A Fire Is Lit – The Strike Begins

            On January 1, 1912, a state law in Massachusetts went into effect that reduced the number of hours women and children under the age of 18 could work each week from 56 to 54. While theoretically a law that would improve the workday for women and children, the loss of two hours’ pay was enough to make the workers’ meager wages too low to feed the family for a week. Prior to picking up their paychecks on January 12, 1912, many of the employees had voted to strike if their paychecks were affected by the reduction in hours. When they saw their reduced paychecks, the workers walked out on strike.[1] The employees who were on strike were impoverished immigrant men and women from Poland, Italy, Germany, and Ireland. They had put up with dangerous work conditions in which loss of life or limb was a daily fear for a salary that barely allowed them to survive. The loss of the two hours worth of pay (32 cents a week) was the straw that broke the camels’ back.[2] The International Workers of the World (I.W.W.) was the union that immediately stepped in to represent the workers.  This strike was one of the first organized strikes in labor history and it brought about actual changes for the striking workers.

            This paper will examine newspapers, photographs, Congressional testimony, and interviews for representations of the striking mill workers and a few of the union men and women who helped organize the strike. In particular, I hope to answer the following questions: How are the women and men workers portrayed in different media? How are the union leaders portrayed? How do gender, ethnicity and class interact or effect the representations? How do the workers and I.W.W. members represent themselves versus their representations by the media?

                                    The Worker’s Lives in Lawrence

            Lawrence, Massachusetts, was a mill town, like many others in the northeast at the turn of the twentieth century. The majority of people living in the town were employed in the mills, lived in homes that were owned by the mills, and shopped in shops that were owned by the owners.[3] Of the 85, 892 people living in Lawrence in 1912, 60,000 depended on the mills for their livelihood.[4] They were immigrants who had been lured by the Lawrence Mill owners from their native lands with the promise of a better life.[5] The population of Lawrence had grown from 44,654 in 1890 to 85,892 in 1910 because of the influx of immigrants.[6] If the 85, 892 people living in Lawrence, 42,858 were men and 43,034 were women. Of the total group only 11.699 were born in the United States. The rest had immigrated during their lifetimes. The city was broken into 6 wards, with Italians dominating in wards 1, 2, and 3; French and Canadians dominating wards 4, 5, and 6. A small enclave of Germans and Austrians also lived in ward 1 and Turks formed another small enclave in ward 3. Native Americans were concentrated in wards 5 and 6. This was an extremely diverse population, the majority of whom were dependant on the textile mills of Lawrence.[7]

            Over 25 countries were represented in the immigrant population, and more than 20 languages were spoken within the community.[8] The largest immigrant groups were from Italy, however there was a significant population from Poland, Germany, Lithuania, Syria and Scotland.[9] The Italian immigrants were considered the poorest of the workers.[10]

            Forty-five percent of the mill workers were women and twelve percent were children under the age of 18. Dr. Elizabeth Shapleigh, a Lawrence physician, did a study of the workers and discovered:

A considerable number of the boys and girls die within the first two or three years after beginning work. Thirty-six out of every 100 of all men and women who work in the mill die before or by the time they are twenty-five years old because of malnutrition, occupational disease/injury and infection.[11]

The following two pictures, taken by Lewis Hines, give a sense of the working conditions for women and children working in textile mills. Hines took these photographs with the intent of exposing the working conditions of the mills to the middle and upper-classes who had little real knowledge of factory life.

                                                Figure 1: Spinner in Cotton Mill

Source: Lawrence Hines, photographer. “Child Labor Postcards,”

<http://www.boondocksnet.com/postcard/index_lh01.html>

            Figure 2: Bobbin Boy in Cotton Mill

Source: Lawrence Hines, photographer. “Child Labor Postcards.”     <http://www.boondocksnet.com/postcard/index_lh01.html>

 If the workers wanted a drink of water while working they were required to pay for it.[12] Infant mortality among the immigrant population was one of the highest in the United States. Contagious diseases like tuberculosis spread quickly among the immigrant population due to the cramped, unsanitary living conditions that they were forced to endure.[13] Because of the hazardous conditions Lawrence had one of the highest death rates in the U.S.[14][15] Life as a worker in Lawrence was a grim one requiring great risks and frequent losses. The loss of two hours worth of crucial pay seems to have pushed these workers one step too far.  Below are two pictures of the worker’s home lives.

                                                Figure 3: Tenement slum

Source: Milton Meltzer, Bread and Roses - The Struggle of American Labor 1865-1915, 1967, Alfred A. Knopf, 1936

                                    Figure 4: Mother and children in tenement kitchen

Source: Allon Schoener, Portal to America,1967, 222.

            http://historyproject.ucdavis.edu/imageapplication/ImageDetail.cfm?ImageID=1444.>

January 1, 1912, was not the first time Massachusetts law restricted mill workers hours.  January 1910, legislation was passed that reduced the maximum hours to be worked in one week from 58 to 56. At that point mill workers sped up the machines, which increased production despite the two hour loss of work by each employee they did not reduce the workers’ pay. This was one reason workers in 1912 did not expect women and children to receive a wage reduction despite the two hour work reduction. They expected the speed of the machines to be increased again.[16] Lorin F. Deland, who did a study on the Lawrence strike, suggests other reasons for the lack of awareness about the reduction of pay. He lays the blame at the feet of the mill owners who offered no advance warning of the pay cut to the employees.[17][18]

            When the workers at the American Woolen Company received their paychecks on January 12, and the amount of the checks reflected a two-hour pay-cut, 5,000 men and women walked out. Some workers deliberately damaged machines and cloth before leaving.[19] The workers took to the street where they encouraged other workers to join them and many did. The strike swept through all of the Lawrence Textile Mills like fire, and within two days, a significant portion of the mill workers were on strike.[20]

                                    “Prepare Militia for Lawrence Rioters”

            “Lawrence is Facing Strike of 25,000” reported the Boston Herald on the front page of the January 12, 1912, evening addition. The article notes that workers from Everett and Arlington joined the strike over the same pay cut that angered the American Woolen companys’ employees. The article states workers had been noticeably “restless” prior to the walkout, which the Herald calls a fore shadowing of the workers “anarchist” intentions.[21]The Boston Herald firmly established their support for the mill owners from the start.

