How did the prosperity of the 1920s affect the IWW?

Founded in 1905, the Industrial Workers of the World captured the imagination of a generation with its fiery rhetoric, daring tactics, and program of revolutionary industrial unionism. Pledging to replace the narrow craft unionism of the American Federal of Labor with massive industrial unions, the IWW's revolutionary goals and commitment to anarcho-syndicalism positioned it to the left of the Socialist Party as well as the AFL.

In the years leading up to World War I, the organization grew in numbers and reputation, demonstrating an ability to organize workers neglected by the AFL, notably immigrant steel and textile workers in the Northeast, miners, timber and agricultural workers in the West.

But the IWW's revolutionary program and class-war rhetoric yielded more enemies than allies. Frequenlty harrassed, jailed, or beaten when they tried to organize, the Wobblies faced something far more serious after the United States mobilized for war in 1917. Over the next several years, federal and state goverments moved to suppress the organization, imprisoning hundreds of Wobblies, passing criminal syndicalism laws that made membership a crime. The IWW survived and is active today, but never regained the momentum of its early years.

This project explores the history of the IWW in its first two decades. We have compiled a database of hundreds of strikes, campaigns, arrests, and other incidents involving IWW members and present this information in both yearbook format and in elaborate interactive maps. Here you will also find accounts of important events and a wealth of primary sources, including pages from the Industrial Worker, the IWW monthly published in Spokane and Seattle.

Co-directed by Professor James Gregory and Labor Archivist Conor Casey, the project utilizes the resources of the Labor Archives of Washington State and University of Washington Libraries. Research Associates: Arianne Hermida, Rebecca Flores, Cameron Molyneux