Item no. 28183
| July 1912 |
| Collection: Other |
'Who's Violent?' by C.R. Smith, Industrial Worker, July 11, 1912.
In 1912 the IWW led 25,000 textile workers of Lawrence, Massachusetts out on strike. It was one of the largest organized actions on the part of unskilled, foreign-born workers in American labor history. The introduction of the two-loom system and consequent speed-up in the mills had resulted in extensive lay-offs, a steady decline in wages, and increasingly strenuous work conditions. During a mass demonstration a woman striker was shot and killed. Strikers blamed the police but the police immediately arrested IWW leaders, Joseph Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti (pictured in this cartoon), who were attending a meeting miles away from the demonstration. Ettor and Giovannitti were charged as accessories to murder, accused of inciting violence, and sentenced to prison without trial.
See this image in the Solidarity Forever: A Look at Wobbly Culture exhibit.
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