Today in Labor History—May 5

May 5, 1780 – Units mutinied in George Washington's Revolutionary War Camp in New Jersey. The rebellion was suppressed by Pennsylvania troops. (From the Daily Bleed)

Karl Marx as a young man

May 5, 1818—Karl Marx was born. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1852 – The National Typographical Union was founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, making it the oldest existing national union in the U.S. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1884 – The Knights of Labor struck at Union Pacific against wage cuts and won. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1886 – Police attacked Jewish Workers from Chicago’s West Side as they attempted to march against slum conditions. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1886 – The Bay View Massacre occurred at Rolling Mills, Milwaukee, as workers marched for the 8-hour day. The state militia was called out. 7 protesters were killed, including a 14-year-old boy. No militiamen were ever charged. However, 50 strikers were sentenced to hard labor for "rioting."  (From the Daily Bleed and Workday Minnesota))

May 5, 1916 – U.S. marines invaded the Dominican Republic to "protect" U.S. interests, remaining until 1924. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1920
Two Italian-born anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were arrested in Brockton, Massachusetts, and framed for the murder of two people during an armed robbery. They were eventually executed, though they were innocent. (From Workday Minnesota)

London Protest in Support of Sacco and Vanzetti, 1921

John Scopes, 1925, just before trial

May 5, 1925 –High School teacher John T. Scopes was arrested for teaching the theory of evolution in a Tennessee school, in a violation of state law. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1931 –The Infamous Battle of Harlan County ("Bloody Harlan"), Kentucky occurred. Also known as the Battle of Evarts, the strike began in response to wage cuts implemented in February. On May 5, a scab accosted a union worker, resulting in three deaths. Gov. Flem Sampson called in the National Guard, which killed several more union miners. The Harlan County class war was the inspiration for Florence Reece's famous union song "Which Side Are You On?" The strike continued for years, with the miners finally winning in 1940. (From the Daily Bleed)

My daddy was a miner,

And I’m a miner’s son,

Ant I’ll stick with the uion

‘Till every battle’s won.

They say in Harlan County

There are no neutrals there.

You’ll either be a union man

Or a thug for J.H. Blair

 

May 5, 1937 – “May Days" erupted in Spain, with Communists attacking anarchist strongholds. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1970 –In response to the killings at Kent State and in protest against the war in Vietnam, protests erupted at campuses across United States. One of the first occurred in Seattle, with 1,000 U.W. students taking over the I-5 Freeway. Traffic backed up past Everett (site of the infamous Everett Massacre, when police attacked the IWW, killing between 5 and 12 union activists and wounding 27, in November, 1916). Ultimately, 5,000 students took part in the freeway occupation, while 10,000 marched the next day from campus to downtown Seattle. They also took over the Physics Annex and made an attempt to barricade campus entrances and create a free university. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1981 – Bobby Sands (1954-1981) died, ending his 66-day hunger strike. Sands was an Irish political prisoner and member of Parliament who had been locked up in the notorious Maze Prison near Belfast. The strike was an attempt list to get the British government to grant political prisoner status to Nationalist inmates, rather than treating them as common criminals. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1998 – 15,000 to 20,000 workers demonstrated in front of the employers’ federation building in Copenhagen, Denmark, as part of the national day of action called by the national meeting of shop stewards. It was also the ninth day of a national strike. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—March 13

(From wikipedia)

March 13, 1925 – Tennessee made it unlawful to teach evolution. (From the Daily Bleed)

March 13, 1946 - The United Auto Workers and General Motors signed a new contract after a four-month strike over wages. (From Workday Minnesota)

March 13, 1961 – IWW Labor organizer and recovering anarchist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was elected chair of the National Committee of the Communist Party, U.S.A. (From the Daily Bleed)

March 13, 1963 – Labor Local 260 Houston negotiated its first contract with Pioneer Bus, ending dual pay scales for black and white drivers. (From the Daily Bleed)

March 13, 1967 – United Farm Workers (UFW) won a contract with the Christian Brothers Winery. (From the Daily Bleed)

March 13, 1968 – Student demonstrations in Warsaw led to street riots. All Polish universities were out on strike, with students occupying university. (From the Daily Bleed)

March 13, 1996 – Two leaders of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, Yang Kyu Hon and Kwon Young Kil, were arrested. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—February 13, 2012

Boston Latin School, c1635

February 13, 1635 - Boston Latin School was opened, the first public school in the United States. (From Workday Minnesota)

February 13, 1837 – A flour Riot occurred in New York City. 6,000 New Yorkers attending a "bread, meat, rent, and fuel" meeting in Chatham Square assaulted local flour merchants who they claimed were hoarding flour in order to drive up the price. (From the Daily Bleed)

