Industrial Workers of the World Day

The history of the Wobblies:

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), byname Wobblies, labour organization founded in Chicago in 1905 by representatives of 43 groups. The IWW opposed the American Federation of Labor’s acceptance of capitalism and its refusal to include unskilled workers in craft unions.

Among the founders of the IWW were William D. (“Big Bill”) Haywood of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), Daniel De Leon of the Socialist Labor Party, and Eugene V. Debs of the Socialist Party. Debs withdrew his support as the group grew more radical.

Prior to the founding of the IWW, members of the WFM had called a series of strikes in Cripple Creek, Colorado (1894), Leadville, Colorado (1896), Coeur d’Alene, Idaho (1899), and Telluride, Colorado (1903). The Cripple Creek strike was halted by state militia in 1904, which prompted the WFM to form the first incarnation of the IWW.

Under Haywood’s leadership,…