Today in Labor History—June 27

Emma Goldman, Union Square, NY, urging workers to take Direct Action

Emma Goldman's Magazine, Mother Earth

June 27, 1869 - Anarchist, feminist and labor activist Emma Goldman was born in Lithuania. (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)

Helen Keller, 1904

 June 27, 1880 – Helen Keller, the deaf, mute and blind author and socialist, was born (1880-1968), Tuscumbia, Alabama. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 27, 1893 – The U.S. Stock Market crashed, initiating a four-year depression. During this depression, labor and strike activity escalated, as demonstrated in the great Pullman Strike of 1894. (From the Daily Bleed)

June 27, 1905 - The Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the “Wobblies,” the radical syndicalist union, was founded at Brand's Hall, in Chicago, Illinois. The Wobblies, advocate industrial unionism, with all workers in a particular industry organized in the same union, as opposed by the trade unions typical today. (From Workday Minnesota and the Daily Bleed)

June 27, 1905 –The mutiny on the Russian battleship Potemkin officially began, with the crew killing the worst of the officers. They sailed on to Odessa (June 30) where the workers were on strike, then escaped to Rumania where they obtained political asylum. (From the Daily Bleed)

Potemkin mutiny leader Matuschenko (center), 1899

 June 27, 1935 - Congress passed the Wagner Act, authored by Senator Robert Wagner of New York. Also known as the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the legislation created the structure for collective bargaining in the United States. (From Workday Minnesota)