Today in Labor History December 19, 1900: French parliament gave to amnesty everyone who participated in the scandalous army treason trial known as the Dreyfus affair. The scandal began in 1894 when the state convicted Captain Alfred Dreyfus of treason. He was a 35-year-old French artillery officer of Jewish descent, falsely convicted for espionage and imprisoned in Devil's Island in French Guiana. Émile Zola's open letter “J'Accuse” helped build a movement of support for Dreyfus, putting pressure on the government to reopen the case. In 1899, Dreyfus was returned to France, retried and convicted again, but was pardoned and released. They eventually reinstated him as a major and he served during the World War I. Roman Polanski made a film about the affair called “J’Accuse,” after the Zola letter. However, much of Europe and the U.S. banned screenings of the film due to Polanski’s U.S. rape conviction.
Today in Labor History December 17, 1760: Deborah Sampson was born on this date in Massachusetts. Sampson disguised herself as a man in order to fight with the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. She called herself Robert Shirtliff (as in don’t lift my shirt) and stood 5’9”, taller than the average man in those days. She fought in several skirmishes with British forces before being wounded and discovered and then honorably discharged from the army. She later petitioned the government to be repaid the wages that had been denied her because she was a woman. Her friend Paul Revere advocated for her full compensation. Finally, in 1816, Congress granted her request. There are several other women known to have secretly fought in this war. Sampson’s story has been portrayed in several plays and works of fiction, including “Portrait of Deborah: A Drama in Three Acts” (1959) by Charles Emery, “I'm Deborah Sampson: A Soldier of the Revolution” (1977) by Patricia Clapp and Revolutionary (2014), by Alex Myers, one of her descendants. Whoopi Goldberg played her in an episode of “Liberty Kids.”
Today in Labor History December 15, 1973: The American Psychiatric Association voted to remove homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In the 1950s and 1960s, some therapists used aversion therapy to "cure" male homosexuality. Like in Anthony Burgess’s, “A Clockwork Orange,” they would show patients pictures of naked men while giving them electric shocks or drugs to make them puke. In the 1973 vote, 5,854 members voted to remove homosexuality from the DSM, while 3,810 voted to retain it. In a compromise, they agreed to remove homosexuality from the DSM, but replaced it with "sexual orientation disturbance" for people "in conflict with" their sexual orientation. They did not completely remove homosexuality from the DSM until 1987.
Today in Writing History December 15, 1905: The Pushkin House was established in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to preserve the cultural heritage of Alexander Pushkin, (6/6/1799–2/10/1837). Pushkin was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era. He was influenced by Enlightenment writers and thinkers, like Diderot and Voltaire. He spoke out in support of social reform, and wrote poems, like “Ode to Liberty,” leading to the government exiling him from the capital. In 1920 the Pushkin House was renamed the Institute of New Russian Literature, with the main objective of preparing authoritative "academic" editions of works by Pushkin, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and others.
Today in Labor History December 10, 1861: Nguyễn Trung Trực, along with his militia, sunk the French lorcha L'Esperance. Nguyễn Trung Trực was a fisherman who organized and led a guerilla rebellion against French colonial forces in the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam in the 1860s. They used snipers to assassinate isolated French soldiers and chased French soldiers around the countryside, attacking military installations that were left undefended. Their intimate knowledge of the territory and their skill in hit-and-run tactics allowed them to inflict substantial casualties on the European troops.
Today in Labor History December 10, 1896: Alfred Jarry's play, Ubu Roi, premiered in Paris. At the end of the performance, a riot broke out. Many in the audience were confused and outraged by the obscenity and disrespect they felt in the performance. Others, like W. B. Yeats, thought it was revolutionary. Jarry’s work was a precursor to Dada, Surrealism and the Theatre of the Absurd. Ubu Roi is a parody of Shakespeare's Macbeth and parts of Hamlet and King Lear. However, having recently reread the play, I found an uncanny resemblance between Pere Ubu and Donald Trump.
