Labor History in 2:00

On this day in Labor History the year was 1894. At least 10,000 tailors went on strike to protest their sweatshop working conditions. The New York Times reported “contract tailors of New York and Brooklyn celebrated Labor Day yesterday by going on strike.”  Unemployed tailors pledged not to work as scabs. 

On this day in Labor History the year was 1928. 300 musicians working in Chicago went on strike against 250 movie theaters. They were protesting their impending replacement by talking pictures. This was part of a nationwide wave of protest by the American Federation of Musicians. 

On this day in Labor History the year was 1885.White miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming planned to wipe out the town’s entire Chinese community. Chinese immigrants came to the United States looking for work, first in the California gold mines, then as laborers on the Transcontinental Railroad. 

On this day in Labor History the year was 1859. That was the day the first Pullman sleeping car made an overnight trip. The first Pullman sleeper was a renovated day coach. That first trip was made on the Chicago and Alton Railroad between Bloomington, Illinois and Chicago.  

 

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.

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.

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.

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.  

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.  

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.