{{Short description|Labor leader, and writer}} {{Infobox person | name = George E. McNeill | image = McNeill-George-E-1892.jpg | image_size = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date|1836|8|4|mf=y}} | birth_place = [[Amesbury, Massachusetts|Amesbury]], [[Massachusetts]] | death_date = {{death date and age|1906|5|17|1836|8|4|mf=y}} | death_place = [[Somerville, Massachusetts|Somerville]], Massachusetts | occupation = Labor leader, journalist, insurance company executive | notable_works = ''The Labor Movement, or, the Problem of To-day'' | spouse = }} '''George Edwin McNeill''' (1836–1906), was an American mill worker, labor leader, [[Christian socialism|Christian socialist]], and writer from New England. McNeill is best remembered for a pioneering study of the American labor movement, ''The Labor Movement, or, the Problem of To-day,'' published in 1892.
==Biography== ===Early years===
George Edwin McNeill was born August 4, 1836, in [[Amesbury, Massachusetts|Amesbury]], [[Massachusetts]]. McNeill worked in various Amesbury textile mills from childhood, going to work in the Amesbury Woolen Company at the age of ten.<ref name=MassMom>[http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=163 "George McNeill Organizes Workers, June 2, 1852,"] Massachusetts Moments, http://www.massmoments.org/</ref> This led McNeill to participation in an 1851 strike, when he was a boy of just 15.<ref name=Bliss865>W.D.P. Bliss (ed.), ''The Encyclopedia of Social Reforms.'' Third Edition. New York: Funk and Wagnalls Co., 1897; pg. 865.</ref> Strikers demanded a shortening of the working day to 10 hours at the mill, which the owner, the Salisbury Company, refused.<ref name=MassMom /> When McNeill and the other workers abandoned their posts, mill owners terminated the employment of all, hiring a new crew of 50 Irish immigrants to operate the machinery of the facility.<ref name=MassMom />
Needing to find a new line of employment after termination in the strike, McNeill apprenticed as a shoemaker, learning that craft and moving to [[Boston]] in 1856.<ref name=Bliss865 />
===Career=== {{Socialism US}} In Boston, McNeill became politically active and joined the [[Sons of Temperance]], serving multiple times as an officer in that organization.<ref name=Bliss865 /> He also became involved in the movement to institute the [[8-hour day]], co-founding the Grand [[Eight Hour League]] in Boston in 1863.<ref name=MassMom /> This organization would change its name in 1868 to the Boston Eight Hour League.<ref name=MassMom /> McNeill would serve as president of the Eight Hour League for eight years, taking part in that capacity in the successful lobbying of the state legislature for passage of a 10-hour day law in Massachusetts.<ref name=Bliss865 />
McNeill was the founder of the [[Working Men's Institute]] in Boston, and worked with abolitionist [[Wendell Phillips]] and Massachusetts Governor [[William Claflin]] to establish the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, the first labor bureau in the United States.<ref name=Bliss865 /> Upon that body's formation he was named deputy chief by Governor Claflin.<ref name=Bliss865 />
McNeill became involved with the [[Sovereigns of Industry]] and was elected Massachusetts State Secretary of that organization.<ref name=Bliss865 /> He was also involved in pioneer labor newspapers throughout the Northeastern United States, including the ''[[New York Labor Standard]],'' the ''Fall River Labor Standard,'' and the Boston ''Voice,'' among others.<ref name=Bliss865 /> He was also the founder of the ''Boston Labor Leader.''<ref name=Bliss865 />
In 1874, McNeill served as a delegate to the Industrial Congress in [[Rochester, New York]] for which he wrote a declaration of principles which was later adopted by the [[Knights of Labor]].<ref name=Bliss865 /> He would himself join the Knights in 1883, assuming a prominent role in the leadership of District 30, the largest division of that organization.<ref name=Bliss865 /> In 1884 he was elected Treasurer of District 30.<ref name=Bliss865 />
During this era there were few job safety rules and no provision for state workmen's compensation in the event of on the job accidents; insurance was frequently expensive and impossible for the working class to obtain. Consequently, in 1883 McNeill founded the Massachusetts Accident Company, designed to provide low cost insurance to factory workers in the state.<ref name=Mann442>Albert W. Mann, ''Walks and Talks about Historic Boston.'' Boston: Mann Publishing Co., 1917; pg. 442.</ref>
McNeill became directly involved in electoral politics [[1886 Boston mayoral election|in 1886]], running as a labor candidate for Mayor of Boston.<ref name=Bliss865 />
McNeill studied the world of organized labor extensively and was the editor of and a contributor to the 1892 book, ''The Labor Movement, or, the Problem of To-day,'' regarded as one of the first comprehensive histories of the American labor movement.<ref name=Bliss865 />
A [[Christian socialism|Christian socialist]], McNeill was an active member of the Episcopal Christian Socialist Church of the Carpenter in Boston, becoming a senior warden of that body in 1891.<ref name=Bliss865 /> He was a staunch [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrat]] in politics and was active in the 1896 Presidential campaign to elect [[William Jennings Bryan]].<ref name=Friend>[http://cambridge.dlconsulting.com/cgi-bin/cambridge?a=d&d=Chronicle19060526-01.2.87 "George E. McNeill, Friend of Labor: Death of Man Whose Battle for Workingmen's Cause Lasted Half a Century,"] ''Cambridge Chronicle,'' May 26, 1906, section 2, pg. 10.</ref>
McNeill was also a poet of some renown and published a 1903 volume of his literary work.<ref name=Mann442 />
===Death and legacy===
On May 17, 1906, McNeill was suddenly stricken by intestinal pain and was rushed to the hospital in [[Somerville, Massachusetts]].<ref name=Friend /> An emergency operation was conducted, but McNeill was unable to survive the trauma, and he faded and died on May 19, 1906.<ref name=Friend /> McNeill was 69 years old at the time of his death.
