July 21,1877 Killing 20 people and wounding 29 others

[Omaha Steve]

http://nhlabornews.com/2013/07/july-211877/

By Today In Labor History | July 21, 2013 | Labor History




The Great Railway Strike of 1877 is underway across several states. In Pittsburgh, militia bayoneted and fired on rock-throwing strikers, killing 20 people and wounding 29 others. The workers responded by forcing the militia to take refuge in a railroad roundhouse, and then set fires that razed 39 buildings and destroyed 104 locomotives and 1,245 freight and passenger cars


About Today In Labor History
The NHLN has joined with multiple other websites to help highlight some of the struggles that workers have faced throughout our history. We want everyone to know what the workers of the past had to endure for the rights we take for granted now. If you do not learn from the past, you are doomed to repeat it.

[bvar22]

1. The History of the Labor Movement has been eliminated from the History Books.

I went to Elementary School in the 50s,
and the Labor Movement and the Socio-Economic gains for the American Working People WAS a part of "American History".

In a conversation with a young, intelligent, "Straight A" High School Junior who claimed "History" as her "2nd Favorite Subject" last Labor Day, at a Labor Day Picnic,
she had no clue about the Labor Movement,
had never heard of it,
and didn't know WHAT I was talking about.
She had been taught in her school that it was the "Entrepreneurial Spirit" that built America.
I was stunned.

New Report Finds High School Textbooks Ignore Or Distort The Role Of Labor Unions In American History

On Monday, America celebrated Labor Day, which is set aside to honor American laborers and their unions. Yet a new report from the American Federation of Teachers’ (AFT) Albert Shanker Institute titled “American Labor in U.S. History Textbooks: How Labor’s Story is Distorted in High School History Textbooks” finds that America’s high school students are not being properly taught about the contributions of organized labor to American history."

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/09/07/313270/history-textbooks-labor-unions/

Not too long ago, The Labor Movement was Honored & Cherished as a proud tradition of the modern Democratic Party, and was credited with the tremendous advancements of the American Working Class over the last century.
Sadly, this is no longer true,
and the Labor Movement hardly gets a mention from today's Party Leadership.


My fathers and grandfathers shed BLOOD to gain these rights for ALL Working Americans.
I was taught to honor and protect these hard earned RIGHTS.
It hurts to see these RIGHTS denigrated and thrown away,
and the history flushed "down the Memory Hole",
replaced with the myth of an "Invisible Hand" and rumors of something called a "Free Market".
[font size=1](How did they EVER pull off THAT scam?)[/font]

I am ashamed of the World we are leaving to our young.
They WILL have to fight these same battles all over again.


Thanks for the work you are doing here reminding Democrats about the History of the Movement that built the Largest, Wealthiest, and Most Upwardly Mobile Working Class the World had ever seen!


DURec!

[eppur_se_muova]

2. This is part of what school privatization is about ...

looks like the textbook industry was the first step.