and published monthly in the Journal. Conventions were held only if deemed necessary by a
vote of the membership. Stonecutters were an independent lot and many of the branches, as the local
unions were called, had a history much longer than the G.U. It was not unusual for a branch to secede if
a disagreement with the national organization could not be resolved.22 The stonecutters were one of
March 1, 1888 is the date given on the cover of the 1890 Constitution, December 5, 1887 on the 1890 one. Later
Constitutions give 1853.
16
St. Paul Globe, April 5, 1885, p. 5, April 11, 1886 p.7.
Stonecutters’ Journal, March, 1902, p. 6, June 1900, p.5.
18
“This association will not countenance a strike except when all other means fail to effect a settlement of their
grievances.” 1890 Constitution, Article X. The G.U. did not have a strike fund, though Article XVI of the Constitution
provided that funds could be raised by a levy if the strike of a branch was approved.
19
1890 Constitution, By-Laws, Article XI.
20
Minneapolis Tribune, October 24, 1901, p. 7; Minneapolis Journal, December 27, 1901, p. 8.
21
1890 Constitution, Officers’ Duties, Section 4.
22
George E. Barnett, “The Stonecutters’ Union and the Stone-Planer,” The Journal of Political Economy, Volume
IVXX Number 5 (May 1916): p.422. A controversy ensued in May of 1902 when the New York City branch, which
was affiliated with but not a member of the G.U., refused to admit G.U. members, and the G.U. retaliated by
setting up a dual stonecutters’ local in New York. A similar situation occurred in St. Louis in 1893. N. R. Whitney,
17
the highest paid trades, and, although they voiced support in the Journal for the many campaigns of the
wider labor movement, they also liked to say that in their own affairs they did not ask for or offer help
to other unions.23 They distrusted national alliances such as the American Federation of Labor afraid
they would have no voice in a body dominated by much larger affiliates. This independent attitude was
fairly typical of early construction trade unions which had carved out their area of expertise,
“jurisdiction,” without the help of, and often in conflict with, other unions. It was difficult for these
unions to weigh what they might lose in control over their jurisdiction against what they would gain in
power by being part of a larger organization. One of the largest trade unions, the Bricklayers, though
founded in 1882, did not affiliate with the A.F.L. until 1916.24 The membership of the G.U. finally did
vote to join the A.F.L. in 1907 but only after years of discussion and debate.25
The local level was where most of the stonecutters’ efforts were focused. High attendance was
the norm for union meetings and it was considered both a privilege and a duty to serve the local. Many
of the larger unions had just begun the practice of hiring a full time organizer or “walking delegate” but
apparently St. Paul stonecutters felt this was unneeded, and all elected officials spent their days working
at the trade. During a tough time in 1912 the St. Paul branch reported that, “all the officers had
volunteered to serve gratis.”26 Individual branches routinely joined, and members took, leadership roles
in local union coalitions, such as the Trades and Labor Assembly and the Building Trades Council in St.
Paul, as well as in the larger community. The Minnesota Labor Commissioner appointed by the
governor in 1899, Martin HcHale, was a prominent member of the Minneapolis local.27 Despite their
avowed independence, members discussed current issues of the labor movement at the meetings,
welcomed guest speakers from other unions, and took action in support of other labor causes. They
were enthusiastic participants in the Labor Day parades, and for the 1899 celebration featured a float
with several members carving marble blocks from the Capitol.28
The attitude of the G.U. toward international cooperation and foreign workers was also
complicated. The Minnesota Labor Commissioner reported in 1893 that 72 per cent of the stonecutters
he had surveyed were foreign born.29 Members traveled freely between the branches in the U.S. and
Canada; and points as far south as Guatemala were considered to be within the jurisdiction of the
Union.30 The Stonecutters’ Journal, which featured letters from stonecutters around the world and
reports on conditions in other countries, fostered a spirit of international camaraderie. The October
1903 issue included a report from the International Congress of Workers in the Stone Trade held in
“Jurisdiction in American Building Trades Unions,” Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political
Science, Volume XXXII, (1914): pp. 78, 84; Union Advocate, July 25, 1902, p.3.
23
Stonecutters’ Journal, June, 1902 p.16.
24
Grace Palladino, Skilled Hands, Strong Spirits: A Century of Building Trades History (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 2005), pp. 1-66.
25
Minnesota Union Advocate, 30 August, 1907, p.8.
26
Stonecutters’ Journal, February, 1912, p. 12.
27
Stonecutters’ Journal, January, 1900, p.6.
28
St. Paul Globe, September 5, 1899, p. 10.
29
L.G. Powers, Biennial Report of the Minnesota Bureau of Labor Statistics (St. Paul: The Pioneer Press Company,
1895), p.178.
30
Whitney, p. 19.
Zurich that year. 31 On the other hand, there was an attitude of hostility towards “harvesters,” that is,
workers who only came from Europe to America for the work season and left in the winter. The influx of
foreign workers had a tendency to depress wages, and also made it difficult for young Americans to
enter the trade as apprentices. The trade was traditionally passed down from father to son; it was even
written into their constitution that members’ sons had priority in entering apprenticeship; so this was a
particular concern for members.32 To address the problem the G.U. required foreigners to pay a $50
initiation fee.33
Members caught violating trade rules were vehemently denounced, and periodically there was a
“scab list” printed in the Journal. If a member wished to make amends, however, he could pay his fine
and all would be forgiven. The March 1897 St. Paul scab list included James Ross, Louis Eschenbacher
and William Hay who all later were readmitted and worked on the Capitol. James Ross even served as
vice president of the local in 1901.34 William Hay was the Corresponding Secretary of the St. Paul branch
in 1899; and when he died in September of that year he was eulogized in a letter to the Journal, and his
union brothers served as pallbearers.35 In Kasota, Minnesota there was an unsuccessful strike in 1886
and the local was disbanded. When it was reorganized in 1898 the men who were responsible for the
local’s dissolution were still on the list and were required to pay fines before being readmitted.36
Imported Labor
Though the claim that building the Capitol of granite would require introducing help from out of
state was true, using marble, a material foreign to most Minnesota stonecutters, also required imported
labor. Cass Gilbert had never designed a marble building and the contractor had never worked with the
material. The Butlers were bricklayers by trade. Walter and William and had been early members of the
St. Paul Bricklayers Union when it was founded in 1881 while younger brothers Coolie and Emmett also
laid brick alongside of their employees.37 Being tradesmen themselves they recognized their
dependence on the expertise of the various trades they employed and knew they would need
competent help, and much of this help would come from outside Minnesota. Architect Ginny Lackovic
talks about how construction culture at the time differed from current practices:
31
Stonecutters’ Journal, October, 1903 p.14-5.
Powers, 190.
33
1890 Constitution, Article V. The usual initiation fee was $10, $2.50 for apprentices.
34
St. Paul Globe, December 27, 1901, p. 5: St. Paul City Directory.
35
Stonecutters’ Journal, March, 1897, scab list, p.5; November, 1899, p.15; St. Paul Globe, October 1, 1899, p.12;
St. Paul City Directories, 1898-1900.
36
St. Paul Globe, 9 March 1886 p. 2, 28 March p. 7, 30 March p. 2, 1 April p. 4, 11 April p.11, 24 April p.2;
Stonecutters’ Journal, July, 1898 p.5; September, 1900, p.9.
