Robert Hartmann
Robert Hartmann was born in Philadelphia PA to Frank J. Hartmann Sr. and his wife Elizabeth on July 1, 1876. The elder Hartmann was a cigar maker by trade. The Hartmann family lived at 1215 Clover Street in Philadelphia. By 1887 his family moved to 2829 Cleveland Avenue in the Cramer Hill section of what was then Stockton Township. Frank J. Hartmann Sr. acquired a cigar factory from Abner Sparks Sr., and in the 1890s built a new factory on the same location, 3rd and Arch Streets.
Although Frank J. Hartmann Sr. was a prosperous businessman, he was quite sympathetic to the emerging labor movement. He was an ardent supporter of the worker's right to form unions. This building was the first in Camden to be erected with all-union labor. Frank J. Hartmann Sr. made his building available to union organizers such as Peter McGuire to hold meetings there in the movement's early days. As evidenced by the May 19, 1964 news article, his importance to the labor movement in Camden and nationally cannot be understated.
Robert Hartmann "grew up" in Camden's labor movement, where Peter McGuire, the "father of Labor Day" was an influential figure up until the years immediately preceding his death in 1906. When the Central Labor Union was formed in Camden in 1908, Robert Hartmann was its first president.
Robert Hartmann married around 1897. A daughter Mildred was born in April of 1898. In June of 1900 the Hartmanns were living at 37 Warren Street, just off Wright Avenue. The 1910 Census lists Robert and Ella Hartmann and their children Robert Jr. and Mildred at 818 Clinton Street. He was then working in the family cigar business. The 1934 Camden City Directory shows the Hartmanns at 127 South 34th Street.
The 1920 Census shows Robert Hartmann, his wife Ella, and son Robert Jr., daughter Mildred and her husband Luther Harris at 16 North 23rd Street in East Camden. He was then still working in the family cigar manufacturing business. The Hartmann family was still on North 23rd Street in April of 1930. Robert Hartmann was then working as a watchman at the RCA Victor factory. He later moved to 1042 Cooper Street, where he resided in the late 1940s. By 1956 he had moved to 182 Boyd Street in East Camden, where he remained through at least the fall of 1959. He was living in West Collingswood in the spring of 1964. Robert Hartmann Sr. was last a resident of Audubon NJ. He passed away in April of 1967.
Brother Joseph S. Hartmann remained in the cigar business his entire professional life, and conducted a store at 308 Federal Street in the late 1940s. Brother Frank J. Hartmann Jr. was a Camden city commissioner in the 1930s.
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23rd Street
23rd Street originates in the former Pavonia section — now Cramer Hill — and extends south to Federal Street in East Camden, noted in the 1887–1888 Camden City Directory. The James G. Blaine School stood at the southeast corner of 23rd Street and Wayne Avenue.
McGuire, Hartmann Among The Early Organizers of Labor in City
A Camden Courier-Post retrospective on the origins of organized labor in Camden, centering on Peter J. McGuire and on the father-and-son cigarmakers Frank and Robert Hartmann, whose Third and Arch Streets factory housed the movement's earliest meetings. Robert Hartmann was elected first president of the Camden County Central Labor Union in 1908.