Hellraisers Journal: “Heartrending Scenes At Mouth of Palos Shaft” -Two Families Lose Four Loved Ones in Great Explosion

13th May 202013th May 2020 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Palos AL Mine Disaster Song by TJ Reid re May 5 1910 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 13, 1910
Palos, Alabama – Heartrending Scenes after Mine Explodes in Fire

From The Birmingham News of May 6, 1910:

From The Birmingham News of May 7, 1910:

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Special to The Birmingham News.

PALOS, Ala., May 7.-Two families suffered hard in the explosion, the Penningtons and the Etansburys [Stansbury]. J. S. Pennington and three of his sons, Cliff, aged 24; Albert, 16, and Clarence, 15, were in the mines at the time of the explosion, while four Stanbury brothers were also among those who gave up their lives, Earl, Robert, C. H. and Fred.

[Said James Stansbury, the father:]

It is pretty hard to lose four fine sons in the mines, but I guess I will have to bear the awful burden. In a twinkling of an eye, four fine fellows are called to the beyond,

and the old man walked away, his heart sobbing and his eyes filled with tears.

For two days now the wife of J. S. Pennington and her eight children, some of them her step-children, have been sitting around near the improvised morgue near the trestle to the mines. She has been moaning off and on,

Mr. Pennington was a good man. He was a kind husband and a good father And the boys who met the same fate were all good boys. My grief is something terrible. We had such a fine family and the Penningtons have always been respected around here.

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Hellraisers Journal: Luella Twining on the Philadelphia Carmen’s Strike and Formation of Woman’s Auxiliary

12th May 2020 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote EVD, Lawmakers Felons, Phl GS Speech, IA, Mar 19, 1910 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 12, 1910
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Carmen’s Strike Continues; Women Organize

From The Progressive Woman of May 1910:

The Philadelphia Situation

LUELLA TWINING

The most significant features of the Carmen’s strike in Philadelphia are the sympathetic strike that was called soon after the carmen went out, involving 200,000 men and women; the awakening of the workers of this city to the fact that the government is the bulwark of capitalism; and the great organization of carmen’s wives that has been built up in two weeks, now numbering five thousand women.

Government Officials Control Situation

Senators Penrose, McNichols, Director Clay and other officials have taken charge of affairs for the Transit company. There was not even an attempt at a settlement till those senators appeared, Mr. McNichols coming from Florida where he had fled to get away from the strike. Indeed, so apparent has been the connivance between the Transit company and national, state and city officials that even the least observing have been forced to see it. Mayor Reyburn has issued statements for the Transit company showing that the city hall is openly against the strikers; policemen are put on the cars to run them and scab on the carmen; when the carmen attempted to hold a meeting in the ball park, which had been rented for that purpose, mounted policemen rode into men, women and children, trampling them down and beating them on the heads with clubs, till the pavement was covered with blood. So active has the government been in attempting to break the strike that the strikers and their wives discuss the political situation almost exclusively. It might well be called a “political strike.”

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Industrial Worker: The River of Wealth Diverted Past Labor’s Shack to Master’s Estate

11th May 2020 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote EGF, Compliment IWW, IW p1, Nov 17, 1909 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 11, 1910
River of Wealth Diverted Past Labor’s Shack to Master’s Estate

From the Industrial Worker of May 7, 1910:

Page 2: “What’s in a Name?” by A. E. Anderson

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Progressive Woman: Clara Lemlich and Fannie Zinsher, “Two Little Heroines”

4th May 2020 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Clara Lemlich, Cooper Un Nov 22 re Uprising, NY Call p2, Nov 23, 1909 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 3, 1910
New York, New York – Clara Lemlich and Fannie Zinsher, Heroines

From The Progressive Woman of May 1910:

TWO LITTLE HEROINES

From The Survey of January 22, 1910
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I have listened to all the speakers and I have no patience for talk. I am one who feels and suffers for the things pictured. I move that we go on a general strike.—Clara Lemlich at the famous Cooper Union meeting.

The spontaneous strike of 20,000 shirt waist makers in New York City was the greatest event in the history of woman’s work. The majority of the strikers were mere girls, few of them over twenty years of age. They had no “great” leaders, but among them were individualities strong enough and great enough to hold a place in the history of our country’s industrial development. Two of these were Fannie Zinsher and Clara Lemlich. The following from The Survey [“The Spirit of the Strikers” by Mary Brown Sumner] is a sketch of the lives of these two brave little girls:

I have two pictures of Fanny Zinsher in my mind, one as she came from Russia at fourteen, fleeing from persecution to free America, with round cheeks, smiling, irresponsible lips and clear eyes full of interest and delight in living; the other after five years of American freedom, with sad sweet eyes whose sight was strained by the flashing of the needle and by study late at night, mouth drooping with a weight of sadness and responsibility and an expression of patience and endurance far beyond her twenty years.

She came a little high school girl from Kishineff to San Francisco. She did not know what work for wages was, but she and her brother four years older had to turn to and support a mother and a little brother. Three hundred power-machines in one long room of the garment factory welcomed this little human machine-in-the-making. The roar and flash of the needles terrified her. She tried to work, but her nerves went more and more to pieces, her frightened eyes failed to follow her fingers as they guided her work and the second day she slit a finger open and was laid up for three weeks. When she returned she could adapt herself no better to the nervous strain. At piece work she could earn little over one dollar a week, until a kind forewoman removed her to a smaller room where in time she rose to five dollars.

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