            The New York Times also took the side of the mill owners from the beginning. Their headline on January 13, 1912, read “Strike Riots Close Big Lawrence Mills: Angry Operatives Invade Woolen Plants, Attack Overseers, and Fight Police.”[22] The article talked about “innocent women” who were hard at work, being struck by randomly flying bobbins that were thrown by the “anarchist” workers who led the strike. The Times position was made clearer when they wrote that the first days “riots” outside of the Mill were so out of control that “police were greatly outnumbered, and it was more than an hour before the officers, by freely using their clubs, were able to drive out the disorderly element.”[23]

            This article is interesting not only because of the obvious support being lent to the side of the owners, but also because of the clearly gendered assumptions being made. The Times subscribes to the middle-class gendered norms of the early twentieth-century that saw women as gentle, nurturing, and most definitely non-violent. That the Times extends these middle-class assumptions to the working-class immigrant women may speak to the fact that in the minds of all men, violence was so far beyond the realm of any woman - - no matter what her class - - that it could only have been the men who instigated this “take-over.” This could also speak to gender anxiety over the mere thought that women had joined this “revolution.” It also reveals the patriarchal mindset that men of this era assumed with women - - in this case assuming that the female mill workers’ reputation was in need of protection in the press. The American Woolen Company had formerly assumed the role of patriarch to all of its’ workers, men and women alike. It was the benevolent company that provided for the immigrant people  - providing employment, homes and food. Now that this relationship had been severed, the newspapers stepped into the role of protector of the female workers, albeit briefly.

            The Boston Globe shared this initial view that women simply could not be violent, no matter what their class. “Girls Beaten Down By a Lawrence Mob: Two Wounded By Strikers When Several Hundred Storm the Mills” was the headlined for their January 12, 7:30 p.m. addition. The Globe wrote that “a nucleus of “400 to 500” workers started the riot at 10 am which spread throughout the other mills and that by days end over 12,000 employees had left work either “from inclination of compulsions.” The paper also reported “it was said that in one instance a revolver was pointed at an employe to enforce a demand of the attacking party.”[24] The female workers were assigned the role of passive women who were terrorized by the animalistic immigrant men. Immigrants, particularly immigrant men, were thought of as violent aberrations of men by the xenophobic American public for the last part of the nineteenth-century and the early part of the twentieth-century.[25] The kind of behavior being described by these newspapers fit the stereotypes of the ignorant immigrant man and the passivity of women who were thought to be, at their core, innately maternal.         

            The Boston Herald started with a more neutral position. The January 14, 1912, front page featured a picture of women and men “waiting for paymaster.” The women are all heavily bundled in heavy coats and long, thick scarves that cover their heads and wrap around their shoulders, revealing very little of their faces and virtually no other part of their bodies. The men are also wearing thick coats and hats. Their faces are more fully visible than those of the women. Neither the men nor women look threatening. In fact, the men and women look like respectable citizens.[26] The article also revealed the Herald’s association of the male immigrants with anarchy, another common accusation made against immigrants and labor organizers of the day.

            The Herald’s story painted a very kind portrait of Lawrence’s Mayor Scanlon, whom the paper credited with working “ceaselessly tonight, containing the forces for good in a desperate effort to avert a period of anarchy.”[27]  The article notes that the mayor “feels alarm” at the sight of 1500 striking workers holding a union rally led by Joseph J. Ettor, a well-known union representative from the I.W.W. Scanlon felt so alarmed that he considered calling in another well-known union man, Joe Golden,[28] in the hopes of calming the agitated crowds.[29] At the end of a union rally, Scanlon spoke to the crowd. He is quoted as saying,

I hope we have seen the last of the unpleasant scenes of yesterday. Let it be the end. If you have a grievance begin now and conduct your case properly. The past is gone and I guarantee you the protection of the police and the law, just as completely as it is given to any other interest in this strike.[30]

            The Boston Herald’s article of January 15, 1912, reprints sections of the speeches given at the following day’s rally. It also points out that there were women workers at the rally. The Times does not specifically refer to the gender of the crowd, although it leaves the reader with the assumption that all of there strikers present were male. Joseph Ettor tells the crowd, “You cannot win by fighting with your fists against men armed or the Militia, but you have a weapon that they have not got. You have the weapon of labor and with that you can beat them down if you stick together.”[31] Mayor Scanlon’s response was “Neither of us desires to see bloodshed. I will guarantee you that, if you do not get troublesome, you will suffer no violence on the part of the police. But the law must be obeyed.” Ettor’s response was to remind the crowd that any blood that had been, or would be, shed would not be the blood of the strikers, but rather, the work of “those who ground down the laboring class.”[32] The speeches were then translated into German, Italian and Polish for the workers who did not speak English.

