The Cultural and Artistic Heritages of Working People
Subject: Wobblies oon the Waterfront-Book talk Jan. 17
H-LABOR-ARTS@H-NET.MSU.EDU

Book Talk

Wobblies on the Waterfront
Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia*
By Peter Cole

WHERE
Tamiment Library – Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, NYU
70 Washington Square South [Bobst Library], 10th Floor

WHEN
Thursday, January 17, 6:00 pm

During the 1910s and 1920s, the Philadelphia waterfront was home to one of the most durable interracial, multiethnic unions ever seen in the history of the United States. In a period when most unions, like most institutions, excluded blacks or segregated them, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was ideologically committed to racial equality. More than any other IWW affiliate, however, Local 8 worked to become a progressive, interracial union.
In Wobblies on the Waterfront, Peter Cole, an Associate Professor of History at Western Illinois University, outlines the factors that were instrumental in Local 8’s success, both ideological (the IWW’s commitment to working-class solidarity) and pragmatic (racial divisions helped solidify employer dominance).
Hear Peter Cole tell the story of America’s first truly interracial labor union.

SPONSORS:
New York Labor History Association; Tamiment Library – Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, NYU
FREE ADMISSION
FURTHER INFORMATION: 212.998.2636

* Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007