Category: Hellraisers Journal

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for May 1901, Part II: Found Organizing Servant Girls of Pennsylvania and Miners of West Virginia

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, re Servant Girls Organizing, Kvl TN Sntl p5, May 23, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 12, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1901, Part II
Found Organizing in Pennsylvania and West Virginia

From The Muncie Daily Times of May 16, 1901:

SERVANT GIRLS’ UNION. 
———-
Mother Jones’ Rules For Kitchen
and Nursery Work.

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

“Mother” Jones is preparing to organize a servant girls’ union at Wilkes-barre, Pa., as well as in Scranton and has drawn up these rules, says the New York World, which the union will enforce at each, “place:”

Ten hours’ work a day and no more.

An increase in wages according to the the size of the house and the work required.

No one shall work for less than $3 a week.

Cooks shall not act as ladies maids or take care of babies.

Nursegirls shall not be required to act as cooks.

It shall not be necessary to stay in nights while the mistress goes out.

If more than ten hours work a day shall be required, a double shift must be employed.

An amusement room shall be furnished for the girls so that they shall not be required to sit in the kitchen all the time.

Visitors shall be allowed to call upon them any night they are off duty.

Wages must be paid every week.

They shall have the privilege of putting their clothes in the family wash.

Their meals shall be the same as those of the family.

Bedchambers shall be large, airy and well heated.

—————

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for May 1901, Part I: Found Standing with Silk Mill Strikers and Servant Girls of Pennsylvania

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Child Labor Silk Mills, WB Dly Ns p1, May 11, 1901—————-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 11, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1901, Part I
Found Standing with Silk Mill Strikers of Pennsylvania

From The Scranton Republican of May 2, 1901:

SILK MILL STRIKERS
———-
Girls at the Klotz Works
Back at Their Frames
-Mill at Taylor Still Idle.
———-

MOTHER JONES’ BIRTHDAY 
———-

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

Today all is serene at the silk mills of Scranton. Klotz mill, the first to go on strike, resumed operations yesterday. The reason they did not start Tuesday was because the proprietor persisted in retaining Emily Mailet, a forewoman who was unsatisfactory to the strikers. A committee from the Klotz local waited on Mr. Klotz Wednesday afternoon with the result that he agreed to recognize the union, allowed them the 8 and 12 per cent. advance, and grunted the usual half holiday for five months of the warm weather. Besides this, he said that if the action of the forewoman in question should result in any further trouble he would investigate the matter thoroughly, and discharge her if the case so demanded.

[…..]

It is an interesting fact that yesterday marked a complete resumption of work among the Scranton silk mills, and it was also the birthday of “Mother” Jones, to whose vigorous efforts among the strikers this resumption is largely due. Yesterday marked the 58th milestone in her journey of life, and she said that before two years more shall have passed and she will have reached her 60th year, she expects to fight many another battle in the cause of labor. It is remarkable that a woman of her age, who has gone through so many excitable experiences, should be hail and hearty at the dawn of her 59th year and possess the vigorous mind that “Mother” Jones does.

Last evening she opened the entertainment of Harvey’s local in the “New hall” on Pittston avenue, and received hearty applause from the audience.

———-

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for May 1901, Part I: Found Standing with Silk Mill Strikers and Servant Girls of Pennsylvania” →

Hellraisers Journal: Forty-Two Striking Miners Arrested in Raid on Lick Creek Tent Colony, Mingo County, West Virginia

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones, Doomed, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel, p213—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 10, 1921
Mingo County – Lick Creek Colony Raided; Striking Miners Arrested 

From The New York Times of June 6, 1921:

ARREST FORTY IN MINGO.
—–
Military Authorities Accuse Them of
Violating Martial Law.

Mingo County WV, Strikers n Families Lick Creek Tent Colony, Lt Dg p16, Dec 18, 1920

WILLIAMSON, W. V Va., June 5.-Forty-two men, residents of the Lick Creek Tent Colony of idle miners, near Williamson, were arrested today and locked up in the county jail charged with violating the proclamation of martial law recently imposed following disorders in the Mingo coal fields.

The purpose of the raid, said Captain U. R. Brockus of the State Police, was an attempt to bring to justice those who had fired upon motorists in the vicinity of the tent colony during the past few weeks. Decision to make the raid, it was said, followed when reports reached State Police Headquarters that an automobile in which five persons were riding was fired upon this morning. Five bullets struck the car, according to the reports, but no one was injured.

