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/
#Currentlyreading Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. I’ve been meaning to read this for a while now. The motion picture is on Netflix, and I told myself I wouldn’t watch it until /after/ I read the book.
I've just seen the Netflix series All The Light We Cannot See, based on the novel by Anthony Doerr which is sitting on my bookcase. It has tempted me to read and/or reread some novels based in WWII.
Does anyone have any recommendations of novels based historically in or around WWII?
@chestas@bookstodon historical fiction: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, about a young girl who gets caught up in the French resistance, it’s beautiful, poignant, desolate and inspiring all at once.
Scifi: The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley. Inception meets catch-22 meets starship troopers. A real head fuck with a mind bending plot and an over generous dollop of gore.
Factual: Moonless Night by Jimmy James; the true tale of a serial ww2 prison camp escaper, whose story just gets more and more incredible.
@chestas@bookstodon There are so many WWII novels, it can be overwhelming. The most impactful for me have been:
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II, Sonia Purnell [Incredible true story (narrative nonfiction) of Virginia Hall, an extraordinary figure most of us have never heard of.]
The Complete Maus, Art Spiegelman (deeply affecting)
The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz, Erik Larson
All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
The Librarian of Auschwitz, Salva Rubio (novel or graphic version)
I've paused #ElConde as I've decided it's too heady for my tired body, but damn am I engrossed in this #Pinochet as a vampire conceit. I even had some wine. Turns out, it's a family dramedy about the rich. I'm at the point where the Nun/accountant looks at the books. Might put on the new #MikeFlanagan before my slumber. #TV#movies#Netflix#villains#HistoricalFiction#history#eattherich before they eat you. :ablobcatneon: #spooktober
Carmen's execution killed my buzz, but illuminating horrors is El Conde's goal. There's something to Hannah Strong's (Little White Lies) critique that Pinochet's evil is lessened by emphasizing the cruel women in his life. But this satire is grotesque & gorgeous. Margot Thatcher's entrance is indelible. Makes you wonder: what other IRL villains would make great vampires?
Today in Labor History October 2, 1937: Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo ordered the execution of Haitians living in the border region of the Dominican Republic, resulting in the genocidal Parsley massacre of up to 35,000 Haitians. Trujillo was obsessed with race. He’d use pancake make-up to lighten his skin color and hide his Haitian roots. And even so, the wealthy Dominicans still snubbed him for his working-class family origins. One week prior to the massacre, he publicly accepted a gift of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, whose racial theories he clearly embraced. He used racism to distract Dominicans from their poverty, which had been exacerbated by the Great Depression, and by Trujillo’s corrupt rule.
Edwidge Danticat’s historical fiction, “The Farming of Bones,” takes place during the time of the massacre.
@MikeDunnAuthor@bookstadon The very same guy, Rafael Trujillo, was tolerated by US governments until his execution in 1961.
Then in 1966, after inciting a military coup against the democratic elected socialist Juan Bosch, Trujillo's close adviser Joaquín Balaguer was put to govern the Dominican Republic, of course backed by the US.
Balaguer was yet another racist and caudillo who governed for a long period.
Today in Labor History September 30, 1912: The Lawrence, Massachusetts “Bread and Roses” textile strike was in full swing. On this date, 12,000 textile workers walked out of mills to protest the arrests of two leaders of the strike. Police clubbed strikers and arrested many, while the bosses fired 1,500. IWW co-founder Big Bill Haywood threatened another general strike to get the workers reinstated. Strike leaders Arturo Giovannitti and Joe Ettor were eventually acquitted 58 days later. During the strike, IWW organizers Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn came up with the plan of sending hundreds of the strikers' hungry children to live with sympathetic families in New York, New Jersey, and Vermont, a move that drew widespread sympathy for the strikers. Nearly 300 workers were arrested during the strike; three were killed. After the strike was over, IWW co-founder and socialist candidate for president, Eugene Debs, said "The Victory at Lawrence was the most decisive and far-reaching ever won by organized labor."