Numerous leaders of the American labor movement were in attendance at his funeral, with the eulogy delivered by [[Samuel Gompers]], President of the [[American Federation of Labor]].<ref name=MassMom />
== See also == * [[Eight-Hour Leagues]]
==Footnotes== {{Reflist|2}}
==Works==
* [https://archive.org/details/factorychildren00mcnegoog ''Factory Children: Report upon the Schooling and Hours of Labor of Children Employed in the Manufacturing and Mechanical Establishments of Massachusetts.''] Boston: Wright and Potter, 1875. * ''Argument on the Hours of Labor, Delivered before the Labor Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature.'' New York: Labor Standard Publishing Co., n.d. [1870s]. * ''An Argument in Favor of a Legislative Enactment to Abolish the Tenement-House cigar factories in New York and Brooklyn.'' New York: n.p., 1882. * [https://archive.org/details/aeb4570.0001.001.umich.edu ''The Labor Movement: The Problem of To-Day.''] New York: M.W. Hazen Co., 1892. * ''Evolution in the Boot and Shoe Industry.'' Boston: n.p., n.d. [1890s]. * ''A Study of Accidents and Accident Insurance.'' Boston: Insurance Topics Co., 1900. * [https://archive.org/details/ArenaMagazine-Volume01 "The Democracy of Labor Organization,"] ''The Arena,'' vol. 1, whole no. 1, pp. 69–81. * ''Unfrequented Paths: Songs of Nature, Labor and Men.'' Boston: J.H. West Co., 1903. <small>—poetry</small> * ''The Eight Hour Primer: The Fact, Theory and the Argument: Questions to the Unemployed, the Employed, the Employer, the Capitalist, the Clergyman, and the Observer.'' Washington, DC: American Federation of Labor, 1907.
==Further reading==
* James R. Green and Hugh Carter Donahue, ''Boston's Workers: A Labor History.'' Boston: Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1979. * Janet McNeill Hively with Roger C. McNeill, [https://archive.org/details/storyofamericanr00hive ''Story of an American Reformer: George Edwin McNeill, 1837–1906.''] Gloucester, MA: R.C. McNeill, 2003. * Tom Juravich, William F. Hartford, and James R. Green, ''Commonwealth of Toil: Chapters in the History of Massachusetts Workers and Their Unions.'' Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000.
{{start box}} {{s-npo|union}} {{succession box|title=[[American Federation of Labor]] delegate to the [[Trades Union Congress]]|years=1897|with=[[Martin Fox]]|before=Jeremiah Sullivan|before2=[[Adolph Strasser]]|after=[[James Duncan (union leader)|James Duncan]]|after2=[[Henry Demarest Lloyd]]}} {{end box}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:McNeill, George E.}} [[Category:1836 births]] [[Category:1906 deaths]]
[[Category:Mill workers]] [[Category:American Christian socialists]] [[Category:Trade unionists from Massachusetts]] [[Category:Massachusetts Democrats]] [[Category:People from Amesbury, Massachusetts]] [[Category:Activists from Boston]] [[Category:Knights of Labor people]] [[Category:Child labor in the United States]] [[Category:Sons of Temperance]] [[Category:Temperance activists from Massachusetts]]