Today in Labor History March 9, 1911: Frank Little and other free-speech fighters were released from jail in Fresno, California, where they had been fighting for the right to speak to and organize workers on public streets. Little was a Cherokee miner and IWW union organizer. He helped organize oil workers, timber workers and migrant farm workers in California. He 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.” 1917, he helped organize the Speculator Mine strike in Butte, Montana. Vigilantes broke into his boarding house, dragged him through the streets while tied to the back of a car, and then lynched him from a railroad trestle. Prior to Little’s assassination, Author Dashiell Hammett had been asked by the Pinkerton Detective Agency to murder him. Hammett declined.

Read my full bio of Frank Little here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/frank-little/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #strike #freespeech #indigenous #nativeamerican #cherokee #franklittle #civilrights #nonviolence #racism #vigilantes #lynching #author #writer #fiction #books @bookstadon

https://dustythekid.bandcamp.com/track/the-ballad-of-frank-little-2

#DustyTheKid #FrankLittle #iww #singalong

Today in Labor History December 1, 1912: The rustling card system was put into place by the Anaconda Mining and Smelter Company. Rustling cards verified employees’ identities and employment status. The company used spies to identify union agitators and refused them rustling cards and jobs. In 1917, the IWW called a strike at the Anaconda mines around Butte, Montana. They demanded the end of the rustling cards system, and the implementation of the 8-hour day and higher wages. Author Dashiell Hammett served as a Pinkerton strikebreaker in the Anaconda miners’ strike. However, when the Pinkertons enlisted him to assassinate Native American IWW organizer Frank Little, he refused, and quit the agency. On 4/21/1917, guards opened fire on unarmed picketers, killing one and injuring sixteen, while vigilantes lynched Frank Little. Dashiell Hammett depicted the strike in his first novel, “Red Harvest.” André Gide called Red Harvest “the last word in atrocity, cynicism, and horror.”

You can read my biography of Frank Little here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/frank-little/

You can read my essay on the Pinkertons here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/04/union-busting-by-the-pinkertons/

You can read my biography of Hammett here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/dashiell-hammett/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #strike #mining #wages #unionbusting #books #fiction #franklittle #assassination #indigenous #nativeamerican #author #writer #dashiellhammett #pinkertons @bookstadon

Today in Labor History August 25, 1819: Allan Pinkerton was born. He founded the Pinkerton private police force, whose strike breaking detectives (Pinkertons, or 'Pinks') slaughtered dozens of workers in various labor struggles and scores more imprisoned. Ironically, Pinkerton, himself, was a violent, radical leftist as a youth. He fought cops in the streets as a member of the Chartist Movement. He had to flee the UK in order to not be imprisoned. Yet in America, he became the nation’s first super cop. He created the secret service. He foiled an assassination attempt against Lincoln. He fine-tuned the art of spying on activists and planting agents provocateur in their ranks. His agents played a major role in destroying the miners’ union in the 1870s, as portrayed in my novel, “Anywhere But Schuylkill.” Later, the Pinkertons assassinated numerous organizers with the IWW and came within inches of successfully getting Big Bill Hayward convicted on trumped up murder charges. They tried to hire author Dashiell Hammett to murder Native American IWW organizer Frank Little. He declined, but wrote about his experience as a Pinkerton agent in his first novel, Red Harvest.

You can get Anywhere But Schuylkill from any of these indie bookstores:
https://www.keplers.com/
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/

Or send me $25 via Venmo (@Michael-Dunn-565) and your mailing address, and I will send you a signed copy!

You can read my biography of Pinkerton here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/04/union-busting-by-the-pinkertons/

My biography of Frank Little here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/frank-little/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #pinkertons #IWW #union #police #books #fiction #historicalfiction #AnywhereButSchuylkill #mining #coal #writer #author #FrankLittle #indigenous #novel @bookstadon

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.

You can read my biography of Little here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/frank-little/

And my biography of Hammett here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/dashiell-hammett/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #strike #FrankLittle #indigenous #nativeamerican #cherokee #freespeech #mining #antiwar #civilrights #Pinkertons #books #fiction #writer #author @bookstadon

