Teaching American History

Extractive labor images

impossible dreams for marginal people

• Labor – the eight hour day

• Women – suffrage (the vote)

• Ex-slaves – real citizenship and autonomy (land)

• New Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe– a new home

Which strategy for labor?• Anarchistic Socialism (Albert Parsons, IWPA)

• Cooperatives (Terence Powderly, KOL)

• “More” (Samuel Gompers, AFL)

• Democratic Socialism (Eugene Debs, Socialist Party)

• Anarcho-Syndicalism (the IWW “Wobblies)

Socialism / AnarchismAlbert and Lucy Parsons

International Working People’s Association

• Campaigned for eight-hour day

• Believed in unionism • Wanted to abolish private

ownership• “Study and Rifle Clubs”• The “new science of

dynamite”

Just to shake things uplet's talk about Albert

Parsons• Starts out as

Confederate soldier• Switches to being a

Radical Republican• Calls Republicans

"the first labor party I joined"

Life takes a bite out of A.R. Parsons

• Marries Lucy Parsons (mixed Indian – Mexican – African American heritage)

• Joins the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 railroad strike, demands the eight-hour day

• Sees that (federal) violence decides the strike

• Like the violence of the Klan in Texas

• (this makes a big impression)

Lucy & Albert Parsons

Parsons joins everything!• Becomes Washington lobbyist for craft unions• Joins the Knights of Labor (tries to organize

everybody)• Joins the International Working Peoples

Association• Starts "Study and Rifle Clubs" to protect

demands for the eight-hour day• Vows to defend all strikers

Study and Rifle Clubsanarchism and education

Haymarket – Chicago 1886• Mayday (May 1) general

strike• 700,000 workers

demonstrate for the eight-hour day

• Police kill several workers

Protest rally against police violence

• Protest rally against police violence drawsabout 1000 people

• Late in the rally, about 200 protesters remain

• Police wait until governor leaves, then begin to beat up the crowd

A bomb mysteriously explodes near the police lines

• No one claimed to have thrown the bomb• Eight immigrants are arrested• Albert Parsons escaped but turns himself in (he's the

only non-immigrant arrested)• No evidence linking any of them to the bomb

Leslie's Illustrated Magazine, 15 May 1886.  

The Haymarket trials• Albert Parsons and four others are hung

• Another defendant kills himself in jail

• Three others sentenced to long prison terms (later pardoned)

The (temporary) end of labor solidarity

• Knights of Labor refuse to support the "Haymarket Martyrs"

• American Federation of Labor does (sort of)• Labor's dreams are crushed, and union

membership declines for several decades

trading cards of the Haymarket Martyrs

Haymarket What labor learned

• The end (for awhile) of the eight-hour day movement

• Don't call for sweeping social changes

• Take small actions, not general strikes

• Labor shrinks its dreams

the Knights of Labor

The beginnings of the KOL• Uriah Stephens and nine tailors• At first, a secret organization (after Masons)• Problems with Irish workers• Terence Powderly hired in 1881; drops secrecy• Changed from a craft union to an industrial union (skilled

and unskilled)• Equal pay for women and African Americans• Grew to 700,000 members by 1886• Included 95,000 African Americans• Not all-inclusive: against Chinese workers

Knights of Labor program• Eight-hour day

• No more child labor

• No more convict labor

• Progressive income tax

• Equal pay for equal work

• Government ownership of railroads and telegraphs

• Public lands for settlers, not speculators

• Cooperatives to replace wage labor

CooperativesTerence Powderly and the Knights of Labor

• Workers would own their own factories collectively

• Factories would still compete

• Not socialism (government would not own the factories)

Knights of Labor – initial victories

• At first, KOL opposed strikes

• New members radicalized the union

• Won the Union Pacific Strike of 1884

• Won the Wabash Railroad Strike of 1885

• Won Missouri Pacific Strike of 1886 (Jay Gould)

Jay Gould beats the KOL, 1886• Texas Pacific (Great

Southwest) Railroad strike

• “Give ‘em a rifle diet.”• “I can hire one half of the

working class to kill the other half.”

• KOL membership drops• KOL loses credibility with

rank and file when Powderly refuses to support the Haymarket martyrs

The American Federation of Labor

• Craft union – skilled workers only

• Most of these have served a seven year apprenticeship

• Many jobs require a license

• As a result, the union is largely white and male (women and people of color need not apply)

• Most conservative of the labor unions

American Federation of Labor (AFL)

Samuel Gompers • Accepted capitalism

• What does labor want? "More.“

• Wanted shorter hours, higher wages, better working conditions

• Change will come through collective bargaining

American Socialist PartyEugene Debs

• Ex-head of American Railway Union; led 1894 Pullman Strike (smashed by federal troops)

• Starts American Socialist Party, worked through elections

• Diverse membership, includes many women

• Wanted government ownership of big industry, vote for women, no child labor, right to strike

• Change will come by winning elections

The IWW (“Wobblies”)

Industrial Workers of the WorldBig Bill Haywood

• "The Wobblies"• Industrial union, came

out of Western mining strikes

• Especially big in Oregon and Washington

• Used strikes, boycotts, songs, and education

• Rejected political parties and elections

• Change will come through a national strike and the workers will take over

IWW founding conventionChicago 1905

• Big Bill Haywood

• Eugene Debs

• Mother Jones

• Lucy Parsons (widow of Haymarket martyr Albert Parsons)

Principal areas of strength

• the lumber camps of the Northwest

• dock workers in port cities

• in the wheat fields of the central states

• textiles

• mining areas.

Most important IWW-led strikes

• Goldfield, Nevada (miners, 1906–7)• Lawrence, Massachusetts (textile workers,

1912)• Paterson, N.J. (silk workers, 1913)• Mesabi range, Minnesota (iron miners, 1916)• the lumber camps of the Northwest (1917)• The Seattle General Strike (1919)• Colorado miners (1927–28)

Joe Hill of the IWW (Wobblies)

• Swedish immigrant (born Hillstrom)

• IWW songwriter• Framed for murder and

executed• "Don't mourn – organize!"

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn of the IWWthe original Wobbly "Rebel Girl"

• Joined the Wobblies at age 16• Great public speaker• Helped to organize the 1912

Lawrence, Mass. "Bread and Roses" strike

• A founder of the American Civil Liberties Union

• Against capitalism• Revolutionary

union• “One big union”• Workers should

own industries• Work toward a

national general strike

What the Wobblies wanted

Miners Fight Back