37
Walter Butler served as president of the St. Paul Bricklayers Local #1 in 1884 and 1885. Minnesota Bricklayers
Union Local 1, Vol. 1. pp.186, 192. MHS. In a 1995 interview Walter Butler, the grandson of Walter Butler, said
that in their family, “We were told to vote Democratic, go to mass once in a while, and support (Bricklayers) Local
#1.” Interview with Susan Granger in the Minnesota State Historical Preservation Office, Casiville Bullard file.
Emmett talks about learning to lay brick in his memoir though he said his brother John never worked at the trade.
Emmett Butler memoir, p. 26.
32
This wasn’t a conventional building. There weren’t that many domes built that were selfsustaining, or self-supporting. And so to move forward with something that’s not conventional
with a material that is not local, this is not something that laborers here had a lot of experience
with. And then to move forward at (that) scale is pretty amazing. And given the tools of the
trade, and just availability for hoisting and moving quantities like that, it just is baffling to me
today knowing (how) we struggle with all of the advantages we have by comparison. It’s an
amazing undertaking. And In spite of the conversation that’s happening right now about the
deterioration of the material, the tooling… and the craftsmanship that went into it is really why
the building has held up as well as it has. The detailing is, is amazing. You know, every piece
sheds water and some very subtly but still every single inch of the building was designed with
intent…. Drawings at that point had maybe a hundred sheets. Maybe not even that many for
this building. Compared to what we would issue now to build a building like this would be a
four-volume set of a hundred sheets each. Buildings at this time… you relied a lot on the
craftsman, on their knowledge and their sensibilities…. There are often comments that say you’ll
do it this way and then… it’ll take you up to a certain point and then it’s… using typical methods.
And what are those? They didn’t describe them at that point. They just relied on craftsman and
the trades to actually carry that through, carry that forward. And so there was a lot of trust and
there was a lot of field adjustment and a lot of field ingenuity that went into these buildings. 38
A feature article about the Minnesota Capitol in the Stonecutters’ Journal stated: “The
preparation of the stone is under the able superintendence of Mr. Joseph Bourgeault, whilst his son,
Joseph Bourgeault Jr., acts as shop foreman.”39 Born in Quebec in 1849, Joseph Bourgeault had
emigrated in 1881, and was well known in St. Paul for supervising the stone cutting on a number of
downtown commercial buildings, including the Germania Bank building which still stands.40 During the
stone controversy he was asked for his opinion by a newspaper reporter and gave possibly the most
sensible view of the situation. He admitted that, “foreign labor will have to be imported at any rate,”
however, a combination of stone would employ the largest number of Minnesotans because, “if the
building is part of granite and part marble all of the stonecutters will have a chance.”41 One son, Albert,
worked on the Capitol as a stonecutter, while his eldest, Joseph Jr., played the clarinet in a local
orchestra and liked to be known as a professional musician; but apparently his day job was foreman in
the stone shed.42
Another one of Butler-Ryan’s indispensable employees was stonecutter Everett Shahan.
Shahan’s father and brother also worked on the Capitol, but Everett was considered the genius of the
family. The family was from Kansas and had first worked for the Butlers on a job in Cherokee, Iowa just
before they all moved to St. Paul. In 1901, Everett, at the age of 21, took on the task of figuring and
38
Lackovic interview, p. 5.
Stonecutters’ Journal, January, 1899, p.6.
40
Improvement Bulletin, October 5, 1901, p. 18.
41
St. Paul Globe, August 19, 1897, p. 2.
42
St. Paul City Directories 1898-1900; Duluth City Directory, 1895; U.S. Federal Census 1900..
39
cutting the hundreds of blocks of marble for the Capitol dome. Ginny Lackovic has studied the original
plans for the building:
“It is phenomenal to see how everything fits together…. The marble is self-supporting. It’s one
of only four self-supporting domes still standing…. By the time you get up to the dome level …
there are no drawings…. We’ve never found a drawing that shows the actual construction of the
dome. There’s a drawing that shows the intent, but that’s not what got built. So at some point
there was an adjustment made. There was a lot of arguing between the architect and the
engineers, contractors and the State at that point…. I think the top of the drum wall was
finished and sat vacant without a dome for several months until they resolved some of the
issues. And at that point, again, it was basically verbal communication, between Cass Gilbert
and some of the people that were doing the construction. But there are no drawings that show
exactly what it is now. We have a couple sketches that we found in New York, but … there is no
formal drawing that we ever found that shows exactly how that’s built.”43
Emmett Butler, the youngest of the Butler brothers, talked about the dome construction in a memoir
which he wrote in the 1940’s. According to his account, Everett Shahan made a model of the dome on
the floor of the St. Paul Y.M.C.A. gymnasium which he used to make patterns for all the pieces. Shahan
went on to work for the Butler Brothers for many years and was the chief engineer on the company’s
biggest project, a seven and a half million dollar underwater tunnel connecting Windsor, Canada and
Detroit.44 Eventually he went to work as a civil engineer for the Federal Government in Portland,
Oregon.45
In addition to Bourgeault and Shahan, dozens of Journeyman Stonecutters Association,
members who traveled with their trade, came to St. Paul. The G.U. had its own network for informing
members where work was coming up and needed no invitation from the Butlers. The St. Paul branch
was fairly small and made up primarily of stonecutters working in the stone yards of contractors
providing limestone blocks for the city’s basements.46 They were among the highest paid tradesmen in
the city at 40 cents per hour and had achieved the 8 hour day by 1897.47 In May of 1898, when the
stonecutting at the Capitol was at its peak, the Minnesota Union Advocate reported that the St. Paul
branch had 175 members.48 In March of 1907, when the job was long over, the membership was down
to 37.49 The Stonecutters’ Journal, as well as the St. Paul Globe, noted the admittance of members into
the St. Paul local by traveling card. Here is an excerpt from the Journal of June 1898 showing several
members who were admitted into St. Paul from Tate, Georgia and other cities:
43
Lackovic interview, p.5-6.
Emmett Butler memoir, Chapters 6 and 7, no page numbers.
45
Lending credence to Butler’s story is a notice in the St. Paul Globe identifying Everett and his brother Earl as
members of the Y.M.C.A. mandolin orchestra. St. Paul Globe, January 17, 1902 p. 6; Emmett Butler memoir pp.8588, U.S. Federal Censuses, 1885, 1900, 1910, 1920.
46
Debbie Miller “Collections Offer Clues to History of Stonecutters” Union Advocate April 11, 2007
http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_3026
47
Stonecutters’ Journal, September 1897, p.16.
48
Minnesota Union Advocate, May 6, 1898, p. 5.
49
Stonecutters’ Journal, March, 1907, page number missing.
