Today in Labor History June 20, 1912: Voltairine de Cleyre, one of the earliest feminist anarchists, died at the age 45, following a long illness. Two thousand supporters attended her funeral at Waldheim cemetery, in Chicago, where she was buried next to the Haymarket Martyrs. De Cleyre opposed capitalism and marriage and the domination of religion over sexuality and women’s lives. Her father, a radical abolitionist, named her after the Enlightenment writer and satirist, Voltaire. Her biographer Paul Avrich said that she was "a greater literary talent than any other American anarchist." The Haymarket affair, and the wrongful execution of anarchists in Chicago, radicalized her against the state and capitalism. She was also a prolific writer, and poet, publishing dozens of essays and poems in her short life.
Today in Labor History June 18, 1923: A nationwide General Strike took place in Argentina in protest of the assassination of the anarchist Kurt Wilckens in his prison cell. Two workers were killed in the strike as police tried to raid the offices of the anarchist union FORA.
Wilckens was born in Germany. He moved to the U.S. in the 1910s, where he joined the IWW and was exposed to anarchist ideas. He worked as a copper miner in Arizona and was one of hundreds arrested and expelled from the region during the Bisbee Deportation, July 12, 1917. During the Bisbee strike, authorities sealed off the county and seized the local Western Union telegraph office to cut off outside communication, while several thousand armed vigilantes rounded up 1,186 members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The workers were herded into manure-laden boxcars and dumped in the New Mexico desert. After that, Wilckens was arrested for making antiwar statements and deported to Germany in 1920 under the Espionage Act.
However, Wilckens moved to Argentina that same year, at the height of the Libertarian Workers’ Movement. Workers in Patagonia rebelled in 1920-1922 and were violently suppressed by the military, led by Lieutenant Colonel Héctor Benigno Varela. They slaughtered 1,500 workers. While the British landowners cheered Varela with rounds of “He’s a jolly good fellow,” the local prostitutes all shouted “Assassins! Pigs! We won’t go with killers” when any soldiers entered their brothels. Many of the sex workers were jailed for “insulting men in uniform.” To avenge the workers massacred by the military, Wilckens, who was a Tolstoyan pacifist, bombed and shot Varela. At his trial, Wilckens stated that he had shot Varela so that he could never kill again.
Hector Olivera’s film about these events, “La Patagonia Rebelde,” came out in 1974. “Bisbee ‘17,” (1999) by Robert Houston, is a historical novel based on the Bisbee deportations. There was also a really interesting film of the same name that came out in 2018. In the film, the town’s inhabitants reenact the events 100 years later. It also includes interviews with current residents.
Today in Labor History June 17, 1911: Federal troops, led by Madero, recaptured Tijuana from the Magonista anarchist rebels. Among those surviving and escaping was the famous Wobbly (IWW) songwriter, Joe Hill. Another Wobbly bard, Haywire Mac (compose of The Big Rock Candy Mountain and Hallelujah, I’m a Bum), also participated in the occupation of Tijuana. The Magonistas had captured the Baja California border town of Mexicali on January 29, and Tijuana on May 8, as well as Ensenada, San Tomas, and many other northern Baja California towns. The rebels encouraged the people to take collective possession of the lands. They also supported the creation of cooperatives and opposed the establishment of any new government. Many U.S. members of the IWW participated in the revolution. Lowell Blaisdell writes about it in his now hard to find book, “The Desert Revolution,” (1962). The IWW had been active in nearby San Diego since 1906, sight of an infamous Free Speech fight in 1912. During that struggle, in which many veterans of the Desert Revolution fought, police killed 2 workers. Vigilantes kidnapped Emma Goldman and her companion Ben Reitman, who had come to show their support. However, before deporting them, they tarred and feathered Reitman and raped him with a cane.
Today in Labor History June 16, 1869: In the small mining town of Ricamarie, France, troops opened fire on miners who were protesting the arrest of 40 workers. As a result, troops killed 14 people, including a 17-month-old girl in her mother’s arms. Furthermore, they wounded 60 others, including 10 children. This strike, and another in Aubin, along with the Paris Commune, were major inspirations for Emile Zola’s seminal work, “Germinal,” and the reason he chose to focus on revolutionary worker actions in that novel.
