"Thuggery, Intimidation and General Foul Play": O.L. Mills v. Organized Labor

Who are these men and women picketing? What are they upset about?

Like all great mysteries, it started with a clue. In this case, a photograph.

During recent housekeeping this summer, Historic Interpreter Joe D'Agostino found a copy of a 1935 press photograph showing strikers picketing outside the Millses' Manhattan mansion (below). There was little information to gain from the HistoricalImages.com catalogue listing for the photograph. 

Online auction listing for a
"1935 Press Photo Employees Picketing
in Front of Treasury Secretary Ogd..." 

Who were the strikers? What were they picketing for or against? And what did this have to do with the Mills family?

2 East 69th Street

Let's back up. The one thing we knew was that the photograph was taken outside the Millses' 5th Avenue mansion. Designed by renowned architect Richard Morris Hunt and built between 1885 and 1887, 2 East 69th Street sat on the corner of 69th Street and the famous 5th Avenue - an area known as Millionaire's Row in New York's fashionable Upper East Side.

2 East 69th Street was called "one of the best adapted houses for entertaining in the city" by the New York Times. It was the site of Ruth Livingston Mills' lavish galas and formal banquets during the winter social season in Manhattan. The living room was designed "in French walnut and after designs of the renaissance" according to the Pittsburgh Dispatch while the second floor ballroom was richly decorated in gold and white overlooking Central Park to the west.[1] It was noted by the local Poughkeepsie Sunday Courier that one of Mrs. Mills' balls hosted 250 guests (plus a full Hungarian band) and was described as "the smartest private affair of the season"![2]

When Ruth and Ogden Mills passed away in the 1920s, the NYC residence went to their son, Ogden Livingston "O.L" Mills. 

Which brings us to 1935...

The National Biscuit Company

O.L. Mills on the cover of TIME,
October 6, 1926.

By 1935, O.L. Mills had recently left a decades-long career in public service. Fresh from military service during World War One, the younger Mr. Mills was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1920 representing a large portion of the Hudson Valley. In 1927, he was selected as the U.S. Undersecretary of the Treasury, a position that lasted through both Calvin Coolidge's and Herbert Hoover's administrations. For the final year of Hoover's term, Mills was elevated to Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. 

With the incoming Roosevelt administration in 1933, Mills retired from public service yet remained politically and socially active. In 1935, he published What of Tomorrow, a collection of his speeches delivered in 1934 attacking the New Deal and other Roosevelt financial programs.* Mills was an active member of clubs in New York befitting his social and political status. He was also active on the boards of companies diverse as the Virginia & Truckee Railroad+ and the Shredded Wheat Company.

In 1935, he was also the director and stockholder of the National Biscuit Company. Yup, that National Biscuit Company - or, Nabisco - the same folks behind Oreo, Animal Crackers and Fig Newtons.

1954 ad for Nabisco cookies,
including Oreos and Vanilla Wafers

At the turn of the 20th century, Nabisco was the largest bakery in the world. Founders Adolphus Green and William Moore oversaw the merger of over 100 bakeries across the United States to create the National Biscuit Company in 1898. When their headquarters moved to New York City in 1906, Nabisco employed 6,000 workers. Their operation - located in the modern-day Chelsea Market - was so massive (covering one city block) that deliveries of flour and sugar came on their own special train platform right into the factory!

Yet, the workers felt they were not seeing their fair share of the profits. TIME magazine reported the issue of "equal pay for equal work" led to a walk out of Nabisco bakers in Philadelphia in January, 1935. Soon, Nabisco bakers and truck drivers from Manhattan to Atlanta walked out.

Wait, 1935 - that sounds familiar, right?

"Ogden Mills Locked Us Out"

The 1935 Nabisco strike brings us back to our mystery photograph. After some further research in newspaper archives, articles around the country started to pop up about striking bakers picketing O.L.'s home in 1935. The date (1935) matched. The event (picketing) matched too.

