24 Facts About Andrew Furuseth

Andrew Furuseth of Asbygda, Hedmark, Norway was a merchant seaman and an American labor leader.

Andrew Furuseth was largely responsible for the passage of four reforms that changed the lives of American mariners.

Andrew Furuseth was credited as the key figure behind drafting and enacting the Seamen's Act of 1915, hailed by many as "The Magna Carta of the Sea" and the Jones Act of 1920 which governs the workers' compensation rights of sailors and the use of foreign vessels in domestic trade.

Andrew Furuseth was a founding member of the xenophobic organization Asiatic Exclusion League in May 1905.

Andrew Furuseth was born Anders Andreassen Nilsen, the fifth child of Andreas and Marthe Nielsen.

At age eight, Furuseth was sent to work for a farmer, Jonas S Schjotz in nearby Ostby, Romedal.

Andrew Furuseth worked as a clerk and attempted to enter a military academy.

Andrew Furuseth went to sea in 1873 and sailed aboard ships under the Norwegian, Swedish, British, and American flags until coming ashore in San Francisco, California, in August 1880.

Andrew Furuseth briefly pursued a career in the fishing industry near Portland, Oregon.

The Coast Seamen's Union was formed while Andrew Furuseth was at sea, but he joined within three months of its formation, on June 3,1885.

Andrew Furuseth was an important backer of the successful legislation known as the White Act of 1898, which among other things abolished corporal punishment on American-flag ships and abolished imprisonment for desertion in American ports.

Together with Walter MacArthur, secretary of the Coast Seamen's Union, Andrew Furuseth compiled and published the so-called "Red Record", an inventory of the various brutalities and oppressions practiced upon seamen by officers and shoreside thugs.

Andrew Furuseth's master contracted with the keeper of a Tacoma boarding house to recruit sailors for the voyage.

Less than a year after the birth of the ISU, Andrew Furuseth was involved in a meeting in Chicago, Illinois, in which a federation of maritime unions called the National Union of Seamen of America was created.

Andrew Furuseth was chosen as the ISU's president in 1897 and served in this position until 1899.

Andrew Furuseth took part in the founding meeting of the Asiatic Exclusion League in May 1905, which was almost immediately successful in pressuring the San Francisco Board of Education to segregate Asian school children.

The strike of 1919 was a great success for Andrew Furuseth, resulting in the highest peacetime wages ever for deep sea sailors.

Andrew Furuseth charged that "radicals" from the Industrial Workers of the World were infiltrating the SUP and demanded they cease activities with the Maritime Federation.

Andrew Furuseth had lived in San Francisco's Embarcadero for 40 years, and was concerned the strike could lead to the kind of violence experienced in the recent Auto-Lite and the Minneapolis Teamsters strikes.

Andrew Furuseth's body lay in repose at the Department of Labor.

Andrew Furuseth was the first labor leader honored in this way.

Andrew Furuseth had attended every meeting of the American Federation of Labor since Grover Cleveland's administration.

Andrew Furuseth never took a salary higher than the men he represented.

Andrew Furuseth's body was cremated and his ashes scattered on March 21,1938, aboard the SS Schoharoe in the mid-Atlantic, "as far from land as possible", according to his own request.