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The Pacific Northwest was a hotbed of labor radicalism in the early twentieth century, where the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World (commonly known as the “Wobblies”) fought for better working conditions for all workers regardless of race, sex, or creed. The historian Heather Mayer takes a new look at the well-worn vision of the Wobblies as predominately radical young, itinerant men. Her new bookBeyond the Rebel Girl: Women and the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest, 1905-1924 (Oregon State University Press, 2018) finds women played a crucial role in the politics of the union. These women expanded the radical vision of the union beyond the workplace to include birth control, sexual emancipation, and freedom of choice in marriage. Ryan Driskell Tate is a Ph.D. candidate in American history at Rutgers University. He teaches courses on modern US history, environmental history, and histories of labor and capitalism. He is completing a book on energy development in the American West. @rydriskelltate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Pacific Northwest was a hotbed of labor radicalism in the early twentieth century, where the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World (commonly known as the “Wobblies”) fought for better working conditions for all workers regardless of race, sex, or creed. The historian Heather Mayer takes a new look at the well-worn vision of the Wobblies as predominately radical young, itinerant men. Her new bookBeyond the Rebel Girl: Women and the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest, 1905-1924 (Oregon State University Press, 2018) finds women played a crucial role in the politics of the union. These women expanded the radical vision of the union beyond the workplace to include birth control, sexual emancipation, and freedom of choice in marriage. Ryan Driskell Tate is a Ph.D. candidate in American history at Rutgers University. He teaches courses on modern US history, environmental history, and histories of labor and capitalism. He is completing a book on energy development in the American West. @rydriskelltate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Pacific Northwest was a hotbed of labor radicalism in the early twentieth century, where the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World (commonly known as the “Wobblies”) fought for better working conditions for all workers regardless of race, sex, or creed. The historian Heather Mayer takes a new look at the well-worn vision of the Wobblies as predominately radical young, itinerant men. Her new bookBeyond the Rebel Girl: Women and the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest, 1905-1924 (Oregon State University Press, 2018) finds women played a crucial role in the politics of the union. These women expanded the radical vision of the union beyond the workplace to include birth control, sexual emancipation, and freedom of choice in marriage. Ryan Driskell Tate is a Ph.D. candidate in American history at Rutgers University. He teaches courses on modern US history, environmental history, and histories of labor and capitalism. He is completing a book on energy development in the American West. @rydriskelltate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Pacific Northwest was a hotbed of labor radicalism in the early twentieth century, where the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World (commonly known as the “Wobblies”) fought for better working conditions for all workers regardless of race, sex, or creed. The historian Heather Mayer takes a new look at the well-worn vision of the Wobblies as predominately radical young, itinerant men. Her new bookBeyond the Rebel Girl: Women and the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest, 1905-1924 (Oregon State University Press, 2018) finds women played a crucial role in the politics of the union. These women expanded the radical vision of the union beyond the workplace to include birth control, sexual emancipation, and freedom of choice in marriage. Ryan Driskell Tate is a Ph.D. candidate in American history at Rutgers University. He teaches courses on modern US history, environmental history, and histories of labor and capitalism. He is completing a book on energy development in the American West. @rydriskelltate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Pacific Northwest was a hotbed of labor radicalism in the early twentieth century, where the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World (commonly known as the “Wobblies”) fought for better working conditions for all workers regardless of race, sex, or creed. The historian Heather Mayer takes a new look at the well-worn vision of the Wobblies as predominately radical young, itinerant men. Her new bookBeyond the Rebel Girl: Women and the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest, 1905-1924 (Oregon State University Press, 2018) finds women played a crucial role in the politics of the union. These women expanded the radical vision of the union beyond the workplace to include birth control, sexual emancipation, and freedom of choice in marriage. Ryan