Several dozen posts so far, archived here. Just to change it up a little, here they are in chronological order:
October 26, 1676–Bacon’s Rebellion
September 9, 1739–The Stono Rebellion
October 28, 1793–Invention of cotton gin.
January 8, 1811-German Coast slave rebellion begins in Louisiana.
July 2, 1822-Denmark Vesey executed for planning slave revolt in South Carolina.
October 26, 1825–Erie Canal opens after over 1000 workers die building it.
August 21, 1831–Nat Turner’s Rebellion.
July 3, 1835–Paterson Textile Strike of 1835
October 30, 1837–Nicholas Farwell’s hand is crushed working on railroad, courts decide in Farwell v. Boston and Worcester Rail Road Corporation that companies have no responsibility for working conditions.
February 13, 1845–Lowell Female Labor Reform Association organizes and forces Massachusetts to investigate conditions in the Lowell textile mills.
February 2, 1848–Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed, fate of New Mexican land grant labor
March 20, 1854–Founding of Republican Party, free labor ideology
June 23, 1855–Celia, a slave, kills her master when he attempts to rape her. Sexual labor of slaves.
October 16, 1859–John Brown launches attack on federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia in order to gather guns to free slave labor.
September 22, 1862–Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation
February 23, 1864–Kate Mullaney and Collar Laundry Union go on strike in Troy, New York
February 13, 1865–Sons of Vulcan win nation’s first union contract.
November 25, 1865–Mississippi institutes its Black Code
December 6, 1865–Ratification of the 13th Amendment.
May 10, 1869–Completion of Transcontinental Railroad, treatment of Chinese workers
December 28, 1869–Founding of the Knights of Labor
March 18, 1871–Paris Commune begins
June 21, 1877-Molly Maguires executed in Pennsylvania.
July 14, 1877–The Great Railroad Strike
May 6, 1882–Chinese Exclusion Act.
September 2, 1885–Rock Springs Massacre
March 6, 1886–Knights of Labor begin Great Southwestern Strike against Jay Gould’s railroads.
May 4, 1886–Haymarket Riot
October 5, 1886–Henry George accepts United Labor Party nomination for mayor of New York.
December 8, 1886-American Federation of Labor founded in Columbus.
December 11, 1886–Creation of the Colored Farmers Alliance
February 8, 1887–Grover Cleveland signs the Dawes Act.
November 22, 1887–Thibodaux Massacre
January 14, 1888-Publication of Looking Backward.
January 1, 1892-Ellis Island opens.
July 4, 1892–People’s Party Convention
July 6, 1892–The Homestead Strike
July 11, 1892–Miners outside of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho blow up the Frisco Mill.
February 7, 1894–Cripple Creek gold miners strike.
April 30, 1894–Coxey’s Army
June 26, 1894–Pullman Strike
December 5, 1894–Alabama repeals child labor law to attract New England textile factories.
September 10, 1897–Lattimer Massacre
May 12, 1902–Anthracite coal miners strike in Pennsylvania begins, TR mediates.
April 17, 1905–Supreme Court decided Lochner v. New York
June 27, 1905–IWW founded
December 30, 1905–Murder of former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg
February 15, 1907–Theodore Roosevelt and Japanese government agree to Gentlemen’s Agreement, ends most Japanese immigration to the U.S. after west coast labor protests.
February 24, 1908–Muller v. Oregon decided
November 2, 1909–Spokane free speech fight begins.
November 13, 1909–Cherry Mine Fire in Illinois kills 259 workers.
November 22, 1909–Uprising of the 20,000
August 9, 1910–invention of electric washing machine transforms women’s unpaid domestic labor.
October 1, 1910–Iron Workers bomb Los Angeles Times building.
March 25, 1911–Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
May 3, 1911–Wisconsin passes first workers compensation law
August 11, 1911–Watertown Arsenal workers strike over Taylorism
February 24, 1912–Beating of the women and children at Lawrence
August 23, 1912–United States Commission on Industrial Relations formed
June 7, 1913-Paterson Silk Pageant. Addendum here.
August 3, 1913–Wheatland Riot
December 24, 1913–Italian Hall disaster in Calumet, Michigan
January 5, 1914–Henry Ford announces $5 day for workers who lived a lifestyle of which he personally approved.
March 22, 1914–Mother Jones arrested supporting Colorado coal strike.
April 20, 1914–Ludlow Massacre
January 15, 1915-Ralph Chaplin writes “Solidarity Forever.”
March 4, 1915–LaFollette Seamen’s Act signed
November 19, 1915–Joe Hill executed in Utah.
November 5, 1916–The Everett Massacre
July 12, 1917–The Bisbee Deportation
August 1, 1917–Frank Little lynched in Butte.