44
Almost all the cutters mentioned here named
Butler-Ryan as their employer in the St. Paul City Directory.50
It was a time honored custom among stonecutters that, after completing apprenticeship, the
journeyman would spend several years traveling the country to gain familiarity with local practices and
his brothers across the country. If these traveling members heard of a more lucrative job in another
city, they were liable to quickly move on. In April of 1899 ten cutters who were working on the Capitol
here left for Helena to work on the Montana Capitol building where they were told they would make 50
cents an hour.51 Thomas Gibney, noted in the excerpt above as coming from Tate, who worked on the
Capitol and eventually settled in San Francisco, offers a good example of this tradition. He was
appointed as Auditor and profiled in the Stonecutters’ Journal in March of 1898 just prior to his move to
St. Paul.:
50
Stonecutters’ Journal, June, 1898, p.6; St. Paul City Directories, 1897-1900.
St. Paul Globe, April 8, 1899, p.10; April 16, p. 10, April 25, p. 8; April 23, p.9. Unfortunately, the Helena job
turned out to be a disappointment. When the men arrived they had to wait several weeks for the job to start.
Then the foreman, William Hamilton who had been a respected figure and president of the St. Paul local, fired
several of the men and the rest walked off the job in protest. The situation was not settled until, almost a year
later, when a member of the Union’s Executive Board went to Helena and negotiated a deal which included
Hamilton paying a $150 fine. Stonecutters’ Journal, October, 1899, p.7; June, 1900, Supplement.
51
Gibney, and dozens of other traveling stonecutters who worked on the Capitol, re-energized
the Journeymen Stonecutters’ St. Paul local, and contributed to the local labor movement. Previously,
the Stonecutters’ Local, like many smaller St. Paul unions, was not even affiliated with the St. Paul
Trades and Labor.52 In January 1898 this situation quickly changed and delegates from the local became
active members of the Assembly. William Hamilton, president of the St. Paul Stonecutters’ in 1899, also
served as president of the St. Paul Building Trades Council.53 Another prominent member, Michael
Giordano was given a front page send off in the Union Advocate newspaper when he moved on to New
Jersey in August of 1900 after working in St. Paul for two years and serving as delegate to the St. Paul
Trades and Labor Assembly.54
The large amount of stone carving on the building required an additional sub-category of
itinerant worker. Some of these artisans had permanent jobs in local monument shops, but those adept
at the carving required on large public buildings rarely had the luxury to stay in one place for long. Some
large cities, such as New York and Philadelphia, had an independent stone carvers’ local which was
affiliated with the G.U., but in most areas the stone carvers were members of the Stonecutters’ branch.
Butler-Ryan subcontracted the carving work to the Chicago firm of Purdy and Hutcheson at the direction
of the architect, Cass Gilbert, who was concerned that this work be of the highest quality.55 Both
Frederick Purdy and Will J. Hutcheson were admitted into the St. Paul branch of the Stonecutters’ in
1899, indicating they both worked with the tools. Stone carving on the building included the twelve
52
Minutes of the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly, Volume 3, p. 15, January 14, 1898, MHS.
St. Paul Globe, February 2, 1899, p.10.
54
Union Advocate, August 17, 1900, p.1.
55
Architect’s log, August 7, 1900.
53
large eagles encircling the dome, six eight foot figures symbolizing “Virtues” over the main entrance, the
capitols of some 50 columns and a wealth of other decorative carving. For the Virtues the carvers
copied smaller models sent by the sculptor, Daniel Chester French, and the work was done with
pneumatic and hand tools in the relative comfort of the stonecutters’ shed. For column capitols and
other decorative work plaster models were made using the architect’s drawings and carving based on
the model was done in situ from scaffolding. On April 28, 1900 Alfred Swenson and Frank Thiery were
erecting a scaffold in preparation for the carving, when a rope they were using to lift material became
entangled in the wheel of a wagon hauling stone at the site. The scaffold was pulled down, and they
were thrown 40 feet to the ground. Thiery landed on a pile of sand and broke a leg, but Swenson struck
some beams on the way down and was killed. Newspapers reported that Swenson was a “mold caster,”
however the architect’s report of the accident gave his occupation as “carver.” Swenson, who was
single and apparently with no relations in the city, lies in an unmarked grave at Pioneers and Soldiers
Cemetery on Lake Street in Minneapolis.56
Of the 10 other carvers I have been able to identify most were temporary residents of St. Paul
though many had Minnesota ties. Louis Faulkner joined the St. Paul Union at a young age, and served as
recording secretary of the local in 1887. Born in 1864, he was the son of Harrison Faulkner, a carpenter
in Faribault, Minnesota. Louis was said to have taught at the Armour Industrial School in Chicago and he
cleared into the St. Paul branch in July of 1899 coming from Albany, New York, where he had been, very
likely, working on the New York state capitol building under construction at that time. Faulkner later
returned to New York where he was working in 1905, and the 1910 Census finds him in Houston,
Texas.57 Herman Schlink, who was admitted into the St. Paul local at the same time as Faulkner, lived
in Minneapolis and is credited with doing much of the stone carving on the Turnblad mansion, now the
American-Swedish Institute, in that city. The Stonecutters’ Journal reported Albert Corwin to be working
in Tate, Georgia in March and April of 1898 so he may have found out about the Capitol job at that
time.58 Corwin moved his wife and five children to St. Paul while he worked on the Capitol and settled
here permanently. He was active in the union and served as president of the local in 1912, however he
continued to travel around the country and Canada with his work and his picture appeared in the
Stonecutters’ Journal in May of 1918 when he was working in Winnipeg.59 There are several references
to Corwin’s fine work on the Virtue sculptures in the architect’s diary.60 George Schmid came to St. Paul
from Germany in 1882 and first made his living as a carpenter before returning to Munich in 1889 to
study sculpture. He returned to St. Paul where he married in 1890 and raised a large family here
56
Minneapolis Tribune, April 28, 1900, p.7; Svenska Amerikanska Posten, May 1, 1900, p.4; Letter dated May 1,
1900 and Architect’s Log April 27, 1900, Cass Gilbert Collection PR021, Department of Prints, Photographs and
Architectural Collections, New-York Historical Society, New York, N.Y.; St. Paul Globe, April 28, 1900, p.2.
57
St. Paul Globe, April 13, 1887, p.2; Stonecutters’ Journal, July, 1899 p.14. Census reports, 1870, 1885, 1910, 1920.
I am indebted to Anne Faulkner for some of this information.
58
Stonecutters’ Journal, March, 1898, p.14; April, 1898, p.14.
59
Stonecutters’ Journal, February 1912, p. 12, May 1918, p. 12.
60
Cass Gilbert Collection, Architects diary, November 20 and 27, 1900, Stonecutters’ Journal, February 1912, p. 12,
May, 1918, p. 12, St. Paul Pioneer Press, May 9, 1940.
working as a stone carver, however he also traveled on his trade and was working in San Francisco in
1920.61
Planers
“The (marble) blocks rest on a platform. The saws are two long strong steel blades set
in a movable rack and drawn to and fro across the blocks. A stream of sand and water is kept
pouring over the blocks to feed the saws, so they will not become clogged, but will work
through without friction… at the rate of four inches an hour.