Several novels have been written against the backdrop of this famous strike: The Cry of the Street (1913), by Mabel Farnum; Fighting for Bread and Roses (2005), by Lynn A. Coleman; Bread and Roses, Too (2006), by Katherine Paterson
Currently listening to Dust Child #audiobook by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, international bestselling author of The Mountains Sing. This is another #historicalfiction story set in Vietnam/the US about an Amerasian man who’s trying to immigrate to the US with his family in 2016. As the child of an Amerasian mother, this story, though fictional, will help me get better insight into what it might have been like for my mom growing up as an orphan because of being mixed race. @bookstodon#bookstodon@audiobooks
“In the tradition of Upton Sinclair and Jack London, Michael Dunn gives us a gritty portrait of working-class life and activism during one of the most violent eras in U.S. labor history. Anywhere but Schuylkill is a social novel built out of passion and the textures of historical research. It is both a tale of 1870s labor unrest and a tale for the inequalities and injustices of the twenty-first century.”
-Russ Castronovo, author of Beautiful Democracy and Propaganda 1776.
Available on Sep 19, 2023, from all the usual online distributors, or direct from my publisher: http://wix.to/M9gMx11
I was the one (6g) who after a quick search make the error of assuming 20 guys were not hung in one big event.
I knew many were killed and wounded and thousands (?) were greatly abused by low pay and over work and not to forget the bug one, 😬health, #blacklung disease
Today in Labor History August 25, 1819: Allan Pinkerton was born. He founded the Pinkerton private police force, whose strike breaking detectives (Pinkertons, or 'Pinks') gave us the word 'fink' as they slaughtered dozens of workers in various labor struggles. Ironically, Pinkerton was a violent, radical leftist as a youth. He fought cops in the streets as a member of the Chartist Movement. He had to flee the UK in order to not be imprisoned and executed. Yet in America, he became the nation’s first super cop. He created the secret service. He foiled an assassination attempt against Lincoln. He fine-tuned the art of spying on activists and planting agents provocateur in their ranks. His agents played a major role in destroying the miners’ union in the 1870s, as portrayed in my novel, “Anywhere But Schuylkill.” Later, they assassinated numerous organizers with the IWW and came within inches of successfully getting Big Bill Hayward convicted on trumped up murder charges.
Dorothy Dunnett (1923–2001) was born 100 years ago #OTD, 25 Aug, in Dunfermline. She is best known as a writer of #HistoricalFiction – in particular the six-part LYMOND CHRONICLES that begin with those three fateful words:
This is a piece of historical fiction that takes us to Sudan, during the 1880s, the end of the Ottoman empire. There are several main characters, but the one whose arc unites them all is a spirited young woman who loves the river as if it is her own mother. Her journey from the lush highlands, through the desert, to the cities of Sudan (mainly Al-Ubeid and Khartoum) introduces us to a young merchant turned Islamic scholar, a lout turned soldier, a mother-in-law who keeps her penchant for trading a secret, a widowed Scottish painter who wishes only to return to his daughter, and historical figures such as British Generals and Muhammad Ahmed ibn Abdullah, a self-styled messianic prophet and leader of the uprising against Egyptian rule.
5 stars, highly recommend. Follow me on #Bookwyrm for more!
@SallyStrange@bookstodon Stuck in an airport, very tired, so picked up an ebook of thid and just finished the opening. Its a pleasant, easy, fast read. Even for a tired mind! I'll be enjoying it!
Not sure about some of the wording, like calling nations and peoples "tribes" as colonialists did. Hope it gets better
AN ASTONISHING, HARROWING, BEAUTIFUL novel mixes the everyday horrors of racism with the terrors of the supernatural in a tale of a brutal Florida reformatory haunted by the boys who died there. SOLID A
Characterization & symbolism in Neil Gunn’s three historical novels
12 Dec, 5–6:30pm GMT/6–7:30 CET, free online
This talk will examine three historical novels by Neil M. Gunn (1891–1973), depicting Scottish communities at a time of transition: Sun Circle, Butcher’s Broom, & The Silver Darlings