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TIMBER WORKERS: introduction

An introduction and detailed timeline of the strike.

More than 400 digitized news articles about the strike from Washington State newspapes.

As the timber workers' 1935 strike became more and more controversial, The Seattle Star became less supportive in their coverage of the issue, leading workers' to develop their own newspaper.

Born in the midst of the 1935 timber strike, the Timber Worker was the union newspaper of the International Woodworkers of America, based in Aberdeen, WA.

The International Woodworker succeeded The Timber Worker as the official publication of International Woodworkers of America. The paper lasted for 45 years, providing union news, current events, editorials, safety reports, and accident reports (a major issue in the logging and timber industry).

Pritchett, a Communist, became president of the combative timber union on the West Coast, but was eventually denied re-entry to the US because of his red politics.

For two decades, between 1901 and 1921, the International Shingle Weavers’ Union was one of the largest, most powerful unions in the Pacific Northwest.

Although the Timberworkers faced the same difficulties in organizing that beset all unions just after the turn of the century, as well as those particular to the timber industry, they also contended with unique factors that not only curtailed their efficacy as a union but causes their dissolution as well.

The Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen (Four L) grew to become the world’s largest company union soon after Brice P. Disque of the United States Army created it in 1917. However, the historical context surrounding World War I set up the preconditions favorable to the formation of this unique union.

A guide to digitized documents in the Labor Archives of Washington State related to the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen.

FARM WORKERS: introduction

Long before the United Farm Workers Union (UFW) began organizing in the 1960s, farm workers had been contesting the unique challenges of working in the fields. This report--in ten brief chapters--examines the long history of farm workers in Washington State, focusing on their labor and political activism.

Veterans of the UFW campaign and activists who grew up in farm worker families discuss their experiences

Explore a timeline of farm worker struggles in Washington from 1870 to 2006.

More than 100 photographs of UFW-related demonstrations, meetings, and celebrations from the 1960s through the 1990s, along with 31 images of important murals.

More than 500 digitized articles from three eras of farm labor activism: 1933 during the Yakima hop strike; 1968-1975 during the grape boycott and initial campaign to build the UFW; and 1995-2002 following the Chateau St. Michelle campaign.

The Industrial Workers of the World had led the organization of farm workers in Washington's Yakima Valley. On August 24, 1933, strikers faced 250 farmers, organized as a militia to put down the incipient union organizing among fieldworkers.

Photographer Dorothea Lange visited Washington's Yakima Valley in 1939 to chronicle rural farm life and migrant families during the Depression.

Part 1: Dorothea Lange's Social Vision: Photography and the Great Depression, by Emily Yoshiwara
Part 2: Dorothea Lange in the Yakima Valley: Rural Poverty and Photography, by Stephanie Whitney

CANNERY WORKERS: introduction

In 1933 the first Filipino-led union ever organized in the United States was formed, the Cannery Workers’ and Farm Labors’ Union Local 18257. Based in Seattle, it was organized by "Alaskeros" who worked in the Alaska salmon canneries each summer and in the harvest fields of Washington, Oregon, and California in the other seasons.  The union was in its shaky beginnings when two of its founders were murdered. Yet, although its leaders were dead, the union would not die.

n 1936, two leaders of the Filipino Cannery Workers' and Farm Labor Union were shot to death, weakening the union but also providing the fragmented Filipino community with a cause to unite behind.

This essay uses union records to explore the critical middle period in the history of Seattle’s Cannery and Farm Labor Union, affiliated in the early 1940s as Local 7 UCAPAWA and after 1950 as Local 37 ILWU.

Activists from Seattle's Filipino American civil rights and labor movements discussed their experiences in videotaped oral histories.

Collections of photographs, documents, and newspapers that show the history of cannery workers and their unions.

Carlos Bulosan, the renowned Filipino-American author, became publicity director of Local 37 in 1952, editing the 52-page Yearbook, now a collector's item that can be read in its entirety in this pdf.

On May 11, 1950, Local 7 business agent Ernesto Magaoang appeared on Reports from Labor, a biweekly labor radio show that aired in the Seattle area. Includes audio recording of the interview.

The Chronicle was the paper of the Filipino-led cannery workers' union, as well as a source of progressive news for the Filipino and labor communities in Seattle.

Velasco was the central figure in Filipino American journalism in the Northwest. This paper traces his political evolution toward progressive politics and his time as an Alaskero.

LONGSHORE WORKERS: introduction

An important collection of videos, including a 20 minute film about the 1934 Longshore Strike with rare original footage of events in Seattle and Tacoma. Also watch several videos of Harry Bridges's newsreels and speeches.

Watch brief videos of Nikki Bridges, Martin Jugum, Judge Jack Tanner, Jean Gundlach, and others.

An overview of significant events in the history of longshore and warehouse workers in Puget Sound, primarily Tacoma and Seattle.

