Lecture: 100 Years Later: Does the Bread & Roses Strike Still Resonate?

When workers walked out of Lawrence’s woolen mills in the dead of a New England winter in January 1912, they launched an epic confrontation with the powerful Wool Trust. The three-month strike involved thousands of immigrant workers, many of them women. Using a variety of tactics, strikers exposed their grim working and living conditions and brought their plight to international attention. Charged with murder, two strikers were imprisoned for ten months before their acquittal at trial.

Life in Lawrence on the eve of the strike, and the strike’s causes, tactics, and consequences will be examined by Professor Robert Forrant.

Professor of History at UMass Lowell, Robert Forrant chairs the Bread & Roses Centennial Committee. He is author or editor of six books and co-editor of the academic book series, Work, Health and Environment, for Baywood Books. Publications include: Ethnicity in Lowell: Ethnographic Overview and Assessment, with Christoph Strobel; The Big Move: Immigrant Voices from a Mill City, with Christoph Strobel; and Metal Fatigue: American Bosch and the Demise of Metalworking in the Connecticut River Valley.

Prior to joining the UMass Lowell faculty, Forrant directed a community economic development program in Springfield, MA and worked as a machinist.

Held in the Orientation Room.  Event info provided by the BPL.