Massachusetts
The Bread and Roses Strike Was an Epic Labor Action for Workers’ Dignity
“Short pay, short pay,” shouted the Polish women weavers on January 11, 1912, as they left their looms and walked out of the factory in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The state had recently passed a modest labor reform cutting the maximum number of hours women and children could toil from fifty-six to fifty-four, and employers had promptly docked their pay. The day after the walkout, thousands of mill workers in the area joined them. A week later, the Lawrence mill workers’ strike was twenty-five thousand workers strong.
This storied labor action, widely known as the “Bread and Roses” strike, succeeded despite phenomenal ruling-class unity and the workers’ extreme deprivation. It deserves to be remembered every year, for its namesake slogan (“The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too”) and for its stirring example of collective action.
The strike was powered by an extraordinarily diverse group of workers, including teenage girls. About half the workers were young women aged fourteen to eighteen. About two-thirds were recent immigrants, including from France, Italy, Russia, Syria, Armenia, Ireland, Belgium, and Lithuania. Meetings were translated into more than three dozen languages.
The mill workers’ conditions were horrific. Pneumonia and tuberculosis ran rampant in the damp factories, and one-third of workers died before they turned twenty-five. Child workers often perished within the first couple years of employment. Workers lived in extremely cramped conditions, often on the brink of starvation. When the pay cut hit in January 1912, many workers were unable to feed themselves or their children.
The stakes of the conflict were high for the capitalist class, too. Lawrence wool mills were vital to the national and local economy, producing one quarter of all the wool in the United States, and comprising two-thirds of the local manufacturing economy and more than two-thirds of all capital invested in Lawrence.
No wonder, then, that the state and the ruling classes mobilized to suppress the worker pushback. Mill owners turned fire hoses on the picketers. State militias and police were summoned from neighboring towns, even Marines. “A tumult is threatened,” whimpered the mayor, in a letter pleading with a militia captain to send troops “to suppress same.” Police beat up mothers and children as families attempted to put kids on the train to send them out of the dangerous chaos. Harvard allowed students, many of whom were militia members, to pass their classes if they missed exams due to strikebreaking.
Enraged by the police brutality, women strikers fought back. Italian women, confronting a police officer on a bridge, relieved him of his club, gun, badge, and even pants, and terrorized him by dangling him over the icy water. Management and cops alike found they could not control the knife-wielding protesters. One boss called the women “full of cunning and also lots of bad temper,” whining anxiously, “it’s getting worse all the time.”
Like many legendary protests, the Bread and Roses strike has often been misremembered as a spontaneous moment of anger. Much like Rosa Parks’s refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus in 1955, the Lawrence strike was the product of extensive organizing. Socialists were crucial to that work. The Italian Socialist Federation led their own members off the shop floor and into the streets, helped organize the entire workforce, and connected the strikers to overseas socialist networks. About twenty chapters of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) — each organizing in a different language — had been active in Lawrence for about five years; they, too, provided critical organizing and solidarity.
The workers also had support from collective institutions in their community, modeled on those in their home countries. For example, Franco-Belgians ran a cooperative with a bakery, grocery store, and meeting hall. The latter was often used as meeting place for worker organizing in the years leading up to the strike. Franco-Belgians also ran a soup kitchen that fed strikers and their families.
The “Bread and Roses” slogan for which the strike is most well known did not originate with the 1912 walkout. Coined earlier by suffragettes — though a similar mantra also existed in radical working-class Italian movements — it became a pithy expression of workers’ desire to have both life’s necessities and pleasures. But it was a speech to the Lawrence strikers by Rose Schneiderman, a formidable organizer and the first American woman elected to a national position in a labor union, that popularized the mantra. As Schneiderman put it,
What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist — the right to life as the rich woman has the right to life, and the sun and music and art. You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too.
The strikers won big. Though a pay cut had sparked the action, they accomplished far more than simply reversing it. They came away with a 15 percent increase in wages, double pay for overtime, and a pledge of no retaliation against workers who participated in the strike. The big pay hike rippled across the regional labor market as well, boosting wages for many other workers.
Working-class leaders far beyond Lawrence recognized the significance of the mill workers’ victory. Eugene V. Debs called it “one of the most decisive and far-reaching ever won by organized workers.” The IWW’s Big Bill Haywood addressed workers on the town common at the conclusion of the strike, saying,
Single handed you are helpless but united you can win everything. You have won over the opposed power of the city, state, and national administrations, against the opposition of the combined forces of capitalism, in face of the armed forces. You have won by your solidarity and your brains and your muscle.
As libraries across western Massachusetts celebrate National Library Week from April 19 to April 25, they are honoring “the last real third space where everyone is welcome,” in the words of Greenfield Public Library Assistant Director Lisa Prolman.