Today in Labor History December 9, 1935: Walter Liggett, American newspaper editor and muckraker, was murdered in a drive-by shooting with a Thompson submachine gun, as he stepped out of his car, groceries in his hand. His wife and daughter were in the car and witnessed his death. Liggett was a card-carrying member of the American Socialist Party, but he was more of a Mid-Western Populist-Socialist than a Marxist. In the 1920's he participated in efforts to free Sacco and Vanzetti and Thomas Mooney. In a series of articles, he accused Farmer-Labor politicians of collusion with the organized crime family of Isadore Blumenfield. He accused Minnesota Governor Floyd Olson of corruption and said that he should be impeached and prosecuted. In response, Blumenfield tried to bribe him to stop his exposés, but Liggett refused. Blumenfield and his gang savagely beat Liggett up. Liggett escalated his attacks and began printing a list of reasons for Olson's impeachment on the front page of the Midwest-American. Soon after, he was murdered.
Today in Labor History December 7, 1905: A General Strike of 150,000 workers began in Moscow, at the climax of the 1905 Russia Revolution. The strike escalated into a general uprising, with thousands of workers taking up arms against the imperial government. At least 400 workers died. The revolt was based in the apartment of writer, Maxim Gorky. Militants made bombs in his study and ate in his kitchen. On December 10, socialist revolutionaries bombed the headquarters of the Moscow Okhrana (secret police). By December 12, the rebels held six of the seven railway stations and many neighborhoods. On December 15, they assassinated the head of the Okhrana. However, the Imperial Guard brought in reinforcements on the 15th. They shelled the proletarian district of Presnia, home to 150,000 textile workers, and ultimately quashed the rebellion.
Today in Labor History December 6, 1889: The trial of the Chicago Haymarket anarchists began amidst national and international outrage and protest. None of the men on trial had even been at Haymarket Square when the bomb was set off. They were on trial because of their anarchist political affiliations and their labor organizing for the 8-hour work-day. 4 were ultimately executed, including Alber Parsons, husband of future IWW founding member Lucy Parsons. One, Louis Ling, cheated the hangman by committing suicide in his cell. The Haymarket Affairs is considered the origin of International Workers Day, May 1st, celebrated in virtually every country in the world, except for the U.S., where the atrocity occurred. Historically, it was also considered the culmination of the Great Upheaval, which a series of strike waves and labor unrest that began in Martinsburg, West Virginia, 1877, and spread throughout the U.S., including the Saint Louis Commune, when communists took over and controlled the city for several days. Over 100 workers were killed across the U.S. in the weeks of strikes and protests. Communists and anarchists also organized strikes in Chicago, where police killed 20 men and boys. Albert and Lucy Parsons participated and were influenced by these events. I write about this historical period in my Great Upheaval Trilogy. The first book in this series, Anywhere But Schuylkill, came out in September, 2023, from Historium Press. Check it out here: https://www.thehistoricalfictioncompany.com/it/michael-dunn and https://michaeldunnauthor.com/
Today in Labor History December 5, 1928: The Colombian military slaughtered up to 2,000 people in the Banana Massacre. Workers had been on strike against United Fruit Company since November 12. They were participating in a peaceful demonstration, with their wives and children. The Columbian troops set up machine guns on the rooftops near the demonstration and closed off the access streets so no one could escape. The soldiers threw the dead into mass graves or dumped them in the sea. U.S. officials in Colombia had portrayed the workers as communists and subversives and even threatened to invade if the Colombian government didn’t protect United Fruit’s interests. Gabriel García Márquez depicted the massacre in his novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” as did Álvaro Cepeda Samudio in his “La Casa Grande.”
United Fruit, which is now called Chiquita, controlled vast quantities of territory in Central America, and the Caribbean, maintained a near monopoly in many of the banana republics in which it operated (e.g., Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica). By 1930, it was the largest employer in Central America and the largest land owner. In 1952, the government of Jacobo Arbenz, in Guatemala, began giving away unused land, owned by United Fruit, to landless peasants. In 1954, the CIA deposed the Arbenz government, leading to decades of brutal dictatorship and genocide of Guatemala’s indigenous population. The head of the CIA at that time was former board member of United Fruit, Allen Dulles, who also oversaw the over throw of the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, the Bay of Pigs invasion, and the MK Ultra LSD mind control experiments.
