Labor History in 2:00

July 8 - Mother Bloor

On this day in Labor History the year was 1862. Ella Reeves “Mother” Bloor was born in Staten Island, New York. 

She was a labor activist who investigated child labor in glass factories and mines.  

July 7 - Founding of the IWW

On this day in Labor History the year was 1905. It was the tenth day of the convention in Chicago, Illinois, where William (“Big Bill”) Haywood of the Western Federation of Miners, and Daniel De Leon and Eugene V. Debs of the Socialist Party founded the Industrial Workers of the World.

July 6 - Battle at Homestead

On this day in Labor History the year was 1892. At 3 AM an alarm sounded in the town of Homestead, Pennsylvania. The steelworkers who lived in the town were on strike. Andrew Carnegie was the owner of the mill, located just outside of Pittsburgh.  

July 5 - Who is Freedom For?

The great orator and abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, was invited to speak at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York.  The speech he gave that day would go down as one of his most powerful. 

July 4 - Freedom to Join a Union

Do you consider the right to join and form a union of your choosing a fundamental human right?  The United Nations does!  And on this day in Labor History the year was 1950.  On that day the United Nations formally put into force the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize.  

July 3 - Charlotte Perkins Gilman

On this day on labor history the year was 1860. That was the day Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Her father abandoned the family when Charlotte was an infant leaving them in poverty. This forced them to move around frequently.  Charlotte’s education suffered as a consequence as she attended seven schools in four years. 

July 2 - Homestead

On this day in Labor History the year was 1892. That was the day that 3,800 workers at the Carnegie Steel Company, in Homestead, Pennsylvania were thrown into the streets and locked out of their jobs. The plant was located seven miles south-east of Pittsburgh. The general manager of the plant, Henry Clay Frick, was determined to break the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers union.  

July 1 - Union Busting at Phelps-Dodge

On this day in Labor History the year was 1983. That was the day that began a three year struggle by copper workers in Arizona. 

The contract for 13 unions in the mining towns that included Clifton and Morenci had expired. Many of the workers were Latino. 

June 30 - Taking to the Streets

On this day in Labor History the year was 1998. If you were trying to drive to work on that Tuesday morning in mid-town Manhattan you were probably late. Forty thousand construction workers took to the streets in a massive protest. They shut down more than 200 building projects.  

June 29 - Organizing Successes Bring Deportation

On this day in Labor History the year was 1936.  Jesus Pallares, a Chicano miner and union organizer was deported from the United States. He was charged with having communist sympathies, and declared an “undesirable alien.”