Letters From John H. Means To Bart Bryan

Letters From John H. Means To Bart Bryan

Two letters from John H. Means to Showing that the heating conditions in the shacks that Black workers at DISCO were terrible. The first letter on the 21st states there are multiple houses with black men from Alabama living in that have no heaters in them and Means want arrangements made for there to be heaters put in. The second Letter on the 24th is Means asking Bryan to send a carpenter over to the houses and have him lead the stove pipes through the rooms that have no heat so they can partially heat the rooms. He also states "it is important that I make these men as comfortable as possible". These letters show how DISCO did not care enough about their Black workers to keep them housed in better conditions but cared enough to want them to stay because of how they did the work that not many workers wanted so they gave them a little heat but still did not upgrade their housing fully.

John H. Means

Beaton, Elizabeth. “An African-American Community in Cape Breton, 1901-1904.” Acadiensis (Fredericton), vol. 24, no. 2, 1995, pp. 65–97.

Beatons Institute

October 21 & 24

Beaton Institute