Labor history today: First “Poor People’s March” on DC, 146 dead NY Triangle Shirtwaist Factory,more

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.unionist.com/big-labor/today-in-labor-history

March 25

Toronto printers strike for the 9-hour day in what is believed to be Canada’s first major strike - 1872

First “Poor People’s March” on Washington, in which jobless workers demanded creation of a public works program. Led by populist Jacob Coxey, the 500 to 1,000 unemployed protesters became known as “Coxey’s Army” (pictured above) - 1894

146 workers are killed in a fire at New York’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, a disaster that would launch a national movement for safer working conditions - 1911


Triangle: The Fire That Changed America: On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle shirtwaist factory in New York City. Within minutes it engulfed three upper floors, burning to death -- or causing to jump to their deaths -- 146 workers, 123 of them women, some as young as 15. This excellent book, published in 2003, vividly recounts the tragic fire but also tells us of life in the city during the early 1900s and brings us into the stories of the young women who lost their lives in the blaze. The author tells of their struggles against oppressive, inhumane conditions and poverty-level wages -- work lives not that different from many of today’s immigrant workers. In the UCS bookstore now.

An explosion at a coal mine in Centralia, Ill. kills 111 miners. Mineworkers President John L. Lewis calls a six day work stoppage by the nation’s 400,000 soft coal miners to demand safer working conditions - 1947