Joseph Patrick McDonnell (27 March 1846 – 20 January 1906) was an Irish-American labor leader and journalist.
He edited the New York ''Labor Standard'', and was one of the founders of the International Labor Union.
Early years
Joseph Patrick McDonnell was born in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
, Ireland on 27 March 1846.
He was born into a middle-class family, and after secondary school went to Trinity College Dublin to prepare for a career as a priest. However, as a Nationalist he would not take the
Oath of Allegiance
An oath of allegiance is an oath whereby a subject or citizen acknowledges a duty of allegiance and swears loyalty to a monarch or a country. In modern republics, oaths are sworn to the country in general, or to the country's constitution. For ...
. He joined the
Fenian
The word ''Fenian'' () served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood, secret political organisations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries dedicated ...
s, an Irish independence movement, and worked as an editor on Nationalist Irish newspapers.
For this he was arrested and jailed for ten months in Dublin.
McDonnell moved to
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
in 1868, where he gave lectures calling for the release of Irish political prisoners and for Irish independence.
He arranged demonstrations to publicize the cause of Irish independence, and was twice arrested.
He attended an International Peace Conference in
Geneva
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
and an International Prison Conference in London.
During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) he organized an "Irish Brigade", planning to go to France to support the republicans against the Germans.
He was again arrested for this.
He shared the enthusiasm for the
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune (french: Commune de Paris, ) was a revolutionary government that seized power in Paris, the capital of France, from 18 March to 28 May 1871.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard had defended ...
felt by many radicals and socialists in London.
McDonnell met
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
on 18 June 1871, and Marx proposed him as a member of the general council of the International Workingmen's Association (IWMA - often called the First International). In August 1871 he was made IWMA secretary for Ireland and threw himself into organizing branches. In early 1872 branches were founded in Dublin,
Cork
Cork or CORK may refer to:
Materials
* Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product
** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container
***Wine cork
Places Ireland
* Cork (city)
** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
,
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
and Cootehill. Though the Irish section of the New York IWMA drew its membership from a large pool of émigré Fenians, the popular association of the IWMA with the anti-clerical violence of the Paris Commune created problems for it when attempting to organise in Ireland. Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa wrote in condemnation of the execution of Georges Darboy, and most Fenians shied away from anything that appeared to support the Commune.
New York
In 1872 McDonnell sailed to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
with his new bride, Mary McEvatt, to represent the IWA in America.
From 1873 to 1878 McDonnell was very active in the socialist movement in New York, speaking at many venues.
He edited a Marxist weekly paper, the ''New York Labor Standard'', from 1876.
The socialist and anarchist
Marie Le Compte
Marie Le Compte was an American journal editor and anarchist who was active during the early 1880s.
Early career
Marie Le Compte was of French origin but settled in the United States, where she joined the Socialist movement,
speaking and writing ...
was one of the editors on this paper.
He met Samuel Gompers,
Peter J. McGuire
Peter J. McGuire (July 6, 1852 – February 18, 1906) was an American labor leader of the nineteenth century. He co-founded the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America in 1881 along with Gustav Luebkert and became one of the leading ...
and other labor leaders, and became more interested in labor reform than in socialism.
They would often meet at the New York offices of the ''Irish World'', where they would find men such as
Philip Van Patten
Simon Philip Van Patten (1852–1918) was an American socialist political activist prominent during the latter half of the 1870s and the first half of the 1880s. Van Patten is best remembered for being named the first Corresponding Secretary of t ...
of the Socialist Labor Party and the Irish nationalist
John Devoy
John Devoy ( ga, Seán Ó Dubhuí, ; 3 September 1842 – 29 September 1928) was an Irish republican rebel and journalist who owned and edited ''The Gaelic American'', a New York weekly newspaper, from 1903 to 1928.
Devoy dedicated over 60 ...
. With Gompers and McGuire, he was one of the founders of the International Labor Union.
McDonnell was a leading figure in the Association of United Workers of America (AUWA).
In 1876 the AUWA and other socialist organizations merged to form the
Workingmen's Party of the United States
The Workingmen's Party of the United States (WPUS), established in 1876, was one of the first Marxist-influenced political parties in the United States. It is remembered as the forerunner of the Socialist Labor Party of America.
Organizational h ...
(WPUS).
At a meeting in October 1876 McDonnell's section of the WPUS declared that,
In the fall of 1876 the ''Labor Standard'' ran a campaign that opposed the WPUS taking immediate political action. The faction of the WPUS that favored action withdrew their support from the paper, which ran into financial difficulties.
At first McDonnell remained largely unknown outside the small and quarrelsome labor and socialist movements.
In 1877 there were railway strikes and riots in New York and Baltimore in 1877, where he urged the workers to organize.
''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' commented in August 1877 that McDonnell was preaching "the unadulterated gospel of communism".
The
Socialist Labor Party of America
The Socialist Labor Party (SLP)"The name of this organization shall be Socialist Labor Party". Art. I, Sec. 1 of thadopted at the Eleventh National Convention (New York, July 1904; amended at the National Conventions 1908, 1912, 1916, 1920, 1924 ...
was founded in 1877 by a Marxist-oriented group in Newark led by Friedrich A. Sorge.
McDonnell gave significant assistance to Sorge.
New Jersey
Sorge and McDonnell organized a textile strike in
Paterson, New Jersey
Paterson ( ) is the largest City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Jonathan Dixon had presided over the much-publicized 1880 libel trial.
He was the Republican candidate for New Jersey governor in 1883.
In a break from his socialist past, McDonnell supported the Democrats in the gubernatorial contest.
McDonnell attacked Dixon as anti-labor and anti-union, and threw his support behind Leon Abbett, giving a useful boost to the Democratic candidate.
In 1884 Leon Abbett, now governor of New Jersey, appointed McDonnell deputy inspector of factories and workshops, although he did not hold this position for long.
From 1883 until 1897 McDonnell chaired the legislative committee of the New Jersey Federation of Organized Trades, which remained a relatively small body that was further weakened by the dispute between the Knights of Labor and the craft unions. Despite its weakness, the legislative committee drafted laws and lobbied for their passage by the New Jersey legislature, and often achieved at least partial success.
The thrust of the laws was to eliminate abuses of labor, improve working conditions and help labor organize unions, cooperatives and building and loan associations. The Federation obtained ballot reforms, protection against eviction, public libraries and a compulsory education law.
It was mainly due to McDonnell's efforts that
Labor Day
Labor Day is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the first Monday in September to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements of the United St ...
was declared a holiday by New Jersey, to first state to do so.
McDonnell represented New Jersey in the
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutu ...
, founded in 1886 with Gompers as its first president.
In 1892 McDonnell was appointed the head of the State Board of Arbitration for a short period.
After 1892 McDonnell found it much harder to influence legislation. However, in 1897 '' The Boston Post'' wrote,
Every labor law on the state statute books of New Jersey owes its birth to the fostering care and indefatigable work of McDonnell... Not a tithe can be told of all he has done for the betterment of mankind.