From the saw gang the marble slabs are taken to the planers and polished. The planers
look like guillotines (with) knives which are fixed rather than descending blades. Two hours are
required for the polishing of a slab six feet long. When the slabs are removed from the planers
they are as smooth as glass.” St. Paul Globe62
The two most hotly debated issues within the Journeymen Stonecutters’ Association during the
years of the Capitol construction were the use of stone planing machines, and the related issue of
shipping of pre-finished stone from quarries to the cities. Stonecutters had a love-hate relationship with
the mechanization of their industry – but mostly hate. Many acknowledged that pneumatic drills used
in quarrying and steam powered stone saws and planers helped their industry by making cut stone more
affordable. This had the effect of increasing the demand for stonecutters who did the carving and final
shaping of the stone.63 However, as mechanization advanced, work done traditionally by skilled
craftsmen was increasingly accomplished by machines run by laborers. In 1901 the decrease in
membership in the Minneapolis branch to 60 from a high of 200 several years earlier was attributed to
mechanization. At that time Hugh Jennings, a Minneapolis stonecutter, thought that, although there
was nothing inherently evil about the planer, “the class that makes the machine must own it if they
would escape the chains of industrial slavery.”64 In 1904 William O’Brien of the Minneapolis branch
summed up his opinion on the matter thusly:
When saws came into use no objection was made…. Simply because it was self-evident that
saws cheapened the production of stone 33 1/3 percent, hence the means of a more extensive
use of that material, consequently more work. Then came the rubbing bed and the planer and
the stonecutters, like the tailors of thirty years ago, hold up their hands in holy horror. Now ask
any tailor if his fears were groundless, what would he say? He would tell you that the sewing
machine was the best thing that happened to them. So in my opinion any invention of any sort
would be a benefit to the human family.65
61
Census records 1900, 1910, 1920 and Passport Application for George Schmid issued November 6, 1889.
St. Paul Globe, April 18, 1898, p. 2.
63
Stonecutters’ Journal, July, 1902, p.17.
64
Minneapolis Journal, December 13, 1901 p.15.
65
Stonecutters’ Journal, May, 1904 p.16.
62
Writing in 1916, George E. Barnett of Johns Hopkins University estimated that the number of
stonecutters in the country had been reduced as a result of mechanization from between 20,000 and
25,000 in 1900 to 10,000 at the time of his study.66
While the introduction of machines was one matter, the issue of who would operate them was
quite another. Membership in the union required the completion of a 4 year apprenticeship in the trade
making the worker proficient in the use of traditional stonecutting tools and ignored the new machines.
This type of trade based unionism barred the unskilled machine operators from membership in the G.U.
and consequently left control over the work out of the union’s jurisdiction and in the hands of the
bosses.
Wages and working conditions were negotiated locally and in some union strongholds such as
New York, Chicago and St. Louis stonecutters were able to restrict or ban planers and imported finished
stone for many years. 67 In St. Paul, where the union was much weaker, the boss’s right to introduce
new technology was not questioned. As early as 1895 the St. Paul Globe reported that machine planers
had replaced skilled cutters in many stone yards.68 The Butlers, for their part, sought to take advantage
of any new mechanical innovation in the construction industry brought about by the industrial
revolution. William Butler even famously invented a machine for carving flutes in the marble columns
for the Capitol. 69 In the month after obtaining the contract the Butlers began work on a huge shed at
the northwest corner of the building site to house stone saws and planers, as well as provide a winter
work area for the hand work. Charles Hubbard, the Corresponding Secretary of the St. Paul Stonecutters
Local, reported in a February 5, 1898 letter to the Journal, “The preparations for the starting of the
capitol are in good progress. The planer shops and saw mills will be built on the most approved
principle.”70 This “approved principle” was enthusiastically described in the trade journal, Stone: The
sound of the stonecutting machinery “makes a din at the new capitol, which during the night can be
heard for blocks. Contractor Butler is working the machine saws twenty-four hours a day and the great
planers twenty-one hours a day. “71 Felix Arthur, the first of the six workers killed during the Capitol
construction, came from Tate, Georgia in 1898 at the same time as the marble. He died on May 4, 1898
when his leg was caught in the drive belt of a marble planing machine in the stonecutting shed. His
body was sent back to his family in Georgia for burial.72 Arthur was working on the night shift when he
66
Barnett, 419-420.
Barnett, 421-427.
68
St. Paul Globe, April 28, 1895, p.7.
69
Martin R. Haley, Building for the Future: The Story of the Walter Butler Companies (St. Paul 1956) no page
numbers. Walter Butler III quoted by Thompson, p.52. This was evidently “the new column machine” referred to
in an article in the St. Paul Globe, Feb. 5, 1898 p.10 “which does the work in one week that eight men would be
obliged to put in six weeks on.”
70
Stonecutters’ Journal, March, 1898 p.5.
71
Stone: An Illustrated Magazine, June, 1898, p.47.
72
St. Paul Globe, May 5, 1898, p. 2; May 6, 1898, p.2. Minnesota first enacted Workers Compensation Insurance in
1913. Before that time, if a work place accident resulted in a law suit, employers were allowed to defend
themselves using the common law precedents of “fellow-servant” (the accident was the fault of a co-worker),
“assumption-of-risk” (the worker had assumed the risks), or “contributory-negligence” (the accident was the result
of the workers own negligence). Shawn Everett Kantor and Price W. Fishback. “How Minnesota Adopted Workers’
67
was killed and, like many of his fellow workers, he lived in a boarding house within earshot of the job
site.
Felix Arthur was just one of a number of experienced stoneworkers imported by the Butlers
from Tate, Georgia where the marble was quarried. Soon after winning the contract the Butlers made
an unfortunate discovery. They had based their winning bid on the assurance of a Georgia marble
supplier that he could get them the stone for 25 cents a cubic foot, but they now found that that he was
incompetent and the price would actually be 40 cents. To avert a disaster Walter Butler traveled to
Tate, Georgia, leased a quarry, and his brother John lived there while managing the extraction of the
marble. Huge slabs of marble were quarried, shipped on railroad flat cars to St. Paul, and then hauled
from the depot to the building site with horse drawn wagons. Most blocks weighed 10 to 15 tons, but
the largest pieces were for the 32 foot columns and weighed as much as 20 tons.73 Emmett Butler
stated in his memoir that the labor they used in Georgia to quarry the marble was paid 8 to 12 cents per
hour; about half of what Minnesotans were paid at that time.74 John Butler must not have had too
much trouble persuading a few of the workers to try life in Minnesota. Some of these men returned to
Georgia after a short stint in the North, while others stayed and settled permanently in St. Paul. The
workers recruited by the Butlers were an important part of the work force because, unlike Minnesotans,
they were experienced in working with marble and running the machines that the Butlers purchased to
do the initial roughing out of the stone.
There are 28 men who listed the Butler-Ryan Company as their employer in the 1898-1900 St.
Paul City Directories and gave their occupation as “planer,” “sawyer,” or “polisher.” These were the
men employed in the “marble mill” constructed at the building site; however they were not
Stonecutters’ Association members. The G.U. was very open in reporting the names of new members in
the Minnesota Union Advocate newspaper as well as the St. Paul Globe and its own publication, the
Stonecutters’ Journal. Of the 147 union stonecutters living in St. Paul who are mentioned in these
sources many gave Butler-Ryan as their employer and their occupation as “cutter,” “marble cutter” or
“stonecutter” in the Directory. None are included in the 28 who identified themselves in the City
Directory as “planer” or “sawyer.”
