Bob Forrant, professor of history at UMass Lowell and director of the Bread & Roses Strike Centennial, sent me the following post about events in Lawrence one hundred years ago this month. Check out the Bread & Roses Strike Centennial website for more info about upcoming events.
On the morning of February 24, 1912, police and militia assaulted women and children at the Lawrence train station. Eyewitness Max Bogatin stated to Congress, “While I was there at the station I saw them (the militia) take little children and pick them up by the leg and throw them in the patrol wagon like they were mere rags; and one of the women put up a little resistance and a policeman grabbed her by the neck and choked her until she was not able to resist anymore.”
Begun in early February, the tactic of sending children of textile workers to live with supporters in Barre, VT, New York City, and Philadelphia for their care and safety generated public sympathy and financial support. According to Michael Slone, the tactic originally conceived in Europe, “had helped French, Belgian, and Italian workers win bitter strikes in their home countries.”
Police and the militia tried preventing children from leaving by train to Philadelphia on February 24. The melee resulted in injuries and the arrest and jailing of mothers and children. The following poem by Jane Roulston appeared in the New York Call on February 15, 1912, titled The Coming of the Children.
Was it an army’s martial tread
That beat through the traffic’s sullen roar?
And was it the shouting of warriors dread
That the icy blasts of North wind bore?
Nay, ’twas but the patter of little feet
And children’s voices clear and sweet
Loud rang their call o’er the city’s din
“We are the strikers, and we shall win!” read more »
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