Andrew Furuseth

Andrew Furuseth (March 17, 1854 – January 22, 1938) of Åsbygda, Hedmark, Norway was a merchant seaman and an American labor leader. Furuseth was active in the formation of two influential maritime unions: the Sailors' Union of the Pacific and the International Seamen's Union, and served as the executive of both for decades.

Furuseth was largely responsible for the passage of four reforms that changed the lives of American mariners. Two of them, the Maguire Act of 1895 and the White Act of 1898, ended corporal punishment and abolished imprisonment for deserting a vessel.

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. In his later years, he was known as "the Old Viking".

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

Family and early years

Furuseth was born Anders Andreassen Nilsen, the fifth child of Andreas and Marthe Nielsen. The family had recently moved to a cottage in Furuseth in Romedal Municipality (part of the present-day Stange Municipality). In accordance with local custom, the boy was named after his residence.

In 1855, the family moved to Damstuen where the elder Nilsen took a low-paying job working at a dam. Five more children were born, causing the family financial distress. At age eight, Furuseth was sent to work for a farmer, Jonas S. Schjotz in nearby Ostby (also in Romedal Municipality). Schjotz, noticing the young Furuseth's keen mind, sent him to a private Lutheran school.

On June 2, 1870, Furuseth moved to Christiania. He worked as a clerk and attempted to enter a military academy. Although he was ultimately unsuccessful in this bid, he did develop skills with the English, German, Dutch and French languages, which not only brought him employment at the time but would become very useful later in his life.

Career at sea Furuseth started his career sailing on a barque out of Drammen, Norway. 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. on July 29, 1891, that Furuseth merged the Coast Seamen's Union with the Steamship Sailor's Union to create the Sailors' Union of the Pacific, a union which is still active today. With the exception of a two-month period when he shipped out as a fisherman, he was the head of the SUP until 1935. In the wake of the strike's success, Furuseth supported the newly-formed Union Labor Party. He later 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.

In 1908, he was again elected to the ISU's presidency and served in that office until 1938.

In 1934, Furuseth was involved San Francisco's longshoremen's strike. The strike led to the unionization of all West Coast ports of the United States.

Furuseth died on January 22, 1938. His body lay in repose at the Department of Labor. He was the first labor leader honored in this way. gave the eulogy. He had attended every meeting of the American Federation of Labor since Grover Cleveland's administration. He never took a salary higher than the men he represented. There is a monument to Furuseth in Åsbygda, Norway There is a monument to Furuseth outside the entrance to the Sailors' Union of the Pacific Hall in San Francisco, California. Inscribed on it is the "Furuseth Credo": "You can put me in jail. But you cannot give me narrower quarters than as a seaman I have always had. You cannot give me coarser food than I have always eaten. You cannot make me lonelier than I have always been." The monument was originally placed at the Ferry building during the mayoralty of Angelo Rossi, it was later moved. The Andrew Furuseth Memorial Bust is at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. The liberty ship was named after Furuseth. A crewman aboard this ship told the story that would eventually become the Philadelphia Experiment. Furuseth Hall, at the United States Merchant Marine Academy houses the Federal Security Department and Academy Police Department, and the Department of Naval Science, a US Navy activity responsible for the academy's Strategic Sealift Officer Program.