E16: Women in the early IWW

Working Class History

Society & Culture, Education, History

5.0 • 813 Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2018

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Podcast about the early history of women in the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World union in the United States, in conversation with Heather Mayer, author of Beyond the Rebel Girl: Women and the IWW in the Pacific Northwest, 1905-1924.
Support this podcast and get benefits like early accessed episodes and more on patreon: https://patreon.com/workingclasshistory
Get Heather's book here: https://amzn.to/2DqONVc
Episode 6 of our podcast gives an introduction to the IWW in the US so we recommend listening to that before this unless you are well acquainted with IWW history and terminology already.
More formation, sources, and transcript on the webpage for this episode: https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e16-women-in-the-early-iww/
Acknowledgements
– Thanks to the Salt Lake Tribune for permission to use the recording of Rebel Girl, performed by Alyeah Hansen in 2015. Check out the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_tz3wPgLUw
And take a look at their excellent Legacy of Joe Hill homepage: http://local.sltrib.com/charts/joehill/landingpage.html
– Edited by Daniel Waldorf

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode continues our series about the Revolutionary Union, the Industrial Workers of the World,
0:05.0	which we introduce in episode six.
0:07.0	So if you're new to the IWW, I would go back and listen to that one first.
0:11.0	While many people have heard about the IWW,
0:14.0	perhaps the most important working class organization in American history,
0:17.0	an essential part of the union story has often gone under the radar, and that is the role of women in shaping the union.
0:22.6	Women were at its founding conference, were leading workplace organizers and soapbox speakers, took militant industrial action and got thrown in jail.
0:30.6	This is working class history. There are women of many descriptions in this queer world as everyone knows.
0:47.3	Some are living in beautiful mansions and are wearing the finest of clothes.
0:55.7	There are blue-blooded queens and princesses with their charms made of diamond and pearl.
1:03.2	But the only in thorough red lady is the rabble girl.
1:10.6	It's a rebel girl. Today we're very happy to be joined by Heather Mayer, author of Beyond the Rebel Girl,
1:17.0	Women and the IWW in the Pacific Northwest, and contributor to Wobbles of the World,
1:21.7	a global history of the IWW. Both of these texts reveal a lot of information about
1:26.7	the under-researched role of women in the union.
1:29.5	We'll start off with one story which illustrates just that.
1:32.9	Heather, thanks for, thanks for joining us.
1:35.4	In your chapter in Wobbies of the World, you tell the story of Edith Renet and the Everett Massacre.
1:44.0	The Everett massacre is quite a well-known incident in IWW history, but you tell it from a
1:51.0	really different perspective, which is really interesting.
1:54.1	Could you maybe say a bit more about that?
1:56.5	Yeah, that was really the inspiration of my entire, like, focusing on this area of research
	...

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