Hopedale History June 1, 2013 No. 229 Utopia to Company Town Hopedale in May I’d like to tie in the “month pages” with Hopedale history, so on the May page I have quotes from about a century ago below three pictures they relate to. The neighboring towns photos for May are of historic markers along Main Street, Milford Before there was Beebe River, there was Draperville. Thanks to Wendy Sullivan for this interesting find. Hannah Thwing (Draper) Osgood. Helen Draper.
John Cembruch sent me a bit more about it, including that his brother was there when the accident occurred, and ran to the only house in the neighborhood that had a phone. John drew a map of the area which also shows where the first Draper Field was. During the past two weeks, I’ve made additions to pages on Donald Midgley Skeet Shooting, and Nipmuc Rod & Gun Club Beebe River James Northrop Boarding Houses Comments on hope1842 General Draper Library Fanny Osgood Adin Ballou Park Old Dam and Pond West of the Dump Quinsigamond River Now and Then – Roper Shop, 25 Northrop Street Dump capping project ( I suppose that’s the old-fashioned term. I should say landfill capping project.) <><><><><><><><><><> Twenty-five years ago – June 1988 – NASA scientist James Hansen testifies to the Senate that man- made global warming had begun. Mei’s diner in the Town Hall may have to close, as town officials consider converting the space into administration offices. A Milliville man claims that Police Chief Edward Allard used excessive force after he was stopped for an alleged traffic violation in Mendon. (Allard was assisting Mendon police.) Elementary school principal, Roger Morrell, teacher Hazel Vignone, cafeteria staff member Hilda Hammond, and custodian Francis Coffey honored at their retirement by the Hopedale Teacher’s Association. Fifty years ago – June 1963 – Pope John Paul XXXIII dies. Alabama Governor George C. Wallace stood in the door of the University of Alabama to protest against integration, and blocked James Hood and Vivian Malone from enrolling as the first African American students at the University. Medgar Evers, a 37-year old African-American civil rights activist, was shot and killed while standing in his driveway in Jackson, Mississippi. President John F. Kennedy delivered his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in front of the Berlin Wall in West Berlin. Hopedale High School baseball team wins 13th consecutive game. Dave DiGirolamo pitches 6-0 win over Millis. (June 4) Hopedale beats Norton 8-7 with Jim Stock pitching to retain Tri-County League title. (June 7) Special Town Meeting votes for permanent paving of Hope Street Bridge. $82,000 project to be financed with ten-year bond. <><><><><><><><><><> In 1991, Anita Cardillo Danker wrote a paper that covered a century and a half of Hopedale history. Below, you’ll see the final few paragraphs. Click here if you’d like to read the entire paper. Utopia to Company Town After the turn of the century as the work force of the Draper Company increased in number and changed in composition from Yankee to immigrant, industrial relations soured. Eben Daper, son of George and younger brother of William, served as governor of Massachusetts from 1909 to 1911 and twice vetoed an eight-hour day bill for state employees. His veto messages, as recorded in the Acts and Resolves of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, clearly reveal his bias in favor of owner over operative. Accurately perceived as anti-labor, he was a presiding officer of the company in 1913 when a local socialist, Joseph Coldwell, and members of the IWW organized disenchanted immigrant workers and orchestrated a bitter, violent, and unsuccessful strike against the Draper Company. Extensive coverage of this tragic slice of labor history can be found on the pages of the Milford Daily News (March-November, 1913) and ultimately ended with the triumph of capitalist over laborer. Yet even as the strike raged, the Drapers launched plans for new housing projects and ironically awarded contracts to an area construction firm which had hired many of the strikers who had lost their places. Company directors were undoubtedly well aware of what they were doing – taking care of the locals as they had always done, and as always they did so on their own terms. In the years that followed this strike, the company flourished, and the family buried the memories of the event so deeply that the story has been neglected by history and nearly forgotten by the local residents. During the world wars, the Draper Corporation manufactured equipment that wove the cloth that outfitted the men in uniform and d=fashioned the machine tools that turned out the instruments of death. Thus the community founded on the principles of pacifism grew rich on the materials of war. Hopedale today is an attractive, unusually quiet community of less than five thousand residents. Draper has gone, selling out to North American Rockwell in 1967, not long after the work force finally unionized. Rockwell lasted little more than a decade, but the town has survived with many newcomers finding employment in the high tech boom industries of the 1980s. A glance at the names of elected and appointed town officials reveals a healthy ethnic mix with the nationalities so active in the 1913 strike well represented. Area residents seem to know little of the chaotic bitter days when their ancestors took on the Drapers and were brought down so ruthlessly by the barons of the realm. Their losses were transitory, for ultimately they achieved the security, respect, and community they sought so desperately in 1913 when Hopedale was a company town. The once mighty Draper mill, “world’s largest manufacturer of automatic looms,” is nearly empty now, a huge brick fortress that sprawls uncomfortably across the heart of the downtown area with the statue of Adin Ballou erected by William Draper poised majestically across the street. Two integral pieces of Hopedale’s unique history face each other in quiet testimony to the busy, colorful eras past when the likes of abolitionists Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison, and labor leaders Carlo Tresca and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn passed through the town to touch bases with the powerful forces of reform that found expression there. A handful of residents of the area today, when asked what future they would wish for the abandoned Draper complex, proposed such projects as affordable housing, a community college campus, and a mall of small shops and businesses. Adin Ballou might be pleased to learn that the wisps of his utopian spirit can still be spotted on the streets of the resilient community he founded in faith nearly a century and a half ago. Anita Cardillo Danker, Framingham, Massachusetts, 1991. Hopedale History Ezine Menu HOME |
