Local residents continue campaign for road safety along the B6318 hexham-courant.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from hexham-courant.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Say “labor” and “Akron” and the likely response will be “rubber.” That’s as it should be, but in “Labor in Akron, 1825-1945” the historian John Tully reaches back far earlier, even as far back as the founding of the city.
The laborers who dug the Ohio & Erie Canal, mostly Irish immigrants seeking opportunity after a famine and cholera epidemic, were paid a pittance and vulnerable to rattlesnakes and diseases like malaria. There were a few unorganized strikes, but conditions did not improve.
Other early labor activities included the forming of a carpenters’ union in 1837 and a factory workers’ strike in 1845. Akron was important in women’s rights, with early suffrage efforts and the momentous 1851 “Ain’t I A Woman” speech by Sojourner Truth.
Charissa Cheong
John Benjamin with his granddaughter in front of the Car Care Centre.
- Credit: Michael Benjamin
A Hackney car garage has closed its doors for the final time after a quarter of a century.
John Benjamin, alongside his wife and two sons, have worked to build the Car Care Centre on Rendlesham Road from the ground up.
The land where the Car Care Centre sits has now been bought by property developers, and John plans to move into semi-retirement.
Prior to 1994 when he set up the business, John was the manager of a company in east London; he wanted to open a garage “to serve the public and look after people in my neighbourhood”.