Today in Labor History July 22, 1946: In a terrorist attack, the right-wing Zionist group, Irgun, bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 people. The hotel was the site of the civil administration and military headquarters for Mandatory Palestine, a League of Nations political entity set up from 1920-1948. During World War I, the UK promised independence to the Arabs in Palestine if they rose up against the Ottomans, who controlled the Levant at that time. The Palestinian Arabs did rise up, helping to force out the Turks. However, the British betrayed them, dividing up the land with the French under the Sykes-Picot Agreement. During that same time, Jewish militias were organizing to create an independent Jewish state in Palestine. The attack on the King David was part of the “Jewish Insurgency” (AKA “Palestine Emergency”), a paramilitary campaign carried out by underground Jewish terrorist organizations against the British in order to create a Jewish state. Disguised as Arab workmen and waiters, Irgun operatives gained access to the hotel basement, where they placed a bomb. They did it in retaliation for Operation Agatha, when the British authorities raided Jewish Insurgency members’ homes and offices and arrested many of their members. Much of the British intelligence on the Jewish militias was stored in the King David Hotel.

I remember reading about how French revolutionaries tried to replace the 7-day week with 10-days in the 1790s, but I never knew the Soviets tried something similar. Both wanted to move people away from religious activity on Sundays (among other goals).

From 1929-1940, industrial workers in the USSR had staggered 5-day work cycles. Four days on, one day off, with 20% of employees off on any given day, and the factories never shutting down. It was a big increase in leisure time (1/5 instead of 1/7) but schedules didn't usually match your family or friends so the time had less value.

The experiment was brought to an end by the Nazi invasion in 1940 when they shifted back to 7 day cycles.

https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/61/wood.php

Today in Labor History July 20, 1549: Kett's Rebellion against the enclosures began. Insurgents began destroying enclosures in Morley St. Botolph on July 6. When they attacked the estate of John Flowerdew, on July 20, he tried to bribe them into attacking the estate of Robert Kett, instead. However, the plan backfired when Kett joined the rebels and helped them to tear down his own fences. Their 3,500-strong peoples' army captured Norwich. They tried landowners en masse and established a Commonwealth on Mousehold Heath. The movement gained strength, with the army growing to 16,000. The authorities eventually quashed the rebellion. Overall, 3,000 rebels and 250 mercenaries of the state died in the battles. But Kett refused the King's pardon, arguing: "Kings are wont to pardon wicked persons, not innocent men. We have done nothing to deserve such a pardon. We have been guilty of no crime." In response, the authorities tortured and hanged Kett slowly over several days.

Numerous historical novels have portrayed Kett's rebellion: “Mistress Haselwode: A tale of the Reformation Oak” (1876), by Frederick H. Moore; “For Kett and Countryside” (1910), by F.C. Tansley; “The Great Oak” (1949), by Jack Lindsay; “A Rebellious Oak” (2012), by Margaret Callow and “Tombland” (2018), by C.J. Sansom.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #rebellion #uk #england #enclosures #uprising #HistoricalFiction #novel #book #fiction #author #writer @bookstadon

Today in Women’s History, July 19, 1848: The famous two-day Women's Rights Convention opened in Seneca Falls, New York, promoted as "a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman." Female Quakers organized the meeting with Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Many of the attendees opposed the inclusion of women’s suffrage in their Declaration of Sentiments. However, Frederick Douglass, who was the only African American attendee, argued strongly for its inclusion. As a result, attendees ultimately voted to retain the suffrage resolution.

“Seneca Falls Inheritance,” by Miriam Grace Monfredo, is a historical novel that takes place in Seneca Falls at the time of the convention. Lisa Tetrault’s, “The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women's Suffrage Movement, 1848-1898,” argues that the notion that Seneca Falls was the birthplace and the feminist movement was promoted, in part, to help Stanton and Anthony maintain centralized control of the movement. She further argues that the Seneca Falls myth downplays or eliminates the role of African American activists and abolitionists in the fight for women’s rights and suffrage.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #feminism #womenshistory #womensrights #abolition #slavery #racism #historicalfiction #novel #books #writer #author @bookstadon