Jesse James, c1882

February 13, 1866 – Jesse James held up his first bank, Liberty, Missouri. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 13, 1882 – Knights of Labor founder Uriah Stephens (b.1821) died on this date. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 13, 1917 – Strikes and meetings in Petrograd factories launched the Russian Revolution. (From the Daily Bleed)

Dresden After the Bombing (Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), Bild 146-1994-041-07)

 February 13, 1945 – Over 130,000 civilians were killed in the Allied firebombing of Dresden. In a three-day period, 3,400 tons of explosives and incendiaries were dropped, reducing six square miles of the city to rubble. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 13, 1967 – The National Student Association revealed that it had "secretly and indirectly" received more than $3 million from the CIA over a 15-year period. NSA President Eugene Grove denied any of the money was used for intelligence work. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—February 12, 2012

Darwin Caricature, 1871

February 12, 1809 – Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was born on this date in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. The Origin of Species, published November 24, 1859, sold out immediately. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 12, 1853 – Illinois passed a law requiring any blacks entering the state & staying more than 10 days to pay a $50 fine. If unable to pay, they would be sold into slavery for a period commensurate with the fine. (From the Daily Bleed)

John Lewis, 1922

 February 12, 1880 - John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers and founder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), was born was born on this date. In 1935, he pulled the UAW from the American Federation of Labor (and punched out Carpenters Union President William Hutcheson in the process) when the AFL refused to endorse industrial unionism. Lewis then formed the CIO, which organized millions of unskilled, mass production workers into unions in the 1930s and 1940s. (From Workday Minnesota)

DuBois in 1918

 February 12, 1909 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded on this date by W.E.B. DuBois & others, New York City. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 12, 1913 – Mary Harris "Mother" Jones led a protest against conditions in the West Virginia mines was arrested. (On May 8, newly-elected Governor Hatfield releases her from jail.)

A government official once called Mary Jones "The most dangerous woman in America." She was still out there at age 83. No rockin' chair for her... (From the Daily Bleed)

February 12, 1913 – A New York commission reported widespread violations of child labor laws. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 12, 1946 – Picketers demanded amnesty for jailed war resisters at Danbury Federal Penitentiary, Connecticut. (From the Daily Bleed)


February 12, 1947 – 60 anti-draft demonstrators burned their draft cards in New York City during an antiwar demonstration. Between 400 and 500 veterans and conscientious objectors from World Wars I and II burned their draft cards in two demonstrations, in front of the White House in Washington and at the Labor Temple in New York City, in protest of a proposed universal conscription law. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—December 18

December 18, 1829 – Scientist Jean-Baptiste Lamark died on this date. (From the Daily Bleed) Lamarck was best known for his discredited theory of inheritance of acquired traits, the idea that characteristics acquired during the parents’ lifetime would be passed on to offspring. It was later discovered that traits of the parents are passed down to offspring through DNA, while acquired traits (e.g., losing a finger in an accident or getting larger muscles from weight lifting) do not involved changes to the DNA that can be passed down. Yet, over the past decade, with the discovery of epigenetics, Lamarck’s theory has been shown to be true under certain circumstances. Some experiences that occur during the parents lifetime that do not change the DNA, but add epigenetic markers to the DNA, are not only passed on the their children, but can be passed on to grandchildren and great grandchildren, too. (For more on epigenetics, see the NOVA special “The Ghost in the Genes.”)

Horse-Powered Thresher

 December 18, 1830 - The "Swing Rioters" went on trial on this date. The rioters were agricultural laborers who fought for a minimum wage during the early decades of the 19th century. During this time, England shifted from self-sufficient, open fields to farms rented by tenant farmers. Technology, including the increasing use of threshers, and a surplus of labor, drove down wages. Farm workers in the "swing" counties of the south and east of England responded by destroying farm machinery. Hundreds were arrested, jailed and executed. (From Workday Minnesota)

December 18, 1878—Joseph Stalin was born on this date and went on to slaughter between 10 and 60 million peasants, workers and other mostly innocent civilians. (From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)

Today in Labor History—October 16

John Brown, 1859

October 16, 1859 - Abolitionist John Brown led his famous raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in order to obtain weapons to defeat the forces of slavery. The raid failed and Brown was executed. (From Workday Minnesota)

October 16, 1919 – The U.S. Deportation Act was used to rid the country of anarchist aliens, including Emma Goldman & Alexander Berkman. (From theDaily Bleed)

October 16, 1925 – The Texas School Board banned the teaching of evolution. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—July 24

July 24, 1903 – Mother Jones gave her famous “The Wail of the Children” speech during the "March of the Mill Children." The march began on July 7 in Philadelphia and ended at Teddy Roosevelt’s summer home in Oyster Bay, Long Island. They were demanding a 55 hour work week for kids. (Seems like a lot of work for a pretty weak demand, eh?) (From the Daily Bleed)