Digitized copies of two of Magden's books on Seattle and Tacoma longshore history along with an oral history and dozens of rare photographs

A special section of the Waterfront Workers History Project, with photographs, films, research reports, and documents from the strike.

Frank Jenkins was one of the first non-white members of the ILWU, and advocated for increased civil rights within the labor movement.

The story of the longest strike ever conducted by the ILWU.

Digitized copies of newspaper published by rank and file longshoremen in the years surrounding the 1934 strike.

The Longshoremen began one year after the 1934 longshore strike, as the official newspaper of the International Longshoremen's Association.

This play about a longshoremen's strike brought white and black actors together onstage to portray the tenuous racial solidarities produced by labor struggle, and brought the fledgling Negro Repertory Company national recognition.

MARITIME WORKERS:introduction

Photos of sailors and mates, marine engineers, marine cooks and stewards, and fishing boat crews.

An introduction to this important union that pioneered interracial unionism.

Introduction to the evolution of the SUP since its founding in the 1880s.

Introduction to the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association (MEBA).

The story of the transformation of the Marine Cooks and Stewards from an exclusive body to a bastion of racial progressivism on the West Coast.

A leader of the Marine Cooks and Stewards union, Revels Cayton was the most prominent African American communist, labor leader, and activist in the Northwest during the 1930s and 1940s.

Maritime worker, labor activist, and radio personality, Jerry Tyler was the radio voice of organized labor in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.

Reports from Labor was a fifteen-minute, biweekly labor radio show that aired in Seattle between July 1948 and October 1950, making it a rare pro-labor voice during difficult times for working people and progressive politics. Includes audio recordings.

SHIPYARD WORKERS: introduction

The Ship Scalers Union helped pioneer civil rights unionism in the Northwest. By the end of World War II half the members were African Americans and the union had become a force for progressive racial politicals and leftwing activism.

A strike by 30,000 shipyard workers set up the General Strike of 1919. This essay examines labor issues in the shipyards in the year before the strike. It includes a database of 142 digitized newspaper articles about shipyard workers from Seattle newspapers in 1918.

CONSTRUCTION WORKERS

This essay recounts the formation of the United Construction Workers Association by Tyree Scott and the struggle to open historically all-white unions to minority workers.

Between 1975 and 1978, the UCWA published the newspaper No Separate Peace.  Here are readable reproductions of each issue of the newspaper.

The UCWA  History Project, a worker led group organized by Northwest Labor and Employment Law Office (NW LELO), conducted oral history sessions with former UCWA members on December 29 and December 30, 2003.

Since 1986 the Electrical Workers Minority Caucus has carved out a space for workers of color and female workers in IBEW Local 46, the union representing electrical workers in the Pacific Northwest. This essay explores the history of race, gender, and struggle before EWMC and examines the organization's role in Local 46 today.

AEROSPACE WORKERS

In 1942, pioneering women Florise Spearman and Dorothy West Williams became the first African Americans ever to be hired at Boeing. Their employment capped a two-year campaign led by the Northwest Enterprise, Seattle's black-owned newspaper, and a coalition of black activists. The Aeronautical Workers union fought the demand for open hiring and it was only when the federal government intervened that the company and the union gave up the white-only employment policy.

The Aero Mechanic was published by Local 751 of the International Association of Machinists.  During World War II The Boeing Company became the Northwest's largest employer and Boeing workers joined what was to become one of the mainstays of the region's labor movement, IAM Local 751, International Association of Machinists Local 751 began publishing the paper in 1939.

1919 SEATTLE GENERAL STRIKE: Introduction

32 images of the events surrounding the Seattle General Strike of 1919 from the Museum of History and Industry and University of Washington Library.

Provides a brief historical introduction to the strike and highlights several features of the Seattle General Strike Project

An excerpt from a film on radical Anna Louis Strong, containing the only known footage of the strike.

Fifteen audio interviews from 1977 with strike participants including Dave Beck and Earl George..

An interactive map of important locations in the strike, with accompanying historical photographs.

A collection of over 180 articles published during the strike.

Explore documents from the Labor Archives of Washington State relating to the strike.

Explore a day-by-day database of articles from Washington State labor newspapers between 1915 to 1919.

The various literary styles that Anna Louise utilized during her years employed at the Seattle Union Record exemplify both her unique perspective on the politics of class and gender and her rather paradoxical role in the Seattle labor movement during the era of the General Strike of 1919.

The insistence of conservatives that the IWW was behind the strike, together with the organization’s place in the labor movement at the time, has created a mystery as to just how much of a role the "Wobblies" played in the Seattle General Strike.

Henry Suzzallo, militarism, the University of Washington and labor politics from 1915-1920.

When the strike ended promptly and peacefully, regional and national newspapers gave Mayor Hanson full credit for its conclusion, launching him on a short whirlwind of national celebrity. He became an over-large target for near-fanatic praise from people all over the country.

