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Category Archives: labor
A Baby Boy and a Ferryboat
Our son, Joseph Patrick Kenna, would’ve been 43 years old tomorrow, April 3rd. In summer of 1978, my wife, Victoria, and I bought a house in the Puget Sound waterfront town of Anacortes. We were 33 years old. I’d been … Continue reading
The Humble Spike Maul
As a day to celebrate, Saint Patrick’s Day is filled with images that are simultaneously hackneyed and cherished. The leprechaun, the green top hat, the harp–and then there’s the shamrock. Here on the west side of the Atlantic, most of … Continue reading
Posted in history, Ireland, labor, nostalgia, railroad construction, railroading, social criticism, writing
Tagged gandy-dancers, hand tools, track work
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Wallace Stegner and Joe Hill–Was He Guilty?
On November 19th, 104 years ago, Joe Hill was executed by the State of Utah. The young itinerant laborer was born Joel Emmanuel Hagglund in 1879. After emigrating from Sweden to the United States he took the name Joseph Hillstrom, … Continue reading
Mill Town Under Siege: Everett, Washington–1916 (Part Three)
Sunday, November 5, 1916 The Seattle office of the I.W.W. has charted a steamboat to take as many men who could fit aboard up to a citizens’ meeting in Everett. The purpose of the community meeting is to discuss the … Continue reading
Mill Town Under Siege–Everett, Washington, 1916 (Part Two)
34-year-old Mike Scanlon, itinerant worker and I.W.W. member–along with some 40 others–has managed to survive a beating the previous Monday night at Beverly Park, south of Everett. Led by the Snohomish County Sheriff, the attackers were made up of several … Continue reading
Posted in Everett WA, history, labor, social protest
Tagged !.W.W., Beverly Park Beating, class warfare, Everett Commercial Club, Everett Massacre, Joe Hill, Lumber Trust, Sheriff Donald McRae, Shingle Weavers' Union, Snohomish County, socialism, Spokane Free Speech Fight, strikes, Washington state
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A Mill Town Under Siege: Everett, Washington – 1916 (Part One)
Hewitt Ave., Everett, WA., ca. 1910 Everett Public Library On May Day, 1916, every shingle mill in the bay-side city of Everett, Washington, shut down. The men who saw, grade and pack the cedar shingles were striking. … Continue reading
Posted in Everett WA, history, labor
Tagged Beverly Park Beating, Everett Blockade, Everett Commercial Club, Everett Massacre, Great Northern Railway, Great War, I.W.W., Seattle-Everett Interurban, Sheriff Donald McRae, Shingle mills, Shingle Weavers' Union, Snohomish County, strikes
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Joe Hill–Not Forgotten
On November 19th, 100 years ago, Joe Hill was executed by the state of Utah. A fitting time to re-publish this post. On January 10th, 1914, A Salt Lake City grocer (a former policeman) named John G. Morrison and his … Continue reading
Posted in history, labor, social protest
Tagged class warfare, I.W.W., protest movements, song writing, Utah, Woodrow Wilson, World War One
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Happy Birthday Eugene Debs
Originally posted November 10, 2014 “Remember, Remember, the fifth of November!” The old school-child chant of course refers to Guy Fawkes, sometimes dubbed as “the only honest man ever to enter the Parliament.” This date–celebrating the foiling … Continue reading
Posted in history, labor, railroading, social protest
Tagged American Federation of Labor, American Railway Union (ARU), Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Charles Pillsbury, Eugene Debs, George Pullman, Governor John Rogers, Great Northern Railway, Great Northern Strike, Grover Cleveland, Guy Fawkes, James Whitcomb Riley, Jim Hill, Locomotive Firemen's Magazine, Pullman Strike, sleeping car. Pullman IL, socialism, Spokesman-Review, strikes of 1877, Terre Haute IN, Theodore Roosevelt, Washington state
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The I.W.W. is 110 Years Old
By the 1890s, in reaction to the unprecedented power concentration of corporations, a labor movement had formed. The Railroad Brotherhoods and the American Federation of Labor (A.F.L.) dominated the movement, divided into crafts. Eugene Debs in the early 1890s formed … Continue reading
Posted in history, labor, Socialism, writing
Tagged AFL, AFL-CIO, Big Bill Haywood, CIO, Daniel DeLeon, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Espionage Act, Eugene Debs, Father Thomas Hagerty, FBI, Free Speech Movement, Great Northern Strike, HUAC, IWW, J. Edgar Hoover, Lawrence Strike, Paterson Strike, Pullman Strike, Sedition Act, Vincent S. John, Wobblies, Woodrow Wilson, World War One
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