Solidarity Forever:
An Oral History of the Industrial Workers of the World
By Stewart Bird, Dan
Georgakas, and Deborah Shaffer
"Excellent . . ."
--Studs Terkel
Millions of Americans
enjoy liberties off and on the job that were pioneered by
a working class organization that few of them are familiar
with—the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
The standard of living for most working
Americans was grim when the IWW was founded in 1905. Wages
were low, housing squalid, civil liberties limited, safety
regulations nonexistent, and job security tenuous. Employers
routinely denied their workers the right to unionize, much
less to strike or picket. Few major labor disputes ended without
death playing a hand.
In Solidarity Forever, a score of IWWs tell
how they fought against these injustices while advocating
a new economic system in which production would be geared
for the public good rather than for private profit.
They speak at length of the life and culture
of a modern working class during its formative years, often
touching on historic labor struggles as well as more
humble local conflicts. Told with vigor and humor, these first-hand
accounts attest to the IWW passion for mass education, popular
culture, and grass roots democracy, and they reveal an IWW
far more ideologically sophisticated than is generally acknowledged.
Historical essays preface these personal stories
and place them in the context of the IWW commitment to civil
liberties, women's rights, organizing the unorganized, and
racial equality.
An oral history
based on interviews done for the award-winning documentary,
The Wobblies, by filmmakers Stewart Bird and academy-award-winning
director Deborah Shaffer, with historical introductions to
each section of interviews by labor historian Dan Georgakas,
co-editor of the monumental Encyclopedia of the American Left.
"This study of the Wobblies is a vital part
of our history that has never appeared in the traditional
chronicles. It's time?high time?we knew of this indigenous
American movement. An excellent book.
—Studs Terkel
"Solidarity Forever: An Oral History of the
IWW is a great book. I wish it were used in American history
courses in every high school and college in the USA. The average
American doesn't know much about his or her own history. They
figure that history is a record of missed opportunities and
let it go at that. But the story of the Wobblies has a lot
to teach us and inspire us as well. I find the book inspiring."
—Pete Seeger
"In telling the story of one of America's earliest
and most inspiring protest movements, Solidarity Forever rings
with the simple eloquence of working men and women who faced
insurmountable economic and political odds with little more
than courage in their hearts and a song on their lips. Their
story gives new hope to a labor movement struggling against
challenges that sometimes appear equally insurmountable today."
—William W. Winpisinger, former president, International
Association of Machinists
"Astute scholarship undergirds a graceful and
exciting presentation... It's great to have a new work to
keep up the interest in the IWW so that still another generation
of readers can be inspired and hopefully moved to action."
—Joyce Kornbluh, Author, Rebel Voices?An IWW
Anthology
Dan Georgakas is an editor of Cineaste magazine
and co-editor of The Encyclopedia of the American Left and
The Cineaste Interviews: On the Art and Politics of the Cinema.
He teaches labor history at Queens College. His previous books
include a study of autoworkers and urban rebellion, Detroit:
I Do Mind Dying; two histories of Native Americans, The Broken
Hoop and Red Shadows; and The Methusaleh Factor: Strategies
for a Long and Vigorous Life.
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