Download or read book Harvest Wobblies written by Greg Hall and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Increased Mechanization and the expansion of new markets transformed the face of American farming in the early decades of the twentieth century, especially in the American West. These changes demanded a new kind of agricultural worker--gone was the local farmhand, replaced by a cheap and temporary labor force of migrant and seasonal workers. Greg Hall's fascinating book analyzes how "harvest Wobblies," members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), organized these men, women, and sometimes children who had become so essential and yet so exploited on the farms of the West. Although harvest Wobblies worked in nearly all the western states, their stongholds were the Great Plains, California, and the Pacific Northwest, regions where harmers developed monocrop agriculture and where seasonal labor was indispensable come harvest time. Like their IWW brethren in logging camps and mines, the harvest Wobblies combined an effort to improve the lives of workers with harger revolutionary goals. Harvest Wobblies personified most of the indelible features of IWW membership: they were the militant casual laborers of the American West, riding the rails, living in hobo jungles, preaching revolution, and facing repression with innovative strategies, impassioned speech, humor, and song. Through trial and error, Wobbly organizers eventually implemented the idea of an industrial union in agriculture and helped the IWW to establish itself as a powerful force to be reckoned with by employers in the West. In tracing the rise and the eventual fall of the harvest Wobblies, Greg Hall examines the diverse and changing nature of the agricultural work force. He offers a social and cultural history of a union uniquely suited to organizing tens of thousands of migrant and seasonal workers. Harvest Wobblies will appeal to a broad audience of readers interested in labor history, the American West, U.S. agricultural history, and the history of the IWW.
Download or read book Oil Wheat Wobblies written by Nigel Anthony Sellars and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies, a radical labor union, played an important role in Oklahoma between the founding of the union in 1905 and its demise in 1930. In Oil, Wheat, & Wobblies, Nigel Anthony Sellars describes IWW efforts to organize migratory harvest hands and oil-field workers in the state and relationships between the union and other radical and labor groups such as the Socialist Party and the American Federation of Labor. Focusing on the emergence of migratory labor and the nature of the work itself in industrializing the region, Sellars provides a social history of labor in the Oklahoma wheat belt and the midcontinent oil fields. Using court cases and legislation, he examines the role of state and federal government in suppressing the union during World War I. Oil, What, & Wobblies concludes with a description of the IWW revival and subsequent decline after the war, suggesting that the decline is attributable more to the union's failure to adapt to postwar technological change, its rigid attachment to outmoded tactics, and its internal policy disputes, than to political repression. In Sellars's view, the failure of the IWW in Oklahoma largely explains the failure of both the IWW and the labor movement in the United States during the twenties.
Download or read book We Shall be All written by Melvyn Dubofsky and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dubofsky's careful historical treatment does not support or deny the ideology of the "Wobblies", but rather he attempts to understand the leadership and motivation of the early twentieth-century labor movement.
Download or read book Red Harvest written by Dashiell Hammett and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 2010-12-29 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The steadfast and sturdy Continental Op has been summoned to the town of Personville—known as Poisonville—a dusty mining community splintered by competing factions of gangsters and petty criminals. The Op has been hired by Donald Willsson, publisher of the local newspaper, who gave little indication about the reason for the visit. No sooner does the Op arrive, than the body count begins to climb . . . starting with his client. With this last honest citizen of Poisonville murdered, the Op decides to stay on and force a reckoning—even if that means taking on an entire town. Red Harvest is more than a superb crime novel: it is a classic exploration of corruption and violence in the American grain.