There was a drug store in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania that plays prominently in my novel, ANYWHERE BUT SCHUYLKILL. It was run by a Polish immigrant known as Doc Luks. He was sympathetic to the miners and would often provide medicine and treatment for free during strikes, when the workers had no money to pay him.
His son, George Luks, became a successful artist, of the Ashcan School, a politically rebellious art movement that was influenced by Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” and which portrayed the everyday lives of working class people and immigrants. Luks’s art, in particular, was influenced by the poverty and oppression suffered by the miners he grew up with.
Today in Labor History December 3, 1984: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, killed over 3,800 people and injured up to 600,000 more. Up to 16,000 people died, in total, over the years following the disaster. The Government of Madhya Pradesh has paid compensation to family members of 3,787 of the victims killed. Numerous local activist groups emerged to support the victims of the disaster, like Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla, who won the Goldman Prize in 2004. Many of the activists were subjected to violent repression by the police and government. Larger international groups, like Greenpeace and Pesticide Action Network also got involved. The disaster has played a role in numerous works of fiction, including Arundhati Roy’s “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” (2017) and Indra Sinha’s “Animal’s People” (2007). It has also been referenced in music by the Revolting Cocks “Union Carbide” and the Dog Faced Hermans ”Bhopal.”
Today in Labor History December 2, 1867: British author Charles Dickens gave his first public reading in the United States at Tremont Temple in Boston. He described his impressions of the U.S. in a travelogue, “American Notes for General Circulation.” In Notes, he condemned slavery and correlated the emancipation of the poor in England with the abolition of slavery abroad. Despite his abolitionist sentiments, some modern commentators have criticized him for not condemning Britain’s harsh crackdown during the 1860s Morant Bay rebellion in Jamaica. During his American visit, he also spent a month in New York, giving lectures, and arguing for international copyright laws and against the pirating of his work in America. The press ridiculed him, saying he should be grateful for his popularity here.
Today in Labor History December 2, 1859: The authorities hanged abolitionist John Brown in Charleston, Virginia for his leadership of a plot to incite a slave rebellion. Victor Hugo, who was living in exile on Guernsey, tried to obtain a pardon for him. His open letter was published by the press on both sides of the Atlantic. His plea failed, of course. On the day of his execution, John Brown rode in a furniture wagon, on top of his own coffin, through a crowd of 2,000 soldiers, to the gallows. The soldiers included future Confederate general Stonewall Jackson and John Wilkes Booth. Walt Whitman described the execution in his poem “Year of Meteors.”
Today in Labor History December 1, 1912: The rustling card system was put into place by the Anaconda Mining and Smelter Company. Rustling cards verified employees’ identities and employment status. The company used spies to identify union agitators and refused them rustling cards and jobs. In 1920, the IWW called a strike at the mines around Butte. They demanded the end of the rustling cards system, and the implementation of the 8-hour day and higher wages. On 4/21/1920, guards opened fire on unarmed picketers, killing one and injuring sixteen. Dashiell Hammett depicted the strike in his first novel, “Red Harvest.”
Today in Labor History November 26, 1911: Paul Lafargue, Cuban-French revolutionary and son-in-law of Karl Marx, died. Lafargue wrote “The Right to Be Lazy” in 1893 while in prison. Lafargue had Jewish, French, Indian, Creole and African ancestry. When IWW cofounder Daniel De Leon asked him about his origins, he replied that he was proudest of his “negro” ancestry. In his youth, Lefargue participated in the International Students Congress in 1865. Consequently, the government banned him from all French universities. So, he moved to London, where he became a frequent visitor to Marx’s house, ultimately marrying his daughter, Laura. Lafargue was a member of the General Council of the First International. He also participated in the Paris Commune.
