[Music] today on the daily dose the bread and Roses strike when the state of Massachusetts reduced maximum Work Week hours for women and children from 56 to 54. impoverished textile workers in Lawrence saw their average pay drop from 8.76 per week to 8.44 cents a difference that left many with the hard choice between eating a meal or going hungry known as immigrant City due to the town's Melting Pot diaspora of residents from 51 Nations after female and child workers at the Everett Mill walked off their jobs when the news reached the city's wretched tenements that
evening by January 12 1912 more than ten thousand workers had walked off their jobs in solidarity protesting in frigid conditions with the communal Cry of short pay all out all out and the ultimate call for dignity we want bread and Roses too after their numbers continued to swell some Strikers began vandalizing the textile mills of Lawrence prompting police and state militia to beat back the most aggressive offenders with billy clubs lacking even a hint of common culture or language the bread and Roses strike went viral in newspapers across the country as journalists reported on how
the ethnically diverse Strikers employed soup kitchens ethnic fraternities community centers and food donations by local farmers to feed their striking masses after Mill owners and City officials hired outside agitators to discredit the strikers in the court of public opinion on January 29th Strikers attacked A Streetcar carrying strike Breakers resulting in an inerrant shotgun blast that led to the death of Anna lopizzo followed a day later by 18 year old John Ramey after he was bayonetted in the shoulder by a militiamen the violence led to what became a publicity known as the children's Exodus when striking
parents sent 119 children to live with relatives and total strangers in Manhattan while a second group of 46 children Bound for Philadelphia met with violence when police in Lawrence dragged striking mothers by their hair as their traumatized Children looked on the horrendous Optics in the national press led to hearings on Capitol Hill shedding light on deplorable working conditions inside Lawrence Mills where respiratory infections caused by lint and dust revealed an average worker lifespan of 40 years 14 year old Carmelo tioli shocked lawmakers when she recounted how a mill machine tore off her scalp leaving her
hospitalized for seven months forced to capitulate under mounting outside pressure Mill owners agreed to a 15 percent wage hike increased overtime pay and a promise not to retaliate against Strikers making the bread and Roses strike a landmark event in the American labor movement and there you have it the bread and Roses strike today on the daily dose if you like learning something new every day subscribe to the daily dose on YouTube or sign up for emails at dailydosenow.com