July 24, 1925 – John T. Scopes was convicted in Tennessee of teaching evolution and fined $100 & costs.  (From the Daily Bleed)

July 24, 1934 -- Nestor Makhno, Russian anarchist and military leader died in exile in Paris, age 44, from tuberculosis. (From the Daily Bleed)

July 24, 1943 – The Camp Van Dorn massacre occurred in Mississippi. As many as 1,000 black soldiers were slaughtered by white soldiers on orders from their commanding officers. (From the Daily Bleed)

Science News: Victory for Peppered Moth

Image by Виталий Гуменюк

For decades science teachers have used the Peppered Moth (Biston betularia) as a prime example of natural selection. Prior to the Industrial Revolution in Europe, the Peppered Moth population in England consisted of a high percentage of light-colored salt and pepper moths (known as typica) and a low percentage of dark moths (known as carbonaria). At that time, the majority of trees were also light-colored due to the growth of lichens on their bark, providing typicas camouflage. Dark moths, it was presumed, were disproportionately spotted by birds and eaten, thus keeping their population low.

As the Industrial Revolution progressed, the lichens began to die and the tree trunks became darker as they collected soot from the growing number of factories. At the same time, the percentage of light moths began to decline, while carbonarias increased and became the majority. The assumption of scientists was that now the darker moths had better camouflage and the best adaptation to avoid predation, while the lighter moths were now easy prey.

This is classic Natural Selection: A given population (members of the same species living in the same place and time) always contains a variety of phenotypes (traits), some of which are better than others at helping an organism survive long enough to reproduce and pass the adaptation to their offspring. However, environmental changes (like pollution) can alter the balance, shifting greater fecundity to organisms with a different phenotype, causing their proportion in the population to increase.  

The example was so classic, so cut and dry, so obvious, that few scientists and even fewer science teachers ever questioned its validity. The hypothesis was proposed as early as 1896, according to The Scientist (May, 2012) and validated in the 1950s by Bernard Kettlewell, who collected compelling evidence that bird predation was in fact the selective force at work and that moth camouflage was affected by pollution, by placing light and dark moths directly on trees in polluted and unpolluted tracts.

However, in the 1980s, Peppered Moth experts started to identify flaws in Kettlewell’s experiments. Perhaps most compelling was their finding that tree trunks might not be the moths’ preferred resting place, thus calling into question the whole camouflage/bird predation hypothesis. It also threatened to make fools of the thousands of science teachers who were still using the Peppered Moth as a prime example of Natural Selection. Worse than this, however, was the field day it created for creationists, who called the Peppered Moth story a fraud and an example of scientists’ fallibility.

Enter Michael Majerus, an evolutionary biologist from the University of Cambridge, and a 50-year expert on Biston betularia. Starting in 2001, according to The Scientist, he set out to confirm Kettlewell’s findings using a more robust and convincing protocol. First, through years of direct observation, he discovered that the moths’ preferred resting site was the lateral branches of trees (not their trunks). Then, rather than artificially placing moths in a desired setting as Kettlewell did, he released thousands into an unpolluted tract covered with nets (so they couldn’t escape and confuse migration with predation).

Over the course of seven years he found a 9% lower survival rate for carbonaria moths, indicating that they indeed had a lower fecundity in an unpolluted setting and suggesting that they were in fact being consumed at a higher rate.

Majerus died in 2009 from an aggressive mesothelioma before his results could be published. However, a detailed account of his work was published this year in Biology Letters (February 2012) by some of his peers.

The lesson for K-12 science teachers is that they need to stay up to date on scientific discoveries and debates. In my experience, this does not happen often enough. Many (if not the majority) of those who teach science have little, if any, practical experience doing science in a real-world setting and few read scientific journals with any regularity. Furthermore, it is very rare that they have time to meet with colleagues to discuss new discoveries, review journal articles, analyze methodologies, or debate controversies, something that is an important cornerstone of university research.

Today in Labor History—May 5

May 5, 1780 – Units mutinied in George Washington's Revolutionary War Camp in New Jersey. The rebellion was suppressed by Pennsylvania troops. (From the Daily Bleed)

Karl Marx as a young man

May 5, 1818—Karl Marx was born. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1852 – The National Typographical Union was founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, making it the oldest existing national union in the U.S. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1884 – The Knights of Labor struck at Union Pacific against wage cuts and won. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1886 – Police attacked Jewish Workers from Chicago’s West Side as they attempted to march against slum conditions. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1886 – The Bay View Massacre occurred at Rolling Mills, Milwaukee, as workers marched for the 8-hour day. The state militia was called out. 7 protesters were killed, including a 14-year-old boy. No militiamen were ever charged. However, 50 strikers were sentenced to hard labor for "rioting."  (From the Daily Bleed and Workday Minnesota))

