06 July
The Homestead Strike. Pinkerton Guards, trying to pave the way for the introduction of scabs, opened fire on striking Carnegie mill steel- workers in Homestead, Pennsylvania. In the ensuing battle, three Pinkertons surrendered; then, unarmed, they were set upon and beaten by a mob of townspeople, most of them women. Seven guards and eleven strikers and spectators were shot to death. 1892
05 July
During a strike against the Pullman Palace Car Company, which had drastically reduced wages, the 1892 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago’s Jackson park was set ablaze, and seven building were reduced to ashes - 1892
Battle of Rincon Hill, San Francisco, in longshore strike. 5,000 strikers fought 1,000 police, scabs and national guardsmen. Two strikers were killed, 109 people injured. The incident led to a General Strike - 1934
National Labor Relations Act, providing workers rights to organize and bargain collectively, passes Congress - 1935
04 July
Five newspaper boys from the Baltimore Sun died when the steamer they were on, the Three Rivers, caught fire near Baltimore, Md. - 1924
With the Great Depression underway, some 1,320 delegates attended the founding convention of the Unemployed Councils of the U.S.A., organized by the U.S. Communist Party. They demanded passage of unemployment insurance and maternity benefit laws and opposed discrimination by race or sex. - 1930
Two primary conventions of the United Nations’ International Labor Organization come into force: Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize - 1950
03 July
Children, employed in the silk mills in Paterson, N.J., went on strike for 11-hour day and 6-day week. A compromise settlement resulted in a 69-hour work work week - 1835
Feminist and labor activist Charlotte Perkins Gilman born in Hartford, Conn. Her landmark study, “Women and Economics”, was radical: it called for the financial independence of women and urged a network of child care centers - 1860
July 02
President Johnson signs Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, forbidding employers and unions from discriminating on the basis of race, color, gender, nationality, or religion - 1964
July 1851
Two railroad strikers were shot dead and others injured by the state militia in Portgage, New York.
July 1903
Labor organizer Mary Harris (”Mother”) Jones leads child workers in demanding a 55 hour work week.
I could not find much on the history of labor for 01 July, so my first posts of the month will be the history I found for the month not necessarily happened on the 1st of the month.
Monday….Monday…So good to me……(cannot you just hear the Mamas And Papas singing in the background?)
Another Monday…another quiz…….Today’s quiz is from the American Civil War days……
General Order #38 which made it an offense to criticize the government over the war and was used to arrest a former US Congressman from Ohio, who in 1863 said that the war was being fought, not to save the Union, but rather to free the slaves and to enslave the white race. What was this person’s name?
Good luck…good Googling…and good day.
Actually, it was yesterday, but I was asleep at the wheel…apologies to all.
25 June 1938
The Wages and Hours (later Fair Labor Standards) Act is passed, banning child labor and setting the 40-hour work week. The Act went into effect in October 1940, and was upheld in the Supreme Court on 3 February 1941.
I will be posting as often as I can find info on the day’s labor history. Hopefully, it will be informative.
Another Monday, another quiz–Prepare yourselves.
These were the radicals within the Democratic Party in the 1840’s?
Simple and to the point–you may begin.
I have been posting this weekly event on my other blog and have decided to move it here. I have always thought that there was not enough education on history and politics, so I started doing this several years ago and hope that all my readers will play along.
Damn Monday already? Where did the joy and pleasure of the weekend go? Let us not speak of that again, but instead, move on to the quiz of the week.
In 1912, the Congress was afraid that the workers in the Federal government would try to join a union for better hours, pay, benefits and such and they were afraid that if the employed the strike then the government would have to shut down. The Congress enacted this legislation to prevent this from happening.
This should keep the class busy for awhile and I can get some sleep. You may begin!
Info Ink was a company I started back in the Compuserve days to provide information to the world. Since the web took off the company was not as valuable as it had been. i decided to rename my blog in memory of my old company.
I am an old fart that has been doing the political thing for 40+ years. I have been a radical, convention delegate, lecturer, teacher, labor activist, political activist and a political writer. And I have yet to see this system work the way it is suppose to from the beginning.
“Stupidity is the deliberate cultivation of Ignorance”
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”– Einstein– Kinda like voting!
“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.” Emma Goldman
“Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.”–John Stuart Mill
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” H. L. Mencken
