Soapbox Rebellion
The Hobo Orator Union and the Free Speech Fights of the Industrial Workers of the World, 1909-1916
May, Matthew S.
Date Written: 2013-10-30
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
Year Published: 2013
Pages: 192pp Price: $39.95 ISBN: 978-0-8173-1806-2
Resource Type: Book
Cx Number: CX18429
A new critical history of the free speech fights of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) which illustrates how the lively and colourful soapbox culture of the "Wobblies" generated novel forms of class struggle.
Abstract:
Soapbox Rebellion highlights the methodological obstacles to recovering a workers' history of public address; closely analyzes the impact of hobo oratorical performances; and discusses the implications of the Wobblies' free speech fights for understanding grassroots resistance and class struggle today -- in an era of the decline of the institutional business union model and workplace contractualism.
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
1. Nothing in Common: Militant Rhetorical History
2. Sparks from a Live Wire: The Origins of the Free Speech Fights and the Battle of Spokane, 1909-191
3. A Class the Masters Fear: Fresno, 1910–1911
4. A Spectacle of Agitators: San Diego, 1912
5. Timber-beast Lament: The Everett Massacre, 1916
6. Orator War Machines and the Will to Revolution
Notes
Glossary of hobo terms used
Works cited
Index
