The Wobblies
- International Workers of the World f. 1905 by Big Bill Haywood of the
Western Federation of Miners (strike at Coeur d'Alene)
- Eugene Debs, Lucy Parsons, Mother Mary Jones, Daniel DeLeon,
Father Thomas J. Hagerty (editor of Voice of America of socialist
American Labor Union)
- "One Big Union" of 13 industrial groups (not crafts)
- 52,000 members in 1905, most from WFM and ALU
- ideology of revolution, marxian class struggle
- offered to organize anybody, even Chinese and migrant workers and
children (Lawrence 1912, Congressional investigation)
- sitdown, slowdown, free speech, passive resistance, songs
- "Solidarity Forever" written by Ralph Chaplin Jan. 17, 1915, in the Kanawha Valley during the West Virginia coal strike, using the tune of "John Brown's Body" that had also been used by Julia Ward Howe in the Civil war to write "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."
Industrial Workers of the World union home page
Song Lyrics to Solidarity Forever as sung by Joe Glazer, educational director for the United Rubber Workers, for the album "Songs of Work and Freedom" based on the book by Joe Glazer and the collection of 100 songs by Canadian folklorist Edith Fowke
Labor history links