Review of “Tales of an Inland Empire Girl,” by Juanita E. Mantz Pelaez
“Tales of an Inland Empire Girl” is a beautifully written, edgy memoir by Juanita E. Mantz Pelaez. It’s the story of good girl’s downward spiral, from a studious bookworm into an angry, drinking, trouble-making punk rock teen, and her redemption that follows. It’s the story of a working-class family, struggling to make ends meet. Of a Mexican-American mother, stressed-out and emotionally volatile, working two jobs to support her family. And an alcoholic father (el gringo boracho, as her mother’s family refers to him), disabled from years of demanding physical labor, with a head full of unfulfilled and broken dreams. It’s the story of Juanita’s life, unraveling as she and her two sisters navigate growing up amidst the trauma of their parents’ constant fighting, and their mother’s frightening outbursts.
The book opens with a scene of their father dying on the crapper, after almost choking to death on fried fish that Juanita buys him on her way home from the airport. It sounds horrifying and sad, and it is. But it is written with so much humor, tenderness, and love, that I can’t stop reading. In fact, the only thing that keeps me from finishing the entire book in one sitting is my need to get some sleep before I have to proctor final exams to my high school students the next day. Yes, this scene is an ending of sorts, but it is also a masterful opening to Mantz’s story, written from her perspective as an adult who has become a successful lawyer in spite of her troubled childhood. It lets us know there’s a happy ending for the author, and it sets up perfectly the rest of the story, portrayed through her eyes as a child.
One of the things I love about this book is how, in spite of her parents constant fighting, she still sees their beauty, like her mom's bee hive hairdo, or her dad pulling out his false teeth to make the kids smile. And how, in spite of her mother’s explosive rage, she knows there is a “nice mom” in there who comes out from time to time. I remember having feelings just like this from my own childhood, my fear of my father’s explosive rage and how, like with Mantz’s mom, it was like walking on eggshells trying to avoid the numerous triggers that could set him off, but also knowing that underneath it all there was a loving, sweet, and even nurturing parent who cared deeply for me. This comes out brilliantly when her mother rips the principal a new orifice for allowing one of her teachers to use corporal punishment on her. And it leads to my favorite line from the book: “I may not be the good girl anymore, but at least I'm the bad girl with a bad ass mom."
The scene from the book that resonated most with me was when Juanita arrives at her Honors English class after a sleepless night listening to her parents fight with each other. She arrives too late to get a front row seat, like she prefers, and is forced to sit in the back, with her poor vision and ratty back pack, and an illicit copy of Judy Blume to distract her. So many times, as a high school teacher, I’ve had the quiet kid who hid in the back and tried to become invisible because the horrors at home were too overwhelming and they were too tired, stressed, and traumatized to be able to interact with me or their classmates. How many times I wondered what those horrors were. If there was something I could do to help. Or, if the most helpful and merciful thing I could do was to let that student continue to be invisible and at least have an hour of peace. Sadly, Mantz does not even get to enjoy peace in this scene, but you'll have to read the book to find out why.
“Tales of an Inland Empire Girl” is about much more than growing up with an abusive parent. It’s also about sibling rivalries and jealousies. It’s about class, and race, from the point of view of kids, who feel it, even if they don't have the precise words to describe it. Her youngest sister, Annie, for example, is light-skinned, with straight hair, like their dad. Strangers think she's a white girl. And her parents treat her as if she is the “good” daughter. Juanita is dark-skinned and curly-haired, clearly Chicana, and she regularly feels the disdain and racism of neighbors, strangers, and even teachers.
The book is also about Mantz’s close relationships with her twin sister, Jacky. I really enjoy how they always fist-bump and say “Wonder Twin powers, activate!” like Zan and Jayna, from the Hanna-Barbera television show, “The All-New Super Friends.” I had completely forgotten about this show until I read this book, which was filled with so much other nostalgia from my own 1970s-80s Southern California childhood, like Shasta cola, the notorious D.J. Wolfman Jack, and the oh-so-trendy dittos pants the girls liked to wear in those days. Her close friendship with Jacky, and with her girlfriends, help her make it through the difficult times. So does reading. There are always piles of books on her floor, and constant references to her favorite childhood stories.
