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San Diego Free Speech Fight
The San Diego free speech fight in San Diego, California, in 1912 was one of the most famous class conflicts over the free speech rights of labor unions. Starting out as one of several direct actions known as free speech fights carried out across North America by the Industrial Workers of the World, the catalyst of the San Diego free speech fight was the passing of Ordinance No. 4623 that banned all kinds of speech in an area that included " soapbox row" downtown. Clashes with the police in the area led to riots, multiple deaths including the deaths of police officers, vigilantism, and the retaliatory kidnapping and torture of notable socialists, including Emma Goldman's manager Ben Reitman. As a direct result of the aftermath of this fight, the neighborhood of Stingaree was razed to the ground and San Diego's Chinatown was obliterated. Introduction By the beginning of the 20th century, growing confrontations between the working class and their employers caused suspicion a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Speech Fights
Free speech fights are struggles over free speech, and especially those struggles which involved the Industrial Workers of the World and their attempts to gain awareness for labor issues by organizing workers and urging them to use their collective voice. During the World War I period in the United States, the IWW members (referred to as Wobblies), engaged in free speech fights over labor issues which were closely connected to the developing industrial world as well as the Socialist Party. The Wobblies, along with other radical groups, were often met with opposition (violent and otherwise) from local governments and especially business leaders, in their free speech fights. The IWW organized transient workers (especially in cities in the American West) who worked in highly seasonal jobs—they met on the streets, discussed contemporary issues, and listened to speakers; at the time, it was a very popular method of organization. The events often ended with the police arresting them for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Reitman
__NOTOC__ Ben Lewis Reitman M.D. (1879–1943) was an American anarchist and physician to the poor ("the hobo doctor"). He is best remembered today as one of radical Emma Goldman's lovers. Martin Scorsese's 1972 feature film ''Boxcar Bertha'' is based on ''Sister of the Road'', one of Reitman's books. Biography Reitman was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to poor Russian Jewish immigrants in 1879, and grew up in Chicago. At the age of twelve, he became a hobo, but returned to Chicago and worked in the Polyclinic Laboratory as a "laboratory boy".Reitman profile, UIC. In 1900, he entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Chicago, completing his medical studies in 1904. During this time he was briefly married; he and his wife had a daughter together. His wife was Mae Schwartz, and their daughter was Jan Gay (born Helen Reitman), the author, nudism advocate, and founder of the nudist ''Out-of-Door Club'' at Highland, New York. He worked as a physician in Chicago, choosing to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trade Union
A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages and Employee benefits, benefits, improving Work (human activity), working conditions, improving safety standards, establishing complaint procedures, developing rules governing status of employees (rules governing promotions, just-cause conditions for termination) and protecting and increasing the bargaining power of workers. Trade unions typically fund their head office and legal team functions through regularly imposed fees called ''union dues''. The union representatives in the workforce are usually made up of workplace volunteers who are often appointed by members through internal democratic elections. The trade union, through an elected leadership and bargaining committee, bargains with the employer on behalf of its members, known as t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Federation Of Miners
The Western Federation of Miners (WFM) was a labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles – with both employers and governmental authorities. One of the most dramatic of these struggles occurred in the Cripple Creek district of Colorado in 1903–1904; the conflicts were thus dubbed the Colorado Labor Wars. The WFM also played a key role in the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905 but left that organization several years later. The WFM changed its name to the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (more familiarly referred to as Mine Mill) in 1916. After a period of decline it revived in the early days of the New Deal and helped found the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1935. The Mine Mill union was expelled from the CIO in 1950 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western United States
The Western United States (also called the American West, the Western States, the Far West, the Western territories, and the West) is List of regions of the United States, census regions United States Census Bureau. As American settlement in the U.S. Manifest destiny, expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the West'' changed. Before around 1800, the crest of the Appalachian Mountains was seen as the American frontier, western frontier. The frontier moved westward and eventually the lands west of the Mississippi River were considered ''the West''. The U.S. Census Bureau's definition of the 13 westernmost states includes the Rocky Mountains and the Great Basin to the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast, and the mid-Pacific islands state, Hawaii. To the east of the Western United States is the Midwestern United States and the Southern United States, with Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The West contains several major biomes, including arid and Sem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Federation Of Labor