The story of the workers struggle against the Western Union and Postal Telegraph Companies in 1918 embodies the social and political fragility of the times and the state of labor in Seattle in the year preceding the first general strike in US history.

How the fight to free Tom Mooney fueled the nation’s first general strike.

A strike by 30,000 shipyard workers set up the General Strike of 1919. This essay examines labor issues in the shipyards in the year before the strike. It includes a database of 142 digitized newspaper articles about shipyard workers from Seattle newspapers in 1918.

1934 LONGSHORE STRIKE: introduction

An illustrated three-part essay on the 83 day strike that paralyzed West Coast shipping and drew support from a wide range of waterfront and non-waterfront workers.

This slideshow tells the story of the 1934 in the Puget Sound ports using rare photographs and original newsreel footage.

This movie, written and narrated by Ron Magden, commemorates the struggle of longshoremen in 1934 and remembers those killed in the course of the strike. Highlights include archival footage from 1934.

An analysis of three Seattle newspapers shows the shifts in news coverage for and against the strike.

More than 600 digitzed newspaper articles about the strike that appeared in Seattle newspapers between May and August 1934

Digitized copies of newspaper published by rank and file longshoremen in the years surrounding the 1934 strike.

Explore a day-by-day database of articles from state labor newspaper from 1930 to 1939.

The story of the longest strike ever conducted by the ILWU.

More than 160 digitized newspaper articles about the strike.

UNEMPLOYED AND HOOVERVILLES: introduction

During the early 1930's, the poor and unemployed participated in a series of marches on the capitol in Olympia to demand food, work and housing. Once there, they encountered indifference, hostility, and violence from elected officials, local law enforcement and vigilantes.

Following the stock market crash of 1929, the Communist Party began to organize unemployed workers into Unemployed Councils. . In Washington State, the Councils were in direct competition with the Socialist-led Unemployed Citizens League, which led to tensions between the two organizations.

As elsewhere in the country, Washington State's Communist Party helped to organize the unemployed into active political and social formations. In Washington, the Unemployed Citizen's League and its newspaper, The Vanguard, gained the state Communists a broad appeal, and integrated the unemployed into the state's radical reform coalitions.

In the summer of 1931 a group of Seattle residents organized to establish self-help enterprises and demand that government officials create jobs and increase relief assistance to unemployed.

This interactive map shows the Seattle locations of the the Unemployed Citizens League which established self-help commissaries and demanded jobs and relief services for the unemployed.

The socialist-linked Seattle Labor College launched a newspaper in 1930 which helped galvanize one of the most effective unemployed movements in the country. By late 1931 the Unemployed Citizens League had tens of thousands of members organized in "self help" production and barter clubs.

"Hoovervilles," shanty towns of unemployed men, sprung up all over the nation, named after President Hoover's insufficient relief during the crisis. Seattle's developed into a self-sufficient and organized town-within-a-town.

Seattle's Hooverville and its residents were portrayed as violent, exotic, and separate from the rest of Seattle, obscuring the social accomplishments and self-organization of shantytown residents.

A rare memoir of life in Hooverville written by the man who was widely acknowledged as the unofficial mayor of Seattle's famous shacktown

Seattle's decision to raze Hooverville in 1941 and expel its residents relied on a discourse of "otherness" that set Hooverville economically, socially, and geographically apart.

PUBLIC WORKS AND WORKERS: introduction

Mason City, WA was built by federal New Deal funds and private contractors to house the workers and families who were building the Grand Coulee Dam, and was consciously promoted as an example of the social vision, technological capacity, and high standard of living that New Deal America aspired to.

Funding from the Works Progress Administration allowed the completion of the Grand Coulee Dam in central Washington, one of the most dramatic ways the New Deal rebuilt Washington's infrastructure.

Interactive maps of public works in Washington State

An interactive map of major New Deal construction projects in Washington State during the 1930s.

An interactive map of Civilian Conservation Corps camps in Washington from 1930-1939.

A guide to digitized photographs and comments in the Labor Archives of Washington State relating to public works in Washington

LATINO WORKERS: introduction

A slide show introducing the history of the Chicano Movement. Includes video interview excerpts.

An illustrated two-part essay on the movement.

Digitized documents including the MEChA de UW campaign in support of the UFW grape boycott in 1968.

Veterans of MEChA de UW, the Brown Berets, El Centro de la Raza, and the United Farmworkers discuss their experiences in videotaped oral histories that can be viewed online.

An extensive timeline of important events.

A wide range of photos from the early days of the Movement to the present day.

Hundreds of digitized articles on the grape boycott and the formation of El Centro de la Raza, among other topics.

A special section on farm worker struggles in the State.