As she gets older, and finds herself spiraling into ever more rebellious and risky behavior, music becomes another savior. Her favorite bands are The Smiths and The Cure and she writes beautifully of what they mean to her growing up. I was fortunate enough to be able to share the stage with Mantz at the Punks With Books book-reading event at Avantpop Books in Las Vegas on Memorial Day Weekend this year (along with Michelle Cruz-Gonzales, James Tracy, Jason Lamb, Paul Prescott, and Billy Bragg), and hang out with her at the Punk Rock Bowling music festival. I asked her why The Smiths were so popular among Mexican teens of our generation. She thought it was because Morrissey’s brooding ballads seem so familiar to them, like Mexican corridos, a connection that makes perfect sense to me, but that I doubt I would have been able to identify on my own.
I highly recommend “Tales of an Inland Empire Girl.” It is funny, clever, sad, and full of insight. And the poems at the end are really good, too. “Father O' Mine” (parts I and II) and “Dad's Eulogy” really struck a chord with me, in part because I lost my own father recently. But mostly because Mantz does such a great job portraying her father in this book that I really felt like I knew him, missed him, and needed the closure these poems provided.
Today in Labor History June 15, 1914: Westinghouse strike, Pittsburgh. The Allegheny Congenial Industrial Union (ACIU) struck against Westinghouse. They were demanding union recognition and protesting against the "scientific management" theories of Frederick Taylor. They also wanted an eight-hour day, reinstatement of fired workers, and higher overtime and holiday rates. Women played a major role in the strike and many of the striking workers were women. Bridget Kenny organized marches and recruited workers to join the ACIU and rose to become one of the main spokespeople for the union. She had been employed by Westinghouse but fired in 1913 for selling union benefit tickets on company grounds. The Pittsburgh Leader, one of the city’s newspapers and one that hired numerous women writers, including Willa Cather, nicknamed Kenny “Joan de Arc.” And the women in this strike provided some of the inspiration for the workingwomen characters in Willa Cather’s short fiction. The Westinghouse plant on Edgewood Avenue was one of three they possessed in the Pittsburgh region, and one of the main sights of strike activity. In late June, the company used armed thugs to intimidate the workers, leading to a violent exchange in which several workers, and the East Pittsburgh police chief, were injured.
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Today in Writing History June 10, 1928: Maurice Sendak, author of “Where the Wild Things Are,” was born in Brooklyn, New York. A little boy once sent him a card with a drawing on it. Sendak was so moved he sent the boy another letter with his own personal “Wild Thing” drawn on it. The boy’s mother sent Sendak a thank you note saying that her son loved the card so much he ate it. Sendak considered that one of the highest compliments he ever received. Sendak was an atheist Jew who lost numerous family members in the Holocaust. He was also gay.
Today in Labor History June 10, 1971: Mexican police, and paramilitary death squads known as Los Halcones, killed 120 student protesters, including a 14-year-old boy, in the Corpus Christi Massacre, also known as El Halconazo. In 1968, the government had massacred up to 500 of students and bystanders in the Tlatelolco massacre. The Halconazo started with protests at the University of Nuevo Leon, for joint leadership that included students and teachers. When the university implemented the new government, the state government slashed their budget and abolished their autonomy. This led to a strike that spread to the National Autonomous University of Mexico and National Polytechnic Institute. To suppress the strike, the authorities used tankettes, police, riot police, and the death squad, known as Los Halcones, who had been trained by the CIA. Los Halcones first attacked with sticks, but the student fended them off. Then they resorted to high caliber rifles. Police had been ordered to do nothing. When the injured were taken to the hospital, Los Halcones followed and shot them dead in the hospital. Silvia Moreno-Garcia writes about these events in her 2021 novel “Velvet Was the Night.” It is also depicted in the 2018 film Roma.”
