Insurrections, Strikes and Riots that Shaped
American History
History Book Club
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
Bread
and Roses Strike, Lawrence, 1912
Wednesday, March
29, 2023: Insurrections, Strikes and Riots that Shaped American
History. Our history is peppered with uprisings, large and
small. Read about some and show how they affected life and our laws. For
instance: Shay’s Rebellion, 1786– 1787), uprising in western Massachusetts in opposition to high taxes and stringent economic conditions. The Whiskey Rebellion (also known as
the Whiskey Insurrection) was a violent tax protest in the
United States (1791-1794) during the presidency of George
Washington. The most violent and widespread
insurrection was the Civil War In Boston we had the 1919 Boston
Police Strike. Also, scores of riots like the 1885 anti-Chinese riot in
Wyoming, the anti-Greek riot in Omaha, 1909; the 1921 Anti-Black riot
and destruction in Tulsa, and the 1968 riots after Martin Luther King
was assassinated. [Proposed by Mary Beth Smith and Bill Tobin].
You know this
story. Owners of
textile mills in New England city draw upon abundant and cheap immigrant labor
to run their business. Pay is low, and
new Americans, most who speak only German, French, Polish, Italian but no
English go to work. Mill owners know that they can squeeze everything from
people who will work hard and are desperately dependent upon those wages. If
they strike, few have any savings to sustain them while they are not at work.
Labor
organizations. Most of the new immigrants were approached by the
International Workers of the World and only 300 had paid dues to join. The IWW
had mottoes like: “Labor is entitled to all it produces.” And “Abolish the wage
system.” IWW’s historic mission was to
do away with capitalism.
Skilled, English-speaking workers joined the United
Textile Workers of America.
Living conditions. And how did
they live? In four-story wooden tenements, sharing a water closet with the
neighbors. Access to back facing
apartments is along narrow hallways, barely lighted. Fires are frequent.
A worker’s weekly pay may be less than
ten dollars,($8.76 average) and then there’s rent to pay. Probably the
furniture is being paid for at a dollar a week. And then they need food. If
they have small children, the wife may not be able to work, or the family can
pay a neighbor for child care. Then they need clothing.
In 1912 the population of Lawrence was
85,992, and 60,000 of those people depended solely on the mills for their
livelihood.
Helpful legislation. In 2011
the Massachusetts legislature approved a bill to protect women and children
from overwork, and so reduced maximum hours worked from 56 to 54 per week for
them. With average pay of 16¢ per hour
this was huge.
Communication from mill owners to
workers was poor even to English speakers, and non-existent to many who spoke
no English.
On the day that workers received
their pay envelopes with hourly reductions all hell broke loose. Workers
left their looms, knife-wielding strikers overwhelmed security gates and slashed
machine belts, threads and cloth. They tore bobbins and shuttles off machines.
They
threw chunks of ice at buildings, and broke windows. Mill owners called the
police, Governor Coolidge called out the U.S. Army state militia, who marched
into town with fixed bayonets.
All the ingredients were in place for
real bloodshed: IWW Communists calling some of the shots, police and army
units, many not too happy about all these raging immigrants. Most of the strikers could not understand English
and at the start there was no effort to communicate with them.
Bread and Roses. One group of
women carried a banner proclaiming “We want bread and roses, too!” This
signified the respect due them as women, rather than just as cheap labor. The
slogan caught on and got picked up in a new song.
As we go marching, marching
In the beauty of the day
A million darkened kitchens
A thousand mill lofts gray
Are touched with all the radiance
That a sudden sun discloses
For the people hear us singing
Bread and roses, bread and roses
As we go marching, marching
We battle too for men
For they are women's children
And we mother them again
Our lives shall not be sweetened
From birth until life closes
Hearts starve as well as bodies
Give us bread, but give us roses
James Oppenheim (1882
-1932)
Bread and Roses - YouTube Music - Bing video
The strike gained
national attention. President Taft asked his attorney general to investigate,
and Congress began a hearing on the strike. Striking workers, including
children who dropped out of school at age 14 or younger to work in the
factories, described the brutal working conditions and poor pay inside the
Lawrence mills. A third of mill workers, whose life expectancy was less than 40
years, died within a decade of taking their jobs.
With two deaths of
strikers, and growing attention to working conditions, the public tide turned in favor of the
strikers for good. The mill owners were ready for a deal and agreed to many of
the workers’ demands. The two sides agreed to a 15% wage hike, a rise in
overtime compensation, and a promise not to retaliate against strikers. On
March 14, the nine-week strike ended as 15,000 workers gathered on Lawrence
Common and shouted their agreement to accept the offer.
The Bread and Roses Strike was not just a victory for Lawrence
workers. By the end of March, 275,000 New England textile workers received similar raises, and other industries
followed suit.
The strike which began January
11 and was finally settled on March 14, 1912.
-end-
2023
Japanese Zero fighter, 1941
The beginning of the Meiji Era
in 1868 marked the introduction of a secretive, closed world to the world. Soon
Japan joined the industrial era, modernized government and society and became a
modern nation, building an armed force that fought China and won in 1894, defeated the Russian fleet in 1905,
joined the allies against Germany in World War I, had the third largest navy in
the world by 1920, and attacked the United States, Great Britain, France, and
the Netherlands and joined the Axis in World War II. Read about the dazzling
rise of Japan up to its defeat. Read any book about this history.
What led to it? Examine
all or part of the rapid change of a country closed off from the world, then
the Black Ships of Commodore Perry and the rapid entry of Japan to the world
and the world to Japan. [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn]
Wednesday, May 31, 2023: Presidents who redefined the presidency and shaped
the United States. Here is your chance, based upon your reading about American
presidents, to tell us your choice for a president who made a difference in
growing the country:
E.g.: Jefferson and the Louisiana Purchase,
Polk with acquisition of Texas, California, etc.; OR took us to
war and fought: E.g.: Madison, 1812; Lincoln, Civil War; McKinley, Spanish-American;
Wilson, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Nixon, G.H.W.
Bush, G.W. Bush, etc. OR changed the tempo of governing, E,g, Lincoln,
Kennedy, Reagan, Trump. [Suggested by David M. Shribman]
St.
Lawrence Seaway
Wednesday, June 28, 2023: France
and the World: Read about history of
France for a time that interests you. Exploration of the St. Lawrence and
development of Canada; alliance with young revolutionary America; Louis XIV,
Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte, North and West Africa, WWI, WWII, Vichy,
DeGaulle, Dienbienphu, Post -WWII. [Suggested by Ellen Canavan.]
2. Art periods in
History: Zoom in on Rococo, Baroque, Mannerism, Renaissance, or
others, including Oriental, Prehistoric-- and find how it relates, who was
involved, what caused it or what it caused.
