“I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of
writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through
our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways
of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need
writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries—the realists of a
larger reality.”
Did Ancient Egyptians have last names? Was there a way they themselves identified families and dynasties? If so, were they passed on from man to man like it sorta is nowadays?
On this day, 25 February 1913, silk mill workers in Paterson, New Jersey went on strike demanding an eight-hour day and improved working conditions.
The strike began as a walkout at the Doherty Mill over the introduction of the four-loom system. It soon became a general strike under the leadership of the Industrial Workers of the World union in which 25,000 workers participated, many of whom were women and children, from almost all of Paterson’s 300 mills and dye houses.
On the very first day Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was arrested after giving a talk on uniting strikers across racial boundaries. During the course of the strike, approximately 1,850 strikers were arrested.
This is our podcast episode about the IWW at this time: https://workingclasshistory.com/2018/05/23/wch-e6-the-industrial-workers-of-the-world-in-the-us-1905-1918/
Pictured: IWW organisers during the strike, including Flynn https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1359280124257134/?type=3
On this day, 1 November 1910, anarchist and syndicalist workplace militants met in Barcelona to found the National Confederation of Labour union, the CNT, with the aim to “speed up the economic emancipation of the working class through the revolutionary expropriation of the bourgeoisie”. The CNT would grow to become the leading force in Spanish working class politics, playing a leading role various general strikes, uprisings and the Spanish civil war and revolution. Four decades of Franco failed to break it and it is still active today.
We have a number of great books, as well as other items in our online store telling the history of and celebrating the CNT. Check them out here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/cnthttps://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1570731509778660/?type=3
