Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream

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Synopsis
The 1912 textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts was a watershed moment in labor history as significant as the Haymarket bombing in Chicago and the Triangle fire in New York. In Bread and Roses, veteran journalist Bruce Watson provides a long-overdue account of the strike that began when textile workers stormed out of the mills in Lawrence on a frigid January day. Despite owners' predictions to the contrary, the walkout soon became a protracted Dickensian drama that included twenty-three thousand strikers from fifty-one nations singing as they paraded through Lawrence, bayonet-toting militiamen patrolling the streets, and the daring evacuation of the strikers' tattered and hungry children to Manhattan, where they lived with strangers and wrote loving letters to their parents on the picket line. Based on newspaper accounts, magazine reportage, and oral histories, Bread and Rosesis vividly narrated and teeming with colorful characters-including rags-to-riches mill owner William Wood and radical labor leader "Big Bill" Haywood. A rousing history with the narrative drive of a novel, Bread and Rosesis the true-to-life tale of a strike that became the fabric of a community and an inspiration to workers around the world.
Copyright:
2005

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
352 Pages
ISBN-13:
9781440649264
Related ISBNs:
9780143037354
Publisher:
PENGUIN group
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Bruce Watson
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Nonfiction, Business and Finance, Politics and Government
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

Reviews

5 out of 5

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BREAD AND ROSES By Bruce Watson In 1912, the town of Lawrence, MA experienced one of the largest strikes by textile mill workers in U.S. history. It involved, at its height, over 20,000 workers, and before it was over, became National then International news. Its effects continue, even now, over 100 years later. This book tells the stories of all concerned, from IWW labor organizers to immigrant workers and their families, mill owners and police. It is impeccably researched, but the style is approachable, so that it is a pleasure to read, and, in fact, reads as easily as thoughtful fiction. The author is excellent at describing events and placing them in the context of their settings vividly, but he is also capable of delineating characters in a few sentences so vibrantly that the reader can see and hear them. There is an abundance of factual material here, all carefully documented, but the book is eminently readable, and is, in fact, the kind of academic work that can bring history to life and make it entirely accessible in human terms. The events may have taken place over a century ago, but this story is as immediate and relevant as today’s breaking news.