Early Life
Curran was born on Manhattan's Lower East Side. His father died when he was two years old, and his mother boarded with another family. He attended parochial school, but when he was 14 he was expelled during the seventh grade for truancy.
He worked as a caddy and factory worker before finding employment in 1922 in the United States Merchant Marine. He worked as an able seaman and boatswain, washing dishes in restaurants when not at sea and sleeping on a Battery Park bench at night. It was during this time that he received his lifelong nickname "Big Joe."
Curran joined the International Seamen's Union (or ISU; the remnants of which would become the Seafarers International Union), but was not active in the union at first.
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