Hard-boiled detective writer Dashiell Hammett was born on May 27, 1894. From the age of 21-23, he worked as a Pinkerton detective and then joined the army. But he developed tuberculosis and the military discharged him shortly after joining. In 1920, he moved to Spokane, again to work for the Pinkertons. There, he served as […]
Frank Little was a Cherokee miner and IWW union organizer. He helped organize oil workers, timber workers, and migrant farm workers in California. Frank Little also participated in free speech fights in Missoula, Spokane and Fresno, and helped pioneer many of the passive resistance techniques later used by the Civil Rights movement. He was also
The history of American Union Busting and the Pinkertons go hand in hand. The Pinkerton Detective Agency, created by Allan Pinkerton in 1850, plays a prominent role in my novels, particularly Anywhere But Schuylkill. The powerful Reading Railroad, which owned most of the Schuylkill County coalfields, hired them to keep their workers in line. The
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(The Great Upheaval was originally published on Adriana Kraft’s Book Blog on February 21, 2024) “There was a time in the history of France when the poor found themselves oppressed to such an extent that forbearance ceased to be a virtue, and hundreds of heads tumbled into the basket. That time may have arrived with
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Lucy Parsons This Lucy Parsons biography was originally published in the When Angels Fly book blog, on March 2024. “What I want is for every dirty, lousy tramp to arm himself with a revolver or knife on the steps of the palaces of the rich and stab or shoot their owners as they come out.”