[act-ma] 3/23: IWW history - book talk at LPC

[Charlie Welch]

Posted for lucyparsons at tao.ca

 The Lucy Parsons Center and the Boston GMB of the IWW are proud to host
 the Boston Book Launch for "The Industrial Workers Of The World: Its
 First One Hundred Years: 1905
 Through 2005" written Jon Bekken and Fred W. Thompson.
 John Bekken, IWW member, former editor _Industrial Worker_ , and long
 time member of the Lucy Parsons Center Collective will discuss the book
 and talk about IWW history.

 date: Friday, March 23rd, 2007


 time: 7 PM


 where: Lucy Parsons Center,549 Columbus Avenue.Boston, Massachusetts.
 (617) 267-6272



 Along with the book talk, wob singer Bill Bumpus will perform to start
 the night and then Jon will discuss the history of the IWW as it moves
 into its second century.

 "There is no better history for the reader looking for an overview of
 the history of the Industrial Workers of the World, and for an
 understanding of its ideas and tactics." [according to one reader]

 ABOUT THE BOOK


 Many histories have been written of the Industrial Workers of the
 World,
 often called the Wobblies. Founded in 1905 in hopes of uniting the
 working class into One Big Union, the IWW promoted industrial
 organization at a time when craft unionism was the established pattern.
 The IWW welcomed all
 workers, regardless of ethnicity, race or gender when other unions
 boasted of their exclusionary policies.

 The IWWs reliance on direct action on the job generated much of the
 strategy and tactics of the modern labor movement. Often referred to as
 the singing union, Wobblies wrote hundreds of labor songs and published
  millions of copies of their Little Red Songbook. The IWW's theme song,
  "Solidarity Forever," became the anthem of the entire American labor
 movement.

 The IWW: Its First 100 Years is the most comprehensive history of the
 union ever published. Written by two Wobblies who lived through many of
 the struggles they chronicle, it documents the famous struggles such as
  the Lawrence and Paterson strikes, the fight for decent conditions in
 the Pacific Northwest timber fields, the IWW's pioneering organizing
 among harvest hands in the 1910s and 1920s, and the wartime repression
 that sent thousands of IWW members to jail.

 It is the only general history to give substantive attention to the
 IWW's
 successful organizing of African-American and immigrant dock workers on
 the Philadelphia waterfront, the international union of seamen the IWW
 built from 1913 through the 1930s, smaller job actions through which
 the IWW, Wobbly successes organizing in manufacturing in the 1930s and
 1940s,
 and the union's recent resurgence. Extensive source notes provide
 guidance to readers wishing to explore particular campaigns in more
 depth.

 There is no better history for the reader looking for an overview of
 the history of the Industrial Workers of the World, and for an
 understanding of its ideas and tactics.

 Includes nearly 60 photographs and illustrations, and brief forward
 from Utah Phillips.



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