Electrical workers' issued continual challenges to management, but it was a parallel movement of the early 1930s that sparked the beginnings of a new trade union movement in St. Louis . Left-wing activists, initiated into the unemployed movement of the early 1930s, brought forward from this an experiential basis that was critical in forging a coalition that could effectively challenge the political economy of control in the electrical industry.

Right: Hooverville, riverfront, St. Louis. Built of ramshackle makeshift housing, by 1931 it was home to five hundred black and white residents; later it would stretch a mile long. The Unemployed Councils of St. Louis, organized by the Communist Party, agitated in these areas against the power structure of St. Louis and the nation, arguing for redistribution of wealth and the end to the capitalist system that had brought about the Great Depression.

According to a 1931 Russell Sage Foundation study, St. Louis's relief system for the unemployed during the early years of the Great Depression was among the most miserly in the country. Relief (or welfare) was based on a regressive funding method where the burden fell heaviest on the working class. Agitation against the system was based on the idea that only collective action would force more fairness on the system.

.Since African Americans were the group worst hit by the Depression in St. Louis (they were one-tenth of the population but one-fourth of the unemployed and were the largest group on relief but received a lower allotment than whites), they were an important base for agitation for the unemployed movement. They became prominent in many of the demonstrations and sometimes outnumbered whites. By 1933 they constituted one-third of the small Communist Party membership in St. Louis.

Hooverville, St. Louis, early 1930s

Photo courtesy UMLS WHMC

In January 1931, the UC held the first sit-down of the 1930s in St. Louis . It began with a huge march, one contingent coming from the south and one from the north sections of the city, the symbolic unification of the two historic divisions and racial boundaries of the citizenry. By the time they came to city hall, their ranks had grown to five thousand. They demanded ten million dollars in aid to the unemployed, reduction of relief administrators' salaries, and taxing corporations and the wealthy for relief funds.

A delegation of the crowd entered city hall and refused to leave until their demands were heard and acted upon by the Board of Aldermen. But police clubs and tear gas prevailed in a bloody melee. The repression these activists met, including repeated long-term jailings for a substantial number, prevented a high level of activity; it also provoked in the group arguments about civil liberties, citizenship, and constitutional rights. Already by 1932 CP activists were carrying the American flag as well as the red flag of revolution in their demonstrations.

Through these experiences, activists revived forms of protests that are usually associated with labor activism in the later part of the decade.

January 1931 unemployed demonstration outside St. Louis city Hall, while workers occupy the chambers, demanding food and other relief for the unemployed

march 4, 1933 leaflet of the unemployed movement in st. Louis

click here for full size version

It was this protest milieu that would deeply affect William Sentner, who became leaders of District 8. Sentner was born in New York in 1907 but grew up in St. Louis. Stints at sea exposed him to the radical milieu of the merchant seamen. But it was his experiences with the nutpickers organizing drive and the unemployed movement that transformed his life.

The painting illustrates an actual march to City Hall. The sign advocated support for HR 7598, the Workers Insurance Act, sponsored by Sen. Lundeen, a strong unemployment insurance bill then before Congress. The Unemployed Councils marches and protests got the St. Louis Board of Alderman to pass a resolution favoring the Lundeen bill over other more conservative bills. The Lundeen bill called for redistributive policy for social security, and included provisions for maternity leave and other progressive programs that were replaced by the more conservative Social Security Act of 1935, which was actually based on regressive form of taxation.

Jones captured some of the hallmarks of the marches in St. Louis after 1933: these tended to be integrated group of workers. This group would also establish a civil rights desegregation campaign in the 1930s.

While it might be the case that Jones sought to present the lead marchers' hands as enlarged in order to symbolize the potential "power in workers hands," Sentner's son commented that he was also drawing on a real, distinguishing characteristic of his fathers' hands: they were very large, (as can be seen in the photo below).

Sentner learned about the radical traditions of the coal miners from Ralph Shaw, a Communist Party organizer of the coal fields of southern Illinois.

His wife Toni had grown up there and knew Shaw from those experiences. There radical union strategies, especially those focused on community mobilization, survived in the 1920s and grew in the early 1930s..

Toni Radosovitch, the daughter of a Croatian coal miner, described these as centered around familial involvement: “the whole family was involved. . . Women would wrap up the kids and take them to the picket line.”

Toni recalled having to hide Shaw “in a great big haystack” to escape local law enforcement and vigilantes during this period. Shaw survived and thus was able to carry forward radical working-class community-based strategies.

As the unemployed movement developed, Shaw began to spend more time in St. Louis , helping to develop the skills of the novice organizers. He worked with Sentner in the nutpickers struggle.