As for the women on the picket lines,
they are not playing “the baby act.”
They’re good soldiers.
They’re thoroughly “game,” those women and
we should be immensely proud of them.
-Lenora Austin Hamlin
Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday September 26, 1916
Mesabi Iron Range, Minnesota – Mrs. Hamlin Describes Conditions
From the Duluth Labor World of September 23, 1916:
BLAMES PRIVATE POLICE FOR VIOLENCE
IN MINERS’ STRIKE
—–
Lenora Austin Hamlin Gives First Pen Picture of
Actual Conditions on Mesaba Range From
Disinterested Standpoint—Makes Telling
Report to Woman’s Welfare League
of St. Paul.
—–
Lenora Austin Hamlin of St. Paul was sent by the Woman’s Welfare league to get first hand information about the treatment accorded to men and women during the miners’ strike on the Mesaba range, following a speech made before the league by Mary Heaton Vorse and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
The St. Paul women wanted a colorless story of actual conditions. Mrs. Hamlin, well trained for this sort of investigations, was requested to do the work. She visited all the important points in the strike zone, and her story confirms the claims made during the strike by the miners.
Minnesota is closely following in the footsteps of Colorado and West Virginia, as is shown by the report. It reads in full as follows:
Members of the Woman’s Welfare league will recall that on Tuesday, Aug. 15, we were addressed by Mary Heaton Vorse and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn on the subject of strike conditions on the range and that great interest was aroused by their descriptions of the part women were taking in the strike and the hardships they were enduring in consequence.
Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mrs. Hamlin Blames Private Police for Violence in Mesabi Range Strike”