            Scanlon’s paternalistic position is interesting in that it shifts rather quickly. He initially seeks to serve as the authoritative male figure who can make everything alright. He guarantees the strikers protection in exchange for an end to the strike. He places himself in opposition to Ettor, an immigrant union man that will lead the strikers into trouble. Ettor set himself up as the paternalistic leader of the striking workers who wants to lead “his people” to victory. Scanlon responds that he wants no trouble but the law must be obeyed and as mayor, Scanlon is the man to make the call as to whether force will be used or not. Ettor raises the stakes higher in an effort to appear as the real man in power when he threatens to shed the blood of the police and milita.

            According to The New York Times, on January 14, Mayor Scanlon called in three companies of militia to move the strikers away from the entrances of the mills in an attempt to put down the “insurgence.” The priests in the town were brought onto the mill owner’s platform and urged the strikers to end the conflict immediately. This did nothing to discourage the strikers, who listened to leaders of the I. W. W. who urged them to continue the strike.[33] The crowd’s indifference to the Priests and allegiance to the I.W.W. makes Scanlon’s shift in position from benevolent paternalist to keeper of law and order and friend of the American Woolen Company very clear. The lines were drawn and the battle soon began.

            A newspaper firmly on the side of the workers and I.W.W. was the pro-union Italian-American newspaper, Il Proletario. In their January 19, 1912, edition the portrayal of Mayor Scanlon is one of a cowardly man hiding behind the militia that he called in even as he made promises of safety for workers. They wrote:

 “Governor Foss has ordered the delivery of an additional five companies (of state militia), making this a total of eight. The only duty of these hired assassins of the government in not to go to war, from which, like all the cutthroats and corrupt men, they are exempt so they can shoot and slash defenseless men, women and children in case of strikes or internal disruption.” [34]   

            The paper also cited Ettor as being in complete control of the situation, on behalf of the I.W.W. “All the newspapers are printing his picture and recognizing him as the leader of the strike” the paper recorded.[35] There was no doubt as to the fact that the paper was firmly on the side of the strikers and it’s depictions of the government and American Woolen Company owners was heavily biased against them.

            On January 15th, the company owners had ordered a militia troop to stand guard near the entrance to the textile mills. To reach this entrance, workers had to cross a bridge that led across a canal. Strikers sought to cross the bridge to convince workers who wanted to work to join the strike, so did workers intent on working. The militia turned on giant hoses that sprayed walls of water at the strikers and workers.

Figure 5: City Firemen Spray Hose on Foot Bridge to Hold Strikers in Check

Source: Mary Marcy, "The Battle for Bread at Lawrence," International Socialist Review

                                                (March 1912),536.

            A few strikers and workers were able to make their way through and the strikers hurled pieces of ice and the militia and the factory windows. The Congressional Report on the Strike stated “within the mill a condition of panic and disorder arose, especially among the women employees.”[36] Again the women were being represented as victims of the male strikers. The fact that they were working further advanced their positions as “good” women who were trying to behave and follow the orders.[37] Photographers were present and captured the moment and I am including it here. The visual image of the immense spray of water preventing the strikers and workers from crossing the bridge makes the notion of the mill owners as victims of a vicious male crowd of strikers less believable.

            On January 16, 1912, The New York Times describes the militia and acknowledges that the militia was given orders to “shoot if necessary.” There is no mention in the article about the spraying of water on all who sought to cross the bridge. It was the militia’s job to allow workers who wanted to enter the mills to do so safely, as well as to attempt to disburse the crowds of strikers who were picketing. True to form, The New York Times wrote that “force was often used, and women and children were roughly handled by the strikers when they insisted on going into work.”[38] This is the only mention of women and children in the article.

            For the Mainstream press in Boston and New York, the roles in this drama were cast. The militia, in their view, was acting with restraint. When it was ordered to charge the crowd of strikers who were congregating at the Pacific Mill at 3:30 p.m. on January 15, the Times minimized the brutality of the act, writing “during these charges many of the bayonets were pressed against the crowd but the militia were careful not to wound the foreigners.[39] Photographs taken of the encounter reveal a more threatening situation.

Figure 6: Soldiers Forcing Strikers Back off the Duck Bridge

Source: William M. Pratt, "The Lawrence Revolution," New England Magazine (March 1912), 11.

Figure 7: Massachusetts militiamen with fixed bayonets surround a parade of peaceful strikers

Source: George Meaney Memorial Archives, Silver Spring, Md.

Thus, at the end of the first few days of the strike these two major newspapers had created a scenario in which women and children were still primarily innocents, trying only to make their way to work (although it is noted that they did attend the union rally). The owners and town leaders were the benevolent patriarchs who could not understand why their unprovoked employees and citizens were reacting in such a threatening manner to a simple cut in pay. The young male “foreigners” who were leading and sustaining the strike were sheer brutes, having ravaged the mills and the honorable (male) militia had been forced to take up arms and use them against the crowd. The men on strike were supposed to physically fight, and the women and children were portrayed as passive victims of the male aggression. That the strikers were immigrants was a fact that became more damning as time went on in these papers and in the eyes of others who also wrote about the strike.

Negotiations

            American Woolen Company President, William M. Wood, wrote several letters to the leaders of the strike to explain his position.[40] In the first of these letters, dated January 19, 1912, Wood wrote directly to the strikers stating that he could not understand why they were on strike, since they had not come to him with any grievance. He had to “learn from the newspapers that the reason for your staying away is that the company pay you for only 54 hours’ work.”  His tone is one of sheer paternalism. He is the father who has been hurt by the actions of his wayward children. “I am not blaming you, because I realize you were greatly disappointed and that some of you acted hastily and the rest followed: but I want you to see how hard you have made my position.” The blame rests, as with the newspapers, at the feet of some, not all. It is another example of the image of the unruly men who were leading the strike being singled out for leading the faithful astray. Wood is offering an olive branch of sorts to those who didn’t really mean to go on strike. The strikers were welcome to come back to work without penalization, the letter continues, but because his hands are tied, Mr. Woods simply cannot afford to pay them any more than he already is.

