Labor History in 2:00

August 31 - Why We March

On this day in Labor History the year was 1991. Three thousand five hundred buses rolled into Washington, D.C. 

They were loaded with protesters, there to participate in Solidarity Day.  

August 30 - The Battle of Blair Mountain

On this day in Labor History the year was 1921. That was the day that one of most pitched battles in US labor history, the “Battle of Blair Mountain” began in West Virginia.  Coal fueled the engines of industry, keeping the trains moving and the steel mills humming.  

August 29 - The Lusty Lady Organizes

On this day in Labor History the year was 1996.  That was the day that workers at the Lusty Lady strip club in San Francisco made their final push to make their case for the right to join a union. They made history by winning the union vote fifty-seven to fifteen.

August 28 - The March Toward a Dream

On this day in Labor History the year was 1963.  That was the day of one of the most iconic stands for justice and equality in United States history.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream Speech” to a quarter-million people in Washington D.C.  

August 27 - Truman Seizes the Railroads

On this day in Labor History the year was 1950.  At 4 pm that day the US Army completed its take-over of the country’s railroads. 

They were acting on the orders of President Truman.  

August 26 - Murder in the Mine Field

On this day in Labor History the year was 1919.  That was the day that Fannie Sellins and Joseph Starzeleski were murdered while standing up for workers’ rights.  Fannie was born in New Orleans, and then married a garment worker in St. Louis.  

August 25 - The Georges Fight Back

On this day in Labor History the year was 1925.  500 African American sleeping car porters gathered at the Elks Hall at 129^thStreet in Harlem.  The meeting was called by A. Philip Randolph

August 24 - A New Tool to Put Down Labor

The year was 1877. 

That summer during what came to be known as “The Great Upheaval,” police, the US Army, and the National Guard brutally crushed a national railroad strike.  The simmering anger of working people had many elected officials and industrialists on edge. 

August 23 - Commission on Industrial Relations

On this day in Labor History the year was 1912.  That was the day the US Congress approved the formation of the Commission on Industrial Relations.  In the early 1900s the terrible work conditions and entrenched resistance to union organizing had led to increasing labor unrest.  

August 22 - Making the Skies Friendlier

On this day in Labor History the year was 1945. That was the day five women working for United Airlines formed the first union for airline stewardess.  Those women were Ada Brown, Frances Hall, Edith Lauterbach, Sally Thometz and Sally Watt.