The Pageant Of The Paterson Silk Strike

— Chris Chandler, David Roe

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On January 27, 1913, 800 broad silk weavers walked off the job at the Henry Doherty plant, one of Paterson's largest and most modern silk mills. Their grievance centered on Doherty's extension of the four-loom system in broad silk throughout the mill.

Soon after the strike started, the Industrial Workers of the World union sent out a call to national headquarters requesting help in organizing the strike. The IWW advocated the formation of unions that included all workers in an industry, whether skilled or unskilled, and openly rejected the capitalist system. By the end of February, nearly 300 mills and dye houses were closed, as 24,000 men, women, and children joined in an industry-wide strike.

The strikers' demands were radical for the times, including abolition of the eight hour day. The workers agreed that no one would return to work until all of the owners accepted their terms. Picket lines kept strike breakers out of the mills and intimidated those who did go back to work. More than 2,000 workers allowed themselves to be arrested, flooding the jails. Mass meetings informed the workers of strike developments, quelled rumors, and boosted morale.

The mill owners tried to set old and new immigrants against each other and worked with police and the courts to forbid speeches and rallies by the strikers.

By the end of May 1913, the workers' solidarity began to crack. The English-speaking and better paid workers were the first to break. In July the Paterson silk strike ended.

As highlighted in this song, a pageant was held at the height of the strike in Madison Square Garden in New York City, organized by workers, IWW organizers, and sympathetic Greenwich Village intellectuals. It attracted national attention.

An excerpt from the lyric:

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Today debate continues on the effects of the strike. The song gives our take on it. An excerpt from the lyric:

And With each triumph the audience cheered. And with each setback they booed. No rock concert could recreate the enthusiasm of that crowd. They made Woodstock seem like an episode of American Idol. The boy in the photograph was there. He was one of the tens of thousands in the audience at the end, standing in ovation, fists in the air, singing at the top of his tiny lungs The International.

The play received overwhelming critical acclaim. To this day it is considered one of the most important moments in modern art. Few performances could ever match what happened on that stage that night. But as with too many great works of art -- it lost money.

In an uncredited photo, thousands of silk mill workers gather before the home of Pierre and Maria Botto. Pierre Botto was a silk mill worker. The American Labor Museum/Botto House operates from the site today. Click for popup.

How could it not? Too many people were let in for free. How could they not. How can you ask a family to pay to see a play their striking father is in? You can't. The boy in the photograph did not pay. How could he?

...

There has always been a very fragile bridge built between intellectuals and laborers.

Intellectuals intellectualize mill workers and weavers weave the cloth of the intellectual -- they can never be the same thing. But the bridge is there. It is fragile. It takes skill to cross it.

Few will make it.

Perhaps a play.

Perhaps a song.

Perhaps the photograph of an 8 year old boy hanging in a museum in Paterson, NJ, can cross that bridge.

Perhaps 1000 striking workers telling their own tale can cross that bridge. And once crossed, there is no end to what can be accomplished.

It is the telling of the tale that makes it so.

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Personnel:
Chris Chandler, David Roe, Lisa Stolarski, composers; Chris Chandler, vocals;
David Roe, John Henry's Slow Drag, piano, snare, vocal; Thomas Nuendel, violin;
Thomas Falcone, clarinet; Justin Nurin, cornet; Henry Cross, bass

Chris Chandler || David Roe

American Labor Museum/Botto House || Factual account of the strike

Poster: Robert Edmund Jones || Crowd photo: photographer unknown || Chandler at Botto House photo: Roe

Chris Chandler is a member of AFM Local 1000.

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Songs not otherwise attributed were recorded at the annual Great Labor Arts Exchange in 2001, 2003, 2004, or 2005 at the National Labor College/George Meany Center, Silver Spring, Maryland. Engineers: Bob Barnes, Ellis Boal, Charlie Ray Fetty III, Joe Jencks, Ray Korona, George Mann, Dave Sless, Isaac Wilson.

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