Site 1: Jonte Equen's Home — The Birth of the Association: The Screwmen's Benevolent Association Organized

A city adapts and adjusts to the growth of industry and each decade of change that it brings. As such, street names and building numbers change over the decades and centuries. In 1850, present-day Royal Street was named Casa Calvo. Jonte Equen’s home was at 51 Casa Calvo, which is now 300 Royal Street.

On November 18, 1850, after a long day compressing cotton bales into the holds of ships, 121 New Orleans screwmen gathered at the Royal Street home of Jonte Equen, near the Marigny neighborhood. They came to discuss forming an organization that would provide mutual aid, relief, and protection for men working one of the waterfront’s most demanding jobs.

Around November 25, 1850, eleven screwmen met to draft the bylaws of the Screwmen’s Benevolent Association and Equen’s home certainly continued to serve as an early gathering place for the organization.

Made up primarily of Irish and German immigrants, the association offered members support during illness, injury, and other hardships. It eventually became one of New Orleans’ most powerful labor organizations and helped establish organized labor on the city’s waterfront.

Equen’s home marks an important chapter in New Orleans labor history, when a group of waterfront workers came together to look after one another.

The home has long since been torn down and, is now a mid-1800s Greek Revival building with Creole commercial features. a wrought iron balcony located on the second floor, and the Royal Praline Company as a front facing tenant. Situated on the corner of Bienville and Royal Streets, the inside of the building is a far cry from what it must have been when it was Jonte Equen’s home. Bright and cheerful with large, tiled floors and yellow walls, the room boasts colorful confectionary; New Orleans’ delicacies such as beignet mix, chicory coffee, and of course, pralines. No one would ever guess that the first and strongest union in the South organized their association at the site where the Royal Praline Company now sits.