Today in Labor History June 1, 1916: The predominantly immigrant iron miners of the Mesabi Range, Minnesota, participated in a seemingly spontaneous strike in response to overpriced housing and goods, long hours and poor pay. The group was led by radical Finns who quickly drew the attention and aid of the IWW. Wobbly organizers, including Carlo Tresca, Joe Schmidt, Frank Little, and later Joe Ettor and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, came to help local strike leaders draw up a list of demands which included an 8-hour day, timed from when workers entered the mine until they were outside; a pay-scale based upon the actual hours worked; paydays twice monthly; immediate back-pay for hours worked upon severance; abolition of the Saturday night shift; abolition of the hated contract mining system. In the Contract Mining system, the bosses hired and paid “skilled” miners to do most of the mining. The contract miners then had to hire their own laborers and pay them out of their meagre wages. The contract miners were often native-born people, while the laborers were usually immigrants. This created a racialized two-tiered system that divided the workers and made it harder to organize. The bosses would routinely offer the contract miners a small concession to get them back to work, while offering the even more poorly paid laborers nothing, destroying their solidarity and ending the strike. Flynn would later go on to cofound the American Civil Liberties Union. Tresca would go on to became a leading organizer against both fascism and Stalinism. He was assassinated in 1943, possibly on orders of the Genovese crime family, possibly on orders of Stalin, and possibly Italian fascists. Frank Little, who was Native American, was later murdered by vigilantes during a strike in Butte. You can read my biography of Frank Little here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/frank-little/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #strike #wildcat #mesabi #iron #mining #solidarity #immigrant #ElizabethGurleyFlynn #FrankLittle #racism #vigilantes #nativeamerican #indigenous #fascism #antifascism #soviet #stalin #aclu #mafia

Today in Labor History March 9, 1911: Frank Little and other free-speech fighters were released from jail in Fresno, California, where they had been fighting for the right to speak to and organize workers on public streets. Little was a Cherokee miner and IWW union organizer. He helped organize oil workers, timber workers and migrant farm workers in California. He 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.” 1917, he helped organize the Speculator Mine strike in Butte, Montana. Vigilantes broke into his boarding house, dragged him through the streets while tied to the back of a car, and then lynched him from a railroad trestle. Prior to Little’s assassination, Author Dashiell Hammett had been asked by the Pinkerton Detective Agency to murder him. Hammett declined.

Read my full bio of Frank Little here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/frank-little/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #strike #freespeech #indigenous #nativeamerican #cherokee #franklittle #civilrights #nonviolence #racism #vigilantes #lynching #author #writer #fiction #books @bookstadon

Today in Labor History December 1, 1912: The rustling card system was put into place by the Anaconda Mining and Smelter Company. Rustling cards verified employees’ identities and employment status. The company used spies to identify union agitators and refused them rustling cards and jobs. In 1920, the IWW called a strike at the Anaconda mines around Butte, Montana. They demanded the end of the rustling cards system, and the implementation of the 8-hour day and higher wages. Author Dashiell Hammett served as a Pinkerton strikebreaker in the 1920 Anaconda miners’ strike. However, when the Pinkertons enlisted him to assassinate Native American IWW organizer Frank Little, he refused, and quit the agency. On 4/21/1920, guards opened fire on unarmed picketers, killing one and injuring sixteen, while vigilantes lynched Frank Little. Dashiell Hammett depicted the strike in his first novel, “Red Harvest.” André Gide called Red Harvest “the last word in atrocity, cynicism, and horror.”

You can read my biography of Frank Little here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/frank-little/

You can read my essay on the Pinkertons here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/04/union-busting-by-the-pinkertons/

You can read my biography of Hammett here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/dashiell-hammett/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #strike #mining #wages #unionbusting #books #fiction #franklittle #assassination #indigenous #nativeamerican #author #writer #dashiellhammett #pinkertons @bookstadon

Today in Labor History August 25, 1819: Allan Pinkerton was born. He founded the Pinkerton private police force, whose strike breaking detectives (Pinkertons, or 'Pinks') slaughtered dozens of workers in various labor struggles. Ironically, Pinkerton, himself, was a violent, radical leftist as a youth. He fought cops in the streets as a member of the Chartist Movement. He had to flee the UK in order to not be imprisoned. Yet in America, he became the nation’s first super cop. He created the secret service. He foiled an assassination attempt against Lincoln. He fine-tuned the art of spying on activists and planting agents provocateur in their ranks. His agents played a major role in destroying the miners’ union in the 1870s, as portrayed in my novel, “Anywhere But Schuylkill.” Later, the Pinkertons assassinated numerous organizers with the IWW and came within inches of successfully getting Big Bill Hayward convicted on trumped up murder charges. They tried to hire author Dashiell Hammett to murder Native American IWW organizer Frank Little. He declined, but wrote about his experience as a Pinkerton agent in his first novel, Red Harvest.

You can get Anywhere But Schuylkill from any of these indie bookstores:
https://www.keplers.com/
https://www.greenapplebooks.com/
https://christophersbooks.com/
https://boundtogether.org//

Or from https://www.amazon.com/Anywhere-but-Schuylkill-Michael-Dunn-ebook/dp/B0CJVW1BP2

You can read my biography of Pinkerton here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/04/union-busting-by-the-pinkertons/

My biography of Frank Little here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/frank-little/

And my biography of Dashiell Hammett here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/05/dashiell-hammett/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #Pinkertons #IWW #police #secretservice #books #fiction #historicalfiction #AnywhereButSchuylkill #mining #coal #writer #author #FrankLittle #indigenous #novel @bookstadon