On This Day, 100 Years Ago?

January 12, 1912: Ten thousand textile workers, mostly women and immigrants, walked off the job in Lawrence, MA. marking the beginning of an explosive 8-week strike. The strikers would eventually number 25,000.  Strikers were clubbed, beaten, murdered, and had children were taken from them.  The IWW (Wobblies) sent some of the era’s best known organizers to help – Big Bill Haywood and the “Rebel Girl,” Elizabeth Gurley Flynn among them.  Congress intervened, and hearings were held where President Taft’s wife attended to listen to striker testimony.  Because of the national reaction to the brutality, and public sympathy, the strike was eventually won. 

Bread & Roses

It became known as the “Bread & Roses” strike…all because of the sign one female picketer carried, “We Want Bread, But Roses Too.”  The theme of Bread & Roses carries on today in many trade union struggles, signifying now as then that workers want not just economic benefits but also recognition of their basic human rights and dignity.

For more information about this landmark piece of American history and historic labor battle, please go here.  And thank a Union Woman for all they’ve done, and continue to do, to further the cause of worker’s rights.