teaching american history extractive labor images
TRANSCRIPT
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