Compensation,” The Independent, Volume II, Number 4, (Spring 1998),
http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_02_4_kantor.pdf In one contemporary case, John Anderson, a painter
working on the new St. Paul High Bridge, fell 125 feet into the river when his scaffold plank broke. Fracturing both
legs and his hip, miraculously, he was still able to swim to safety. He attempted to sue the painting contractor,
Fielding and Shepley, for $20,000 alleging the plank was rotten. This amount was eventually reduced to $4,000,
but the case was appealed and Anderson died in September of 1903 before it was settled. All six Capitol deaths
were considered accidental, and there is no evidence that any resulted in a lawsuit or were compensated in any
way. Deaths in the construction industry, of course, were not unheard of; there were 9 reported in 1904. Biennial
Report of the Minnesota Bureau of Labor Statistics (St. Paul: The Pioneer Press Company, 1904), p. 238. It should
be pointed out, however, that the Federal Courts Building (now Landmark Center), a job with a budget about a
third of the Capitol’s, also under construction at the time, was “erected without loss of life or limb.” St. Paul
Globe, December 20, 1903, p. 43.
73
Emmett Butler memoir, p. 82.
74
Emmett Butler memoir, Chapter 6, pp.3-5, 12.
In addition to Felix Arthur there are at least twelve other workers with a Georgia connection
who worked for Butler-Ryan as a “planer,” “sawyer” or “polisher.” Emmett Butler claimed that they
had imported as many as a dozen African-Americans from Tate, Georgia to work on the Capitol.75 I have
only been able to identify five of these men: Coy Johnson, Judge Jarrett, John McMurtry, Benjamin
Stephens and Isaac Suddeth were all born in Georgia and worked for Butler during the Capitol
construction years. Johnson and McMurtry worked on the Capitol for several years and both left
Minnesota soon after the building was completed. Jarrett usually listed his occupation as laborer during
these years, however he is found in the 1910 Census working in Kasota, Minnesota as a “stone polisher”
in the quarry there.76 He brought his mother and sister with her family to St. Paul and lived here for
many years eventually working as a dining car waiter for the Northern Pacific Railroad. He retired from
the railroad in 1954 at age 74 and died in St. Paul in 1965. Stephens and Suddeth also both stayed and
raised families in St. Paul working in construction as stone finishers.77
Of the six additional whites with Georgia roots who worked with the stonecutting machinery,
only two of these, William Benson and John Duckett, settled in St. Paul. Benson started out as a sawyer,
planer and “turner,” (operating a stone lathe), and by 1905 was a stonecutter and foreman for Butler
Brothers. He was born in Sweden in 1866 and, emigrating with his parents in 1881, became part of a
Swedish farming community in Alabama just across the Georgia border. Along with his wife and
children, Benson lived on St. Paul’s East Side for many years. John Duckett was single when he came
from Georgia and worked as a stone sawyer in the shed. His wife was born in Minnesota and they raised
a family here as he worked as a bricklayer. Phillip Elliott was born in Alabama though his wife, Lulu, and
oldest children were born in Georgia. He worked in the shed as a marble turner before moving to
Sandstone, Minnesota to work in a quarry there. Elliott died in Sandstone in 1913 at the age of 46 of
what was called on his death certificate “pulmonary tuberculosis stonecutters phthysis.”78 Silicosis
accompanied by tuberculosis was an all too common fate for stonecutters in an era free from safety
regulations and dust protection.79 John McAteer, George Wolford and John Humphrey, all Georgia born,
75
Emmett Butler memoir, p.80.
There were other African-Americans who worked on the Capitol such as Casivelle Bullard and Earnest Jones,
both skilled bricklayers born in Tennessee. I do not believe they worked with the stonecutting machinery.
77
St. Paul City Directories, Census Records, Northern Pacific Railroad records in MHS. Thanks to David Riehle for
finding Judge Jarrett in the NPRR records.
78
St. Paul City Directories, 1899-1901, Federal Census 1900, 1910 and Death Certificate for Phillip Elliott, February
23, 1913. Phillip Elliott’s wife, Lulu, stayed in Sandstone and raised their children there. One son, Edward, who
was 9 at the time of his father’s death, followed in his father’s footsteps and became a stone sawyer in the quarry.
Edward was able to avoid his father’s fate and died in 1985 at the age of 81. Census reports and Minnesota Death
Index.
79
The identification of the bacillus bacteria in the 1880’s led to a new understanding of the cause of tuberculosis
and the way it was spread; it also resulted in the medical community focusing on tuberculosis and downplaying
other, work related, causes of lung ailments. Although workers and their unions had long realized the injurious
effects of exposure to dust, it wasn’t until the 1930’s that there was widespread recognition that working
environments which produced conditions such as silicosis, “black lung,” and “brown lung” both predisposed
workers to tuberculosis and caused chronic lung problems that may only appear years later. David Rosner and
Gerald Markowitz, Deadly Dust: Silicosis and the Politics of Occupational Disease in Twentieth-Century America
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), Chapter 1. Although working with marble and limestone, which
contain only 2% silica, is not considered a health threat; there was also 100,000 cubic feet of Minnesota sandstone
76
left St. Paul without a trace soon after their stint at the Capitol. According to an article in the St. Paul
Globe, McAteer, “a member of the International Stone Sawyers’ Union from Tate, Georgia” was on his
way to work in the quarry at Sandstone in August of 1900.80 He returned to St. Paul in 1902 though and
worked for Butler again as a sawyer and laborer. Wolford’s experience working as a “polisher” at the
Capitol was marred by getting several toes crushed under a block of stone in January of 1900.81 He
continued to work on the Capitol for a time though and joined the Marble and Tile Layers Union here in
April of 1901. Apparently Humphrey was only in St. Paul for the 1898 building season and returned to
Pickens County, Georgia where he was counted in the 1900 Census.
None of these men would have been eligible for membership in the Stonecutters’ Association. A
letter from Hugo Reich, prominent member of the St. Paul local, printed in the Stonecutters’ Journal in
July of 1902 makes clear the relationship of the stonecutters to the machine workers up to this point,
(and his wishful thinking on the problem):
The planer is here to stay: there is no use to do away with it… but I believe that the planer and
stonecutting machines should be run by stonecutters…. I think the stone sawyers should
belong to the union and separate cards issued to them stating that they are stone sawyers, they
paying the same dues as a stonecutter, and deriving the same benefits as stonecutters do, and
also the same protection.82
Reich’s idea that the planer should be accepted as a reality and operated by stonecutters was a
minority view in the Union. James P. McHugh, secretary treasurer of the Journeyman Stonecutters of
North America, solicited opinions from the locals on this issue and the letters appearing in the Journal in
November of 1901 show that almost everyone wanted stone planers to be outlawed; and they imagined
this could be accomplished if members just refused to work on machine planed stone. Furthermore, as
Reich pointed out in a 1904 letter to the Journal, maybe the typical stonecutter would not even be
interested in running the machines. Hugo Reich worked on the Capitol for several years, while at the
same time serving on the Executive Board of the Journeyman Stonecutters’ Association. His little
vignette could almost be called: “A Stonecutters Day at the Capitol.”
