On June 21, 1877, four Irish-born miners sat in a Pennsylvania cell waiting for their death sentence to be answered by a hangman’s noose. The four men were accused of murder and of having been members of the notorious Molly Maguires. Their conviction and execution rested on the testimony of a single Pinkerton detective. This […]
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On the evening of February 11, 1968, more than 700 sanitation workers packed into the Labor Temple in Memphis to discuss their increasing frustration with the workplace. During this time of racial segregation, the occupation of sanitation workers was viewed as demeaning and fit only for African Americans. For years, tension had been building between […]
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On February 27, 1937, Floyd Loew. An organizer from the Waiters and Waitresses Union, stood among the bustling Saturday afternoon crowd in a Woolworth’s Five-and-Dime store in Detroit. At 11 a.m. Loew yelled out, “Strike, girls! Strike!” Every worker immediately stopped in her tracks, leaving customers and management bewildered. Loew had no idea those three […]
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Mass production industries were developing on a wide scale in the early 1930’s. The need for new methods of union organizing became abundantly clear. The leadership within the American Federation of Labor (AFL), argued that these new industries should be organized as in the past on a craft basis. This often meant that there could […]
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In the early evening of May 15, 1923, Upton Sinclair stood before a crowd on Liberty Hill in San Pedro. Known for years as a muckraker and radical author, Sinclair had a gift for using words to challenge social injustice. In 1906, he published The Jungle, a novel that told of the atrocious working conditions […]
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Not long ago, American workers spent the majority of their waking hours ar work. It was common for them to toil six 12-hour days a week in their jobs. In many cases, shifts often exceeded 13 to 14 hours of work in a day. As trade unions struggled to secure their rightful place in society, […]
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Among the gravesites in the old Union Miners Cemetery in Mount Olive, Illinois, there stands a monument dedicated to and elderly woman, Mary “Mother” Jones. Standing no more than five feet tall, clad in a black dress with just a touch of lace at her throat and wrists, Mother Jones was an iconic view of […]
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Above the bustling streets of New York City, just before closing time on March 11, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Asch Building of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. Within minutes, the quiet spring afternoon erupted into chaos, destroying the lives of young workers. Within the thirty minutes it took to […]
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There are few living today who would associate the right to freedom of speech with the image of a scrappy hobo sitting in a jail cell. But in 1909, this very image defined what became known as the Spokane Free Speech fight. The conflict began with lumber and agricultural workers resisting a profit-making scheme hatched […]
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