            It is interesting to note that Woods self-representation is similar to that of Mayor Scanlon’s. He assumes the position of benevolence mixed with authority. It is not in his power to give the strikers what they want, just as the Mayor was not capable of not calling in the militia. They both wanted to help the strikers but there was something that was keeping them from meeting or even acknowledging the validity of the strikers demands. They also both spoke “down” to the strikers – as if the majority of the strikers were to stupid to think for themselves. This was not a thought out strike, they imply, but one based on knee-jerk reactions by immigrant people who were led astray by rogue men simply looking to stir up trouble.

            The leaders of the strike responded to such tactics by compiling a list of grievances for each mill, which they then delivered. The demands of the American Woolen workers were typical of the demands being made at other mills embroiled in labor disputes. Most of the laborers wanted a 15 percent raise, with a few seeking 20 percent and shippers and packers seeking time and a half for overtime on top of a 15 percent pay-raise. All workers wanted to repercussions for being out on strike, and most also wanted the end of the bonus system.[41] The bonus system meant that teams of workers would be given a bonus if they completed a percentage above their expected workload. This brought about an increase in industrial accidents as the machines were sped up and the workers were often pushed beyond a reasonable limit. The worker’s demands were delivered to the mills by union men. Women were not directly involved in negotiations with the mill owners although they were certainly included in discussions of the demands that the workers wanted to see take place.[42]

            Woods quickly decided that he was willing to grant the original request of not cutting workers pay by two hours, but it was too late. Ettor had infused the workers with the hope that they could demand and receive wages that would life the standard of their daily lives.[43]

                        The Fire Grows – Tactics for Winning

The I.W.W.’s strongest choice in organizing such a diverse population of workers was to organize across ethnic and gender lines. The I.W.W. brought in translators who could translate the same message into every major language spoken by the workers, as in the case of Ettor’s first union meeting. Thus, the workers saw themselves as a united group in search of common demands.[44] The unity of the united front of many ethnic groups gave the union the strength it needed to negotiate and win this strike. It was also the first time in United States labor history that this many groups had worked toward one goal.[45]

By January 28, 1912, William Wood, along with his accomplices, brought dynamite to town and planted it in stores and the homes of men who were sympathetic with the strikers or helping to organize the strike. This development allowed for the arrest of agitators and helped convince the public that these strikers would stop at nothing to undermine authority. The truth came out, much later, during the trial of Ettor and Giovanni.[46] It is important that the dynamite was planted in men’s shops and homes, although women undoubtedly lived in these homes and ran or shopped at these stores too. The script that the major newspapers were following continued to call for the characterization of the striking men as aggressive and downright villainous.

            The New York Times January 21, 1912 edition contained an article that read “Cache of Dynamite In Lawrence Strike: Small Quantities of The Explosive Are Discovered by Police and Seven Arrests To Follow.”[47] The most interesting information contained in this article is the news that Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, an organizer in the I.W.W., had arrived in town that day to give a speech to the workers the next day.[48] Flynn played a role in shaping the strike and this is the first time that we see a woman being singled out as newsworthy. The fact that she was now a middle-class (although she grew up in poverty), American born woman with experience as a labor organizer and speaker certainly played into her newsworthiness. She was from out-of-town and her arrival was important, as evidenced by the Times’ announcement of her arrival.

Figure 7: Children strikers lead a huge march through the city of Lawrence

    Source: George Meaney Memorial Archives, Schnapper Collection, Silver Spring Md.

One of the tactics of the I.W.W. was to have daily parades through the street. As you can see in figure 7, the American flag was an important part of the parades. The strikers consider themselves American and they are proud of this. The flag also had strong symbolism attached to it. It spoke to democracy and to basic human rights and dignity. “Who is more American,” the strikers seem to ask by deploying this tactic. “You, who are keeping me from earning a fair wage and caring for my family or me, who has taken to the streets like the original patriots to fight for my freedom from your tyranny?”       

            Children, women and men paraded through the streets until they were told that this was illegal. Then they took to the sidewalks where they marched arm in arm. This made it harder to break the lines. Operating under the gendered assumptions of the day (that no man would ever shoot a woman no matter what the conditions), women were strategically placed at the front of the lines.

                        Figure 8: “Women Strikers Marching in Support of the Strike

                        Source: George Meany Memorial Archives, Silver Spring, Maryland                                                            <http://womhist.binghamton.edu/law/image5.htm>

On January 29, 1912 the New York Times reported that the strikers began to riot at daybreak in order to keep any worker from going to the mills. Practically every electric car coming into Lawrence between 5:30 and 8:00 was attacked. The windows were smashed and the passengers were dragged to the streets by a yelling mob. Every man, woman, and child showing an appearance of going to the mills to work was assailed and hundreds were knocked down, kicked, clubbed. Dinner pails were snatched from their hands and the contents spilled into the streets and trampled on, and in several instances the mob even tore the coats and overalls off its victims, dragging the tattered garments in the streets to demonstrated what it intended for those who were riding to work. The police force was practically unable to restore order, but in the mill district the militia had the situation well in hand.[49]

            Again, the press left a window of hope for the poor men and women who simply tried to go to work. It was the savage, male anarchists leading the strike that were ruining the lives of their former co-workers. This is the image that the press, town leaders and mill owners had invested in. The men at the top of the hierarchy wanted an end to the anarchy of the immigrant workers who neither understood their place in the American hierarchy nor acted subserviently to the grand Americans willing to pay them any wages at all. Control of the representations of all sides became more crucial as the stakes were raised.          

