 This week’s Labor History Today podcast: Socialists, suffragettes and fear at work
On this week’s show, Kurt Stand, who – at least until recently – was a bookseller at Busboys and Poets here in Washington, DC, tells us about his last days at work, Carl Goldman reminds us of the day in 1913 when 20,000 striking textile workers and their supporters gathered in front of the house of the socialist mayor of Haldeon, New Jersey, and Jessica Pauszek tells the story of Tough Annie, a woman of means who threw in her lot with working women in London during the struggle for women’s suffrage. Last week’s show: COVID-19: An injury to one is the concern of all President Martin Van Buren issues a broadly-applicable executive order granting the 10 hour day to all government employees engaged in manual labor - 1840 Cowboys earning $40 per month begin what is to become an unsuccessful 2 1/2 month strike for higher wages at five ranches in the Texas Panhandle - 1883 Construction begins on the three-mile Hawk’s Nest Tunnel through Gauley Mt., W. Va. as part of a hydroelectric project. A congressional hearing years later was to report that 476 laborers in the mostly black, migrant workforce of 3,000 were exposed to silica rock dust in the course of their 10-hour-a-day, six-days-a-week shifts and died of silicosis. Some researchers say that more than 1,000 died - 1930 Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt signs legislation establishing the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), to help alleviate suffering during the Depression. By the time the program ended after the start of World War II it had provided jobs for more than six million men and boys. The average enrollee gained 11 pounds in his first three months - 1933 Wisconsin state troopers fail to get scabs across the picket line to break a 76-day Allis-Chalmers strike in Milwaukee led by UAW Local 248. The plant remained closed until the government negotiated a compromise - 1941 - David Prosten. photo: CCC enrollees in the Pacific Northwest. NPS photo Comments are closed.
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