Driskell Tate is a Ph.D. candidate in American history at Rutgers University. He teaches courses on modern US history, environmental history, and histories of labor and capitalism. He is completing a book on energy development in the American West. @rydriskelltate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Pacific Northwest was a hotbed of labor radicalism in the early twentieth century, where the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World (commonly known as the “Wobblies”) fought for better working conditions for all workers regardless of race, sex, or creed. The historian Heather Mayer takes a new look at the well-worn vision of the Wobblies as predominately radical young, itinerant men. Her new bookBeyond the Rebel Girl: Women and the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest, 1905-1924 (Oregon State University Press, 2018) finds women played a crucial role in the politics of the union. These women expanded the radical vision of the union beyond the workplace to include birth control, sexual emancipation, and freedom of choice in marriage. Ryan Driskell Tate is a Ph.D. candidate in American history at Rutgers University. He teaches courses on modern US history, environmental history, and histories of labor and capitalism. He is completing a book on energy development in the American West. @rydriskelltate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Podcast about the early history of women in the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World union in the United States, in conversation with Heather Mayer, author of Beyond the Rebel Girl: Women and the IWW in the Pacific Northwest, 1905-1924. Support this podcast and get benefits like early accessed episodes and more on patreon: https://patreon.com/workingclasshistory Get Heather's book here: https://amzn.to/2DqONVc Episode 6 of our podcast gives an introduction to the IWW in the US so we recommend listening to that before this unless you are well acquainted with IWW history and terminology already. FOOTNOTES – Everett massacre: here is an extensive collection about these events: https://content.lib.washington.edu/pnwlaborweb/index.html – Mother Jones: this is her autobiography – https://libcom.org/library/autobiography-mother-jones – Lucy Parsons: this is a short biography – https://libcom.org/history/articles/1853-lucy-parsons – Emma Goldman: this is a short biography – https://libcom.org/history/articles/1869-1940-emma-goldman – Spokane free speech fight: this is a short history – https://libcom.org/history/1908-10-spokane-free-speech-fight – Lawrence textile strike: this is a short history – https://libcom.org/history/articles/lawrence-textile-strike-1912 – Paterson: this article about Italian anarchists in Paterson covers the IWW and the silk strike: https://libcom.org/history/patersons-italian-anarchist-silk-workers-politics-race-salvatore-salerno – This is a photo gallery of women in the IWW: https://reuther.wayne.edu/image/tid/1941 – Immigrant girl, radical woman: a memoir from the early 20th century by Matilda Rabinowitz is a great, illustrated account of one leading IWW woman organiser. You can get it here: https://amzn.to/2JJOKo6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS – Thanks to the Salt Lake Tribune for permission to use the recording of Rebel Girl, performed by Alyeah Hansen in 2015. Check out the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_tz3wPgLUw And take a look at their excellent Legacy of Joe Hill homepage: http://local.sltrib.com/charts/joehill/landingpage.html – Edited by Daniel Waldorf
Dr. Heather Mayer teaches history at Portland Community College and Southern New Hampshire University. In this episode, Dr. Mayer discusses her new book, Beyond the Rebel Girl: Women and the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest, 1905-1924 and her recent article in the Washington Post. This episode’s recommendations: Heather Mayer, Beyond the Rebel Girl: Women and the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest, 1905-1924 (Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2018): http://osupress.oregonstate.edu/book/beyond-rebel-girl Heather Mayer, “The Alt-Right Manipulates Free-Speech Rights. We Should Defend Those Rights Anyway,” The Washington Post, August 21, 2018: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/08/21/the-alt-right-manipulates-free-speech-rights-we-should-defend-those-rights-anyway/?utm_term=.a296321ab1b9 #Twitterstorians’ Twitter feeds: Kevin Kruse (@kevinmkruse), Heather Ann Thompson (@hthompsn) Project Recover: https://projectrecover.org/blog/2018/08/15/project-recover-discovers-stern-of-world-war-ii-u-s-destroyer-off-remote-alaskan-island-in-noaa-supported-mission/ Laura Alice Watt, The Paradox of Preservation: Wilderness and Working Landscapes at Point Reyes National Seashore (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017): https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520277083/the-paradox-of-preservation Rob’s review of The Paradox of Preservation: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=51931 Rob Denning and James Fennessy can be reached at workinghistorians@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/FilibusterHist.