WOMEN WORKERS

On June 24, 1974 ten women began their first day of work at Seattle City Light, the city’s public utility. The women represented the first stab at gender integration of the all-male, unionized, Seattle City Light electricians. They would become the first female linemen, sub-station constructors, cable splicers, the first unionized female utility electricians in Seattle and the first in the nation.

Since 1986 the Electrical Workers Minority Caucus has carved out a space for workers of color and female workers in IBEW Local 46, the union representing electrical workers in the Pacific Northwest. This essay explores the history of race, gender, and struggle before EWMC and examines the organization's role in Local 46 today.

Depression-era labor policies did not allow married women to hold jobs, favoring a husband's work. Prof. Lea Miller at the UW was fired, and sparked a national protest over the policy.

Women had worked in textile industries and other industries as far back as 1880, but had been kept out of heavy industries and other positions involving any real responsibility. Just before the war, women began to break away from the traditional roles they had played. As men left their jobs to serve their country in war overseas, women replaced their jobs.

Women who worked in the laundries in Seattle during the World War I period worked long, hard hours and were forced to work faster to receive less pay for their work. As laundry owners increased prices, they refused to pay more and fired women who joined unions or sought out representation. Nevertheless, women organized into unions and when their frustrations rose to a crescendo it culminated in a very successful strike.

Examines the relationship of women to unions and the struggles of working women in the years surrounding WWI and the 1919 Seattle General Strike.

BLACK WORKERS

Seattle’s politics of fair employment entered a new phase when African American construction workers and activists began to protest racially exclusionary hiring practices in Seattle’s construction unions in the fall of 1969. Led by electrician Tyree Scott, workers used direct action to challenge institutional barriers to African American employment.

Frank Jenkins was one of the first non-white members of the ILWU, and advocated for increased civil rights within the labor movement.

Revels Cayton was the most prominent African American communist, labor leader, and activist in the Northwest during the 1930s and 1940s.

Since 1986 the Electrical Workers Minority Caucus has carved out a space for workers of color and female workers in IBEW Local 46, the union representing electrical workers in the Pacific Northwest. This essay explores the history of race, gender, and struggle before EWMC and examines the organization's role in Local 46 today.

The General Strike of 1919 demonstrated the power of organized labor in Seattle. For black workers this was not beneficial. Seattle unions were often racist and excluded Blacks from their ranks. At other times they voiced support for Blacks, but in actuality they did little to erase the color bar in unions.

In 1942, pioneering women Florise Spearman and Dorothy West Williams became the first African Americans ever to be hired at Boeing. Their employment capped a two-year campaign led by the Northwest Enterprise, Seattle's black-owned newspaper, and a coalition of black activists. The Aeronautical Workers union fought the demand for open hiring and it was only when the federal government intervened that the company and the union gave up the white-only employment policy.

The Congress of Racial Equality mounted a concerted campaign to end employment discrimination in Seattle. This essay examines the tactics of the campaign and evaluates methods of the small but very active CORE chapter.

Culminating two years of campaigns to end discrimination in employment, CORE launched a drive to win jobs for African Americans in Seattle's downtown retail district. This essay details the campaign and its impacts.

The all-African American company in Seattle during the Depression produced three plays: Stevedore, about a longshore strike; an all-black production of Lysistrata, which was closed down for its "scandalous" scenes; and a production written by the Negro Unit based on the life of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.

ASIAN-AMERICAN WORKERS

A special section covering many Asian-American struggles in Seattle including the Oriental Student Union and the perseveration of the International District.

A special section on cannery workers.

In 1936, two leaders of the Filipino Cannery Workers' and Farm Labor Union were shot to death, weakening the union but also providing the fragmented Filipino community with a cause to unite behind.

Two anti-miscegenation bills proposed during the 1930s were successfully blocked by protest and political activism among the Northwest's communities of color, including Filipino Americans.

The Chronicle was the paper of the Filipino-led cannery workers' union, as well as a source of progressive news for the Filipino and labor communities in Seattle.

Velasco was the central figure in Filipino American journalism in the Northwest. This paper traces his political evolution toward progressive politics and his time as an Alaskero.

Early issues of the newspaper dealt with topics ranging from nationalism, the Philippines’ struggle for independence from American rule, the prejudices experienced by Filipinos in the United States as well as in their homeland, to labor unionism.

THE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD: Introduction

Here are maps and charts that locate more than 600 strikes, campaigns, protests, arrests, raids, and trials from 1906 to 1920. Others show IWW local unions.

These yearbooks provide the most complete account of IWW events -- a day-by-day database of hundreds of strikes, protests, campaigns, and labor political initiatives as recorded in the pages of the Industrial Worker.

A guide to digitized resources on the IWW in the Labor Archives of Washington State, including charters and photos and documents from massacres in Everett and Centralia. The I.W.W. was devoted to the principle that all workers should be united in a single organization in order to place maximum pressure on their employers. While the I.W.W. was successful in recruiting in many places throughout the country, its influence was most widespread in the Pacific Northwest.