According to the American Library Association, National Library Week is “an annual celebration highlighting the valuable role libraries and library professionals play in transforming lives and strengthening our communities.” This year, several libraries in the region will be hosting events to highlight the roles they play in their communities.
The Athol Public Library is among the venues engaging in National Library Week festivities, with a whole host of events starting on Tuesday, April 21, with Silly Goose Story Time at 10:30 a.m. The library will hold multiple events each day, including “Free Book Friday” on April 24, which Assistant Director Robin Shtulman said is “really fantastic.”
Shtulman said the week celebrates and emphasizes the “freedom to read, community outreach and celebrating the staff, without whom nothing would happen.”
The Athol Public Library said in an event announcement that “whatever brings you joy, the library has something for everyone,” and that aspect is being emphasized this National Library Week. To name a few of the events on tap, on Tuesday, April 21, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., there’s a volunteer opportunity where teens will make greeting cards for senior citizens; “A Minecraft Movie” will be shown at the same date and time; and on Thursday, April 23, the library will host Scavenger Hunt Bingo for all ages. For a full list of events at the Athol Public Library, visit atholpubliclibrary.com.
In Shelburne Falls, the Arms Library will feature a gallery from the Carlos Heiligmann Collection, a series of photos of public libraries across western Massachusetts. Also in collaboration with the Arms Library, Pothole Pictures and the Shelburne Falls Area Women’s Club will partner for a screening of “Free For All: The Public Library” on Saturday, April 25, at 2 p.m. at the Shelburne Falls Theater at Memorial Hall.
The documentary focuses on the evolution of the public library from its origins in the 19th century and the challenges it faces today, with modern-day issues such as book bans, funding cuts and debates over censorship.
It also explores the role that women’s clubs, like the one in Shelburne Falls, played in creating the modern library system. To serve their communities, women’s clubs took the lead in fundraising, collecting books and advocating for library legislation.
“Our women’s club in this town started with a group of 60 women who were gathering for lessons. … Because of the support of women in the U.S., we established over 80% of the public libraries [in the country],” said Christin Couture, program chair for the Shelburne Falls Area Women’s Club. “This film … I hear it’s so fascinating.”
Following the film’s screening, there will be a panel of local librarians who will engage in “lively conversation” about the history and future of public libraries. Tickets are $6, though school-age children will be admitted for free.
In Charlemont, Tyler Memorial Library will host an open house on Saturday, April 25, from noon to 2 p.m. featuring refreshments, a tour of the library and sun catcher crafting.
The Greenfield Public Library, meanwhile, is taking National Library Week in a bit of a different direction, as it is offering a book repair demonstration with Tom Hutcheson on Thursday, April 23, at 3:30 p.m. The day marks William Shakespeare’s birthday.
Although the book repair session required registration and is currently full, those who are interested may be placed on a waiting list at greenfieldpl.libcal.com/event/16460179.
Greenfield Public Library Director Anna Bognolo recognized the hard work that everyone has put into making the library a success, offering a “huge thank you” to the volunteers and staff who make its varied offerings possible.
“Stop by and support your library,” Bognolo said.
“Libraries, especially in this economy, are more important than ever,” Prolman said. Referencing the library’s role as a place where community members can go that is not work or home, she added, “They are the last real third space where everyone is welcome, and we don’t charge you for being here.”
Massachusetts
New Bedford MS-13 Member, Illegal Alien Pleads Guilty to Role in Brutal Murders In Massachusetts, Virginia
Frankli
Police shot and killed a man who officials say rushed officers with a knife during a call in Lexington, Massachusetts, on Saturday.
Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said the situation started around 1:40 p.m. when Lexington police received a 911 call from a resident of Mason Street reporting that his son had injured himself with a knife.
Officers from the Lexington Police Department and officers from the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC), who were already in town for Patriots’ Day events, responded to the call.
Police were able to escort two other residents out of the home, initially leaving a 26-year-old man inside. According to Ryan, while officers were setting up outside, the man ran out of the home and approached officers with a large kitchen knife.
She added that police tried twice to use non-lethal force, but it was not effective in stopping him. The man was shot by a Wilmington police officer who is a member of NEMLEC. The man was pronounced dead on scene and the officer who fired that shot was taken to a local hospital as a precaution.
The man’s name has not been released.
Ryan said typically in a call like this where someone was described as harming themselves, officers would first try to separate anyone else to keep them out of danger, which was done, and then standard practice would be to try to wait outside.
“It would be their practice to just wait for the person to come out. In the terrible circumstances of today, he suddenly rushed the officers, still clutching the knife,” Ryan said.
The investigation is still in the preliminary stages and more information is expected in time. Ryan said her office will request a formal inquest from the court to review whether any criminal conduct has occurred, which is the standard process.
This happened around the same time as the annual Patriots’ Day Parade, and just hours after a reenactment of the Battle of Lexington, which drew large crowds to town.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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