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Finding aid to the Burnette G. Haskell diaries and receipt, 1878-1885
MS 952
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Title: Burnette G. Haskell diaries and receipt
Date: 1878-1885
Collection Identifier: MS 952
Creator:
Haskell, Burnette G., 1857-1907
Repository:
California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA, 94105
415-357-1848
reference@calhist.org
URL: http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/
Abstract: Collection comprises two diaries and a receipt for a registered letter, kept by California labor leader Burnette G. Haskell.
Volume 1 (1878-1879) mostly concerns Haskell's failed courtship of Sophie McFarlane (1878-1879); volume 2 (1885) documents
his labor career, including the activities, organization, and membership of the International Workmen's Association (IWA)
and the Progressive Assembly of the Knights of Labor, both of which Haskell founded.
Collection is open for research.
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Director
of the Library and Archives, North Baker Research Library, California Historical Society, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco,
CA 94105. Consent is given on behalf of the California Historical Society as the owner of the physical items and is not intended
to include or imply permission from the copyright owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner. Restrictions
also apply to digital representations of the original materials. Use of digital files is restricted to research and educational
purposes.
[Identification of item], Burnette G. Haskell diaries and receipt, MS 952, California Historical Society.
Related materials about Burnette G. Haskell may be found in the Haskell family papers, 1878-1951, held at the Bancroft Library.
Collection was donated by Mrs. Adam Haskell of Beaufort, South Carolina, via Walter Pierce, in May 1956.
Born in 1857 in Sierra County, Burnette G. Haskell was a lawyer; radical editor, publisher, and journalist; founder of the
Kaweah Colony; and one of the most prominent union organizers of the 1880s on the Pacific Coast. A lawyer for the Republican
State Central Committee, Haskell first became active in the San Francisco labor movement in 1882 when labor leader Frank Roney
recruited his fledging newspaper
Truth as the official journal of the San Francisco Trades Assembly. During its brief career (1882-1884),
Truth published local, national, and international labor news, and printed a wide range of radical literature. In 1882, Haskell
founded the International Workmen's Association (IWA) in San Francisco; between 1882 and 1887, the IWA organized dozens of
unions, including the Coast Seamen's Union, throughout the Pacific Coast. In 1884, Haskell organized the Progressive Assembly
of the Knights of Labor, a mixed San Francisco assembly that held weekly educational meetings on progressive themes. Beginning
in 1886, Haskell turned his attention to the cooperative movement, establishing the Kaweah Colony in Tulare County with other
IWA members; the enterprise collapsed in 1890. After the 1888 publication of Edward Bellamy's
Looking Backward, Haskell became active in the Nationalist movement and later resumed his law practice, representing the Coast Seamen's Union.
He died in 1907.
Collection comprises two diaries and a receipt for a registered letter, kept by California labor leader Burnette G. Haskell.
Dated from 1878 to 1879, the first diary (volume 1) mostly concerns Haskell's courtship of Sophie McFarlane at the San Francisco
Mercantile Library. The diary ends on July 7, 1879, the day McFarlane eloped with "J. S. Bash alias F. Steinberg." Volume
1 also contains
Argonaut clippings of love poems Haskell wrote for McFarlane and an obituary for Ebon C. Ingersoll. The organization of the Union
League is briefly mentioned.
Written in 1885, the second diary (volume 2) mostly concerns Haskell's labor career, documenting the activities, organization,
and membership of the International Workmen's Association (IWA) and the Progressive Assembly of the Knights of Labor, both
of which Haskell founded. Volume 2 also contains a list of labor newspapers (memoranda) and a list of names, probably of IWA
members (addresses). Daily entries stop after February 21, 1885.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
International Workmen's Association.
Knights of Labor. Progressive Assembly.
Haskell, Burnette G., 1857-1907
Diaries.
Labor leaders--California.
Labor movement--California.
Labor unions--California.
Socialism--California.