Today in Labor History July 18, 1934: “The American Mercury” accepted Emma Goldman's article, "Communism: Bolshevist & Anarchist, A Comparison.” However, it was not until a year later that it was published, in a truncated form, as "There is No Communism in Russia." Goldman had been deported by the U.S. in 1919, during the Palmer raids, and sent to Russia, where she lived with her comrade, Alexander Berkman, for several years. She was initially supportive of the Bolsheviks, until Trotsky brutally crushed the Kronstadt rebellion, in 1921, slaughtering over 1,000 sailors and then executing over a thousand more. After this, she left the USSR and, in 1923, published a book about her experiences, “My Disillusionment in Russia.” H.L. Menken founded “The American Mercury,” in 1924, and published radical writers throughout the 1920s and ‘30s. A change of ownership in the 1940s led to a shift to the far right, including virulently antisemitic articles.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #anarchism #EmmaGoldman #russia #soviet #ussr #communism #kronstadt #rebellion #massacre #writer #author #writer #books #journalism #magazine @bookstadon

Today in Labor History July 17, 1944: Two ammunition ships exploded at Port Chicago, CA (now known as the Concord Naval Weapons Center). The explosion killed 322 sailors, including 202 African-Americans assigned by the Navy to handle explosives. The explosion could be seen 35 miles away in San Francisco, across the Bay. In response, 258 African-Americans refused to return to the dangerous work, initiating what would be known as the Port Chicago Mutiny. 50 of the men were convicted and sentenced to hard labor. 47 were released in 1946. During their court proceedings, Thurgood Marshall, working then for the NAACP, prepared an appeal campaign, noting that only black men had been assigned to the dangerous munitions loading job. At the time, navy had over 100,000 black sailors, but no black officers. Beginning in 1990, a group of 25 Congressional leaders began a campaign to exonerate the mutineers. However, Congress did not exonerate the men until 2019.

In the 1980s, activists regularly protested at the Concord Naval Weapons Center against U.S. arms shipments to the Contras in Nicaragua. These shipments were supposedly secret, and illegal under the Congressional Boland Amendment. The base shipped 60,000 to 120,000 tons of munitions each year to U.S. forces and allies, including the Contras. On September 1, 1987, a weapons train deliberately ran over veterans who were blockading the tracks, including Brian Willson, who lost both of his legs, and a portion of his frontal lobe, in the collision. Days later, activists dismantled the train tracks. And for years after, activists maintained a 24-hour vigil at the site. The FBI had been surveilling Willson for more than a year as a “domestic terrorist,” even though all of his activism and protests had been entirely nonviolent. The train crew had been told to not stop the train, even if protesters were on the tracks.

Today in Labor History July 16, 1934: The San Francisco General Strike began, with 150,000 workers participating. The longshoremen’s strike actually started on May 9 and lasted 83 days, leading ultimately to the unionization of all West Coast ports. The strike grew violent quickly, with company goons and police brutalizing longshoremen and sailors. They hired private security to protect the scabs they brought in to load and unload ships, housing them in moored ships and wall compounds that the strikers attacked. In San Pedro, two workers were killed by private security on May 15. Battles also broke out in Oakland, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. On Bloody Thursday, July 5, in San Francisco, police attacked strikers with tear gas and with clubs while on horseback and later fired into the crowd, killing two and injuring others. A General Strike was called on July 14 and began on July 16, lasting 4 days. Many non-unionized workers joined the strike. Movie theaters and night clubs shut down. Many small businesses shut down & posted signs in solidarity with the strikers.

On July 17, the cops arrested 300 people they accused of being communists, radicals or subversives. The National Guard also blocked both ends of Jackson Street that day with machine gun-mounted trucks to aid vigilante attacks on the Marine Workers Industrial Union headquarters and the ILA soup kitchen. They raided many other union halls and communist organizations. Vigilantes kidnapped and beat a lawyer for the ACLU, as well as 13 radicals from San Jose, CA.

Today in Labor History July 14, 1789: Parisians stormed the Bastille during the French Revolution. The Bastille was a fortress, armory and political prison, and was a symbol of tyranny, feudal authority and the "divine" rights of kings. The Marquis de Sade had been imprisoned there and was transferred out only 10 days before the storming. The French Revolution succeeded in overthrowing the monarchy, replacing it with a bourgeois republic. However, it sparked optimism among working people throughout the world and inspired other revolutions, like the Haitian Revolution, in 1791.

Today in Labor History July 9, 1917: Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman were sentenced to two years in prison, $10,000 each, and deportation to Soviet Russia for their antiwar efforts and their anarchist activism. Their persecution by the U.S. government was part of the Palmer Raids, or the first anti-communist witch hunt in the U.S., which led to the imprisonment, death and/or deportation of hundreds of anarchists, communists, and labor organizers. The witch hunt decimated the IWW. And it jump-started the career of J. Edgar Hoover, future head of the FBI and persecutor of activist groups under COINTELPRO, who was then the underling of his mentor A. Mitchell Palmer.