The insistence of conservatives that the IWW was behind the strike, together with the organization’s place in the labor movement at the time, has created a mystery as to just how much of a role the "Wobblies" played in the Seattle General Strike.

The story of IWW "songbird" Katie Phar, a 10-year-old Spokane girl, and her correspondence with Wobbly martyr and songwriter, Joe Hill, brings to life the powerful synthesis of music and organizing that the IWW employed in the years before World War I when the radical organization was becoming influential in the Pacific Northwest.

The Industrial Worker was the principal newspaper of the IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World. Published initially in Spokane, the Industrial Worker moved to Seattle in 1916.

By the late afternoon of July 19, 1913 the Seattle headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World lay in ruin. Along with two Socialist Party offices and a Socialist newsstand, it had been looted and its contents dumped into the street and burned by a mob of locals and visiting sailors.

Litchman was one of Washington's most ardent legal defenders of labor radicals and civil rights advocates. Throughout his long career he defended IWW members and other radicals while fighting for socialism and civil rights.

Long before the United Farm Workers, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) organized locally and nationally through their farm labor arm: the Agricultural Workers Organization (AWO). See also Castaneda’s account of the Battle of Congdon Orchards, a flashpoint in the IWW farm worker struggle against farm bosses.

The Industrial Workers of the World had led the organization of farmworkers in Washington's Yakima Valley. On August 24, 1933, strikers faced 250 farmers, organized as a militia to put down the incipient union organizing among fieldworkers.

COMMUNIST PARTY: introduction

An introductory slideshow of communist history in Washington including photographs and links.

Brief biographies and video interviews with current and former Party members, non-Communists with important ties to the Party such as civil rights attorney John Caughlan, and even a revealing interview with Washington State's most notorious anti-communist, former State Representative Albert Canwell.

A detailed narrative of the history of the Communist Party in Washington State from 1919 to 2002. It is organized in eight chapters, each richly illustrated with photos and important documents. Includes Brian Grijalva’s chapter Organizing Unions: The '30s and '40s, tracing the Washington Communist Party's efforts in the this arna during the 1930s and 1940s.

A brief biography of Anna Louis Strong, Seattle’s most famous communist, and a preview of the biographical film Witness to Revolution.

Apart from New York and San Francisco, no city claimed a more active and enduring Communist Party press than Seattle. Includes essays on various newspapers and hundreds of digitized articles and editions.

As elsewhere in the country, Washington State's Communist Party helped to organize the unemployed into active political and social formations. In Washington, the Unemployed Citizen's League and its newspaper, The Vanguard, gained the state Communists a broad appeal, and integrated the unemployed into the state's radical reform coalitions.

This paper traces the Washington Communist Party's attempts--and successes--in organizing unions during the 1930s and 1940s.

Washington's Communist Party was central to two broader political formations that reshaped state politics, reform, and social services.

Two anti-miscegenation bills proposed during the 1930s were blocked by an activist coalition of African Americans, Filipino Americans, and progressives.

This paper traces the civil rights campaigns of the Washington State Communist Party during the Depression years.

From 1948 to 1955, the Seattle Civil Rights Congress (CRC) provide legal defense and civil rights counsel to numerous Communist Party members and people of color while informing the public about civil rights. During its seven years of activity, the Seattle CRC maintained an active voice of dissent in an era of Red Scare tactics and silence on the subject of civil rights. Their efforts laid the groundwork for future civil rights activism in Seattle.

Founded in 1946, the Labor School bought together left-wing union leaders, rank and file members, University of Washington academics, and community and religious organizers to promote labor and develop the intellectual skills of working people. But as the Cold War took shape, the school became a lightning rod for anti-Communist charge and attacks from the political right. Although it folded in 1949, the school made an important impact on the labor culture of the region.

Harold Pritchett helped organize the International Woodworkers of America in the mid 1930s and became its first President. But his Communist Party affiliation made him a target and in 1940, US immigration authorities deported him and he was forced to resign the Presidency.

The founding of an AFT-affiliated faculty union at the University of Washington allowed faculty job security and redress during the economic crisis. Yet the radical and sometimes Communist politics of its members made the union susceptible to federal anti-Communist repression by the 1940s.

The changes in Soviet foreign policy heavily influenced the foreign policy of the Washington Commonwealth Federation, leading to successes and losses in state politics and public influence.

The civil rights policies of the Washington Commonwealth Federation, a labor/left political coalition, mirrored the zigzags of the international Communist Party's politics, swerving from defending them to silence around Japanese American internment in World War II.

The Voice of Action portrayed Soviet Russia as a model for an antifascist workers' republic.

The Voice of Action was a radical labor newspaper published in Seattle between 1933 and 1936. This paper traces its never-official links to the politics of the Communist Party and its commitments to workers and the unemployed.

The Voice of Action was a newspaper for Seattle's radical and labor movements, published between 1933 and 1936.

