A new book on the Little Falls Textile Strike of 1912-1913 has recently been published. Released through Algora Publishing, Mohawk Valley historian J.N. Cheney’s Women, Immigrants, and the Working-Class Battle in Little Falls, New York: The Textile Strike of 1912-1913, is the first non-fiction, book-length project to comprehensively examine and analyze the strike. Little Falls resident Bob Albrecht provides the foreword.
Mr. Cheney’s book begins by examining the historical precedents that ultimately led to the strike, including the development of immigration laws and tragedies such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911, an event that led to a legislative decision that ultimately caused the strike. Later he details the plight of the city’s immigrant workers, emphasizing the role that women played in the strike, by examining the conditions that they dealt with both at work and at home. Special attention is paid to the reports from one Helen Schloss and such conditions. The author also details the roles of the Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World in organizing the strikers and the hostile responses that they received from local police and various media outlets. Finally, Cheney details the legal troubles that came in the aftermath of the strike and how the immigrant workers faired after the strike was over.
Of the numerous historical actors in this struggle, there were several prominent figures in both local and national contexts who were involved in this strike in one form or another. Such figures include “Big” Bill Haywood, a prominent organizer for the IWW, James Long, then the Little Falls Chief of Police, Matilda Robbins, an IWW organizer and socialist, the aforementioned Helen Schloss, a nurse, suffragette, and socialist, Helen Keller, the famous advocate for the blind, and Eugene Debs, multiple time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party.
Cheney’s mission as a historian is to shed light on the hidden radical kernels of the Mohawk Valley region and to show a side of local history that many likely hadn’t even considered possible. This book serves to further this mission, aiming to give the Little Falls Textile Strike the attention it deserves as a major historical event.
The book is available for purchase on Amazon and Algora Publishing’s website in paperback, hardcover, and ebook format. At this time, the ebook is only available on the publisher’s website.
https://www.amazon.com/Women-Immigrants-Working-Class-Battle-Little/dp/1628945877
Discover more from The Daily Post
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