Let us imagine this picture: Two stonecutter friends coming home together after quitting time;
one works at the banker, the other at the planer. The first dresses in a neat clean suit of clothes,
face and hands clean… dressed like a gentleman stonecutter…. The other brother has blue
used for the foundation of the Capitol dome. Sandstone is as much as 90% silica. James Giordano, a traveling
stonecutter, left St. Paul to work in Sandstone, Minnesota 1900. The Stonecutters’ Journal of October 1923
reported the Giordano had “been ill with the old stonecutters’ complaint” and had died the age of 44 of
“pulmonary tuberculosis” in North Carolina. Stonecutters’ Journal October, 1923, p. 16; St. Paul Globe, August 2,
1900 p. 8; death certificate for James Giordano, August 21, 1923. Peter Diamond, a stonecutter who worked on
the Capitol in 1898, was reported to be dying of consumption in Atlanta in 1901 at the age of 42. St. Paul Globe,
August 23, 1901, p. 8; 1900 Census; St. Paul City Directory.
80
St. Paul Globe, August 2, 1900, p.8. I can find no other evidence that this Union ever existed.
81
St. Paul Globe, January 12, 1900, p.5
82
Stonecutters’ Journal, July, 1902, p. 17.
overalls and jacket, with face and hands all black with grease and dirt; nothing like a stonecutter
at all. He might be true at heart and all that, as clothes don’t make the man, but it don’t fit his
craft….83
The Union met in convention in St. Louis in September of 1904, and after much contentious
debate passed a resolution requiring planer operators to be members of the G.U. This provision was
found to be nearly impossible to impose. Why would employers fire their experienced machine
operators and hire untrained but highly paid stonecutters? Besides, many of the planning mills were
located at the quarries and stonecutters worked in shops in towns or cities.84 A committee from the St.
Paul branch reported to the Journal that local contractors “flatly refuse to allow stonecutters to operate
the planers… The bosses have given us to thoroughly understand that they intend to fight if we enforce
the constitution.”85 In 1906 it was decided that planer operators should be admitted into the union but
with a special card only allowing them to run the machines, and that stonecutters could only work on
machine cut stone if the work was done by G.U. members.86 This again appeared impossible to
implement, so finally it was decided that the local branches would be left to adjust their rules to
whatever they felt they could enforce.87
The case of the Capitol was perhaps typical of how individual workers were affected. Among
the Georgians, two of the planer operators, Judge Jarrett and John McAteer were still working for Butler
as low paid laborers in 1905 (20 and 25 cents an hour respectively) whereas William Benson had
become a foreman stonecutter and was getting 50 cents an hour. St. Paul native and life-long resident,
William Haessig, first went to work as a “sawyer” in the stonecutting shed at the age of 14 and
continued to work for his entire life in the cut stone industry in St. Paul. He became a member of the
Stonecutters’ Union and was even elected president of the local in 1920 though he gave his occupation
as “plainer” or “plainerman” in most census reports.88
Shipping Stone
Around the country it was becoming more and more the practice to have stone cut in the quarry
towns before shipping it to building sites in cities. Shipping costs could be reduced by pre-cutting the
stone, and labor costs were generally much lower in the rural areas where the stone was quarried. If
this practice was allowed to continue unchecked stonecutters in urban areas would find themselves
without work. The Journeyman Stonecutters’ Association Constitution attempted to address the
problem as early as 1890: “This Association will not countenance the transportation of cut stone from
one place to another unless the wages and hours are equal; except in such cases where the interchange
83
Stonecutters’ Journal, May 1904, p. 17. A “banker” is a stonecutter’s workbench.
Barnett, 434.
85
Stonecutters’ Journal, April, 1905, p.11.
86
Constitution and By-Laws of the Journeymen Stonecutters’ Association of North America, 1906, Article IV and
Article XII, Section 4.
87
Barnett, 434.
88
St. Paul City Directories; Censuses; Payroll; Stonecutters’ Journal, January, 1920, p. 8.
84
of work between two branches is mutually agreeable without regard to wages or hours.”89 Of course
this rule could only be enforced if all the stonecutters in the country were in the union, so the G.U.
worked at organizing the cutters at the quarry towns to bring their wages up to a level that would not
unfairly undercut their brothers in the cities. The various branches also tried a combination of other
strategies to discourage shipping precut stone. Some lobbied government bodies to require stone being
used in civic construction be cut on site. Others tried to convince business groups that using local labor
was in their best interest.
In Minnesota several of these tactics were employed. In 1901 the Minneapolis local, fearing the
stone work for a new city water system pumping station would be cut at a quarry and shipped to the
city, was able to convince city aldermen to reject the bids of private contractors and have the work done
by local stonecutters supervised by the city engineer.90 They did not have such good luck in 1902 when
the Pillsbury Library was built using Vermont marble. The non-union Vermont Marble Company had
long been a thorn in the side of the G.U. Although they were able to keep the job shut down for several
weeks, the union found it difficult to oppose the building of a library. In the end they took a “generous
view of the situation, placing their interest as citizens above those as artisans” and allowed the work to
proceed.91
When work on the Capitol was begun, although the granite cutters in St. Cloud were unionized,
there were no G.U. branches in Kasota, Mankato or Sandstone.92 Because of this situation, in the
summer of 1897 it became apparent to both labor and business in St. Paul that if Minnesota stone was
used it would mean that much of the stonecutting would be performed in the lower wage quarry cities.
This fact was pointed out in an article in the St. Paul Globe just three weeks before the contract for the
superstructure was signed: “If the Board does select outside stone for the new building, it will require
that it be dressed in St. Paul.” Whereas if granite was chosen, “the granite cutters are a roving class and
would come here from the quarry to stay as long only as the job lasted. It would practically give no
more employment to local cutters than if the stone was dressed at the quarry.”93 The combination of
the requirement that labor on the Capitol be performed in state and the fact that the stone was coming
from out of state coincided to create a perfect situation for the stonecutters and other workers in the
city. It happened that it was actually much more advantageous for St. Paul labor that the stone come
from Georgia rather than St. Cloud or Kasota, and because of this there was not much opposition to the
use of marble from St. Paulites.
In order to maintain their wage scale on other jobs, however, St. Paul stonecutters realized that
they would have to improve the pay of workers in the quarry towns. Shortly after the influx of
89
Constitution, 1890, Article XIV.
Minneapolis Journal, July 24, 1901, p.7, July 27, 1901, p.7, August 2, 1901, p.9
91
Minneapolis Journal, June 20, 1902, p.6, July 12, 1902, p.7, Minneapolis Tribune, May 17, 1902, p.6 and
Stonecutters’ Journal, July, 1902, p.7.
92
There had been a Local in Kasota in 1886 but it had lapsed until reorganized in 1898.
93
Globe, August 12, 1897, p. 2. The St. Cloud Granite Cutters’ actually claimed jurisdiction over work in St. Paul
according to Minutes of the St. Paul Trades and Labor of September 23, 1898 (Volume 3, p. 120).
