1800s
Today in Labor History November 25, 1874: Farmers and union workers in the U.S., suffering from the Panic of 1873 established the Greenback Party. The party’s goals included the elimination of foreign capitalists, land speculators, and poverty among laboring men.
1910s
Today in Labor History November 25, 1919: A strike for union recognition by 365,000 steel and iron workers continued throughout November. At the height of the strike, workers shut down nearly every steel mill in Chicago, Cleveland, Youngstown and Lackawanna. The strike began on September 22 and collapsed on January 8, 1920. The feds used the strike to justify deporting approximately 250 anarchists, communists and labor agitators to Russia on November 24. It marked the beginning of the first Red Scare.
1940s
Today in Labor History November 25, 1946: St. Paul teachers, led mostly by women, walked out of their classrooms in American’s first organized teachers’ strike. 1,165 teachers and principals (all represented by the same union) remained out until Dec. 27 in what they called the “strike for better schools.” 90% of teachers voted to strike. Conditions were deplorable. Classrooms designed for 35 students often had 50. Teachers had to buy textbooks for students, yet St. Paul paid among the lowest wages in the nation.
Today in Labor History November 25, 1947: Hollywood movie studios blacklisted the “Hollywood Ten” for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The blacklist lasted for 13 years, when Dalton Trumbo, a former Communist Party member, was finally credited as the screenwriter of the films “Exodus” and “Spartacus.” Witch hunters accused Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Katharine Hepburn and Fredric March of having communist ties. In 1941, Walt Disney blamed “Communist agitation” for the cartoonists and animators’ strike. In 1945, Gerald L. K. Smith, founder of the fascist America First Party, began giving speeches attacking the “alien minded Russian Jews in Hollywood.” Ronald Reagan, who was president of the actor’s union, testified before HUAC that a clique within the union was using “communist-like tactics.” His first wife, actress Jane Wyman, blamed his allegations against friends and colleagues as a factor leading to their divorce.