Since the emergence of the Social Gospel Movement at the end of the 19th Century, and the 1891 Papal Encyclical called Rerum Novarum, American unions and the causes which they championed have often found urgently needed moral and practical support within the community of religious leaders.
Nowhere, has this been more profoundly true than in Illinois. It was the Methodist minister in Pullman's Green Stone Church, the Rev. William H. Carwardine, who became the most prominent defender of the striking Pullman Shops workers in 1894. That strike was a defining moment in the classic struggle between Capital and Labor in America.
It was within the bosom of the Metropolitan Community Church on Chicago's South Side, that William Webster and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters found a haven for their organizational efforts in the 1920s.
It was a highly visible handshake offered by Bishop Bernard J. Sheil to John L. Lewis at the Chicago Coliseum in 1938, that gave the CIO an essential boost to its ultimately succesful organizing campaigns in the Steel, Meat Packing, and Farm Equipment industries constituting Chicago's industrial heart.
And it was the wise and understanding Rabbi, Jacob J. Weinstein, whose work as a public member on war-time governmental boards and agencies brought economic justice into workplaces throughout the region.
There is an historic relationship between workers, their unions, and a socially sensitive and concerned clergy. That relationship, informed by the moral vision and values of religious teaching, requires constant nourishment and affirmation. Such moral and communitarian underpinning of the Labor Movement can be ignored by labor unions, but only at their peril. Conversely, the religious community can ignore the social and economic needs of the working men and women only at the price of injustice.
The Illinois Labor History Society
28 E. Jackson, Chicago, IL 60604
Phone: (312) 663-4107