90
stonecutters arrived to work on the Capitol an organizer was sent out from St. Paul.94 There seems to
have been no trouble bringing the cutters of Kasota and Sandstone into the union, however their wages
still lagged those in the cities. With the quarry cities unionized it was now theoretically possible to
apply the rules regarding transportation of stone. For example, Sandstone was organized in 1898 and in
March of the next year the St. Paul branch discovered that stone for Luther Seminary in St. Paul was
being cut and finished there. A committee was dispatched from St. Paul to meet with the Minnesota
Sandstone Company and they were able to negotiate a contract requiring that the stone for that job,
though cut in Sandstone, would be cut at St. Paul hours and wages.95
The fact that many times workers had no idea of the destination of their work sometimes made
the rule difficult to enforce. In the summer of 1900 it was discovered by the St. Paul local that a job
destined for the city was being cut in Kasota at Kasota wages and conditions (i.e. $3.00 for a 10 hour
day). The Kasota men pled ignorance and apparently the only recourse was to fine the contractor $20.
This tactic may actually have borne fruit later that year because when the same contractor got the
contract for the St. Paul jail he agreed to have the stone cut in St. Paul.96
Despite these efforts to preserve their jobs, in the end, the disappearance of the stonecutting
trade had more to do with changes in the building industry than anything else. With the advent of manmade concrete blocks for use in foundations and basements the demand for cut stone decreased.
Architectural styles evolved, and people no longer demanded mansions that looked like fortresses and
public buildings that resembled European cathedrals or Greek temples. At the time the Capitol was built
it was customary to allocate a certain amount of the budget for decorative stone carving and sculpture,
and as time went on decoration was either accomplished with terra cotta or no longer deemed
necessary. When stone was used often Minnesota granite was the choice as with the St. Paul Cathedral
(1915) or some imported pre-cut variety such as the Tennessee marble used on the Central Library
(1916).97 Structural steel came to replace masonry in commercial construction and poured concrete was
often used in place of stone and brick. In 1917 membership was shrinking and the St. Paul and
Minneapolis locals, totaling only 48 members, decided to merge. The 1918 Revised Constitution and ByLaws of the G.U. expanded the jurisdiction of the union to include tool sharpeners, machine operators
94
Stonecutters’ Journal, July, 1898, p.7.
Stonecutters’ Journal, April, 1899 p.4, June, 1899, pp.9, 10.
96
Stonecutters’ Journal, August, 1900, p.14, September, 1900, p.6, February, 1901, p. 10.
97
Sister Joan Kain and Paul D. Nelson. Rocky Roots: Geology and Stone Construction in Downtown St. Paul (St. Paul:
Ramsey County Historical Society, 2008), pp. 8, 15. Perhaps indicting how little influence the Union had over
public policy in 1914, specifications for the Library required the “Stone must be completely dressed molded and
cut in every case before delivery at the site except portions which are to be carved, and except the necessary
refitting of joints and surfaces.” Specifications for Superstructure and Mechanical Equipment, St. Paul Public Library
1949 (St. Paul: Review Publishing Company, 1914), p. 49.
95
and molders and the Twin Cities local was at that time able to successfully enroll planers in the Union.98
Eventually, in other parts of the country, the union was able to integrate most of the machine workers
into the ranks but, as usual, decisions on this issue were made on the local level. In some areas the
machine operators were paid as full-fledged stonecutters while in others they worked at a lower wage
scale or were not members of the union at all.99 The Stonecutters’ Association saw membership of about
10,000 in 1912 continue to fall to 6,000 in the 1920’s.100 Although stone was still used for cladding on
skyscrapers it was mostly machine finished and took little hand work. The New York Life Building (New
York City, 1926-1928), also designed by Cass Gilbert, was touted as the largest single cut stone contract
ever undertaken, yet the cutting was done in four huge machine mills over just a ten month period.101
Several St. Paul buildings constructed during the 1930’s, most notably the City Hall, made good use of
Kasota limestone, however the Art Deco style allowed for little ornamental carving. The Second World
War continued to contribute to the industry’s decline at which time many locals reported that members
were dropping out to do war related work or to serve in the military. Two of the most popular services
the G.U. offered had always been, free lifetime membership for those no longer able to work at the
trade, and a funeral benefit of $100 to $150, depending on years of service.102 Now, to maintain the
death benefit, with increasing numbers dying and fewer dues payers, the union had to cut all nonessentials. The Stonecutter’s Journal, in continuous publication since 1887, put out its last issue in 1942.
In the 1950’s architectural fashion changed to favor the use of glass for the exterior of skyscrapers and
other buildings. In 1968 the remaining 1,900 members of the Journeymen Stonecutters’ Association
merged with the Laborers’ International Union of North America.103 The workers operating the stone
saws and planers at the Capitol and were considered laborers in their day might have thought this
merger appropriate, since by 1968 almost all stonecutting was done by machine.
Individual stonecutters who worked on the Capitol used a variety of strategies to cope with the
demise of their industry. They were used to relocating when work became scarce so many probably s
were to migrating between Canada and the U.S., and even back to Europe, they were often missed by
the census taker, making the movements of many of the itinerant stonecutters difficult to trace. Some
98
Revised Constitution and By-Laws published in Stonecutters’ Journal, March 1918 pp. 72-76; July 1918. The
Granite Cutters’ Union had long embraced a more industrial than craft based model and admitted the machine
operators in their shops as well as the blacksmiths who sharpened their tools. This strategy kept their industry
unionized though mechanization steadily reduced their numbers from 15,000 in 1915 to 3,000 in 1955. In 1988
the 2000 remaining Granite Cutters merged with the larger Marble, Tile and Terrazzo Finishers International Union
which was eventually absorbed by the Carpenters’ Union in1988. The idea of merging the Stonecutters’ with
either the Granite Cutters’ or Bricklayers’ Union seemed like an inevitable course in 1919. The A.F.L. Convention
was held in St. Paul that year and representatives of the G.U. met with the Granite Cutters’, Quarry Workers’ and
Paving Cutters’ Unions hoping to effect an amalgamation of all the stone trades. Unfortunately negotiations were
never successful. Fink, 136-7; Palladino, 198; Union Advocate, January 7, 1980, p. 8; Stonecutters’ Journal, January,
1919, p. 10.
99
Stonecutters’ Journal, September, 1924, p.18.
100
Fink, 361.
101
Stonecutters’ Journal, April, 1928, p. 7-8.
102
1918 Constitution, Death Benefits, Sections 1 and 8.
103
Fink, 132.
of the men working in St. Paul in 1898 or 1899 may have not even have been recorded in the City
Directory, and they had already moved on when the 1900 Census was taken. Some found work in
Kasota or Sandstone, Minnesota. Others returned to their families in Georgia or Eastern cities while still
others headed west to larger, expanding cities where they were able to stay in the trade for many years.
