Encyclopedia Of Detroit

Judson Grenell, born in New York in 1847, was printer, reporter, activist, and Michigan legislator. Grenell settled in New Haven, Connecticut, as a typesetter and served as financial secretary of the local printers’ union where he met his future wife, Mary Thorpe.

In 1876, Grenell moved to Detroit to take charge of the composing room of the Michigan Christian Herald, a weekly Baptist publication. At a union meeting, Grenell first observed socialist organizer Joseph Labadie and was attracted to his aggressive dynamism, which was opposite to Grenell’s own reserve and self-confessed lack of “personal magnetism.”

The two found themselves working in the same Larned Street print shop – Gulley, Bornman, and Company. They agreed that the labor issue was an international problem and that trade unions were not doing enough for their fellow union members. Together with Labadie in 1877, Grenell launched The Socialist, the first of numerous Detroit labor publications in which Grenell would be involved. Others include The Three Stars and the Labor Review.

Grenell was elected to the Michigan legislature in 1886 as a Labor-Republican candidate where he sponsored many reform measures. After 25 years as labor editor at the Detroit News, Grenell was able to reflect on many of the reforms that were gained, including: a shorter working day, equal pay for equal work for both sexes, improved factory sanitation, and an increasing wage rate. He saw progress toward the curbing of monopolies, ballot reform, women’s rights, and the single tax. Grenell passed away in 1930.