In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a tradition of 
biracial unionism sprang up among waterfront workers along the 
Gulf Coast. Galveston's waterfront workers formed some of 
Texas' earliest and strongest labor organizations in an era when the 
city was a leading seaport and the most important commercial 
center in Texas.

    Foremost among these workers were the white cotton 
screwmen, whose skill and economic importance in the loading of 
cotton enabled them to control the labor supply as well as wages 
and working conditions. As the importance of cotton screwing 
declined in the 1890s, white and black union leaders, if not all 
rank-and-file members, began to recognize the advantages of 
biracial unionism at a time when southern states began to enact 
Jim Crow laws.
 
    This history of a particular laboring community studies black 
and white workers' consciousness and how the conflicts between 
race and class were worked out in practice, adding to our 
knowledge of race and the labor movement, the course of biracial 
unionism in the South, and Texas labor history.

_________________________________________________________

CLIFFORD FARRINGTON grew up in England. He graduated 
with a first class honors degree in American Studies from the 
University of Sussex, then entered the American Studies 
department at the University of Texas at Austin, where he 
completed his Ph.D. in 2003.