U-M joins IWW celebration of 100 years of labor activism

ANN ARBOR—Drawing from one of the world’s best collections of materials documenting early industrial workers’ history, the University of Michigan’s Labadie Collection of Social Protest is mounting a display of original letters, posters, photographs, sheet music and memorabilia.

"Soapboxers and Saboteurs: 100 Years of Wobbly Solidarity," an exhibit celebrating the 100th anniversary of the IWW, runs Sept. 6 through Nov. 26 in U-M’s Special Collections Library, located on the 7th floor of the Harlan Hatcher Library on U-M’s Central Campus.

"The working class and the employing class have no thing in common," the preamble to the IWW’s constitution reads. " there can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life."

"The IWW members are commonly known as Wobblies," said Julie Herrada, curator of the exhibit and the collection. "the organization attempted to organize all workers into ‘one big union,’ challenged restrictions on First Amendment rights and broke down barriers of race, sex and class in their membership."

Sometimes called "the singingest union America ever had," IWW was started in Chicago in
U-M’s IWW centennial celebration, one of many at educational institutions across the United States, offers a free concert at 8 p.m. Oct. 19 featuring Anne Feeney, a national recording artist. Feeny was recently named the recipient of the 2005 Joe Hill Award from the Labor Heritage Foundation.

At one time, with every union card issued, IWW also handed out a little red songbook. the cover carried a motto: "To Fan the Flames of Discontent." Inside were the words to about 50 songs, usually parodies of well-known melodies. the songs were sung at meetings, on picket lines, in jails, on freight trains through Sou th Dakota wheat fields or wherever members happened to meet. If the Salvation Army was preaching against them from one street corner, they might set up a soapbox on the opposite corner. When the Salvation Army band started up "In the Sweet Bye and Bye," Wobblies would use it to accompany their own singing of Joe Hill’s parody "Pie in the Sky."

Along with the concert, Joyce Kornbluh will talk about the history of her book, "Rebel Voices: An IWW Anthology." A discussion of current and past IWW labor struggles will follow.

"It has been my fate to be a worker all my life," wrote Detroit native Jo Labadie, who in 1911 donated the core of U-M’s archive on social protest.

The exhibit is open 10 a.m.—5 p.m. Monday-Fridays, and 10 a.m.-noon Saturdays. Admission is free. the exhibit and concert are on the 7 th floor of the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library on U-M’s Central Campus in Ann Arbor. A free reception on Oct. 19 will begin at 7 p.m. before the free 8 p.m. concert wi th Feeney.

Among the sponsoring organizations are U-M’s Institute for the Humanities, the University Library, Detroit Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World, U-M Department of History, U-M Program in American Culture and the International Bro therhood of Electrical Workers.

Related links:

Labadie Collection: http://www.lib.umich.edu/spec-coll/labadie/

The Internet Public Library (IPL): http://www.ipl.org/div/labadie/anarchism.html

IWW: http://www.iww.org/en/node

IWW General Headquarters was located in Ypsilanti from 1995-1999. During that time, the organization launched an organizing drive against Borders Books in Philadelphia with IWW members picketing stores in several major cities including Ann Arbor. Strikes and picketing for various reforms during this four-year period were held in California, Washington, Pennsylvania, New York, Montana, Africa, Massachusetts, Indiana, Texas, and in Finland, Russia and England.

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