About Local 1693

Local 1693 serves the following counties in Illinois: Cook, Lake, DuPage, Will, Grundy, Kane, Kendall, McHenry, Kankakee, Iroquois, Fulton, Hancock, Knox, Logan, Mason, McDonough, Peoria, Tazewell, Warren, Woodford, Adams, Brown, Cass, Champaign, Christian, Clark, Coles, Crawford, Cumberland, Douglas, Edgar, Effingham, Greene, Jasper, Macon, Macoupin, Menard, Montgomery, Morgan, Moultrie, Piatt, Pike, Sangamon, Schuyler, Scott, Shelby, Vermillion, DeWitt, Ford, Livingston, and McLean.

A millwright (or industrial mechanic) in modern times is a craftsperson or skilled tradesperson who installs, dismantles, fabricates, maintains, repairs, reassembles, and moves machinery in factories, power plants, and construction sites. However, millwrights have a long and storied history that pre-dates most modern trades.

Humans began as hunters and gatherers. Hunting animals for food and survival should need no explanation. However, gathering consisted of finding fruits, vegetables, nuts, roots, berries, and certain seeds. Some of these dietary items needed a way to be preserved or consumed. The earliest humans began by pounding these provisions against rocks to crush them. Eventually, resourceful humans would develop and use the mortar and pestle. This inevitably led more ingenious humans to figure out a way to chip and form stones into a grinding stone. Two griding stones would be used together to crush seeds or grain. These grinding stones or grist stones, as they began to be called, were used initially with human power. Human power gradually gave way to animal power, and thus, the beast of burden was used to turn the grist wheel. As time moved forward, both human and animal power again gave way to the idea of harnessing the earth through water and wind power.

The term mill referred to a place where grain was ground into flour. The term wright would define an artisan who was particularly handy. The two terms combined became millwright and it is at this point in history where the ancient millwright artisan was born.

During the Hellenistic Period, Greek millwrights, prior to grain mills, used the water wheel to lift and distribute water through the fields irrigating them. The Romans used water wheels in conjunction with their massive aqueducts to develop water supplies. These technologies allowed the great cities of the ancient world to flourish. The Greeks invented the two main components of watermills, the waterwheel and toothed gearing. Greeks, along with the Romans were the first to operate undershot, overshot and breast shot waterwheel mills.

Humankind began to harness the wind initially for travel upon the sea. Eventually ancient artisans in Persia would resourcefully harness the wind on high plain lands through wind tunnels made of mud and brick to power water pumps for irrigation. Ancient millwright artisans would take the idea of harnessing the wind by flipping a waterwheel upside down. Thus, the windmill came to be. Millwrights developed two basic types of windmills: the post mill and the tower mill. A post mill has a body of wood that includes vanes and machinery mounted on an upright post and would need to be moved by a miller to put its sails into the wind. The tower mill is made of stone or brick and has a cap that rotates to face the wind, which did not need to be moved by hand.

In Medieval Europe, millwrights built the first “factory” mills which introduced new innovative uses of waterpower and wind. These water wheel and windmills or grist mills and later known as “factory” mills. For the purpose of building “factory” mills, artisan millwrights needed to be able to handle brick, canvas sails, iron or brass, leather, slate, stone, thatch, tile, and wood. Millwrights were able to build everything involved in a “factory” mill from raceways, flumes, sluices, bridges, waterwheels, cogged wheels, cut gears, raised shafts, moved timbers, balanced mill stones, and shaped metal by the forge, hammer, and anvil. In the countryside of the day, millwrights were considered respected authorities in all construction endeavors, precursors to the modern day civil or mechanical engineer.

Sir William Fairbairn (b.1789-d.1874), a Scottish mechanical engineer and architect who himself went through a millwright apprenticeship, described the importance of the millwright in this excerpt from his two-volume work Treatise on Mills and Millwork: “Thus the millwright of the last century was an itinerant engineer and mechanic of high reputation. He could handle the axe, the hammer, and the plane with equal skill and precision…Living in a more primitive state of society than ourselves, there probably never existed a more useful and independent class of men than country millwrights.”

Having completed the building of these factory mills, the millwright would pack his tools and move onto the next distant site all the way carrying the designs in their heads as few written plans have survived. Fairbairn went on to speculate in his works that millwrights were considered men with considerable intellectual power. However, he also stated, “…too frequently happened that early training, constant change of scene, and temptation of jovial companions, led the young millwright into excess which almost paralyzed his good qualifications.” Since most millwrights did move from job to job and kept with carefree associates, their reputations were considered less than distinguished. Even though millwrights might have had a sullied reputation they still consider themselves the superior craftsman. Some millwrights even believed unless another craftsman was born and bred a millwright, they were an inferior craftsman.

The invention of the steam engine brought upon the world the industrial revolution. This is when new trades were established. These new trades included machine makers, turners, fitters, shapers, and mechanical engineers. These trades began to perform different aspects of work that the millwright had been doing completely on their own. During this time, iron and steel became more important in the manufacturing process. This transition again changed the work for the millwrights of the past as they were more accustomed to working with wood. The need for these new materials, trades, and the desire for more manufacturing facilities lowered the status of the millwright to that of an ordinary mechanic.

The millwright no longer planned and designed the machines. His role now consisted of executing the plans produced by a design engineer. On occasion, he would be called upon to finish and perfect the work of the designer as well as supply most of the minor engineering. He had to have a good technical education as he was responsible for calculating the strength of materials and the resultants of forces, as well as for reading drawings, understanding electricity, and building with metal. His work was now beginning to resemble the work of today’s millwright.

The millwrights of today are a part of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. (from Carpenter, October 1979) However, towards the end of the 19th Century, workers were becoming increasingly aware of the need to protect their rights by unifying. As early as 1876, the millwrights of Toronto, Canada formed unions of their craft. After the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America had formed in 1881 and had chartered a local union in Toronto, these millwrights expressed a desire to affiliate with the Brotherhood. In 1884, they were admitted to the local there.

By the 1886 Brotherhood convention, millwrights’ affiliation with the organization had become widespread enough to affect an amendment to the General Constitution. It was officially stated that millwrights were now eligible for membership in the union. The word “millwright” was added to Article VI, Section 2, which spelled out the occupational qualifications for joining as follows: “Any stair builder, millwright, planning mill bench had, or any cabinet maker engaged at carpenter work, or any carpenter running woodworking machinery, shall be eligible to membership, if possessed of the qualifications as provided in Section I of the Article.”

Since these early formational days, millwrights have come under the jurisdiction of the Carpenters’ Union. At the turn of the century, there was a competing organization known as the Millwrights Protective Union, headquartered in Buffalo, New York. In 1920, approximately 65 millwrights help memberships with both the Millwrights Protective Union and the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. The alternate Millwrights Protective Union was eventually absorbed into the Brotherhood which, since the late 1920s, has maintained complete jurisdiction over millwrighting.

Millwrighting has been an important branch of the Carpenters’ Union for the past century. This is evidenced by the fact that two millwrights have served as General Presidents of the Brotherhood since its origin; Harry Lloyd served from 1896-1898 and James Kirby from 1913-1915.

Times have really changed. The responsibilities and functions of today’s millwright have shifted as society has become more complex and industry oriented. Over the past several hundred years, the working world has changed drastically. The millwright, in turn, has successfully adapted himself to these changes, and remains an integral part of the United Brotherhood and of today’s working community.