Finding aid to the Burnette G. Haskell diaries and receipt, 1878-1885
Finding aid prepared by Marie Silva
California Historical Society
2011
678 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA, 94105-4014
(415) 357-1848
reference@calhist.org
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.
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[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.
Information for Biography note taken from:
Silva, Marie Louise, "Radical Reading: Print Culture and the San Francisco Labor
Movement, 1880-1889" (2010).
Master's Theses. Paper
3894. http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_theses/3894
Folder 1
Descriptive guide
Folder 2
Volume 1 1878-1879
Folder 3
Volume 2 1885
Folder 4
Receipt for a registered letter 1879