The Seattle General Strike - Softcover

Friedheim, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0295744162 ISBN 13: 9780295744162

Publisher: University of Washington Press, 2018

Synopsis

“We are undertaking the most tremendous move ever made by LABOR in this country, a move which will lead—NO ONE KNOWS WHERE!” With these words echoing throughout the city, on February 6, 1919, 65,000 Seattle workers began one of the most important general strikes in US history. For six tense yet nonviolent days, the Central Labor Council negotiated with federal and local authorities on behalf of the shipyard workers whose grievances initiated the citywide walkout. Meanwhile, strikers organized to provide essential services such as delivering supplies to hospitals and markets, as well as feeding thousands at union-run dining facilities. Robert L. Friedheim’s classic account of the dramatic events of 1919, first published in 1964 and now enhanced with a new introduction, afterword, and photo essay by James N. Gregory, vividly details what happened and why. Overturning conventional understandings of the American Federation of Labor as a conservative labor organization devoted to pure and simple unionism, Friedheim shows the influence of socialists and the IWW in the city’s labor movement. While Seattle’s strike ended in disappointment, it led to massive strikes across the country that determined the direction of labor, capital, and government for decades. The Seattle General Strike is an exciting portrait of a Seattle long gone and of events that shaped the city’s reputation for left-leaning activism into the twenty-first century.

About this title

About the Authors

An eminent political scientist, Robert Friedheim was best known for his work on maritime environmental policy, including Negotiating the New Ocean Regime (1993) andToward a Sustainable Whaling Regime (2001). The Seattle General Strike was his first book.

A historian of labor and race in the American West and South, James N. Gregory is the author of American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California (winner of the Organization of American Historians' Ray Allen Billington Prize and the American Historical Association-Pacific Coast Branch's Annual Book Award) and The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America (winner of the Philip Taft Labor History Book Prize). His current research focuses on the political geography of American radicalism. He is also active in the field of digital and public history, directing a consortium of online sites grouped as the Pacific Northwest Labor and Civil Rights Projects and the Mapping American Social Movements through the 20th Century Project.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0295744162
• ISBN 13: 9780295744162
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 296