RADICAL ACTS presents
LABOR PAINS
WOmen and the Labor Movement
A reflection on Labor by and about women as workers through a series of texts from American History.
Presented by Radical Acts of Iron Age Theatre
Designed and Directed by Richard Bradford and Robert Weick
DAy 1: September 6, 2020
The Commissioning Begins
Video 1: from Anarchism & Other Essays Emma Goldman
In 1886, Emma Goldman was shocked by the trial, conviction, and execution of labor activists falsely accused of a bombing in Chicago’s Haymarket Square, which she later described as “the events that had inspired my spiritual birth and growth.” Emma Goldman championed women’s equality, free love, workers’ rights, free universal education regardless of race or gender, and anarchism.
presented by Mary Tuomanen
Video 2: from Loom and Spindle Harriet Hanson Robinson
At the age of 10, Harriet Hanson Robinson got a job in textile Mills of Lowell, Massachusetts to help support her family. When mill owners dropped wages and sped up the pace of work, Harriet and others participated in the 1836 Lowell Mill Strike. Later as an adult, Harriet became an activist for women’s suffrage and would recount her mill work experience in Loom and Spindle or Life Among the Early Mill Girls.
presented by Jenna Kuerzi
Video 3: Hattie Canty
Hattie Canty, a labor activist in Las Vegas, Nevada has often been called “one of the greatest strike leaders in U.S. history. After the death of her husband in 1975, Canty was left at age forty-one to raise the eight children. Now the sole support for her family and needing health insurance for herself and her children, Canty became involved in the Culinary Workers Union 226, and staged a successful seventy-five-day in an effort to gain better health insurance benefits and a living wage for culinary workers. Here Ms. Canty speaks about Labor rights and Civil Rights as inseparable. Both struggles were necessary for advancement of all people. presented by LaNeshe Miller
Day 2: September 7, 2020
The Revolution Evolves
Video 1: Speech to the IWW by Lucy Parson 1905
Lucy Parsons was a radical American labor organizer, anarchist, and orator. Parsons rose to national fame when she embarked on a speaking tour to raise money for her husband who was one of nine men tried and sentenced to be executed for “speaking in such a way as to inspire the bomber to violence” following the Haymarket Square Bombing which killed a Chicago policeman.Parsons addressed the founding convention of the Industrial Workers of the World revolutionary union and her speeche touched on issues close to her heart: the oppression of women and how to develop radical new tactics to win strikes. Her ideas presage the "sit-in" strikes of the 1930s, the anti-war movement of the 1960s, and her words resonate today.
presented by Niya Craig
Video 2: 1949 address to the California CIO by Luisa Moreno
Luisa Moreno, an activist and civil rights leader, was being constantly surveilled and harassed by agents of the FBI. Moreno was offered full citizenship if she provided testimony against her colleagues. She refused. The time that Luisa Moreno spent in the United States was brief, but the work she did had undeniable impact on workers’ rights, especially those of Mexican-Americans.
presented by Rachel O’Hanlon-Rodriguez
Video 3: Dignifying Care by Al-jen Poo
Ai-jen Poo began organizing domestic workers in 1996, with CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities. She is the founder and former lead organizer of Domestic Workers United, an organization of Caribbean, Latina, and African nannies, housekeepers, and elderly caregivers in New York that organizes for "power, respect, and fair labor standards
presented by Twoey Truong
If you would like to sponsor the event, please contact us.
Designed by John Doyle and Richard Bradford and Bob Weick