 Click here to check out this week's Labor History Today podcast. On this week’s show, historian Erik Loomis tells the story of frustrated workers in a very unusual place who decided to strike in a very unusual way.
The largest slave revolt in U.S. history begins on Louisiana sugar plantations. Slaves armed with hand tools marched toward New Orleans, setting plantations and crops on fire, building their numbers to an estimated 300-500 as they went. The uprising lasted for two days before being brutally suppressed by the military - 1811 Birthdate of Mary Kenney O’Sullivan, first AFL woman organizer. In 1880 she organized the Woman’s Bookbinder Union and in 1903 was a founder of the National Women’s Trade Union League - 1864 American Federation of Labor charters a Mining Department - 1912 The AFL Iron and Steel Organizing Committee ends the “Great Steel Strike.” Some 350,000 to 400,000 steelworkers had been striking for more than three months, demanding union recognition. The strike failed - 1920 Illustration by L. J. Bridgman. From M. Thompson (1888). The Story of Louisiana. Boston: Berwick & Smith. Courtesy OpenDemocracy Comments are closed.
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