CHAPTER 15: SELF-HELP IN
HARD TIMES
JOCELYN MEDINA
CH S 245 OL-14003
IWW STRIKE
•
I.W.W was an international
revolutionary industrial labor
organization formed in 1905
•
For five days, Seattle, Washington
was in a stop after a walkout of
100,000 working people
•
There were 35,000 shipyard striking
for a wage increase
•
The strike began on February 6,
1919 at 10:00 a.m.
•
In some cases, people have been
fired for supporting this union
THE PROCESS
• During the strike, the President of Seattle
was imprisoned and tortured because he
opposed to the draft.
• The city was shut down and all services
were under the workers control
• Strikers paid 25 cents for their everyday
meal
• In order to keep peace during the strikes,
there was an organization called “Labor
War Veteran’s Guard”
• No weapons or force were allowed
• This caused for crime in Seattle to decrease
• The strike ended after five days due to
difficulties that were occurring from to the
shut down of the city
• Although the strike was peaceful, there
were raids and arrest after.
WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA IN 1919
• In Western Pennsylvania, there were many immigrants
of different nationalities working in steel mills for
twelve hours a day, six days a week under severe hot
weather
• On September 1919, 250,000 men went on strike
• The department of justice gathered up alien workers to
hold them for deportation
• The steel corporation hired Sherman Service Inc. to
break up the strike
• Bad feelings were purposely caused between the
Italians and the Serbians
• Serbians were told that Italians were returning to work
in order for Serbians to return before getting their jobs
taken away
• More than 30 thousand black men were used as
strikebreakers
• The number of workers in the strike began decreasing
• Workers slowly returned to work, and the National
Committee called it off ten weeks later
BEGINNING OF 1920’S
• At the start of the 1920’s, the I.W.W no longer existed
• The strikes had been beaten down and the economy was in a good position that
was preventing mass rebellion to occur
• The congress put an end to immigrants moving into the cities
• There was a limit set for the people that countries could send (Ex: 100 for China,
Bulgaria, and Palestine; 34,007 for England and North Ireland; 3,845 for Italy)
• Ku Klux Klan revived, spreading to the North and gaining more members
causing more violence and hatred
• Marcus Garvey had hope for black unity and survival, preaching for black pride
and racial separation
•
Wages for workers began to rise and farmers were making a good amount of money
1920’S
• There were about
25,000 workers being
killed yearly and
100,000 disabled
• People in New York
were living in tenements
• The rich were in control,
pushing to poor into the
background and not
sharing information
regarding them
• Fiorello La Guardia was
a congressman who
spoke for the poor
• He visited a poor district
in New York and was
surprised by the
conditions the poor
people were living in
• The conditions of
poverty and the
struggles of the workers
were not being shown in
the news of prosperity
• Although women were
given the right to vote,
only middle-class and
upper-class women were
allowed to do so
THE GREAT DEPRESSION OF THE UNITED STATES
• The start of the Great Depression was when the stock
market crashed in 1929
• The capitalist system was a system that was unstable,
unpredictable, and did not see the human needs
• The results of that were people in depression and a crisis
• It caused widespread unemployment and wage cuts
• Many banks and businesses had to close down due to the
lack of money coming in
• Towns and cities were not earning much through taxes since
there were fewer people working
• The people responsible for the economy did not want to
recognize what was occurring
• On March 1931, Henry Ford stated that America was in a
crisis because men would not work the jobs that were
available for them
THE SPIRIT OF REBELLION
• During the Great Depression, the spirit of rebellion increased
• On July 9, 1931 a riot of 500 unemployed men took place in
Detroit.
