Civil Rights & Labor History Consortium | Photo and Document Gallery | 1919 Seattle General Strike | Strike sites today | Shipyard workers mass meeting draws 6,000

The January 26 meeting at the Hippodrome solidified the week old shipyard strike and set the stage for the General Strike On January 26, 1919 the Metal Trades Council held a mass meeting at the Hippodrome to refute rumors that the shipyard strike that had begun five days earlier was being enforced by a handful of radicals. Present at the meeting were 6,000 members of the Boilermakers’ Union, Local 104 which unanimously voted for the continuation of the strike. This show of support by local labor widely refuted the position held by Charles Piez and the Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) that the shipyard workers had opposed the strike called by the Metal Trades Council.-Arkady DeRoest. Photo courtesy UW Special Collections Library Address: 5th Ave btw University and Union (here is the site today)

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