The Lawrence Strike Of 1912: A Case Study

In early 20th century America, the city of Lawrence, Massachusetts was built on the textile industry. With an increasing immigrant population, and an increasing unskilled working population as a result, most found themselves working at one of the mills in Lawrence being payed meager wages that allowed them to barely survive. With poor living conditions and already small wages that did not seem to make the difficult working conditions worth it, the mill workers were a powder keg waiting to be lit. In January of 1912 a new law was enacted that limited workers’ hours per week. While the workers expected their weekly sum to remain the same despite the new decree, they received their pay with the same hourly rate as before. Sparking a massive movement that left the mills without most of their employees, the strikers and the Industrial Workers of the World spearheaded an organized strike that would result in some of their demands being met. However, the terms in the collective bargaining agreement to end the Lawrence strike of 1912, while beneficial for the workers, were short-lived and untenable with declining participation in the pursuit of increasing workers’ rights within the Industrial Workers of the World and an almost immediate
In 1902, “its capital stock was valued at $49,501,000” and “paid out $1,400,000 in dividends, while in 1911, when the capital stock was valued at $60,000,000, it paid dividends of $2,800,000” (Foner 307-308). The American Woolen Company continued to reel in substantial revenue numbers while the average wage of workers in the mills of Lawrence was $0.16 per hour (Neill 94). Clearly more interested in distributing their income to their shareholders rather than provide their workers with a raise that could slightly improve their living conditions, the American Woolen Company doubled what they pay as a dividend while the employees could barely afford to pay