Showing posts with label Strike Wave of 1945-1946. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Strike Wave of 1945-1946. Show all posts

Monday, January 26, 2026

Saturday, January 26, 1946. Taking over the packing plants.

It was Chinese New Year.

The Department of Agriculture took over 133 striking meat packing plants.


In the same issue of the Rocky Mountain News, Robert Ruark, famous for his hunting columns, had one about radio telephones.


The Sheridan Press also had a headline on the strike, without the same tone.


The same issue had this advertisement, showing how important equine power still was.



The SS Argentina departed from Southampton for New York with 452 war brides, 173 small children, and one "war bridegroom" married to a WAC.

French troops fought the Viet Quoc Armed Force, Vietnamese nationalist and socialist troops,  at Phong Thổ District. The French would prevail after a two day battle.

Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, whose army this was, was not a Communist party, and in fact it was suppressed by the Communists and many of its members went into exile following the Vietnamese War.

Bikini Atoll was chosen for nuclear tests by the U.S.


Film critic Gene Siskel was born on this day in Chicago.

Last edition:

Friday, January 25, 1946. Soviet nuclear program gets s jump start.

Friday, January 23, 2026

Wednesday, January 23, 1946. Soviet Agent installed by Truman.

Soviet agent Harry Dexter White was appointed by President Truman to be the American representative to the International Monetary fund despite a warning from the FBI that White had passed secret information to the Soviet Union.

He'd later be exposed by Whitaker Chambers.

The Soviets managed to place an impressive number of operatives into the U.S. government during the 1930s and into the 1940s.  This was in part because the Roosevelt Administration simply didn't take the matter seriously, even though its now very clear that there were warnings, probably mostly from the FBI. There's fairly good reason to believe that McCarthy's "lists" of Soviet agents, which later proved to be quite accurate, probably came from the FBI which had grown frustrated with successive administrations ignoring what it was learning.  The Army likewise had a list of Soviet agents that it closely held, in part out of the reasonable fear that it wouldn't be taken seriously and that if too much was revealed, it'd be leaked.

FWIW, there's every reason to believe that the Soviets continued to attempt to penetrate Western governments after the McCarthy era and also inserted sleeper agents into the U.S.  The great American mini series The Americans is based on this widely known effort, as well as the movie Little Nikita. While known, it isn't particularly paid attention to, today.  As has been noted recently, and not without good reason, there are questions as to whether or not Donald Trump may be a Russian asset of the captive type today, which would explain some of his actions.  He's definitely a Russian asset, but it may be because he simply has a weak 19th Century mind.

The USS Brevard rescued 4,296 Japanese civilians from the ship Enoshima Maru as it sank near Shanghai. The event retains the record for being the largest number of civilians rescued at sea.

The nationwide strike wave had spread to packing plants.


The Army was looking for a way to recruit men into the post war service.


Out Our Way had a cartoon about medical advice, which would still be good advice today.



Last edition:

Tuesday, January 22, 1946. Central Intelligence Group formed.

Tuesday, December 16, 2025

Sunday, December 16, 1945. Sinclair boosts wages.

Sinclair Oil Corporation ended a wage dispute by agreeing to grant an 18% pay increase with a 40-hour week to the Oil Workers International union.

Sinclair retains a major presence in Wyoming, with a town where it has an oil refinery named after it.  In 1945, interestingly, it was a New York Corporation, although its registered as a Wyoming corporation now.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe died by suicide.   He'd been a major figure in Japan as it marched towards war and was due to begin legal proceedings for war crimes the following day.

December 16, 1945: The Cleveland Rams' Championship Farewell

Last edition:

Friday, December 14, 1945. Tragedy and ethnic Germans, the LDS and conscription.

Thursday, December 11, 2025

Tuesday, December 11, 1945. Steel Workers announce strike.


The United Steelworkers voted to go on strike on January 14. They were seeking an additional $2.00/day.

A B-29 set a new coast to coast speed record, flying from Burbank, California to Brooklyn, New York in 5 hours, 27 minutes and 6 seconds.

Last edition:

Friday, December 7, 1945. Command Responsibility.




Saturday, November 22, 2025

Thursday, November 22, 1945. Thanksgiving Day.

It was the first postwar Thanksgiving.
Proclamation 2673—Thanksgiving Day, 1945
November 12, 1945
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation

In this year of our victory, absolute and final, over German fascism and Japanese militarism; in this time of peace so long awaited, which we are determined with all the United Nations to make permanent; on this day of our abundance, strength, and achievement; let us give thanks to Almighty Providence for these exceeding blessings.