Today in Labor History November 23, 1644: At the height of the English Civil War, John Milton published an anti-censorship pamphlet, “Areopagitica.” He had been censored several times, particularly in his attempts to defend divorce, a radical idea in those days. He anonymously published “The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce” (1643), which was condemned by the Puritan clergy as heretical and supportive of sexual libertinism.
Today in Labor History November 20, 1896: Rose Pesotta, anarchist labor activist and the only woman on the General Executive Board of the International Ladies' Garment Workers (ILGWU), from 1933-1944, was born on this date, in Ukraine, to a Jewish family. She learned about anarchism by reading books by Bakunin in her father’s library. Her parents set up an arranged marriage for her, which she did not approve. So, she emigrated to the U.S. in 1913, joining the ILGWU the next year. Her local, #25, was filled with militant women veterans of the 1909 Shirtwaist Strike. She wrote regularly for the New York Anarchist press, in both English and in Yiddish. She was friends with Italian-American anarchist Bartolomeo Vanzetti. In 1933, she organized immigrant Mexican garment workers, leading to the Los Angeles Garment Workers Strike. She also organized workers in Canada and Puerto Rico. Later in life, she worked briefly for the B’nai B’rith. She also wrote two memoirs, Bread Upon the Waters (1944),[6] and Days of Our Lives (1958).
Today in Labor History November 20, 1820: An 80-ton sperm whale attacked and sunk the Essex, a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts. The tragedy occurred off the western coast of South America. 7 members of the 20-man crew died at sea, as they attempted to make land in the lifeboats. Survivors ate their dead comrades to stay alive. The story inspired Herman Melville to write his 1851 novel Moby-Dick. And it inspired modern day orcas to organize and fight back to reclaim the seas from humans.
Today in Labor History November 17, 1942: Ben Reitman, hobo organizer, anarchist and one-time lover of Emma Goldman, died. Reitman served as a doctor for hobos, prostitutes and the downtrodden. He participated in numerous free speech fights and anarchist causes, getting beaten, tarred and feathered, jailed, and run out of town for his troubles, most notably during the San Diego free speech fight. He also wrote the book, “Boxcar Bertha.”
Today in Labor History November 17, 1947: Revolutionary and author Victor Serge died. Serge lived in Paris in the early 20th century, where he was loosely associated with the Bonnot gang of anarchist bank robbers, and where he collaborated with Raymond Callemin on the newspaper L’anarchie. He was in Barcelona during their anarchist uprising and contributed to the CNT’s newspaper, “Tierra y Libertad.” He went to Russia in 1918, initially in support of the communists. However, he quickly became disillusioned with the repressive, autocratic rule, criticized the party and was imprisoned. He wrote numerous books, including the classic “Birth of Our Power” and his autobiographical “Memoirs of a Revolutionist.”
CBI Image of the Day: J. Boyer Machine Co. employees seated and standing outside of the Boyer Machine Shop in St. Louis, MO, ca 1890s. This would evolve into the Burroughs Adding Machine Company and later Burroughs Corporation, a computer manufacturer headquartered in Detroit for most of the 20th century before merging with Sperry Univac to become Unisys.
Today in Labor History November 16, 1849: Russian authorities gave a death sentence to author Fyodor Dostoevsky for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group called the Petrashevsky Circle. He and his colleagues were lined up before the firing squad when, at the last minute, a cart arrived with a letter from the Tsar, commuting their sentence. He still had to serve 4 years hard labor in Siberia. Dostoevsky alludes to his experience before the firing squad in his 1868-1869 novel, “The Idiot.”
Today in Labor History November 10, 1995: The Nigerian government executed playwright and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, along with eight other members of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop). Saro-Wiwa led a nonviolent movement protesting the despoiling of Ogoniland by Royal Dutch Shell. Beverly Naidoo’s 2000 novel, “The Other Side of Truth,” is based on Saro-Wiwa’s execution, as is Richard North Patterson’s 2009 novel, “Eclipse.”