The Great Steel Strike and its Lessons

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Foster, William Z., 1881-1961

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource : multiple file formats

Place of Publication:

Salt Lake City, UT : Project Gutenberg,

Summary:

"The Great Steel Strike and its Lessons" by William Z. Foster is a historical account written in the early 20th century. The book explores the 1919 steel strike in the United States, detailing the struggles of over 365,000 steel workers advocating for better working conditions, including an eight-hour workday and the right to organize. Written by a leader within the labor movement, it serves both as a detailed narrative of the events and an analysis of the failures and lessons learned from the strike. At the start of the text, Foster outlines the dire conditions faced by steel workers, including long hours, low wages, and a lack of rights in negotiating their contracts. He highlights the overwhelming power of the steel companies, which maintained control through repression and espionage, effectively quashing any attempts at labor organization. The author reflects on the causes of the strike and portrays it as part of a larger struggle for industrial democracy versus autocracy within the steely grip of corporate interests. Foster emphasizes that while the strike ended in defeat, it ignited a newfound confidence among workers, setting the stage for future organizing efforts in the labor movement. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Credits:

Produced by Odessa Paige Turner, Barbara Kosker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

Notes:

Reading ease score: 59.1 (10th to 12th grade). Somewhat difficult to read.

Release date is 2011-05-05