Amesbury’s Derby Strike – Foreshadowing the Future of Organized Labor

Part of a poem printed in the Villager newspaper and written for a meeting of the Derby Strike workers in 1852. It warns workers not to give up their “luncheon” privileges. (From the online newspaper archives of Amesbury Public Library.)

How much control should employees have over their time? That seems to be the central theme of the labor dispute named the Derby Strike, which erupted in Amesbury in 1852. These were the early days of labor vs. management conflicts, in the time before organized labor unions became common. Nonetheless, the action foreshadowed the tumultuous and often violent labor disputes that would take place in industrialized America in future years.

The Derby Strike centered on the Salisbury Manufacturing Company’s attempt to restrict worker activity during “luncheon” breaks. For years, workers were permitted to leave their work spaces to run personal errands or otherwise spend the brief time as they pleased. But a new rule, instituted by a new mill superintendent named John Derby with only one day’s notice, forbade workers from leaving their posts during breaks.

Conflict exploded when male workers defied the new rule and walked out of the building during one of their breaks. When they returned a few minutes later to resume work, they faced a locked mill yard gate and notification that they had been fired from their jobs. (Since the men were willing to work but were prevented by management from doing so, this was actually a lockout and not a strike.) Days of worker meetings, discussions and demonstrations followed, but no resolution favorable to the workers was ever reached.

Thanks to many months of research by ACM Industrial Survey Team volunteer Tom Murphy, we have a new detailed narrative and timeline of this so-called strike. Tom has written other papers about the Derby Strike – all available on the ACM website – but this is his most comprehensive so far. With the posting of his latest carefully researched and detailed report, Tom has probably become the foremost authority on this important topic in local early labor history. (But he still hasn’t finished, promising more on the strike in the future.)

This was big for its time, involving ordinary citizens, newspaper editorials and politicians. Even poet John Greenleaf Whittier took a position on who was right.

Click here to read Tom Murphy’s latest report, “The Derby Lockout and Strike of 1852.”