• On November 10, 1931 in Boston 20 people were treated for
injuries, three died, and others were nursing wounds that were
caused by flying bottles and stones that were being thrown
• On November 28, 1931, a patrolman was hit on the head with a
stone
• On January 1, 1933 hundreds of jobless men in New York
surrounded a restaurant and were demanding to get food without
being charged for it
VETERANS IN NEED
• The first World
War veteran did
not have a job and
could not provide
food for his
family
• This led for him
to the march of
the Bonus Army
to Washington in
1932
• The first veteran
and others
marched to
demand that the
congress paid off
on them
• More than 20
thousand veterans
attended the march
• Many of them
attended in old
autos or hitchhiked
• Douglas McArthur
had his soldiers
use tear gas in
order to remove
the veterans from
the march
• As the families ran
to the huts, the
huts were set on
fire killing two
veterans and a
baby
ELECTIONS
• Franklin D. Roosevelt took office
in the spring of 1933 after
defeating Herbert Hoover in the
elections of November 1932 and
becoming the 32 nd president of
the United States
• He created a program of reform
legislation, “New Deal”
• His purpose was to reorganize
capitalism and overcome the
crisis
• The New Deal helped to reduce
unemployment from 13 million
to 9 million
• National Recovery Act (NRA)
was created to take over the
economy through a variety of
codes that would fix prices and
wages
• The Agriculture Adjustment Administration
(AAA) was also created to organize
agriculture
SELF-HELP
• Since the government and
business were not moving
quickly to provide help for the
people with no jobs, the
people felt they had to help
themselves in order to get
things done.
• Fishermen’s union in Seattle
helped themselves by catching
fish and exchanging it with
people who picked fruit and
vegetables
• Doctors, barbers, and
seamstresses also exchanged their
skills for other things
• 330 self-help organizations were
created in 1932 in 37 states,
including 300,000 members
• By 1933, these organizations
collapsed
•
•
•
•
The best example of
self-help was in the
district of
Pennsylvania
Unemployed minors
took mined coal to
different cities and
sold it after digging
small mines on the
company’s property
Although it was
considered “bootleg”
coal, it was produced
by 20 thousand men
These men were
forced to do this
because they were in
need of income and
were not receiving any
help from the
government to obtain
a job
PENNSYLVANIA SELF-HELP
TEXTILE STRIKES
•
•
•
•
•
•
In 1934, there were millions of workers that went on strike
In the fall of 1934, there was the largest textile strike that consisted of
325,000 workers
These workers battles guards and entered the mills to remove the
machinery
The textile strikes spread out to different countries where arrest were
made and men were beaten
Policemen killed seven of the men and wounded twenty others
Roosevelt resolved the dispute, and later had the union call off the strike
SIT-DOWNS
• The workers for the Firestone rubber
plant in Akron were not getting paid
enough to buy food and pay for their
rent
• In early 1936, some of the men had
their wages cut and others were fired
• This led for the workers to stop
working and sit down instead
• It began to spread out to other places
like Michigan where two brothers
were fired
• In 1936 there were 48 sit-down
strikes and 477 in 1937
BLACKS AND WHITES
• Blacks had a difficulties obtaining jobs
because of the discrimination against
them
• Many of the blacks were living in
terrible conditions such as, rat-infested
cellars and basements
• In the Harlem Hospital, twice as many
people died as in Bellevue Hospital,
which was of white people
• During the time New Deal reforms
were being passed, blacks went out on
the streets destroying what belonged to
the whites
• Police killed two of the black men
• Blacks were still used as strikebreakers
• Socialists, Trotskyists, and Communists
wanted to break the discrimination
amongst them
• The Communists wanted to bring the whites
and blacks together in order for them to go
against their common enemy, instead of
each other
WORKS CITED
Bullington, Jonathan. "Rail Workers, I.W.W. Organizers Hold Protest
on Near West Side." McClatchy - Tribune Business News,
(2013): .
Sreenivasan, Jyotsna. "Great Depression." Poverty and the Government
in America : A Historical Encyclopedia, 1 (2009):258-261.
Zinn, Howard. A People's History of America. New York, New York,
USA. HarperCollins Publishers, 1995.