Download or read book Big Red Songbook written by Archie Green and published by PM Press. This book was released on 2016-05-01 with total page 673 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1905, representatives from dozens of radical labor groups came together in Chicago to form One Big Union—the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), known as the Wobblies. The union was a big presence in the labor movement, leading strikes, walkouts, and rallies across the nation. And everywhere its members went, they sang. Their songs were sung in mining camps and textile mills, hobo jungles and flop houses, and anywhere workers might be recruited to the Wobblies’ cause. The songs were published in a pocketsize tome called the Little Red Songbook, which was so successful that it’s been published continuously since 1909. In The Big Red Songbook, the editors have gathered songs from over three dozen editions, plus additional songs, rare artwork, personal recollections, discographies, and more into one big all-embracing book. IWW poets/composers strove to nurture revolutionary consciousness. Each piece, whether topical, hortatory, elegiac, or comic served to educate, agitate, and emancipate workers. A handful of Wobbly numbers have become classics, still sung by labor groups and folk singers. They include Joe Hill’s sardonic “The Preacher and the Slave” (sometimes known by its famous phrase “Pie in the Sky”) and Ralph Chaplin’s “Solidarity Forever.” Songs lost or found, sacred or irreverent, touted or neglected, serious or zany, singable or not, are here. The Wobblies and their friends have been singing for a century. May this comprehensive gathering simultaneously celebrate past battles and chart future goals. In addition to the 250+ songs, writings are included from Archie Green, Franklin Rosemont, David Roediger, Salvatore Salerno, Judy Branfman, Richard Brazier, James Connell, Carlos Cortez, Bill Friedland, Virginia Martin, Harry McClintock, Fred Thompson, Adam Machado, and many more.
Download or read book Beyond the Rebel Girl written by Heather Mayer and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A history of Pacific Northwest women's roles in the Industrial Workers of the World organization between 1905 and 1924"--
Download or read book Encyclopedia of U S Labor and Working class History written by Eric Arnesen and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2007 with total page 1734 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Under the Iron Heel written by Ahmed White and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2024-02-13 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2022 International Labor History Association Book of the Year A dramatic, deeply researched account of how legal repression and vigilantism brought down the Wobblies—and how the destruction of their union haunts us to this day. In 1917, the Industrial Workers of the World was rapidly gaining strength and members. Within a decade, this radical union was effectively destroyed, the victim of the most remarkable campaign of legal repression and vigilantism in American history. Under the Iron Heel is the first comprehensive account of this campaign. Founded in 1905, the IWW offered to the millions of workers aggrieved by industrial capitalism the promise of a better world. But its growth, coinciding with World War I and the Russian Revolution and driven by uncompromising militancy, was seen by powerful capitalists and government officials as an existential threat that had to be eliminated. In Under the Iron Heel, Ahmed White documents the torrent of legal persecution and extralegal, sometimes lethal violence that shattered the IWW. In so doing, he reveals the remarkable courage of those who faced this campaign, lays bare the origins of the profoundly unequal and conflicted nation we know today, and uncovers disturbing truths about the law, political repression, and the limits of free speech and association in class society.
Download or read book The Wobblies in Their Heyday written by Eric Thomas Chester and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-08-26 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War I, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) rose to prominence as an effective, militant union and then was destroyed by a devastating campaign of repression launched by the federal government. This book documents the rise and fall of this important industrial labor organization. The Industrial Workers of the World—or "Wobblies," as they were known—included legendary figures from U.S. labor history. Joe Hill, "Big Bill" Haywood, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn have become a part of American popular folklore. In this book, author Eric T. Chester shows just how dynamic a force the IWW was during its heyday during World War I, and how determined the federal government was to crush this union—a campaign of repression that remains unique in U.S. history. This work utilizes a wide array of archival sources, many of them never used before, thereby giving readers a clearer view and better understanding of what actually happened. The book leads with an examination of the three key events in the history of the IWW: the Wheatfield, CA, confrontation; the Bisbee, AZ, deportation; and the strike of copper miners in Butte, MT. The second part of the book deconstructs the IWW's responses to World War I, the coordinated attack by the federal government upon the union, and how the union unraveled under this attack.