The “riots” as the Times called them, were “street meetings” according to I.W.W. leaders and strikers. The strikers said that they had been meeting to prepare for another day’s “parade” when the militia began to attack them. Colonel Sweetser, a leader of the militia, was quoted as having said on January 28, 1912:

I will allow no mass meetings. I will allow no parades. We are going to look for trouble--legitimate trouble from now on. We are not looking for peace now.[50]

The strikers, as they had been doing, placed women at the front of the line that day. Anna Lopizio was one of these women and most accounts charge the militia with her murder.  The militia immediately claimed that they were not responsible and blamed the murder on a random striker. However, Ettor and Giovanni were both officially charged with her death since they were regarded as the ones who had instituted the strike to begin with. To explain the bullet that killed Lopizio, officials decided that the bullet, fired by a striker, hit the ground and bounced up, killing Lopizio in the process.[51]

            The New York Times headline, “One Striker Killed: Two Leaders Held” reveals the paper’s intentions. By writing that one striker was killed the Times sought to conceal Lopizio’s gender. Killing a woman, even one involved in this troublesome strike, violated every gender norm that middle-class American society believed in. The readers of the Times and the Boston papers were primarily middle-class and it was important to the papers and the mill owners to continue portraying the strikers as immigrant, working-class men who were out of control. A dead woman, even an immigrant, working-class woman, had the potential to unbalance the carefully balanced scale of justice as proclaimed by the papers, town leaders and mill owners.

The “striker” was made to look as if she was so guilty that she deserved to die, which allowed the public to continue to blame the unruly mob of immigrants. The fact that the dead striker was a woman is not even mentioned until the fourth paragraph of the article, which then stated “the bullet that caused her death was fired by someone in the crowd of strike sympathizers, the police alleged, and was aimed at the ground, but rebounded and struck the woman.”[52] The rhetorical intention is clear. The press had turned an act of violence committed by a government militia against a woman exercising her right to participate in a strike for higher wages and better living conditions into another black mark against the strikers. The fact that another striker, Giuseppi Caruso, was arrested as the man who fired the bullet is barely noted in the article. He is, it became clear, simply incidental.

            Violence against the strikers did not just occur in large group situations. Josephine Liss was a worker who gave testimony at the Congressional hearing about the way she was treated by a member of the militia in a solitary encounter. Here are excerpts from her testimony that reveal a radically different story than that being told in the major newspapers and by the militia themselves.

Miss LISS. The soldier came up and told me to turn back. I said I would not do it. He held me so tight that I started to scream, and he says you must turn back, and I would not do it. Then he swore at me.

The CHAIRMAN. Tell me everything that happened.

Miss LISS. When he grabbed my arm he started to shake me, and then his bayonet fell down and I hit him with my muff. He had one of my hands. He grabbed hold of me. He was a pretty tall fellow, and so I hit him with my muff in the face.

The CHAIRMAN. Was that all that occurred that day?

Miss LISS. No. There was some militiamen who came up, and they told me to go home, and I would not, and the soldiers swore at me. I felt so upset that I would not go home. The police asked me my name, and I refused to tell. Another one says, "I will see that girl in the court." Then I went to the trial, and I said, "I will be there this morning." He said, "You will have to give your name out there," and I said, "Maybe I will and maybe I will not." They told me they would lock me up if I did not give them my name. I would not. This trouble was between half past 6 and 7, and then at 10 o'clock I went to court and was arrested down there for an assault on the soldier.

The CHAIRMAN. For an assault on the soldier?

Miss LISS. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you hurt the soldier?

Miss LISS. No, sir.[53]

            This representation of the military is a far cry from that of the major papers and town officials. Liss, being an immigrant woman of the lowest socio-economic sphere would not have been an important source for any of the press or town leaders. Even if they had listened to her story they would not have believed her – since believing her would have cast doubt on the moral character of the militia. They were quite invested in the militia’s portrayal as passive and who only acted when the strikers forced them to.  Liss told those at the Congressional hearing information that was even more damaging.

Miss LISS. On Sunday I was at a Polish meeting, and we were waiting for a speaker. There were two speakers, and they got through the speaking, and the people were getting tired of waiting for a new speaker, because the hall was full of smoke, so some of them went out in front to have some fresh air. I went out, also. A policeman came up and told me to go inside, and I told him I was standing on the steps, that the steps were private, and that I would not go inside.

The CHAIRMAN. Was that at the corner of Oak and Sharp Streets?

Miss LISS. At the corner of Oak and Sharp Streets. Then another policeman came over to me--there was about four or five. He says, "Tell these people, in your own language, not to block up the sidewalk." Just as the people were coming out, and I was in there, I kept telling them not to block up the sidewalk, but either stand on the curb or against the building. Anyway, another policeman came up, and he says, "Were you the girl that was fined?" I knew this policeman was looking for trouble, so I did not answer. I did not want to make any trouble with him. He took a walk and came back again, and one of the fellows was standing on the sidewalk, and he pushed this fellow. This policeman grabbed him and arrested him. So, when this policeman arrested this fellow, the rest of the people came out from the hall, and in about five minutes there were about 20 policemen clubbing the people, and they were clubbing the women, and they threw one woman in the mud. She was about 45 years of age. Another woman fell down and they hit her on the head. They split their heads open. I seen blood shed there.

The CHAIRMAN. Did this woman bleed?