We have won them with the courage and the blood of our soldiers, sailors, and airmen. We have won them by the sweat and ingenuity of our workers, farmers, engineers, and industrialists. We have won them with the devotion of our women and children. We have bought them with the treasure of our rich land. But above all we have won them because we cherish freedom beyond riches and even more than life itself.

We give thanks with the humility of free men, each knowing it was the might of no one arm but of all together by which we were saved. Liberty knows no race, creed, or class in our country or in the world. In unity we found our first weapon, for without it, both here and abroad, we were doomed. None have known this better than our very gallant dead, none better than their comrade, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Our thanksgiving has the humility of our deep mourning for them, our vast gratitude to them.

Triumph over the enemy has not dispelled every difficulty. Many vital and far-reaching decisions await us as we strive for a just and enduring peace. We will not fail if we preserve, in our own land and throughout the world, that same devotion to the essential freedoms and rights of mankind which sustained us throughout the war and brought us final victory.

Now, Therefore, I, Harry S. Truman, President of the United States of America, in consonance with the joint resolution of Congress approved December 26, 1941, do hereby proclaim Thursday November 22, 1945, as a day of national thanksgiving. May we on that day, in our homes and in our places of worship, individually and as groups, express our humble thanks to Almighty God for the abundance of our blessings and may we on that occasion rededicate ourselves to those high principles of citizenship for which so many splendid Americans have recently given all.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this 12th day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred forty-five and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and seventieth.

Signature of Harry S. Truman
HARRY S. TRUMAN

By the President:
JAMES F. BYRNES,
Secretary of State.

The Hollywood Canteen was open for the last time.

The Rocky Mountain News claimed that the Japanese tried to assassinate Stalin.

 


I've never heard that before, and I'm fairly sure it isn't true.

The paper also informed readers of the death of Gen. Alexander Patch, part of the great post war senior officer die off that followed the Second World War.


And it noted that Koreans were complaining that the Soviets were stripping the country of machinery.


The paper ran Out Our Way.


And there was an advertisement for a pen that you didn't have to fill for a year. . . an advertisement I don't, frankly, believe.


The Reynolds was revolutionary, however.  It was a reengineered Biro type ballpoint pen.

Meat rationing was to end. . .but not before Thanksgiving.


The only thing that remained rationed was sugar.

Last edition:

Wednesday, November 21, 1945. UAE goes on strike.

Friday, November 21, 2025

Wednesday, November 21, 1945. UAE goes on strike.

The United Auto Workers went out on strike against General Motors.  They were seeking a 30% increase in wages and a hold on product prices.


General Motors currently has 162,000 employees.  The actual number of UAE GM workers that went on strike was 320,000.

The Sheridan Press noted the season:


Other cartoons for this edition:


Guatemala ratified the UN Charter.

Last edition:

Tuesday, November 20, 1945. Commencement of the Nuremberg Trials.

Sunday, October 5, 2025

Friday, October 5, 1945. Hollywood Black Friday.

The 1945 strike wave expanded to Hollywood on a day known as Hollywood Black Friday.  The strike by the Conference of Studio Unions would last for six months.

The American Mercury, which became Meet The Press, premiered on the radio.

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 2, 1945. Patton relieved.

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

Monday, September 24, 1945. Hirohito threw Tojo under the bus for Pearl Harbor. Elevator operators on strike.

Hirohito threw Tojo under the bus for Pearl Harbor.

Manhattan elevator operators went on strike.

It's odd to think of them going on strike.  They were common at the time, and were into the 1960s.  Now, of course, they're so rare that most people have never encountered one.

Miss Dorothy Eyster, an elevator operator at a downtown office building in Philadelphia, in 1943. The occupation had been considered a male one in the United States, but women broke into in increasing numbers during World War Two, although there were female elevator operators prior to that.  By the 1950s and 1960s, female elevator operators were common.  This photograph gives a good example of elevator controls of the period.

Related threads:

Mid Week At Work. Elevator Operators

Last edition:

Sunday, September 23, 1945. A call to arms.

Sunday, September 14, 2025

Friday, September 14, 1945. Strike!

The Great Strike Wave of 1945-1945 expanded as Ford Motors was idled due to wildcat strikes.

Contrary to the universal bliss myth so often assumed about the postwar world, the lid was coming off of labor relations as soldiers returned and wartime compromises, which oddly approached a sort of corporatism that fascist states had aspired to, ceased.  It was flying apart.

The Japanese garrison on Celebes surrendered at Manado.

The Government of Belgium announced a 17,000 man commitment to the occupation of Germany.


Last edition:

Thursday, September 13, 1945. Start of the 1945–1946 War in Southern Vietnam,