Download or read book Break Their Haughty Power written by Eugene Nelson and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joe Murphy, chased out of his Missouri home town by anti-Catholic bigots, hopped aboard a freight train & headed west for the wheat harvest. Within weeks, the 13-year-old Joe became a labor activist & organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or "Wobblies"). Eugene Nelson, a long-time friend of Joe Murphy, recounts many labor & free-speech struggles through the eyes of "Kid Murphy." The Wobblies were a dynamic mass movement in the 1920's, & this biographical novel relates Murphy's adventures in the wheat fields, lumber camps, & on the high seas. Historical events include the 1919 Centralia massacre in Washington State; the Colorado coal miners' strike of 1927; & the 1931 strike by workers building Boulder Dam. Nelson also relates the young Murphy's reflections on meeting Helen Keller, Eugene Debs, & Bill Haywood. EUGENE NELSON was born in Modesto, California, & wandered the West as worker & poet. In the 1960's he worked with Cesar Chavez's farmworkers' union in Texas. He has written several novels & nonfiction works on the experiences of Mexican migrant workers. "We must have been the same kind of travelers," Jack Kerouac once wrote to Nelson. "You're a natural born writer, a pure storyteller."
Download or read book They Are All Red Out Here written by Jeffrey A. Johnson and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2014-10-20 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of early-twentieth-century America’s most fertile grounds for political radicalism, the Pacific Northwest produced some of the most dedicated and successful socialists the country has ever seen. As a radicalized labor force emerged in mining, logging, and other extractive industries, socialists employed intensive organizational and logistical skills to become an almost permanent third party that won elections and shook the confidence of establishment rivals. At the height of Socialist Party influence just before World War I, a Montana member declared, “They are all red out here.” In this first book to fully examine the development of the American Socialist Party in the Northwest, Jeffrey A. Johnson draws a sharp picture of one of the most vigorous left-wing organizations of this era. Relying on party newspapers, pamphlets, and correspondence, he allows socialists to reveal their own strategies as they pursued their agendas in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. And he explores how the party gained sizable support in Butte, Spokane, and other cities seldom associated today with left-wing radicalism. “They Are All Red Out Here” employs recent approaches to labor history by restoring rank-and-file workers and party organizers as active participants in shaping local history. The book marks a major contribution to the ongoing debate over why socialism never grew deep roots in American soil and no longer thrives here. It is a work of political and labor history that uncovers alternative social and political visions in the American West.
Download or read book Hoboes written by Mark Wyman and published by Hill and Wang. This book was released on 2010-04-27 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the railroad stretched its steel rails across the American West in the 1870s, it opened up a vast expanse of territory with very few people but enormous agricultural potential: a second Western frontier, the garden West. Agriculture quickly followed the railroads, making way for Kansas wheat and Colorado sugar beets and Washington apples. With this new agriculture came an unavoidable need for harvest workers—for hands to pick the apples, cotton, oranges, and hops; to pull and top the sugar beets; to fill the trays with raisin grapes and apricots; to stack the wheat bundles in shocks to be pitched into the maw of the threshing machine. These were not the year-round hired hands but transients who would show up to harvest the crop and then leave when the work was finished. Variously called bindlestiffs, fruit tramps, hoboes, and bums, these men—and women and children—were vital to the creation of the West and its economy. Amazingly, it is an aspect of Western history that has never been told. In Hoboes: Bindlestiffs, Fruit Tramps, and the Harvesting of the West, the award-winning historian Mark Wyman beautifully captures the lives of these workers. Exhaustively researched and highly original, this narrative history is a detailed, deeply sympathetic portrait of the lives of these hoboes, as well as a fresh look at the settling and development of the American West.
Download or read book Indispensable Outcasts written by Frank Tobias Higbie and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Often overlooked in the history of Progressive Era labor, the hoboes who rode the rails in search of seasonal work have nevertheless secured a place in the American imagination. The stories of the men who hunted work between city and countryside, men alternately portrayed as either romantic adventurers or degenerate outsiders, have not been easy to find. Nor have these stories found a comfortable home in either rural or labor histories. Indispensable Outcasts weaves together history, anthropology, gender studies, and literary analysis to reposition these workers at the center of Progressive Era debates over class, race, manly responsibility, community, and citizenship. Combining incisive cultural criticism with the empiricism of a more traditional labor history, Frank Tobias Higbie illustrates how these so-called marginal figures were in fact integral to the communities they briefly inhabited and to the cultural conflicts over class, masculinity, and sexuality they embodied. He draws from life histories, the investigations of social reformers, and the organizing materials of the Industrial Workers of the World and presents a complex and compelling portrait of hobo life, from its often violent and dangerous working conditions to its ethic of "transient mutuality" that enabled survival and resistance on the road. More than a study of hobo life, this interdisciplinary book is also a meditation on the possibilities for writing history from the bottom up, as well as a frank discussion of the ways historians' fascination with personal narrative has colored their construction and presentation of history.