Miss LISS. No; she had a hat on, and I could not see. I saw men bleeding.

The CHAIRMAN. You say they split their heads open; how do you mean?

Miss LISS. They hit them in their head.

The CHAIRMAN. With their clubs?

Miss LISS. With clubs; they were all bleeding.

The CHAIRMAN. About how many?

Miss LISS. I seen about two men.

Miss LISS. Then the cavalry troops came and they were riding through the sidewalks and through the streets.

The CHAIRMAN. The cavalry troops?

Miss LISS. The militia on horses. [54]

Liss’ testimony clearly flies in the face of every story told by Woods, the town officials and the mainstream press. It reveals a police force and militia that sought out violent encounters with the strikers, in an ongoing effort to assert and then maintain their authority over the working-class immigrants. What this also reveals is that for the police and militia, gendered assumptions that women should never be hurt, did not cross the socio-economic divide. The immigrant women were on strike, they presented a direct threat to the male authority that the militia and police assumed, and because the women were willing participants in the strike they had forfeited their rights as “decent” women. A “decent” woman would not question male privilege, would not take a public, active, political stance against authority and the patriarchs (officials and Woods) that had presumed to watch over her. Another advantage that the police and militia gained in hurting the immigrant women was that it sent a direct message to the immigrant men and the strike leaders. “You cannot protect your own women” was the statement these actions made, and this was also a direct threat against the masculinity of the male strike leaders and workers.

            A counterpart to Liss’ statements before the Congressional hearing was that of Acting Chief Marshall of Lawrence, John J. Sullivan. The New York Times carried the story of his testimony, in which he portrays the women in the strike as violent and manipulative.

The crowds were usually led by women and children. They were always in the front rank, and sometimes women had children in their arms. Other women carried flags. On the first morning Ettor, the strike leader, was about the mills giving orders, but when the demonstrations took place he always disappeared.[55]

Sullivan had much at stake in the hearings since he was in charge of the militia and police. The fact that women had been hurt and killed by troops under his control heightened his need to portray the women as fully deserving any ill treatment that they received. By stating that some of the women carried children in their arms he clearly intended to show that these women were the most depraved creatures in all of nature. Women were presumed to be innately maternal and nurturing. A woman who was willing to risk the life of her child was no woman at all. She had become a monster who deserved no special treatment on account of her gender since she had willingly crossed the gender line. Sullivan had to vilify the women to save his own image. Further testimony that he gave illustrates this point. The New York Times quoted the following:

 Capt. Sullivan told of an outburst at a Sunday meeting of the strikers where men were arrested for blocking the sidewalks. "Two of these men were struck with clubs," said the Captain. "As they were being taken to the station a mob of women armed with broomsticks and clubs besieged the policemen. One Polish woman had a baseball bat." [56]

            This portrait of crazed women running down the street to attack the police with brooms (something every good woman would own and have immediate access to!) and clubs is somewhat comical. Unfortunately it also had the potential to show that these women were completely out of control, which tied back into the need to characterize all of the women involved in the strike as crazed immigrant hellions. The disdain for immigrants, and in this case Polish immigrants, is made apparent by Sullivan’s claim that the Polish woman had the baseball bat (apparently the deadliest of all three “weapons”).

            With the violence now encountered by both sides, the strike continued but shifted course out of necessity since Ettor and Giovanni had been arrested. The I.W.W. needed new leadership to step into the highly visible top tier of the strike organization. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was already in town and “Big Bill” Haywood was immediately dispatched to Lawrence. Both of these leaders had experience, charisma, and knew how to raise money for the worker’s relief fund, which meant that the strike could continue much longer without hunger driving people back to work before the strike was settled. With the change in leadership came a change in tactics.

            Haywood was greatly exalted within the I.W.W. and his first speech to the strikers stirred great enthusiasm and applause from his audience. He appealed to the commonality of the workers. It was a truly stirring speech. In one part he spoke:

"All you people come from other nations and you all come to America with the expectation of improving your conditions. You expected to find a land of the free, but you found we of America were but economic slaves as you were in your own home. I come to extend to you tonight the hand of brotherhood with no thought of nationality. There is no foreigner here except the capitalist and he will not be a foreigner long for we will make a worker of him. Do not let them divide you by sex, color, creed or nationality, for as you stand today you are invincible.[57]

Haywood tells the crowd that he is the one that brings to them the “hand of brotherhood.” He may have been referencing the fact that he had been present at strikes in London, France as well as in many parts of America, which would make him the ideal bearer of an international olive branch.[58]  This is information that the crowd would either have already known or heard about quickly enough. While speaking of one brotherhood, however, he clearly puts himself at the head of the table. He is the benevolent father who will lead the family to victory. He urges the strikers to look beyond their differences in order to create a singular organization that cannot be torn asunder by the evil capitalist. He created himself as the polar opposite of the representations of I.W.W. leaders in the mainstream press and media. As an experienced labor leader his representations of himself were surely quite intentional.

The same can be said for Flynn. She was in a position that the women on strike could not relate to – she was in charge of her own life, economically stable, and in a position of leadership where she shared the stage with men who had mentored her within the I.W.W. She did devote her life to the labor cause and was a devout socialist, which set her apart from the average middle-class white woman as well as the immigrant strikers. Her role in this strike was to rally the workers and she also participated in the I.W.W.’s tactical decision to send the children of the strikers to union members in other states who had volunteered to house and feed the children until the strike was resolved and the parents had the economic ability to care for the children’s basic needs.