Though Berkman and Goldman were both born in Russia, they were also naturalized U.S. citizens. The U.S. also deported anarchist Mollie Steimer in 1922. So, Trump’s threat to strip Zohran Mamdani of his citizenship and have him deported would be nothing new for the U.S. The U.S. has also denaturalized and deported people on the right, including several dozen Nazis in the 1970s-1990s.

Today in Labor History July 9, 1935: The Squeegee Strike began in New York, in protest of the dismissals of six subway car cleaners who refused a work speed-up. All were reinstated and most of the union’s grievances were resolved. It was the first successful strike by the new Transport Workers Union (TWU), created in 1934 by 7 NYC subway workers who belonged to the Irish nationalist organization Clan na Gael. They were inspired by the socialism and trade union work of James Connolly, one of the founding members of the IWW . The TWU was a militant industrial union, organizing all workers in the industry, regardless of skill or job title. The union quickly expanded to include workers in all transport industries, throughout the U.S.

Today in Labor History July 6, 1892: Locked out workers out at the Homestead Steel Works battled 300 Pinkerton detectives hired by Carnegie, who owned the Homestead mill. Homestead boss, Henry Clay Frick, had locked the workers out on July 1 and brought in Pinkertons to import and protect scabs brought in to replace striking workers. Determined to keep the plant closed and inoperable by scabs, the strikers formed military units that patrolled the grounds around the plant, and the Monongahela River in boats, to prevent access by strikebreakers and their Pinkerton guards. On the night of July 5, Pinkertons, armed with Winchester rifles, attempted to cross the river. Reports conflict as to which side fired first, but a gun battle ensued. Steelworkers defended themselves with guns and a homemade cannon. Women participated in the action, calling on strikers to kill the Pinkertons. 3-7 Pinkertons and 11 union members were killed in the battle. The Pinkertons eventually fled, but the strike continued for months. Court injunctions eventually helped to crush the union, protecting the steel industry for decades from organized labor.

Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman plotted to assassinate Homestead Boss Henry Clay Frick for his role in killing the workers. Berkman later carried out the assassination attempt, failed, and went to prison for 14 years. He wrote a book about his experience called, “Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist” (1912). He also wrote “The Bolshevik Myth” (1925) and “The ABC of Communist Anarchism” (1929).

K. Friedman wrote about the strike in “By Bread Alone” (1901). Friedman was a Chicago socialist, settlement-house worker and journalist. His novel was an early example of the transformation in socialist fiction from "utopian" to "scientific" socialism. More recently, Trilby Busch wrote about the strike in her novel, “Darkness Visible” (2012). @robertatracy also references the strike in her recent novel “Zigzag Woman” (2024). And the Pinkertons play prominently in my novel “Anywhere But Schuylkill.”

You can read my history of the Pinkertons here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/04/union-busting-by-the-pinkertons/

You can get a copy of my novel, “Anywhere But Schuylkill,”
https://www.keplers.com/
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/

Or send me $25 via Venmo (@Michael-Dunn-565) and your mailing address, and I will send you a signed copy!

#workingclass #LaborHistory #union #strike #homestead #carnegie #socialism #pinkertons #scabs #anarchism #alexanderberkman #emmagoldman #pittsburgh #steel #fiction #books #novel #writer #author #historicalfiction @bookstadon

Today in Labor History July 4, 1840: The anti-rent association of Berne in the Hudson Valley issued its Declaration of Independence, starting the Anti-Rent War, which lasted until August 1845. Also known as the Helderberg War, the anti-rent war was a tenants' revolt in upstate New York against the patroons, who acted as feudal lords with the right to make laws. The first meeting of the Anti-Rent tenant farmers was held in Berne, New York on July 4, 1839. Leaders of the revolt were tried for riot, conspiracy and robbery in 1845. The first trial resulted in no convictions. A re-trial in September 1845 saw a fist-fight between the attorneys who were sentenced to solitary confinement for 24 hours. One defendant, Smith A. Boughton, was sentenced to life imprisonment, but was pardoned by the pro-Anti-Renter John Young.

Today in Labor History July 1, 1944: Willem Arondeus, a gay, Dutch, anti-Nazi resistance fighter was executed by the occupation forces, along with eleven others, for bombing the Amsterdam public records office in order to prevent Nazis from identifying Dutch Jews and others wanted by the Gestapo. His final words were: "Tell people that homosexuals are not cowards."