October 10, 1917–Closing of Storyville, New Orleans’ red light district.
June 16, 1918-Eugene Debs arrested for violating Espionage Act.
February 6, 1919–The Seattle General Strike
September 9, 1919–Boston police go on strike, crushed by Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge.
November 11, 1919–The Centralia Massacre
May 19, 1920–Matewan Massacre
August 25, 1921–Battle of Blair Mountain
May 26, 1924–Coolidge signs Immigration Act of 1924
March 10, 1925–New York Times first reports Radium Girls story.
June 11, 1925-Davis Day
August 25, 1925–Founding of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
August 23, 1927–Execution of Sacco and Vanzetti
March 3, 1931–Davis-Bacon Act signed.
March 7, 1932–River Rouge march and repression.
April 12, 1934–Toledo Auto-Lite strike begins.
May 9, 1934–Longshoremen strike begins in San Francisco
May 16, 1934–Minneapolis Teamsters Strike
July 11, 1934–Southern Tenant Farmers Union forms in Tyronza, Arkansas
May 6, 1935–Works Progress Administration created.
July 5, 1935–FDR signs National Labor Relations Act
August 14, 1935–FDR signs Social Security Act.
October 19, 1935–John L. Lewis punches Carpenters president Big Bill Hutcheson on the floor of the AFL Convention.
November 9, 1935–Creation of the CIO
March 1, 1936. Hoover Dam turned over to government. Labor history of its construction.
February 11, 1937–The Flint Sit-Down Strike ends.
May 26, 1937–Battle of the Overpass.
May 30, 1937–Memorial Day Massacre in Chicago
June 25, 1938–FDR signs Fair Labor Standards Act
January 25, 1941–March on Washington Movement leads to end of official segregation in defense industry.
August 4, 1942–Creation of the Bracero Program.
May 29, 1943–Normal Rockwell publishes Rosie the Riveter cover in Saturday Evening Post.
June 6, 1943–Detroit Hate Strike
July 17, 1944-Port Chicago explosion
August 22, 1945–Air Line Stewardesses Association, first flight attendant union, forms.
September 22, 1946–Tobacco workers win contract in North Carolina, starting CIO’s Operation Dixie campaign.
December 2, 1946–The Oakland General Strike
March 25, 1947–Mine explosion in Centralia, IL kills 111 workers.
June 20, 1947–President Truman vetoes Taft-Hartley Act
October 27, 1948–Donora Fog.
April 8, 1952–Truman nationalizes steel industry.
March 14, 1954–Salt of the Earth premiers
December 5, 1955–Merger of the AFL and CIO
September 14, 1959–Eisenhower signs Landrum-Griffin Act.
January 17, 1962–President Kennedy issues Executive Order 10988, authorizing collective bargaining for public workers.
April 4, 1968–Assassination of Martin Luther King during sanitation strike in Memphis
September 23, 1969–Richard Nixon announces Philadelphia Plan to desegregate construction industry.
December 24, 1969-Curt Flood sends letter to Major League Baseball demanding free agency.
December 30, 1969-Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act signed.
January 5, 1970–Murder of UMWA reformer Jock Yablonski
March 18, 1970–Postal Workers go on strike
May 8, 1970–Hard Hat Riot
July 29, 1970–United Farm Workers force growers into the first union contract in the history of California agricultural labor.
April 28, 1971–OSHA begins
February 26, 1972-Pittston Coal Company slurry dam collapses in Logan County, West Virginia, 125 dead.
March 5, 1972–Lordstown Strike
March 23, 1974–Coalition of Trade Union Women holds first meeting.
April 14, 1975–Bunker Hill Mining Company in Idaho announces policy of sterilization for women working in its lead smelter.
October 23, 1976–International Woodworkers of America Local 3-101 holds a monthly union meeting.
March 28, 1977–AFSCME goes on strike in Atlanta, crushed by mayor Maynard Jackson
August 3, 1981–Air Traffic Controllers go on strike in biggest disaster in organized labor’s history.
June 30, 1983–Phelps-Dodge strike starts in Clifton-Morenci, Arizona, massive union-busting by copper company.
January 25, 1984–End of the International Nestle Boycott
December 2, 1984–Union Carbide plant leak at Bhopal, India
April 11, 1986–Police tear gas strikers at Hormel plant in Austin, Minnesota.
September 17, 1989–The Pittston Strike
May 10, 1993–Kader Toy Fire.
January 1, 1994–NAFTA
March 4, 1998–Supreme Court rules in Oncale v. Sundonwer Offshore Services. Same-sex sexual harassment.
November 30, 1999-WTO protests begin in Seattle.
April 7, 2000–Workers Rights Consortium founded in New York
(This post last updated: Apr 2015)
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