Teaching American History

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Teaching American History

• Extractive labor images

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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

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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)

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Socialism / AnarchismAlbert and Lucy
ParsonsInternational Working Peoples Association

• Campaigned for eight-hour day
• Believed in unionism
• Wanted to abolish private ownership
• Study and Rifle Clubs
• The new science of dynamite

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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"

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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)

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Lucy Albert Parsons

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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

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Study and Rifle Clubsanarchism and education
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Haymarket Chicago 1886

• Mayday (May 1) general strike
• 700,000 workers demonstrate for the eight-hour
  day
• Police kill several workers

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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

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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

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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)

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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

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trading cards of the Haymarket Martyrs
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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

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the Knights of Labor
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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

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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

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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)

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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)

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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

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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

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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

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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

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The IWW (Wobblies)
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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

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IWW founding conventionChicago 1905

• Big Bill Haywood
• Eugene Debs
• Mother Jones
• Lucy Parsons (widow of Haymarket martyr Albert
  Parsons)

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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.

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Most important IWW-led strikes

• Goldfield, Nevada (miners, 19067)
• 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 (192728)

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Joe Hill of the IWW (Wobblies)

• Swedish immigrant (born Hillstrom)
• IWW songwriter
• Framed for murder and executed
• "Don't mourn organize!"

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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

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What the Wobblies wanted

• Against capitalism
• Revolutionary union
• One big union
• Workers should own industries
• Work toward a national general strike

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Miners Fight Back
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What will kill capitalism?
Why is the caption in Italian?