Digitized images and information on the bold images created by Correll for the newspaper Voice of Action in the 1930s.

SOCIALISTS/ ANARCHISTS

An introductory essay to the State’s many socialist grouping in the early 20 th century.

For ten years, this weekly newspaper was the strongest voice for socialism in the Pacific Northwest. Edited by Hermon Titus, The Socialist was acerbic, witty, and often sectarian.

The Socialist Voice was the second in a sequence of Socialist Party newspapers published in Seattle.

The Socialist Herald/The Herald is in the middle of a string of Socialist newspapers based in Seattle in the first two decades of the 20 th century. It followed the Socialist Voice and preceded the Socialist World . In early 1916 the paper turned away from the Socialist Party and affiliated with the Nonpartisan League of Washington.

The Commonwealth was a socialist weekly newspaper published in Everett, Washington between January 1911 and April 1914. Subtitled the "Official Paper of the Socialist Party of Washington," the Commonwealth served as a promotional and educational medium for the party, reporting locally and statewide on internal Socialist Party events and issues.

The Washington Socialist was the second of four consecutive Socialist weekly newspapers published in Everett, Washington between January 1911 and June 1918.

Local news coverage in the Northwest Worker’s 27-month run focused on the unsuccessful reelection campaign of a Socialist city commissioner, on the paper’s never-ending financial struggles, and on the escalating labor turmoil in Everett, leading up to and following the infamous “Everett Massacre” of November 5, 1916.

The Co-operative News served as a promotional and educational instrument for the Socialist Party, reporting on national, state and local Socialist Party events and issues. In a shift of emphasis reflected by the publication’s new name, the paper featured extensive coverage of the growing cooperative movement.

An internal newsletter for the Socialist Party of Washington State. Contains listings of monthly dues, financial statements for the state party, and minutes from the state party’s executive committee meetings.

Socialist papers of the Tacoma, Washington area, "TRUTH" & "The Socialist Worker" were lively left-wing papers that called for the "revolution and emancipation of labor from its brutal slavery." These militant socialist papers were critical in exposing problems that capitalism had reaped upon labor.

Discontent: Mother of Progress was the second in a sequence of publications edited by members of the anarchist colony at Home, Washington, near Tacoma.

The Agitator was published by members of the anarchist colony of Home, in the state of Washington. Editor Jay Fox made the bimonthly tabloid into a lively journal advocating a blend of libertarian ideas and revolutionary industrial unionism.

The People's Party briefly dominated Washington state politics, electing a governor and many other public officials in 1896. The populist movement was strong both in the cities and in rural areas and laid the ground work for long-lasting radical tendencies among farmers as well as workers. Of the many Pacific Northwest newspapers that carried the Populist message only a few survive. We have a report on the influential Chehalis, WA, newspaper.

WASHINGTON COMMONWEALTH FEDERATION

The Voice of Action was a newspaper for Seattle's radical and labor movements, published between 1933 and 1936 .

Washington's Communist Party was central to two broader political formations that reshaped state politics, reform, and social services.

The changes in Soviet foreign policy heavily influenced the foreign policy of the Washington Commonwealth Federation, leading to successes and losses in state politics and public influence.

The left/labor political coalition launched a 1936 electoral campaign to challenge the right wing, anti-New Deal Democrats in Washington State, as well as advocate radical propoerty redistribution and social insurance policies.

Two anti-miscegenation bills proposed during the 1930s were blocked by an activist coalition of African Americans, Filipino Americans, and progressives.

The labor/radical reform coalition, the Washington Commonwealth Federation, organized an "anti-fascist" boycott against Japanese goods as part of an effort to oppose Japanese imperial expansion into China. However, this stance bled into anti-Japanese sentiment that would culminate in the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Nearly seventy men volunteered to fight with the Abraham Lincoln Brigades during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1937. on the side of the democratically elected Spanish government against Franco's fascists. This paper surveys the political attitudes and backgrounds of those volunteers, with an emphasis on University of Washington students who enlisted.

Read a history of the newspaper of the Washington Commonwealth Federation, a left-labor-communist political coalition that reshaped state politics during the Depression.

The New Dealer was the final paper, from 1938-1942, of the radical-labor political coalition, the Washington commonwealth Federation.

The founding of an AFT-affiliated faculty union at the University of Washington allowed faculty job security and redress during the economic crisis. Yet the radical and sometimes Communist politics of its members made the union susceptible to federal anti-Communist repression by the 1940s.

The Voice of Action portrayed Soviet Russia as a model for an antifascist workers' republic.

The Voice of Action was a radical labor newspaper published in Seattle between 1933 and 1936. This paper traces its never-official links to the politics of the Communist Party and its commitments to workers and the unemployed.

The Voice of Action portrayed Soviet Russia as a model for an antifascist workers' republic.