                                    Fanning the Flames - - The Children’s Exodus

            The I.W.W. leaders had been raising what funds they could to offer relief to the striking workers since they first left the factories. Caring for the children was one of the top priorities of both strikers and union leaders. In early February the union leaders decided that the best way to garner positive publicity for the striker’s cause while simultaneously caring for the children was a “planned exodus.” The exodus involved taking groups of children to the train station, where they were to be placed on a train and sent to a city where union leaders and sympathizers had agreed to take them in. The children would be given food, clothing and shelter for the duration of the strike. This would take pressure off of their parents to go back to work for the sake of their hungry children without winning any benefits. Getting the press on the side of the union and strikers was an important goal of the I.W.W.

            On February 11, 1912 the first group of children was successfully sent on train to cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Jersey City and Barre, Vermont. The press covered the event in a positive light. This angered the town officials. Colonel Sweetser, militia commander, wrote to the strike committee on February 17, 1912, saying:

Hereafter, while I am in command of the troops in Lawrence, I will not permit the shipping off of little children away from their parents to other cities unless I am satisfied that this is done with the consent of the parents of said children.[59]

The strike organizers got the appropriate consent from the parents, who agreed to personally take their children to the train station. At this, town officials balked and sent militia and police units to surround the train station stating that they were going to refuse to let parents into the station itself.  On February 24, the I.W.W. decided to attempt to send the next group of children on to the waiting families in other cities. Children who tried to get onto trains were arrested and sent to the Municipal home as “neglected children.” When the parents and I.W.W. leaders protested this action, many were beaten by the police and militia.

            This incident is a complete role-reversal from the way that every other event had been portrayed by town officials and the mainstream press. Here the strikers are the innocent people, trying to be good parents by seeing that their children were sent to stay with families who were better equipped to see to the children’s needs than the parents currently were. Mothers were protecting their children, not offering them up as sacrificial lambs as Sullivan had represented them in his Congressional testimony. This time it was the militia and town officials were played the part of brutal beasts by taking the children from their parents and placing them in the Municipal home where they would most probably not receive the kind of care that the volunteer families would have given them. On top of that, the Militia beat the parents and union leaders who sought to protect these most innocent of children. This was the event that turned the tide.

            The New York Times February 25, 1912 edition had a headline that read ” Police Clubs Keep Lawrence Waifs In.” The article noted

Fifty arrests were made, many of them of women who had fought the police savagely, and several heads were broken by the clubs of the officers. In order to discourage any attempt on the part of the strikers to rescue the children, four companies of infantry and a squad of cavalry surrounded the railroad station.[60]

A press release was made by the I.W.W. leaders and telegraphed personally to Representative Berger from Wisconsin who was a loyal supporter of socialism. It read:

 Twenty-five thousand striking textile workers and citizens of Lawrence protest against the hideous brutality with which the police handled the women and children of Lawrence this morning, in carrying out the illegal and criminal orders of the City Marshal to prevent free citizens from sending their children out of the city. Strong men were knocked down, and women and mothers, who were trying to protect their children from the onslaught of the police, were choked and clubbed. We demand a Congressional investigation before the mill owners succeed in perverting the law courts and all the forces of government, and make their crying outrages the admitted law of the land.[61]

The article continued to portray the brutality of the town leaders and militia whom they had previously portrayed as the injured parties. Another paragraph read:

Later in the day the wailing of fourteen of the children as they were being lead down the steps of the police station to be taken to the City Home drove a crowd of 500 foreigners frantic, and a riotous scene followed. From all directions people gathered about the four waiting hacks, and such a stubborn fight was made by the excited crowd that the police found themselves practically unable to keep their hands on the children. A squad of militia was called from the mill district to render assistance. After a twenty-minute battle the crowd dispersed, and all but two of the children were driven away to the city farm. One father captured his two children in the confusion and succeeded in slipping away unnoticed.[62]

The New York Times was now firmly on the side of the strikers. The town officials and militia had crossed a boundary that the American public would not tolerate. Abusing innocent children and depriving innocent parents of their rights to provide the best care for their children was not acceptable treatment. Furthermore, physically abusing the parents as they fought to regain control of their children – the most basic instinct attributed to women – was completely outside the bounds of any kind of justification. With the press coverage and the pressure from the I.W.W. leaders, the 62nd Congress decided that it had to hold a hearing to get to the truth of the matter of what happened in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on February 24, 1912. Thus, an investigation was convened and the voices of the strikers themselves became a part of the permanent record.

                        The Congressional Investigation

The hearing began with general questions about the strike. Who were the principal participants? What were the causes? What did the workers think? How did the police behave? How did the mill owners behave? Why were Ettor and Giovanni jailed? These questions and their answers present the strikers as abused workers who were taken advantage of by the powerful textile mill owners.[63]

            Mr. James Berger, a striker, spoke at the hearings about the police conduct surrounding the exile of the children. He stated that prior to the riots the police had gone to the homes of the parents who had sent their children out of town. The police insisted that the parents bring their children home. When that did not work the landlords would show up at the door of the parents and tell them that if they did not bring their children home the family would be evicted.[64]

            The testimony heard at these hearings was not favorable to either the American Woolen Company or the Lawrence town officials and militia. The hearing brought about not only an awareness of the brutality of the militia during the children’s exodus, but exposed the hideous working conditions within the factories. These hearings were a nightmare for a system that thrived off of the backs of immigrant workers who made their bosses rich while risking their very lives for the most minimal of payments. The actions of the town officials became exposed. The officials desire to maintain control and quell the voices of those who threatened their power was laid bare for all to see.            