The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual support and disappointed in the Knights of Labor. Samuel Gompers was elected the full-time president at its founding convention and was re-elected every year except one until his death in 1924. He became the major spokesperson for the union movement. The A.F. of L. was the largest union grouping, even after the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) by unions that were expelled by the A.F. of L. in 1935. The A.F. of L. was founded and dominated by craft unions, especially in the building trades. In the late 1930s, craft affiliates expanded by organizing on an industrial union basis to meet the challenge from the CIO. The A.F. of L. and the CIO competed bitterly in the late 1930s but then cooperated during World War ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knights Of Labor
The Knights of Labor (K of L), officially the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, was the largest American labor movement of the 19th century, claiming for a time nearly one million members. It operated in the United States as well in Canada, and had chapters also in Great Britain and Australia. Its most important leader was Terence V. Powderly. The Knights of Labor promoted the social and cultural uplift of the worker, and demanded the eight-hour day. In some cases it acted as a labor union, negotiating with employers, but it was never well organized or funded. It was notable in its ambition to organize across lines of gender and race and in the inclusion of both skilled and unskilled labor. After a rapid expansion in the mid-1880s, it suddenly lost its new members and succumbed to a jurisdictional battle with the new American Federation of Labor. The Knights of Labor had served as the first mass organization of the white working class of the United States. Founded by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of United States cities by population, third-most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles. As the county seat, seat of Cook County, Illinois, Cook County, the List of the most populous counties in the United States, second-most populous county in the U.S., Chicago is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area, often colloquially called "Chicagoland" and home to 9.6 million residents. Located on the shore of Lake Michigan, Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a Chicago Portage, portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, Mississippi River watershed. It grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, but ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haymarket Riot
The Haymarket affair, also known as the Haymarket massacre, the Haymarket riot, the Haymarket Square riot, or the Haymarket Incident, was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886 at Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois. The rally began peacefully in support of workers striking for an eight-hour work day; it was held the day after a May 3 rally at a McCormick Harvesting Machine Company plant on the West Side of Chicago, during which two demonstrators had been killed and many demonstrators and police had been injured. At the Haymarket Square rally on May 4, an unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at the police as they acted to disperse the meeting, and the bomb blast and ensuing retaliatory gunfire by the police caused the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; dozens of others were wounded. Eight anarchists were charged with the bombing. They were convicted of conspiracy in the internationally publicized legal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Militant (word)
The English word ''militant'' is both an adjective and a noun, and it is generally used to mean vigorously active, combative and/or aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in "militant reformers". It comes from the 15th century Latin "''militare''" meaning "to serve as a soldier". As adjective Militant can mean "vigorously active and aggressive, especially in support of a cause" as in 'militant reformers'. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, defines ''militant'' as "Having a combative character; aggressive, especially in the service of a cause". The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines ''militant'' as "aggressively active (as in a cause)". It says that the word ''militant'' might typically be used in phrases such as 'militant conservationists' or 'a militant attitude'. An example of the adjective usages is demonstrated when ''The New York Times'' ran an article titled ''Militant Environmentalists Planning Summer Protests to Save Redwoods'' des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strike (labor)
Strike action, also called labor strike, labour strike in British English, or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to Working class, work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became common during the Industrial Revolution, when Labour economics, mass labor became important in factories and mines. As striking became a more common practice, governments were often pushed to act (either by private business or by union workers). When government intervention occurred, it was rarely neutral or amicable. Early strikes were often deemed unlawful conspiracies or anti-competitive cartel action and many were subject to massive legal repression by state police, federal military power, and federal courts. Many Western nations legalized striking under certain conditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Strikes are sometimes used to pressure governments to change policies. Occasionally, strikes destabilize the r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
