May 5, 1907: Cable Car Workers Walk Off-work
May 5 1907, over 1,500 workers from the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees of America (commonly known as the Carmen’s Union) voted to strike and walked off work demanding $3 per day and an 8-hour work day, grinding the city to a halt. On day one the …
May 7, 1907: Bloody Tuesday
May 7 1907, two days into the Carmen’s Union streetcar strike, two workers, 19-year-old James Walsh and 23-year-old John Buchanan, were killed after a confrontation between striking workers and armed scabs in what became known as “Bloody Tuesday.” The day before the strike was declared, Patrick Calhoun of United Railroads …
April 1, 1911: J. Stitt Wilson, Socialist Mayor of Berkeley, Elected
April 1 1911, J. Stitt Wilson, a member of the Socialist Party of America, was elected mayor of Berkeley. A Christian socialist who advocated for a social revolution to establish “ownership by the whole people of the basic equipment of land and machinery,” Stitt Wilson had been a member of …
January 17, 1912: 112 years ago, January 17 1912, police violently disrupted a street [...]
112 years ago, January 17 1912, police violently disrupted a street meeting by the Industrial Workers of the World (part of the IWW’s “free speech fights”) in San Francisco, leaving one speaker hospitalized. Police only made three arrests before being driven off by the crowd IWW member Herbert Wright had …
March 3, 1912: 112 years ago, March 3 1912, Oakland police brutally cracked down on two [...]
112 years ago, March 3 1912, Oakland police brutally cracked down on two Industrial Workers of the World “free speech” rallies, arresting eight demonstrators and hospitalizing three. Police then stormed a solidarity meeting held by the Socialist Party, beating at least 20 people IWW members had been engaged in a …