Description
Book SynopsisIn Lawrence, Massachusetts, fully one-half of the population 14 years of age or over is employed in the woolen and worsted mills and cotton mills. Thus begins the federal government''s Report on Strike of Textile Workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912 . This book follows up, one hundred years later. The story''s retelling offers readers an exciting reexamination of just how powerful a united working class can be. The Great Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912 - the Bread and Roses Strike - was a public protest by 20,000 to 25,000 immigrant workers from several countries, prompted by a wage cut. Backed by skillful neighborhood organizing, supported by hundreds of acts of solidarity, and unified by a commitment to respect every striker''s nationality and language, the walkout spread across the city''s densely packed tenements. Defying the assumptions of mill owners and conservative trade unionists alike that largely female and ethnically diverse workers could not be organized, the women a
Table of Contents--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Preface
CHAPTER 1
Introduction Robert Forrant and Jurg Siegenthaler
CHAPTER 2
“‘Believe Comrades . . . the Day is Coming When Those at the End of Their Rope Will Require Struggle. It Will Be, Perhaps, Tomorrow.’
Franco-Belgian Immigrants and the 1912 Strike” Janelle Bourgeois
CHAPTER 3
The Committee of Ten: The Local Heroes Who Faced Lawrence’s Mill Men and Won in 1912 Clarisse A. Poirier
CHAPTER 4
In Harm’s Way: The Lawrence Textile Strike Children’s Affair Lawrence Cappello
CHAPTER 5
Why Labor Won: Tactical Innovation, Failed Repression, and Turning Points in the Bread and Roses Strike Robert Biggert
CHAPTER 6
The Parades: Evolving Views of God and Country and the IWW in Lawrence Ken Estey
Strike Images
CHAPTER 7
The “American Dream” and the 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike Frank Fletcher
CHAPTER 8
Voices of Labor Militancy in Lawrence, 1912–1931 Ethan Snow
CHAPTER 9
Striking Women: Massachusetts Mill Workers in the Wake of Bread and Roses, 1912–1913 Anne F. Mattina and Domenique Ciavattone
CHAPTER 10
The Triangle Fire Centennial Commemoration Adrienne Sosin and Joel Sosinsky
CHAPTER 11
The Cloth From Which We Are Cut: Using Music, Narration, and Images to Tell the Story of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Vicki Gabriner and Linda Stern
CHAPTER 12
Lessons Learned: A Comparison of the Textile and Apparel Industry of Early 19th-Century Lawrence and Lowell with China Today Virginia M. Noon
CHAPTER 13
Bread and Roses: Why the Legend Lives On Robert Ross
Editors’ Biographies
Author Biographies
Index
