“String ‘Em Up'”

At the time of America’s entrance into the Frist World War, a fast-growing IWW was finally maturing into an effective fighting union. In the mines of the southwest, the lumber camps of the north, and the grain fields of the Midwest, the IWW was giving employers a hard time. In an effort to protect their wartime profits, businessmen enlsited public opinion and the power of the state to check Wobbly interference. In 1917 14,000 copper miners in Butte, Montana went out on strike when a fire, caused by the company’s neglect of safety regulations, consumed 164 of their fellow workers. The newspapers cried “treason,” claiming the strike was an IWW plot to sabotage war production. On August 1, a group of armed vigilantes dragged IWW organizer Frank Little, pictured here, from his bed, took him to the edge of town, and lynched him. As seen in this cartoon they pinned a note warning other organizers they could be next.

Illustration by Ralph Chaplin from the IWW publication Solidarity on August 11, 1917.

View the IWW exhibit for more information.