The arrests were made by State Police and deputy sheriffs, headed by Captain Brockus and Sheriff Pinson, and consisted of about forty men, all heavily armed. No resistance was offered, but the authorities declared that eight armed men fled into the mountains when the posse reached the camp. One was captured after an exciting chase. The prisoners will be examined tomorrow.

—————

[Emphasis added. Photograph added from Literary Digest of Dec. 18, 1920.]

[Note: “deputy sheriffs” often means deputized company gunthugs.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Forty-Two Striking Miners Arrested in Raid on Lick Creek Tent Colony, Mingo County, West Virginia” →

Hellraisers Journal: The Coming Nation: How the National Consumers’ League Stands with Working Women, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones Quote ed, Suffer Little Children, CIR May 14, 1915—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 9, 1911
National Consumers’ League Stands with Working Women & Children, Part II

From The Coming Nation of June 3, 1911:

How Women Help Women

By Grace Potter

[Part II of II.]

Child Labor, Making Flowers in Basement, Cmg Ntn p10, June 3, 1911

How Infection is Carried in Clothes

Not the healthiest living nor the strongest constitution is always proof against the germs of scarlet fever, for instance. They are carried readily in clothing, say, an overcoat. Perhaps, even, the man or the woman or children who worked on that overcoat, no one of them had scarlet fever. But the baby of the family where the coat was finished might have had it. The poor haven’t time to care for their sick. They don’t know what ails their children often when they are really very ill. A doctor costs money. It costs much time, which is the same as money to them, to take the little one to a dispensary and wait through hours of weary impatience for attention. Perhaps, too, their child would be taken from them and put in a hospital. And the poor have a reasonable dread of hospitals. So when the babies are taken sick they often go through a disease like diphtheria, tonsillitis, or scarlet fever, without anyone knowing what is the matter.

The little one has to be kept in the same room where the work is going on. It is the least dark room of the two or three or four in their flat. When the baby is picked up for the scant attention which is all that a tenement mother with the tenderest mother feelings in the world can give, the baby leaves infection upon its mother’s dress and the infection is the next moment transmitted to the coat mother is working with. The coat when done is carefully folded, taken back to the shop, later shipped to St. Paul, perhaps, and there bought by a prosperous business man.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: The Coming Nation: How the National Consumers’ League Stands with Working Women, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: The Coming Nation: How the National Consumers’ League Stands with Working Women, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Mother Jones Quote ed, Suffer Little Children, CIR May 14, 1915—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 8, 1911
The National Consumers’ League Stands with Working Women and Children

From The Coming Nation of June 3, 1911:

How Women Help Women

By Grace Potter

[Part I of II.]

Child Labor, Flower Makers, Cmg Ntn p10, June 3, 1911

Child Labor, T, Cmg Ntn p10, June 3, 1911

HE National Consumers’ League believes that the six million wage-working women in the United States are in many ways earning their bread under greater difficulties than the men wage slaves endure.

The shirt waist strike two years ago and the present strike of the box makers in New York illustrate one of the handicaps women suffer. Whatever move they made in the progress of their battle, the shirt-waist strikers were hauled into police court. They were often treated brutally by policemen, they were thrust into cells, they were fined, they were imprisoned. They suffered as no men strikers ever have in New York. The police were not deterred from unjust action against these young women by the thought of the way they might vote at the next election, because women have no vote.

Woman’s inferior physical strength, her maternal cares, her need to give attention to her home the while she is a wage earner, all are handicaps, too.

The National Consumers’ League is trying to make conditions better for working women because she is so handicapped. Incidentally they are making conditions better for men in many places.

It was over twenty years ago that the Consumers’ League was started in New York City. It has spread to many states and many countries since then and it is still spreading. It has two definite aims:

1. To abolish the sweating system.
2. To extend among all mercantile establishments commendable conditions.

These are the means taken to accomplish such ends:

1. The Consumers’ League Label.
2. The White List of Fair Houses.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: The Coming Nation: How the National Consumers’ League Stands with Working Women, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: The New York Age: “Oklahoma Whites Attempt To Destroy Entire Negro Section” -the Tulsa Massacre

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Claude McKay, Fighting Back, Messenger p4, Sept 1919—————-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 5, 1921
Tulsa, Oklahoma – Whites Burn Greenwood Section, Massacre Citizens

From The New York Age of June 4, 1921:

Tulsa Massacre BNR HdLn, NY Age p1, June 4, 1921——Tulsa Massacre re Negro Section, NY Age p1, June 4, 1921—–Tulsa Massacre Extra 75 Dead, NY Age p1, June 4, 1921

Tulsa, Okla, Wednesday, June1.-Governor Robertson, in a message received here at noon proclaimed all of Tulsa county under martial law, as a result of rioting which is reported to have caused the deaths of a least seventy-five persons, mostly Negroes, and the wounding of many more.