The Flame Lights The Sky

On March 13, 1912, the mill owners agreed to the worker’s demands, and the Lawrence strike was officially over. The workers had won an increase in wages from five to twenty percent. The percentages were based on the amount the workers were earning when the strike began. Those earning the most received only a five percent raise while those earning the least received twenty percent. The workers were guaranteed there would be no repercussions against them because of their participation in the strike. [65]

            Mary Heaton Vorse was a reporter and writer drawn into labor work by the Lawrence Mill strike. She wrote eloquently of this strike and it’s impact on the workers. She describes the isolation that the workers had felt from each other prior to the strike. They spoke different languages and had different cultural customs and were never able to connect with each other. Vorse wrote that it was the strike that united the workers as community and connected them with workers across the world. A true socialist who had become convinced of the evil of capitalism Vorse wrote:

There at Lawrence it seemed sometimes as though the forces of Light and Darkness were visibly divided. On one side the workers, simple, kind and transformed with the faith that the realization of solidarity gave them; on the other, the greed of the employers, who roused up gangs against the workers….No one could see these singing, disciplined people without being moved by them. Here in Lawrence was the flame; that surging forward toward the light which is the distinction of mankind It is this flame that leads forlorn hopes, that wins victories against incredible odds - - faith, courage and beauty are its texture. When people are gathered together, there is this quickening. Suddenly the aspirations of once anonymous lonely people who have come together form the flame.[66]

This strike most surely lit flames. Some were burned by them, others struggled on because of them and today the embers still burn. History recorded this strike and today there is a plethora of resources available to the historian seeking to understand just what occurred in Lawrence, Massachusetts in the first three months of 1912. In examining these sources for representations of the strikers and those on the side of capitalism, ethnic and gender hierarchies I reached many conclusions, most of which I have stated throughout the paper. I would like to express a few more.

The kind of tactics brought to bear on the strikers such as the threat of eviction, the violence, and even the taking of children destined for a healthier home for the duration of the strike were deliberate attempts to break the strikers will. American Woolen Company, the town officials, the police, and the militia did everything that they could to make the strikers feel powerless, assuming that this would make the strikers go back to work and stop trying to revise the power relationship between capitalism and immigrant workers. The people with the power, including the mainstream press, vilified the strikers.

When the strike began women were portrayed by the press, the American Woolen Company, and the town officials, as powerless victims who had been forced to strike by the vicious actions of the male strikers. In the middle of the strike, when women were being killed and hurt, women were made to appear as witches who were willing to sacrifice their children to advance their cause. By portraying these women as willingly placing their children in danger, the public voices of the media and town leaders stripped these women of their right to be treated as “decent” women, women who would not be worthy of beating. If they did not express the biologically understood maternal instinct then they were not women. If they were not women, then they were simply immigrants and mannish ones at that. No decent woman would chase police officers with brooms and clubs and risk their children’s lives. Being pushed into the category of immigrant man (or androgynous at best) made these women worthy of any punishment the militia dished out.

That the women were included in the strike by the men and the I.W.W. (who also had women as leaders, i.e. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn) was a product of their class. Middle-class women were not to be involved in public politics under any circumstances. Those who were working for suffrage faced enormous social pressure to back down, and their gender was also called into question.[67] The norms for working-class people were always different than those for the middle and upper-classes and this is one instance where these differing norms are illuminated. The acceptance of women in the struggle for a fair wage was one of the results of these women’s class status. The acceptance of women in the upper echelons of unions was also part of the working-class ideology. Those at the top of the unions identified and aligned themselves with the working classes that they represented.

The fact that the strikers were immigrants made them easier to vilify since the United States was immersed in a period of intense xenophobia due, in part, to the recent influx of workers who were coming to work in the many mills that needed them. The workers were at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder and were at the mercy of their bosses, landlords, and town officials for their standard of living. They had very little but it was all that they had. The strength that these workers showed in holding out until the I.W.W. was able to broker a fair deal for them speaks to how hard they were willing to fight for even the slightest raise in the standard of living.

The socialist papers such as Il Proletario and writers who were sympathetic to the plight of the strikers portrayed the capitalist faction as villainous. The I.W.W. also portrayed the side of capitalism as being made up of inhumane monsters incapable of any display of human decency. The town officials, the major press (The New York Times and the Boston newspapers), and the American Woolen Company created the same image of monstrous creatures for the I.W.W. and the men who were on strike. Initially the press portrayed the striking women as victims, but this shifted as the fight became violent and women were hurt. When the children were hurt and parents were robbed of their children, the press changed sides again and sided with the workers and I.W.W, portraying the militia and capitalist factions as monsters.

The workers who spoke at the congressional hearings portrayed themselves as honest, hard-working people who had been abused but were not victims because they had stood up for their rights. The town and militia leaders portrayed themselves as patriarchal, valiant men who had only tried to keep the peace and save the strikers from harm. The American Woolen Company tried to represent themselves as former patriarchs who had become victims of the I.W.W. and strikers violent ignorance. The I.W.W. members who spoke portrayed themselves as heroic patriarchs who had come to the aid of leaderless immigrant workers.                       

Figure 9: Lawrence Strike Outcome

Source: The Lumberjack, Sept. 15, 1912            

In the end, time has shown which representations were the closest to the truth. Everyone’s representations – be it of others or of themselves – was shaped by their class, ethnicity, and gender. The information that was revealed about the realities of the workers lives did not change much after the strike. It would take many more years for work place reforms to require enough of factory owners that the mills would become a safe place to work. This information should not in any way diminish the struggles of those who fought for a better life in Lawrence, Massachusetts, from January through March of 1912. Their struggles were part of the larger struggle that did, eventually, lead to federal regulation of a safe working environment.