Today in Labor History June 9, 1843: Bertha von Suttner was born (d. 1914). She was an Austrian journalist, author, peace activist and Nobel Prize laureate. She was also a friend of Alfred Nobel, who famously told her that there would not be world peace until a weapon was invented that was so deadly it could annihilate countries in seconds. Some say that it was her activism and advocacy that inspired him to include a peace prize as part of his endowment. Von Suttner wrote “Lay Down Your Arms,” an anti-war novel that made her a leading figure in the Austrian peace movement. However, it was also considered a feminist novel for its characters resistance to accepting traditional gender roles. Tolstoy compared her favorably with Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Today in Labor History June 8, 1917: The Granite Mountain/Spectacular Mine disaster killed 168 men in Butte, Montana. It was the deadliest underground mine disaster in U.S. history. Within days, men were walking out of the copper mines all over Butte in protest of the dangerous working conditions. Two weeks later, organizers had created a new union, the Metal Mine Workers’ Union. They immediately petitioned Anaconda, the largest of the mine companies, for union recognition, wage increases and better safety conditions. By the end of June, electricians, boilermakers, blacksmiths and other metal tradesmen had walked off the job in solidarity.
Frank Little, a Cherokee miner and member of the IWW, went to Butte during this strike to help organize the miners. Little had previously helped organize oil workers, timber workers and migrant farm workers in California. He had participated in free speech fights in Missoula, Spokane and Fresno, and helped pioneer many of the passive resistance techniques later used by the Civil Rights movement. He was also an anti-war activist, calling U.S. soldiers “Uncle Sam’s scabs in uniforms.” On August 1, 1917, vigilantes broke into the boarding house where he was staying. They dragged him through the streets while tied to the back of a car and then hanged him from a railroad trestle.
Author Dashiell Hammett had been working in Butte at the time as a striker breaker for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. They had tried to get him to murder Little, offering him $5,000, but he refused. He later wrote about the experience in his novel, “Red Harvest.” It supposedly haunted him throughout his life that anyone would think he would do such a thing.
Today in Labor History June 7, 1929: Striking textile workers battled police in Gastonia, North Carolina, during the Loray Mill Strike. Police Chief O.F. Aderholt was accidentally killed by one of his own officers during a protest march by striking workers. Nevertheless, the authorities arrested six strike leaders. They were all convicted of “conspiracy to murder.”
The strike lasted from April 1 to September 14. It started in response to the “stretch-out” system, where bosses doubled the spinners’ and weavers’ work, while simultaneously lowering their wages. When the women went on strike, the bosses evicted them from their company homes. Masked vigilantes destroyed the union’s headquarters. The NTWU set up a tent city for the workers, with armed guards to protect them from the vigilantes.
One of the main organizers was a poor white woman named Ella May Wiggans. She was a single mother, with nine kids. Rather than living in the tent city, she chose to live in the African American hamlet known as Stumptown. She was instrumental in creating solidarity between black and white workers and rallying them with her music. Some of her songs from the strike were “Mill Mother’s Lament,” and “Big Fat Boss and the Workers.” Her music was later covered by Pete Seeger and Woodie Guthrie, who called her the “pioneer of the protest ballad.” During the strike, vigilantes shot her in the chest. She survived, but later died of whooping cough due to poverty and inadequate medical care.
For really wonderful fictionalized accounts of this strike, read “The Last Ballad,” by Wiley Cash (2017) and “Strike!” by Mary Heaton Vorse (1930).
Today in Labor History June 7, 1896: Anarchists supposedly set off a bomb during a Corpus Christi parade in Barcelona, Spain. As a result, a dozen people died and thirty were wounded. No one knows who actually set off the bomb, but the government blamed anarchists, who had set off numerous bombs over the previous four years. Consequently, the government went on a witch-hunt, arresting and torturing dozens of anarchists in the infamous Montjuich Prison. However, many leading anarchists denied the accusations and said they would never have set off a deadly bomb in a working-class community like this. They reserved their attacks for members of the ruling class. Nevertheless, the government tried and executed five anarchists, all of whom proclaimed their innocence. They sentenced 67 others to life in prison. Worldwide protests erupted in response. Montjuich Prison was graphically depicted in the opening scene Victor Serge’s epic novel, Birth of Our Power, which he wrote while imprisoned in the Soviet Union for his opposition to Stalin.
