Olaf Tveitmoe

Olaf Anders Tveitmoe (December 7, 1865 – March 19, 1923) was a Norwegian-born American teacher, newspaper editor, and labor leader. Tveitmoe was a leading trade union functionary for the construction industry in the state of California for the first two decades of the 20th century. He was the founding editor of the weekly newspaper Organized Labor, which he edited for 20 years. He is best remembered for tangential trade union activity as the founder and president from 1904 to 1912 of the Asiatic Exclusion League, a political organization which sought to bolster American domestic wage levels by restricting immigration from Japan, China, and Korea.

Biography

Early years Olaf Anders Tveitmoe was born at Valdres in Oppland, Norway. He emigrated to the United States in 1882, settling in Holden Township, Goodhue County, Minnesota, where he worked variously as a farmhand. Located near the town of Toledo in Lincoln County, Oregon and named after popular socialist novelist Edward Bellamy, Bellamy Colony briefly engaged in agricultural activity and petty manufacturing before failing to gain economic critical mass and failing.

Trade union career

In 1897 Tveitmoe moved from Oregon to San Francisco, California. He remained in that position until 1900, when he was elected recording and corresponding secretary of the San Francisco Building Trades Council. In this role he became the right-hand man of P. H. McCarthy, chief of the San Francisco Building Trades Council and the controversial mayor of San Francisco from 1910 to 1912. Despite being considered a loyalist, however, Tveitmoe immediately refused to attend Abe Ruef's "caucus meetings," rumored to be where the Union Labor boss directed his men on how to vote. Tveitmoe still supported Schmitz for the Union Labor nomination in 1907 against reformist challenger Michael Casey.

Anti-Asian Exclusion League In March 1905, concerned by the prospect of unrestricted immigration from the populous low wage countries of Asia into the United States and its potential impact upon wage rates, the Labor Council of San Francisco launched a campaign against further Japanese immigration into the country, with Tveitmoe placed in the leading role. This was followed on May 7, 1905 with a mass meeting at Metropolitan Hall in San Francisco chaired by Tveitmoe, at which was established the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League. In 1907 this organization changed its name to the Asian Exclusion League, with Tveitmoe remaining head of this organization until 1912.

Death and legacy Tveitmoe died in Santa Cruz, California. He was 57 years old at the time of his death.

Personal life In the spring of 1889, Tveitmoe was married to a fellow émigré from Valdres, Ingeborg Ødegaard. The first of the couple's six children would be born in May 1891.

Footnotes

Works Olaf Tveitmoe, "Bellamy Beamings" Industrial Freedom [Edison, WA], whole no. 40 (Feb. 4, 1899), pg. 2.