RE: https://mastodonapp.uk/@MarkHoltom/116640125014299402

Using a rare quote toot to say: similar improvements happened in the English workhouse system around the turn of the 19th to 20th century when they started hiring middle and working class men and women to guardian roles, as they saw poverty as a logistical issue rather than a moral one 👍🏻

#history #WorkingClass

I did my third mutual aid table today. This time, instead of setting up in the park, I set-up on the court square at the center of town under a nice shade tree. I gave away half of my clothes and talked to 5 folks. One of them didn't want any clothes. She was curious and has extra clothing in storage that she plans to bring to me.

Of the 4 folks that I had a full conversation with all of them unreservedly expressed anti-capitalist and anti-government sentiment. They took the anti-capitalist and anarchist literature I offered. I got ZERO pushback upon mentioning that I was an anarchist and socialist. This is rural, small-town #Missouri. But these folks that are stopping to talk are also working class folks.

I'm more convinced than ever that rural areas, poor and working class, deserve the attention of anarchist organizers. We can't ignore the #workingclass of #rural middle America. This should be a hot bed of #radical organizing.
#MO #Anarchism #Organize #Labor #Capitalism #Politics

Important to never forget this!

#workers #WorkingClass #unions

Today in LGBTQ History May 27, 2020: Author and LGBTQ rights activist, Larry Kramer, died. He wrote the screenplay for the film Women in Love, (1969) and a novel called Faggots (1978), which was denounced within the gay community for its portrayal of shallow, promiscuous sex in the 1970s. However, he is probably most remembered for founding the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (1980), which became the world’s largest private organization assisting people with AIDS. And then cofounding the AIDS activist organization ACT UP (1987).

#workingclass #LaborHistory #lgbtq #writer #author #fictin #books #LarryKramer #ActUp #aids @bookstadon

Today in Labor History May 27, 1916: 3000 members of the Marine Transport Workers of the IWW marched along the Philadelphia waterfront, leading to strikes at three non-union docks. Black and white Wobblies fought together against scabs and police. One of the main organizers of the Philadelphia waterfront was African American Wobbly, Ben Fletcher, who co-founded the interracial Local 8 in 1913. By 1916, thanks in large part to Fletcher’s organizing skill, all but two of Philadelphia’s docks were controlled by the IWW. And the union maintained control of the Philly waterfront for about a decade.

You can read my complete biography of Fletcher here: https://www.michaeldunnauthor.com/2021/05/13/ben-fletcher-and-the-iww-dockers/

#workingclass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #dockers #philadelphia #longshore #benfletcher #racism #strike #blackmastodon

Today in Labor History, May 27, 1894: hard-boiled detective writer Dashiell Hammett was born. From the age of 21-23, he worked as a Pinkerton detective and then joined the army. But he developed tuberculosis and was discharged shortly after joining. In 1920, he moved to Spokane, again to work for the Pinkertons. From there, he hired on as a strikebreaker in the Anaconda miners’ strike in Butte, Montana. However, when the Pinkertons enlisted him to assassinate Native American IWW organizer Frank Little, he refused, and quit the agency.

His first stories were published in the early 1920s. And his 1929 novel, “Red Harvest,” was inspired by the Anaconda Road massacre, a 1920 labor dispute in the mining town of Butte, Montana, when company guards fired on striking IWW miners, killing one and injuring 16 others. During that strike, vigilantes lynched Frank Little, the same man Hammett refused to murder. André Gide called Red Harvest “the last word in atrocity, cynicism, and horror." Time magazine named it one of the top 100 novels of the 20th century. Even so, Hammett is far more famous for The Maltese Falcon (1930) and The Thin Man (1934), which were both made into successful Hollywood films.

In 1937, Hammett supported the Anti-Nazi League and the Western Writers Congress. He also donated to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, fighting the fascists in Spain. He was a socialist and served as president of the Communist-sponsored Civil Rights Congress of New York. In 1951, the authorities sentenced him to six months' imprisonment for refusing to cooperate with the US House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities' (HUAC) inquiries into domestic "subversion." Playwright Lillian Hellman, his long-time companion and lover, said that he submitted to prison rather than reveal the names of comrades because "he had come to the conclusion that a man should keep his word."

McCarthy subpoenaed him again in 1953, during his anti-Communist witch hunt. And again, in 1955, he was called to testify about his role in the Civil Rights Congress. Though he served no more jail time, he was blacklisted. He was also convicted in absentia in 1932 of battery and attempted rape. He died in 1961, of lung cancer.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #IWW #nazis #antifascism #CivilRights #socialism #communism #Pinkertons #lynching #FrankLittle #indigenous #massacre #strike #union #author #books #fiction @bookstadon

“Between her debut in 1984 – aged 58 – and her death in 2014, Owens published six short novels and two collections of stories. In contemporary reviews she was likened to Muriel Spark and Beryl Bainbridge: her books thrive on the friction between comedy and sadness.”

—John Self on the working-class genius of Agnes Owens (1926–2014)

https://observer.co.uk/culture/books/article/the-working-class-genius-of-agnes-owens

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #womenwriters #workingclass #workingclassfiction #workingclasswriters