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PODCAST

Labor History in 2:00

The Rick Smith Show

A daily, pocket-sized history of America"s working people, brought to you by The Rick Smith Show team.

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All Episodes

01:59

January 20 - The Chicago Crib Fire of 1909

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/20

Today in labor history, January 20, 1909, marked one of deadliest workplace disasters in Chicago history. It took place a little over a mile off-shore near 71st Street, on Lake Michigan. A group of predominantly Irish laborers were working on a tunnel to bring fresh water to the city’s growing south side.

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01:59

January 19 - Filipino Workers Lead Multi-Ethnic...

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/19

On This Day in Labor History, the year was 1920. That was the day 3,000 members of the Filipino Labor Union went on strike against the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association on the island of Oahu. Plantation Bosses intentionally recruited Filipino workers, in an effort to weaken the Japanese labor force on the island. The bosses pitted one group as strikebreakers against the other.

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01:59

January 18 - Remembering Mary Kenney O’Sullivan

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/18

Today in labor history, January 18, 1943 marks the death of the first woman general organizer appointed by the American Federation of Labor. Mary Kenney O'Sullivan was born the only child of working-class Irish immigrants, in Hannibal, Missouri.

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01:59

January 17 - Solidarity Forever

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/17

Today in labor history, January 17, 1915, the most popular labor song in the United States was completed in Chicago. Ralph Chaplin, an Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) activist, artist and writer was in town for a demonstration against hunger. He finished writing “Solidarity Forever,” a song he had started working on the year before at a Miner’s strike in West Virginia.

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01:59

January 16 - Palmer Raids Victims Win Right to Legal...

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/16

Today in labor history, January 16, 1920 thousands of immigrant detainees and labor activists won the basic constitutional right to consult with an attorney. These detainees were victims of the infamous Palmer Raids.

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01:59

January 15 - Deadly Molasses Explosion of 1919

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/15

Today in labor history, January 15, 1919 marked one of the strangest industrial disasters in U.S. History. That winter day in Boston the weather shifted suddenly and temperatures began to rise. A fifty foot storage container containing 2.3 million gallons of molasses began to make strange noises.

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01:59

January 14 - Remembering Julian Bond

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/14

Today in labor history, January 14,1940, Julian Bond was born in Nashville Tennessee. Bond was one of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. He helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, known as “snick.”

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01:59

January 13 - The Tompkins Square Riot

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/13

On this day in labor history, the year was 1874. What came to be known as the “Tompkin’s Square Riot,” took place in New York City. The nation was caught in the clutches of the 1873 depression. Unemployed New Yorkers called for a public works program to put people back to work.

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01:59

January 12 - Cox’s Army Marches on the Nation’s Capitol

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/12

On this day in labor history, the year was 1932, a very unusual army marched on Washington, D.C. Pro-labor Catholic Priest, Father James Renshaw Cox led the march from Pennsylvania to the Nation’s Capital to demand a public work’s program to put people back to work. For more information on Cox's March http://web.stanford.edu/group/progressive/cgi-bin/?p=2153

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01:59

January 11 - The Bread & Roses Strike

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/11

Today in labor history, the year was 1912 this historic day marked the beginning of the “Bread and Roses Strike” of textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The strike was led by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The state Of Massachusetts passed a law reducing the work week for women and children from 56 to 54 hours.

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01:59

January 10 - Honoring Joe Hill

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/10

Today in labor history, January 10, 1914, two men were killed during a grocery store robbery in Utah. Their murders were blamed on Joe Hill a Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World, or the IWW, also known as the Wobblies.

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01:59

January 9 - Southern Tenant Farmers Line Missouri...

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/09

Yet farm workers have played an important, and often overlooked role in labor history. Such was the case today in labor history, January 9, 1939. That was the day more than 1,500 Missouri farmers and their families began a “highway sit in.”

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01:59

January 8 - The German Coast Uprising of 1811

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/08

Often significant days in history pass with little attention. Today in labor history, January 8, 1811, is one such day. On that day Charles Deslonde, an enslaved sugar laborer in the New Orleans territory led what became one of the largest slave revolts in American history.

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01:59

January 7 - Semana Trágica

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/07

Today in labor history, January 7, 1919 began what is known as Semana Trágica, or Tragic Week in Argentina. Labor unrest had been mounting in Buenos Aries. On January 7, police killed four workers who were striking for better conditions at an ironworks plant.

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01:59

January 6 - Remembering Carl Sandburg

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/06

Today in labor history, January 6, 1878, is the birthday of renowned Illinois poet Carl Sandburg. He was born to Swedish immigrants in Galesburg, Illinois. Later Sandburg worked as an editorial writer at the Chicago Daily News. He was part of a group of poets and novelists, known as the “Chicago Literary Renaissance.” Sandburg became most well-known for his poetry, which won two Pulitzer Prizes. He also won a third Pulitzer for his biography of his hero Abraham Lincoln. Sandburg’s poems often

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01:59

January 5 - The Best Customers

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/05

Today in labor history, January 5, 1914 the Ford Motor Company raised its basic wage from $2.40 for a nine-hour day to $5 for an eight-hour work day. Many of Ford’s contemporary critics scorned his “Five Dollar Day.” Journalists and other auto makers predicted disaster for the industry. Henry Ford implemented the wage increase to head off labor unrest in the company and curtail his problems with worker turnover. The wage increase helped to derail efforts to start a union in his factory. The

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01:59

January 4 - The Longest Strike

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/04

Last year Chicago saw the end of what may have been the longest hotel strike in history. On Father’s Day 2013, 130 workers from the Congress Hotel on Michigan Avenue walked off the job. They were protesting a reduction in wages and the hotel’s hiring of minimum-wage subcontractors. For ten years the strikers, let by Unite Here, picketed the hotel. The hotel management remained unmoved. Unite Here quietly ended the strike. But that was not the longest strike in history-not by a long shot. Today

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01:59

January 3 - The England Food Riot

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/03

Today in labor history, January 3, 1931 was a day that helped to bring the hunger and poverty caused by the Great Depression to the attention of the nation.

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01:59

January 2 - The January 1905 Conference

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/02

Today in labor history, January 2, 1905 a secret meeting was held in Chicago, attended by 23 industrial unionists.

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01:59

January 1 - The Emancipation Proclamation

Labor History in 2:00 ·

2025/01/01

Today in labor history, January 1, 1963, is one of the most often misunderstood days in United States history. This was the day that Abraham Lincoln issued the “Emancipation Proclamation.” But did you know that Emancipation Proclamation did not actually free enslaved people in the U.S.?

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