Bread & Roses: The Great Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912
Date and Time
Feb 3, 2015 5:00 pm
Location
450K
450 K St NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20001
Feb 3, 2015 5:00 pm
450K
Join us for a discussion of The Great Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912: New Scholarship on the Bread and Roses Strike. Edited by Robert Forrant and Jurg Siegenthaler, Baywood Publishing, 2014.
February 3, 2015, falls on a day exactly 103 years after the shooting of Anna LoPizzo, the first victim of the strike, and before the first children’s exodus to families of strikers’ friends in New York and other cities, which marked the turning point of the strike in favor of the workers. Today, the story’s retelling offers an exciting opportunity to realize just how powerful a united working class can be. The authors tackle the strike story through new lenses and dispel assumptions that the citywide walkout was a spontaneous one led by outside agitators.
Chapters range from the telling of the inside story of the strikers’ bargaining team and a “game theory†analysis of the main confrontation with police to a search for the origin of the “Bread and Roses†name that became attached to the strike. The book is of great relevance to historians of labor, industrialization,
immigration, and the development of cities and to researchers studying social movements.
Jurg Siegenthaler is emeritus professor of social policy at American University in Washington, DC. His teaching and research have mainly encompassed the social and economic history of industrialization. He has written on producers’ cooperatives, long-term changes in workers’ standard of living, work and
technology, and published a book comparing the environmental and social costs of industrialization in Swiss and U.S. regions. He has been a member of the Bread and Roses Heritage Committee in Lawrence,
Massachusetts, and co-coordinator of the Lawrence History Live speakers’ tent at the Bread and Roses Heritage Festival on Labor Day.Â
Robert Forrant is a University of Massachusetts Lowell Professor of History and
chaired the Lawrence-based Bread and Roses Centennial Committee.
Bread & Roses is a monthly labor series that features a variety of events focused on workers and organized labor. Each month brings a new topic through interactive discussions, film screenings, and performances. The hope for these events is that attendees walk away with a greater understanding of organized labor, its role in shaping history and current relevance. The name "Bread & Roses" was inspired by a poem/song written by James Oppenheim that appeals for both fair wages and dignified conditions.
Bread & Roses is held on the first Tuesday of every month at Busboys and Poets 5th & K and hosted by Nafisa Isa, Program Innovations Specialist at Busboys. Have ideas for future Bread & Roses events? E-mail Nafisa at nafisa@busboysandpoets.com.
Free and open to all!Â