Digitized images and information on the bold images created by Correll for the newspaper Voice of Action in the 1930s.

SEATTLE BLACK PANTHER PARTY: introduction

This slideshow introduce the special section on the Seattle BPP and includes video interviews and photos.

In videotaped oral history segments, former Panthers talk about their reasons for joining the Party and their experiences in the organization. Former mayor Wes Uhlman tells of FBI plans to raid Panther headquarters and his reasons for intervening to prevent bloodshed.

Lively photographs from several collections.

A database of articles on the Seattle BPP, many of which are digitized.

In 1970, Congress launched a full scale investigation of the Black Panther Party. Much of the attention focused on the national leadership and the Oakland headquarters, but several other chapters were also investigated, including Seattle. On May 12, the House Committee on Internal Security began hearings in Washington D.C. focused on the Seattle chapter. Includes documents, photos and the text of the testimony.

Seattle BPP pamphlets.

The Afro American Journal was published in Seattle from November 1967 to December 1972, and during that time was the most militant weekly newspaper to serve the black community. Supporting the principles of black power, the paper gave space to the Black Panther Party, the Nation of Islam, and other activist groups.

RED SCARES AND ANTI-LABOR ACTION

The combination of an increased fear of a possible German invasion and a strong patriotic duty among Americans led to the creation of volunteer organizations around 1917 in which citizens could show their dedication to the United States by spying on their friends, neighbors and co-workers and reporting any un-American conduct.

The Fish Committee hearings in 1930s Seattle were a preface to the anti-communist trials of the late 1940s and 1950s.

A guide to the many resources available on the 1948 hearing targeting alleged communists in Washington State

Fifty years after the notorious Canwell Committee hearings, Seattle once again watched Albert Canwell hunt communists at the University of Washington, this time as part of a remarkable play written by Mark Jenkins.

Washington State has a long history of anti-communist campaigns, beginning in the 1920s when state officials and local police took steps to suppress the young communist movement. Here are official transcripts of three different sets of government investigations, including the 1930 US Congress Hearings on Washington, the Canwell Hearings and a series of HUAC Hearings in Seattle in the 1950s.

The founding of an AFT-affiliated faculty union at the University of Washington allowed faculty job security and redress during the economic crisis. Yet the radical and sometimes Communist politics of its members made the union susceptible to federal anti-Communist repression by the 1940s.

A guide to digitized resources from the Labor Archives of Washington State, including documents from Seattle employers who attempted to infiltrate the labor movement.

LABOR CULTURE, LABOR ARTS

Maritime worker, labor activist, and radio personality, Jerry Tyler was the radio voice of organized labor in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.

Reports from Labor was a fifteen-minute, biweekly labor radio show that aired in Seattle between July 1948 and October 1950, making it a rare pro-labor voice during difficult times for working people and progressive politics. Includes audio recordings.

Ginther produced more than 80 paintings. They are a unique resource, depicting the rough life of Hoovervilles and homeless men, of jails and soup kitchens, unemployed demonstrations and police attacks, strikes and radical protests.

Florence and Burton James played a crucial role in establishing the contemporary theatre scene in Seattle, as well as influencing the social and artistic productions of the regional branch of the Federal Theatre Project in the 1930s. Despite—or perhaps because of—their strong influence in Seattle’s alternative and progressive arts community, the Jameses were targeted in 1948 by the anti-communist Canwell Committee hearings and forced to give up their Playhouse and theater.

Waiting For Left is a play written by Clifford Odets about a 1934 taxi union strike. The public debate over Lefty shows how socially conscious theatre was seen as a powerful force in shaping American public opinion, or perhaps in illustrating tensions already present. Nowhere is the power of 1930s theatre shown more clearly than in the circumstances surrounding the Seattle production of Odets’ play.

The FTP in Washington was one of the most vibrant in the country, including the Negro Repertory Unit, Living Newspaper theatre journalism, a Children's Unit, and hosted traveling productions to New Deal public works programs around the state.

Digitized images and information on the bold images created by Correll for the newspaper Voice of Action in the 1930s.

Social Documentary photography Dorothea Lange visited Washington's Yakima Valley in 1939 to chronicle rural farm life and migrant families during the Depression.

The all-African American company in Seattle during the Depression produced three plays: Stevedore, about a longshore strike; an all-black production of Lysistrata, which was closed down for its "scandalous" scenes; and a production written by the Negro Unit based on the life of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.

This Living Newspaper production, dramatizing New Deal debates between private and publicly-owned utilities, resonated with Seattle residents who were debating between the private Puget Power Company and the public Seattle City Light.

The Washington Federal Theatre Project's longest-running production, a Living Newspaper, advocated for government-sponsored housing.

LABOR NEWSPAPERS: introduction

This essay surveys 180 years of labor journalism and discusses key books and articles about labor journalism.

