100th Anniversary of Bread and Roses Strike Shows—Was It the First Occupy?

Today in Lawrence, Mass., union members and their allies will gather at a historic mill building for a re-enactment of the historic Bread and Roses strike that moved the conscience of the nation, bringing national attention to the plight of the families, including young children, who toiled in the dirty and dangerous factories of Lawrence and throughout the country.

The re-enactment kicks off a yearlong celebration of the Bread and Roses centennial, which will commemorate change-making events in Lawrence that gave rise to the U.S. labor movement.

On Jan. 12, 1912, some 25,000 workers at the mills of the American Woolen Company in Lawrence walked off the job when the company cut their pay—already a mere $8 a week for the men, and less for the women and children—after the state legislature passed a law shortening the length of their workweek from 56 hours to 54 hours. Workers stayed off the job for months, enduring beatings from police and the Massachusetts militia, who spared not even women and children.

Some see in the conditions that led to the Bread and Roses strike parallels to today’s growing income disparity between the wealthy and the rest of us, as well as the exploitation of America’s workers by financial interests. Robert Forrant, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts, calls it “the first Occupy movement.” Says Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Steven Tolman:

It’s an unfortunate irony that we have come full circle since 1912. The strikers then were immigrant workers barely able to survive on low wages. Today Lawrence, like many industrial cities, is a place where immigrant workers are really struggling in an unfair economy.

The strikers were mostly immigrants who had crossed the ocean on a promise of prosperity, only to find themselves and their children brutally exploited by the textile tycoons.

Ethan Snow, a member of the Centennial Committee and a UMass graduate student, noted that the Bread and Roses strike spelled the beginning of the end for child labor in America, and the start of real workplace reforms. He added:

The strike is notable because it was the first time that over 25,000 people from 50 nationalities speaking 27 different languages united to win rights in the workplace. The labor movement in 1912 was very young and no decisive victory had really been achieved until the 1912 strike in Lawrence.

Before the strike, the mill owners had effectively pitted the various ethnic groups against one another, and set different conditions for the skilled workers of the AFL’s craft unions and the so-called unskilled workers who had no union representation until the strike drew the organizers of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). In solidarity with the unskilled workers, the AFL supported the strike.

Coined by a mid-19th century French philosopher, ”One may live without bread, but not without roses,” today continues to mean that people are due more in their life than toil. “Bread and Roses” also has been immortalized in a song.

More information about events sponsored by the Bread & Roses Centennial Committee is here. For more on the history of the Bread and Roses strike, see this video on the website of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO.