1800s Today in Labor History November 10, 1887: Chicago Haymarket martyr Louis Lingg, 22, “cheated” the state the day before his scheduled execution by committing suicide in his prison cell. He exploded a dynamite cap in his mouth. Today in Labor History November 10, 1898: White supremacists launched a coup d’etat in Wilmington, North Carolina. […]

Today in Labor History November 9, 1851: Kentucky marshals abducted abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana, under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. They took him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape. Fairbank was an activist on the Underground Railroad. The authorities imprisoned him for over 17 years and lashed him 35,000 times. The governor pardoned

Today in Labor History November 8, 1892: 20,000 black & white workers united for a General Strike in New Orleans. During a streetcar drivers labor victory earlier in the year, they won a closed shop and shorter workday. Then they launched a massive organizing campaign, creaing dozens of new unions and greater demands from the city’s

Today in Labor History November 7, 1912: Ernest Riebe’s “Mr. Block,” IWW labor comic strip first appeared in print. Mr. Block was one of the best-loved features in the Wobbly press. Joe Hill wrote a song about “Mr. Block,” who was a boss-loving, American Dream-believing, self-sabotaging knucklehead. Some call Riebe the first “underground” comic book

Today in Labor History November 6, 1872: Suffragist leader Susan B. Anthony received a $100 fine for attempting to vote in a U.S. presidential election. Women did not win the right to vote until 1920. Today in Labor History November 6, 1918: The Kiel mutiny spread to Hamburg and led to the creation of Workers’ Councils. Three