Press coverage of the development and implementation of Washington State’s 1911 Workmen’s Compensation Act varied significantly based on the fundamental political and economic interests of the newspaper publishers and their intended audiences.

More than 500 digitized articles from three eras of farm labor activism: 1933 during the Yakima hop strike; 1968-1975 during the grape boycott and initial campaign to build the UFW; and 1995-2002 following the Chateau St. Michelle campaign.

• The Roots of the Seattle Union Record by Ross Rieder
• The  Seattle Union Record (1900-1928) by Natalia Salinas-Aguila
• The  Seattle Union Record(1912-1914) by Josh Kaplan
• Database of articles from the Seattle Union Record (1915-1919)

An examination of racialized rhetoric in the main organ of the Seattle union movement in the years surrounding the 1919 General Strike.

Representing nearly all of the AFL-CIO union locals in Seattle, the King County Labor Council has published various newspapers throughout the past century, starting with the Union Record. In 1968, KCLC began publishing, the Scanner, a monthly that lasted until 1981.

The Industrial Worker was the principal newspaper of the IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World. Published initially in Spokane, the Industrial Worker moved to Seattle in 1916.

By the late afternoon of July 19, 1913 the Seattle headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World lay in ruin. Along with two Socialist Party offices and a Socialist newsstand, it had been looted and its contents dumped into the street and burned by a mob of locals and visiting sailors.

The Northwest Labor Press of Portland is the oldest continuously published labor newspaper in the region. Since 1900, the Portland Central labor Council and Oregon State Federation of labor have made sure that the Labor Press remains a strong and active voice for unionism. We report on the early years of the newspaper when it was called he Portland Labor Press.

The Guild Daily was the paper of the American Newspaper Guild.  In the 1930s the guild organized journalists across the country.  But the strike that solidified that union took place at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1936. Striking journalists not only brought the Hearst corporation to its knees, they published a daily newspaper of their own that kept the city informed of local, national, and strike news .

Timber Worker (1936-1942) by Gerardine Carroll and Michael Moe

International Woodworker (1942-1987) by Bryan Schnase

The Timber Worker and The International Woodworker were the official publications of the International Woodworkers of America.  The IWA was formed in 1937 when unionized workers in the timber industries broke with the AFL and joined the CIO.The papers provide invaluable information on the union and its causes: the struggle to establish legitimacy in early jurisdictional disputes, the union's campaign to improve safety conditions in the woods, and internal debates over communism.

The Pacific Coast Longshoreman was the newspaper of the Pacific Coast District of the International Longshoremen's Association.  The paper was founded a year after the 1934 strike and published weekly until 1936 when the Pacific Coast longshoremen left the ILA and formed the ILWU. 

The Aero Mechanic was published by Local 751 of the International Association of Machinists.  During World War II The Boeing Company became the Northwest's largest employer and Boeing workers joined what was to become one of the mainstays of the region's labor movement, IAM Local 751, International Association of Machinists Local 751 began publishing the paper in 1939.

The Washington Teamster was the publication of Washington State's International Brotherhood of Teamsters.  The union has long been a powerhouse in Seattle. From his base in Seattle's Joint Council 28, Dave Beck organized delivery drivers and long-haul drivers up and down the coast.

The Washington State Teacher was the official organ of the Washington State Federation of Teachers (WSFT), which was allied with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the American Federation of Labor (AFL). As a result, the paper had a two-fold objective: to strive for the the betterment of public education and to advance the organized labor movement.

The Chronicle was the paper of the Filipino-led cannery workers' union, as well as a source of progressive news for the Filipino and labor communities in Seattle.

Postal workers in Seattle had maintained a union since before World War I and a newspaper since 1947. In 1971 they became part of the American Postal Workers Union and the newspaper changed its name to the APWU News.

Seattle Fire Fighters Local 27 (International Association of Fire Fighters) was formed in 1918.  The Third Rail is its monthly newspaper.

Established in 1939, The Bellingham Labor News was the official publication of the Bellingham Central Labor Council.  It was published weekly until 1968 when it merged with other Northwest labor newspapers to become the Northwest Washington Labor News.

HARRY BRIDGES

This special section hosts links and resources about rank and file leader and ILWU president Harry Bridges.

Two historic videos: a 1950 newsreel about his arrest and threatened deportation and his memorable 1986 speech at Local 23’s 100th anniversary celebration.

Writer, activist, wife of Harry Bridges, Noriko Sawada Bridges (Nikki) grew up in California, spent three years in a concentration camp during World War II, and was active in labor and civil rights before meeting Bridges in 1958. Here she remembers her experiences in the labor, civil rights, and economic justice movements.

On January 29, 1994 the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies brought together ILWU veterans, Pacific Northwestern activists, and academics to honor and remember the legacy of Harry Bridges and the tradition of dissent he inspired on the waterfront.

A collection of 46 photographs, articles, and documents featuring Harry Bridges.