May 5, 1916 – U.S. marines invaded the Dominican Republic to "protect" U.S. interests, remaining until 1924. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1920
Two Italian-born anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were arrested in Brockton, Massachusetts, and framed for the murder of two people during an armed robbery. They were eventually executed, though they were innocent. (From Workday Minnesota)

London Protest in Support of Sacco and Vanzetti, 1921

John Scopes, 1925, just before trial

May 5, 1925 –High School teacher John T. Scopes was arrested for teaching the theory of evolution in a Tennessee school, in a violation of state law. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1931 –The Infamous Battle of Harlan County ("Bloody Harlan"), Kentucky occurred. Also known as the Battle of Evarts, the strike began in response to wage cuts implemented in February. On May 5, a scab accosted a union worker, resulting in three deaths. Gov. Flem Sampson called in the National Guard, which killed several more union miners. The Harlan County class war was the inspiration for Florence Reece's famous union song "Which Side Are You On?" The strike continued for years, with the miners finally winning in 1940. (From the Daily Bleed)

My daddy was a mine,

And I’m a miner’s son,

Ant I’ll stick with the uion

‘Till every battle’s won.

They say in Harlan County

There are no neutrals there.

You’ll either be a union man

Or a thug for J.H. Blair

 

May 5, 1937 – “May Days" erupted in Spain, with Communists attacking anarchist strongholds. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1970 –In response to the killings at Kent State and in protest against the war in Vietnam, protests erupted at campuses across United States. One of the first occurred in Seattle, with 1,000 U.W. students taking over the I-5 Freeway. Traffic backed up past Everett (site of the infamous Everett Massacre, when police attacked the IWW, killing between 5 and 12 union activists and wounding 27, in November, 1916). Ultimately, 5,000 students took part in the freeway occupation, while 10,000 marched the next day from campus to downtown Seattle. They also took over the Physics Annex and made an attempt to barricade campus entrances and create a free university. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1981 – Bobby Sands (1954-1981) died, ending his 66-day hunger strike. Sands was an Irish political prisoner and member of Parliament who had been locked up in the notorious Maze Prison near Belfast. The strike was an attempt list to get the British government to grant political prisoner status to Nationalist inmates, rather than treating them as common criminals. (From the Daily Bleed)

May 5, 1998 – 15,000 to 20,000 workers demonstrated in front of the employers’ federation building in Copenhagen, Denmark, as part of the national day of action called by the national meeting of shop stewards. It was also the ninth day of a national strike. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—March 13

(From wikipedia)

March 13, 1925 – Tennessee made it unlawful to teach evolution. (From the Daily Bleed)

March 13, 1946 - The United Auto Workers and General Motors signed a new contract after a four-month strike over wages. (From Workday Minnesota)

March 13, 1961 – IWW Labor organizer and recovering anarchist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn was elected chair of the National Committee of the Communist Party, U.S.A. (From the Daily Bleed)

March 13, 1963 – Labor Local 260 Houston negotiated its first contract with Pioneer Bus, ending dual pay scales for black and white drivers. (From the Daily Bleed)

March 13, 1967 – United Farm Workers (UFW) won a contract with the Christian Brothers Winery. (From the Daily Bleed)

March 13, 1968 – Student demonstrations in Warsaw led to street riots. All Polish universities were out on strike, with students occupying university. (From the Daily Bleed)

March 13, 1996 – Two leaders of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, Yang Kyu Hon and Kwon Young Kil, were arrested. (From the Daily Bleed)

Today in Labor History—February 13, 2012

Boston Latin School, c1635

February 13, 1635 - Boston Latin School was opened, the first public school in the United States. (From Workday Minnesota)

February 13, 1837 – A flour Riot occurred in New York City. 6,000 New Yorkers attending a "bread, meat, rent, and fuel" meeting in Chatham Square assaulted local flour merchants who they claimed were hoarding flour in order to drive up the price. (From the Daily Bleed)

Jesse James, c1882

February 13, 1866 – Jesse James held up his first bank, Liberty, Missouri. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 13, 1882 – Knights of Labor founder Uriah Stephens (b.1821) died on this date. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 13, 1917 – Strikes and meetings in Petrograd factories launched the Russian Revolution. (From the Daily Bleed)

Dresden After the Bombing (Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), Bild 146-1994-041-07)

 February 13, 1945 – Over 130,000 civilians were killed in the Allied firebombing of Dresden. In a three-day period, 3,400 tons of explosives and incendiaries were dropped, reducing six square miles of the city to rubble. (From the Daily Bleed)

February 13, 1967 – The National Student Association revealed that it had "secretly and indirectly" received more than $3 million from the CIA over a 15-year period. NSA President Eugene Grove denied any of the money was used for intelligence work. (From the Daily Bleed)