On July 17, 1944, a munitions explosion at the Port Chicago Naval Magazine in Port Chicago, California killed 320 soldiers, mostly African-Americans loading munitions onto ships. This spurred them to demand improved conditions. When conditions did not improve, a group refused to load the munitions. Charged with mutiny, fifty were sentenced to long prison terms. […]
Tag: This Day in Labor History
On July 2, 1822, Denmark Vesey, a free African-American living in Charleston, South Carolina, was executed for his role in leading a purported slave rebellion. This event marked a significant increase
On June 21, 1877, ten alleged members of the Molly Maguires, an Irish secret society blamed for labor radicalism in the anthracite country of Pennsylvania, were executed. The Molly Maguires began in I
On June 16, 1918, the socialist leader and former head of the American Railway Union Eugene Debs gave a speech in Canton, Ohio, criticizing the United States’ actions in World War I and urging resistance to the draft. Two weeks later, Debs was arrested under the Espionage Act and charged with ten counts of sedition. […]
This is a guest post by Jacob Remes, who is assistant professor and mentor at SUNY Empire State College, where he teaches public affairs and history. His book, Disaster Citizenship: Urban Disasters an
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post on the Paterson strike pageant, I was moderating a panel of really first-rate historians on the anniversary of the strike. I am going to write up the panel for
On June 7, 1913, the supporters of the Industrial Workers of the World led textile worker strike in Paterson, New Jersey held the Paterson Strike Pageant at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The only such stage of production of strikers in American history, perhaps nothing demonstrates both the great skills and significant limitations […]
On May 26, 1937, United Auto Workers organizers, including future president Walter Reuther, walked toward the Ford Motor Company’s giant River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan to hand out pro-u
On May 12, 1902, coal miners in Pennsylvania’s anthracite fields went on strike. There were many strikes in the coal fields during the Gilded Age, but this one has special significance because t
On May 10, 1993, the Kader toy factory in the Nakhom Pathom province of Thailand, just outside of Bangkok, caught on fire, killing 188 workers, severely injuring over 500, and breaking the all-time death toll for a factory workplace, previously held by the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York in 1911. The largest workplace disaster […]
On May 6, 1882, President Chester Alan Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act. Although not often seen by the general public as part of our labor history, the Chinese Exclusion Act was the first legi
On May 3, 1911, Wisconsin created the first workers compensation program, followed almost immediately by Washington and most of the Northwestern states. This was the beginning of a system, albeit quit