Today in Labor History June 5, 1832: The poor of Paris revolted against the new monarchy, in the wake of crop failures, food shortages and a cholera epidemic, which killed over 100,000 people in France. The poor were especially hard hit by the outbreak. Many believed that the wealthy had poisoned their wells. The Society of the Rights of Man organized an army and raised the red flag, declaring "Liberty or Death." Nearly 100 Republicans died in their attempt to overthrow the government. Over 70 monarchists died defending it. The uprising was the inspiration for Victor Hugo's “Les Miserables,” which depicts the period leading up to the rebellion. Hugo was living in Paris at the time, working on a play. When he heard the gunfire, he ran outside to see what was happening, and quickly got pinned down by gunfire, taking shelter between Republican barricades.
Today in Writing History June 4, 1917: Laura E. Richards, Maude H. Elliott, and Florence Hall won the first Pulitzer prize for biography. They wrote about their mother Julia Ward Howe, the feminist, abolitionist, pacifist author and poet. You can read the biography here.
Howe not only wrote the lyrics to The Battle Hymn of the Republic; she also wrote the pacifist 1870 Mother’s Day Proclamation. Also known as the Appeal to Womanhood Throughout the World, the proclamation called on women to unite worldwide for peace. In 1872, Howe called for a Mother’s Day for Peace to be celebrated each year on June 2. Yet today, women throughout the U.S. and Europe (along with the men) are calling for ever more heavy weaponry and NATO troops to be sent to the Ukrainian killing fields, where over 200,000 Ukrainians have already lost their lives, and where this now direct NATO involvement risks precipitating WWIII between nuclear-armed powers, neither of which show any indication that they are willing to back down or negotiate an end to the slaughter. Where is the peace movement today? Or, is some slaughter justified in the name of capitalism (er, I mean against despotism)? And, if that is true, where are all the people screaming for war against India? Philippines? Italy? Saudi Arabia? El Salvador? Egypt? Sudan? And Israel?
Today in Labor History May 31, 1889: The infamous Johnstown Flood. 2,209 people died when a dam holding back a private resort lake burst upstream from Johnstown, Pennsylvania. It was the deadliest U.S. disaster to date. Bodies were found as far away as Cincinnati. It caused $17 million of damage (about $490 million in 2020 dollars).
Wealthy industrialists, like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick owned and patronized the resort. (Carnegie also owned Homestead Steel, and Frick was the manager in charge of the butchering of striking workers that occurred there in 1892). They had built cottages and a clubhouse and created the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, an exclusive and private mountain retreat. They had also lowered the dam to build a road across it and installed a fish screen in the spillway that tended to trap debris. Investigators believe these alterations contributed to the disaster. Yet none of the members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club were found guilty of any crimes. Furthermore, survivors repeatedly lost court cases in their attempts to recover damages due to the club members’ wealth and expensive legal team. However, public outrage did prompt changes in American law leading to one of strict liability in future cases.
The flood has been depicted repeatedly in American culture. Bruce Springsteen references it in “Highway Patrolman.” Rudyard Kipling talked about it in his novel “Captains Courageous.” The Paul Newman film, “Slapshot” takes place in Johnstown. It is also referenced in episodes of Star Trek, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and dozens of other poems, songs, plays, novels, and works of nonfiction.
Today in Labor History May 31, 1819: Poet Walt Whitman was born. Whitman published his first and most famous collection of poems, Leaves of Grass, in 1855, using his own money. It was criticized as obscene for its sensuality. During the Civil War, he volunteered in hospitals caring for the wounded. Many believe Whitman was gay or bisexual, based on his writings, though it is disputed by some historians. Oscar Wilde met Whitman in the United States in 1882 and told the homosexual-rights activist George Cecil Ives that Whitman's sexual orientation was beyond question—"I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips." Whitman is considered by many to be Americas first and greatest poet. He inspired many who came after him, including Ezra Pound, Langston Hughes, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder and June Jordan.
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