Labor History in 2:00

May 31 - Families Washed Away in Johnstown Floods

On this day in Labor History the year was 1889. Nestled in western Pennsylvania was the community known as Johnstown. The town and surrounding area was home to 23,000 people, families of workers who labored in the regions’ booming steel mills. 

May 30 - Blood in the Streets on Memorial Day

On this day in Labor History the year was 1937.  It was a day that would become known as the Memorial Day Massacre. Ten demonstrators were killed by police bullets, while protesting at Republic Steel, on the south east side of Chicago.

May 29 - No Dancing Allowed

On this day in Labor History the year was 1912. That was the day fifteen women lost their jobs for dancing on their lunch break.  The women worked for the Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  

May 28 - The 1946 Rochester General Strike

On this day in Labor History the year was 1946. That was the day the working people of New York stood up in true labor solidarity. It all started at stroke midnight on May 15^th as messengers delivered the following statement to 489 municipal employees: 

May 27 - Unconstitutional

On this day in Labor History the year was 1935. That was the day the United States Supreme Court unanimously declared the National Industrial Relations Act unconstitutional.  The act had been passed just two years before, as the centerpiece of President Franklin Roosevelt’s plan to combat the Great Depression. 

May 26 - Battle of the Overpass

Did you know that sometimes photographs have the power to help change the course of a labor struggle?  That is what happened on this day in Labor History, the year was 1937.  Detroit News photographer James “Scotty” Kilpatrick came with his camera to the River Rouge Ford plant.

May 25 - Philip Murray is Born

Unions were created to make living conditions just a little better than they were before they were created, and the union that does not manifest that kind of interest in human beings cannot endure.” 

Those were the words of Philip Murray, born on this day in Labor History, the year was 1886.  Philip Murray was born in Blantyre, Scotland, the son of a union coal miner. 

May 24 - The Eighth Wonder of the World

On this day in Labor History the year was 1883. The “eighth wonder of the world, the Brooklyn Bridge opened for traffic.  600 men worked on the project, which took 14 years to complete. Between twenty and thirty men died working on the bridge.  This included the bridge’s designer, German-born John. A. Roebling. 

May 23 - Solidarity in Toledo

How can unionized workers and unemployed workers stand together?  Perhaps we can look to the past for examples of the power of such solidarity. On this day in Labor History the year was 1934.  It was the height of the Great Depression.  

May 22 - Have You Been to Jail for Justice?

On this day Labor History the year was 1895. Labor organizer Eugene V. Debs began a six month prison sentence in Woodstock, Illinois. Debs was the leader of the American Railway Union that had led a nationwide boycott and strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1894.