A brief Reading Times article (below) was able to clear up a lot of the mystery:

"Striking Bakers Picket Mills' Home"
Reading Times (Reading, PA).
March 12, 1935.

According to the Associated Press reporter, 100 Nabisco bakery employees were picketing in front of the Millses' mansion in March 1935. They were protesting their dismissal from the company back in January (presumably because of their union walk out) and shouting "Ogden Mills locked us out." A dozen NYC policemen were on the scene - just out of sight of the press camera. Since O.L. Mills was the director of the National Biscuit Company, the members of the "Inside Bakery Workers' Federal Labor Union" held their protest at his East 69th Street mansion.

A "flying squadron" picketing outside
O.L. Mills' NYC residence.

Mystery solved! 

Nearly two weeks later, TIME magazine reported on the meeting between O.L. Mills and labor-leader William Aloysius Galvin. As the founder of the Inside Bakery Workers Federal Labor Union No. 19585, the "stocky, blue-eyed" 27 year old Galvin asked Mills and other leaders to "consider the loss of business and good will the strike was causing." But Nabisco wouldn't listen. TIME concluded by stating "both sides are accusing each other of thuggery, intimidation and general foul play."

After 95 days of striking, a settlement was reached in April between both parties. Yet, before the month was over, union president William Galvin announced plans to "re-strike" in protest of Nabisco's contract violations. Galvin argued the company was "discriminating against its employes [sic] for their union activities" and "using coercive tactics against the said employes [sic] in an attempt to destroy the ... Labor Union"

Ultimately, the strike failed. According to Kevin Bruce, author of We Have Fed You All a Thousand Years: New York City Food Worker Organizing, 1912-1937, Galvin took too heavy-handed an approach. With no room for the striking workers to offer ideas or input into the union's strategy, Galvin's "top-down, undemocratic organizational structure" ultimately failed the workers.

Echoes of 1935

So, the big corporation won in 1935. And as we all know, Nabisco is still making cookies and crackers today. 

While the Inside Bakery Workers Federal Labor Union No. 19585 no longer exists, their fighting spirit continues today as part of the larger Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers' International Union (BCTGM). That same fighting spirit from 1935 found both groups at odds again in 2021. After concerns about outsourcing and changes to the employees' schedules and healthcare plans, workers in a Portland, Oregon Nabisco plant walked out on August 10, 2021. Soon, every Nabisco operation was affected by the strike.

Yet, in a reversal of 1935, the BCTGM signed an agreement with Nabisco. Employees were guaranteed annual pay raises, increased 401(k) contributions and a $5,000 bonus.

The same longevity of the National Biscuit Company was not enjoyed by the Millses' NYC home at the center of our (now-solved) mystery. Following O.L. Mills' death, the contents of the mansion were auctioned off in 1938 and the building was soon demolished. Modern apartment buildings stand at the corner of 5th Avenue and East 69th Street today.

The site of 2 East 69th Street in Manhattan today.

During the course of this research, the original 1935 photograph was acquired by the Friends of Mills at Staatsburgh! Original documentation on the artifact's verso confirm what we now already know:

"Striking emplopes [sic] of the National Biscuit Company,
in New York City, are shown parading in orderly fashion
as they picket the home of Ogden Mills..."

This image, now in the safe-keeping of Staatsburgh State Historic Site, is a reminder of the struggle for equal protection and equal pay that has been hard-fought for generations. 

Happy Labor Day, from all of us at Staatsburgh!

*A New York Times review noted What of Tomorrow "is a fine presentation of right-wing doctrines, and as such will serve as a valuable counter-check against ill-considered advances toward the opposite extreme."

+ O.L. Mills' grandfather, Darius Ogden Mills, was also financially tied to the V&T Railroad during his days in California after the 1849 Gold Rush.

[1] Michael C. Kathrens, Great Houses of New York: 1880-1930. Volume I. New York: Acanthus Press, 2014. 48-50.
[2] Poughkeepsie Sunday Courier. January 10, 1892.