Nearly ten square blocks of the Negro section of the city, where an armed battled has been in progress since last night, in in flames……

Detachments of guardsmen, armed with machine guns, were scattered throughout the city. Guards surrounded the armory while others assisted in rounding up Negroes and segregating them in the jail. Convention Hall, Baseball Park and other places which had been turned into prison camps….. Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: The New York Age: “Oklahoma Whites Attempt To Destroy Entire Negro Section” -the Tulsa Massacre” →

Hellraisers Journal: Miners’ Wives, with Babes in Arms, Arrested for Serenading Scabs, Sing on Their Way to Jail

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, PA Strike Greensburg Women Sing Jail, Ab p146, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 4, 1911
Greensburg, Pennsylvania – Miners’ Wives Sing on Their Way to Jail

From the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader of June 2, 1911:

MINERS’ WIVES ARE JAILED WHEN
THEY SHOUT AT WORKERS
———-
Eleven Torn from Families on Complaint of
Coal Company Officials at Greensburg. 
———-

TWO WERE CARRYING BABES 
—–
Prisoners Will Have to Spend Thirty Days
in Jail Unless Judge Changes Mind.
—–

PA Miners Strike Westmoreland Irwin Greensburg, Women Sing Jail, Ptt Dly Pst p4, June 2, 1911

GREENSBURG, Pa., June 2.-With tearful faces, but defiant in their stand for their husbands, who are striking miners in the Irwin coal fields, eleven women were torn from their husbands and children, who had accompanied them to the Westmoreland county jail, and locked up to serve thirty-day sentences, imposed for disorderly conduct.

The women are from Westmoreland City, and it was alleged by the prosecutors, who are officers of the coal company, that the women had made the night hideous for the inhabitants with their shouting and had been a menace to the men who were working for the company [scabs].

They were arrested on warrants issued before Squire H. A. Meerhoff, of Irwin, who sentenced them.

Two of the prisoners, Mrs. Margaret Means and Mrs. Dot Smith, carried babies in their arms. A crowd gathered around the jail when it became known that a band of strikers wives were being locked up.

Judge A. D. McConnell ordered twenty strikers who were brought before him from Latrobe and Bradenville, charged by the Latrobe Connellsville Coke Company with violating the court’s injunction, to pay the costs or stand committed. They were also ordered to remove their camp at Superior No. 2 within the next five days or be sent to jail.

This is the second bunch of strikers who were ordered to pay the costs for violating the court’s injunction issued a year ago restraining them from marching “by or near” company property. There is some talk among the United Mine Workers of making an appeal from the court’s decision, especially in the matter of ordering them to remove their camp, which is located on private property which they have leased.

—————

[Newsclip added from Pittsburg Post of June 2, 1911]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Miners’ Wives, with Babes in Arms, Arrested for Serenading Scabs, Sing on Their Way to Jail” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the Industrial Worker: “Women in Industry Should Organize” by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Janet RayeElizabeth Gurley Flynn
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Quote EGF Organize Women, IW p4, June 1, 1911———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 3, 1911
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: Organize Women in Strong Industrial Unions

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of June 1, 1911:

WOMEN IN INDUSTRY SHOULD ORGANIZE
———-

BY ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN

EGF, ISR p606, Apr 1911

From the viewpoint of a revolutionary socialist there is certainly much to criticize in the present labor organizations. They have their shortcomings, of so pronounced a character that many thoughtful but pessimistic workers despair of practical benefit from assisting or considering them further. Yet unionism remains a vital and a burning question to the toilers, both men and women.

[…..]

Little need be said of he seven million wage-earning women. That unionism is their one great weapon, hardly admits of argument. Even more than their brother toilers do these underpaid and overworked women need co-operative effort on their own behalf. Yet many of their experiences with the old unions have been neither pleasant nor encouraging. Strike after strike of cloak makers, shirt waist makers, dressmakers, etc on the East Side of New York has been exploited by rich faddists for woman’s suffrage, etc., until the points at issue were lost sight of in the blare of automobile horns attendant on their coming and going. A band of earnest, struggling workers made the tail of a suffrage kite in the hands of women of the very class driving the girls to lives of misery or shame, women who could have financed the strike to a truly successful conclusion were they seriously disposed, is indeed a deplorable sight. But the final settlement of the many widely advertised strikers left much to be desired.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Industrial Worker: “Women in Industry Should Organize” by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn” →