Thomas Gibney moved to Helena to work on the Montana Capitol building and then to San Francisco
where he served as president of the local there for a number of years. Still working at the age of 61 in
1933, he died in a fall while working on the San Francisco Post Office.104 Camille Steffen and his fatherin-law Louis Pinsounnault, two of the many French-Canadians who worked on the Capitol, were active in
the local union when they lived in St. Paul. They moved to Los Angeles in 1904 and were still working in
the trade there in 1910.105 John Berrisford eventually moved to Bloomington, Indiana where the
Bedford limestone district continued to employ stonecutters for several more decades.106 Hugo Reich, a
former president of the St. Paul local, also moved to Indiana working as a foreman in the limestone
industry and eventually settled in Cook County, Illinois where he died in 1936.107
Michael Strom, who was one of the earliest members of the St. Paul union and had represented
the local at the 1892 international convention, stayed in St. Paul and went into business for himself as a
cut stone contractor.108 Most stoneworkers were familiar with related trades such as bricklaying and
masonry and were able to find employment in those fields. In the 1910 Census Charles Duchesne is
found working as a stone mason and John Lundgren is a tile layer.109
Other stonecutters, as they got older, decided to look for new occupations. Two of the more
prominent members of the St. Paul local Otto Raschick and Arnold Riebestein had left the trade by 1920
to become a post office clerk and building inspector respectively.110 John Mackie seems to have been
demoted from stonecutter in 1900 to laborer in 1905; this, however, may have been a strategic move on
his part because he got himself appointed as a janitor at the Capitol when the new building opened.111
William Benson seemed determined to adapt to the changing stone industry. Benson, as
mentioned earlier, moved from Georgia to St. Paul with his wife Cora and family, and initially worked as
a machine operator in the stonecutting shed. In 1905 he had been promoted to foreman stonecutter by
the Butler Brothers. He continued working as a stonecutter for a cut stone contractor in St. Paul and
two sons, Thomas H. (born 1890) and Walter J. (born 1902), followed their father into the trade. In 1915
Thomas, only 25 years old, died of what was called tuberculosis on his death certificate.112 Tuberculosis
was commonly given as cause of death for stonecutters but it is likely that the dust Thomas was
104
1910 and 1930 Censuses; Stonecutters’ Journal, May, 1933, p. 16.
1900 and 1910 Censuses; St. Paul Globe, July 26, 1901, p. 10; December 13, 1901, p. 8; Stonecutters’ Journal,
January 1904, p. 5.
106
1910 and 1930 Censuses.
107
Census reports, Stonecutters’ Journal, July, 1905, p. 5, May, 1936, p. 16.
108
Census reports, Stonecutters’ Journal, January 1926, p. 9.
109
1910 Census.
110
1920 Census.
111
1900 Census; St. Paul City Directories; Payroll records in MHS.
112
Death certificate for Tom H. Benson, May 23, 1915.
105
constantly exposed to at work contributed to his death. 113 In the 1920’s William and his younger son,
Walter, worked for the C.H. Young Co., a large cut stone contractor, as “planers.” William served as
president of the Twin Cities local union in 1921.114 In 1929 Walter moved to Indiana where he worked
in the Bedford limestone industry as a planer and was a member of the union there. In 1930 William, at
the age of 63, was still working as a “marble worker” for a wholesale marble shop in St. Paul according
to the census report. The Stonecutters’ Journal reported in August of 1932 that William Benson had
died while visited his son in Bedford. By 1940 Walter was in Miami still working as a stonecutter, and his
mother, Cora, now widowed, was living there with him and his family.115
When Joseph Bourgeault, the supervisor for the stonecutting on the Capitol, had moved to St.
Paul in the early 1880’s he found a well-established community of his compatriots. French Canadians,
involved in the fur trade, had been coming to Minnesota since the 1600’s and the city of St. Paul’s
origins are traced to Pierre, “Pig’s Eye,” Parrant’s early settlement.116 One of the Twin City’s two French
language newspapers, Le Canadien, was published in the city, and the fraternal society, Woodmen of
the World, had a French chapter in St. Paul of which Bourgeault was a founding member.117 The center
of the French speaking community was St. Louis Roman Catholic Church, his first stop when he first
came to town, and his children were schooled at the Ecole St. Louis next to the church where classes
were taught in French even up to the 1960’s.118 In a memoir written in 1942 at the age of 91 Bourgeault
remembered the Capitol job as being “the most complicated and the finest work” of his long career.
Hired by Butler-Ryan during the bidding process to help with the estimate for their winning bid, he
recalled that he spent one hour of each day in the stonecutting shed, and one on the construction site,
while eight hours were spent in the office figuring the cutting of the stone. “I made working drawings
and lists for stonecutters, a tag for every stone. I had a young man helping me making the tags.”119 This
would have been a memory tinged with sadness as Bourgeault’s son, Louis, worked in the Butler-Ryan
office in 1898 and died that year in October at the age of 17.120 He was a well-known figure in the
Minnesota cut stone industry and his name appears in the Stonecutters’ Journal as well as other trade
113
See footnote 38 above.
Traveling Cards signed by Wm Benson president of the Twin Cities local found in the Records of the Madison,
Wisconsin Journeymen Stonecutters’ Association local in the Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Madison,
Wisconsin.
115
Federal Census 1900, 1910, 1920; St. Paul City Directories. According to the records of Forest Lawn Cemetery in
St. Paul William Benson died of Tuberculosis complicated by Myocardosis. William Benson’s father Mans Benson
was living in Cleburne County, Alabama in 1900. When he first arrived in America in 1881 Mans settled in the
marble quarry town of Proctor, Vermont where he was naturalized and then later moved to a Swedish farming
community in Alabama. In 1900 there were 50 Swedes living in Cleburne County, Alabama and many were
growing grapes for a fledgling wine industry there! Mans later moved to St. Paul where he is found living with his
son’s family there in 1910.
116
June Denning Holmquist, ed., They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the State’s Ethnic Groups (St. Paul: Minnesota
Historical Society Press, 1981), pp. 36, 39.
117
Holmquist, pp.48-49, St. Paul Globe, December 11, 1898, p. 8, January 11, 1900, p. 10, Le Canadien, January 20,
1898, p. 2.
118
Holmquist, pp. 44-45, St. Paul Globe, December 25, 1892.
119
Joseph Bourgeault memoir provided by his great granddaughter Barb Swanson.
120
St. Paul Globe, October 28, 1898, p. 8.
114
publications.121 Yet he had always felt that his American business ventures were hampered by his
limited English, and the entire Bourgeault clan moved back to Manitoba, Canada, where they were living
at the time of the 1906 Canadian census. He was involved in several successful cut stone and quarrying
businesses and was able to spend the rest of his life in the industry.
The stonecutters were in many ways similar to the other workers of their day, such as horse
shoers, or coopers, whose occupations were eventually eliminated by changes in their industry. Unlike
other workers, however, the stonecutters saw themselves as part of a continuous tradition stretching
back through Europe to Greece and Rome and even earlier. They considered all of North America their
workplace and felt a responsibility to carry the traditions into the new world. Their efforts to influence
the direction of the industry today may appear futile to us, but it is likely that it was the persistence of
the Journeymen Stonecutters’ Association in maintaining a high level of craftsmanship exhibited in the
Minnesota Capitol building that allows us to enjoy the results of their labor today.
I am indebted especially to the other members of the Who Built our Capitol group who have advised me
and helped with this article. Credit for discovering the names of workers killed on the job goes to
Victoria Woodcock and David Reihle. Thanks to Ginny Lacovic and to Randy Croce for interviewing her.
Thanks to the Butler family who provided the memoir of Emmett Butler and to Barb Swanson who
provided the memoir of Joseph Bourgeault.
121
Stone, July 1900, p. 59; Improvement Bulletin, August 1895, p. 8, October 1901, p. 18, June 1902, p. 12;
Stonecutters’ Journal, January 1899, p. 6.