Download or read book A Companion to American Agricultural History written by R. Douglas Hurt and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2022-06-08 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a solid foundation for understanding American agricultural history and offers new directions for research A Companion to American Agricultural History addresses the key aspects of America’s complex agricultural past from 8,000 BCE to the first decades of the twenty-first century. Bringing together more than thirty original essays by both established and emerging scholars, this innovative volume presents a succinct and accessible overview of American agricultural history while delivering a state-of-the-art assessment of modern scholarship on a diversity of subjects, themes, and issues. The essays provide readers with starting points for their exploration of American agricultural history—whether in general or in regards to a specific topic—and highlights the many ways the agricultural history of America is of integral importance to the wider American experience. Individual essays trace the origin and development of agricultural politics and policies, examine changes in science, technology, and government regulations, offer analytical suggestions for new research areas, discuss matters of ethnicity and gender in American agriculture, and more. This Companion: Introduces readers to a uniquely wide range of topics within the study of American agricultural history Provides a narrative summary and a critical examination of field-defining works Introduces specific topics within American agricultural history such as agrarian reform, agribusiness, and agricultural power and production Discusses the impacts of American agriculture on different groups including Native Americans, African Americans, and European, Asian, and Latinx immigrants Views the agricultural history of America through new interdisciplinary lenses of race, class, and the environment Explores depictions of American agriculture in film, popular music, literature, and art A Companion to American Agricultural History is an essential resource for introductory students and general readers seeking a concise overview of the subject, and for graduate students and scholars wanting to learn about a particular aspect of American agricultural history.
Download or read book Wobblies of the World written by Peter Cole and published by Pluto Press (UK). This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the global nature of the radical union, The Industrial Workers of the World
Download or read book Power and Control in the Imperial Valley written by Benny J Andrés and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-27 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Power and Control in the Imperial Valley examines the evolution of irrigated farming in the Imperial-Mexicali Valley, an arid desert straddling the California–Baja California border. Bisected by the international boundary line, the valley drew American investors determined to harness the nearby Colorado River to irrigate a million acres on both sides of the border. The “conquest” of the environment was a central theme in the history of the valley. Colonization in the valley began with the construction of a sixty-mile aqueduct from the Colorado River in California through Mexico. Initially, Mexico held authority over water delivery until settlers persuaded Congress to construct the All-American Canal. Control over land and water formed the basis of commercial agriculture and in turn enabled growers to use the state to procure inexpensive, plentiful immigrant workers.
Download or read book Always on Strike written by Arnold Stead and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2014 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " The governor] asked me what we would do if the companies did not yield to our demands. I told him we would call everyman out of the mines. Then he said that if we did, that he would place them under Federal control. I laughed and told him we would call out every worker in the country, agriculture workers, lumbermen, munitions workers, miners, mechanics and all classes of working men. He said 'Why, man, you wouldn't do that. This country is at war.' I said ' Governor, I don't care what country your country is fighting. I am fighting for the solidarity of labor " --From the speech for which Frank Little was murdered in Butte, Montana Frank Little is considered by some to be the greatest organizer produced by the U.S. labor movement, and yet precious little has been written about the famous Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) agitator. Little was a key leader of the country's first free speech fights, organized a number of mass strikes, and was considered such a threat to corporate interests that he was lynched by company thugs for decry attempts at strike breaking. Police and government officials not only turned a blind eye to his murder, they later used his words and actions to justify a campaign to scapegoat and persecute other members of the IWW. Always on Strike chronicles and critically engages with Little's exploits in hopes of exposing a new generation of radicals to his life, legacy and politics. Featuring cover art from a portrait of Frank Little by Keith Seidel, keithseidel.com
