The Lawrence Strike of 1912

This is poster number 209 in the Celebrate People’s History series, featuring the events that went down in Lawrence Massachusetts on September 30th of 1912. This marked the first strike in the country as a the result of the imprisonment of labor organizer leaders, which led to physical altercations between protesters and the police at a textile mill—a violent affair that lasted from morning to night until the action was called off by IWW leadership. A landmark event in the history of labor rights in the USA, this demonstration would be the first of many actions and altercations to come in the fight for workers’ rights.