The Film Springs - New Feature Screenplays

The Uprising

Historical Photos

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Big Bill Haywood and Smilin' Joe Ettor. Ettor led the Lawrence strike until he and another Italian IWW organizer were charged with murdering a woman striker.

Carlo Tresca, the swashbuckling Italian anarchist, swooped Gurley off her feet in Lawrence. (He slept with her sister as well.)

According to many observers, including Haywood, it was the women who won the strike. The resulting wage increases and overtime pay affected nearly a quarter-million textile workers in six states. The episode also prompted hearings in Congress.

The governor of Massachusetts called out the National Guard to keep the peace in Lawrence for nearly six weeks.

William Madison Wood owned most of the mills in Lawrence and was the second highest paid C.E.O. in America after J.P. Morgan. The son of a Portuguese immigrant, he knocked up the boss's daughter to marry his way into managment. He was also deftly efficient at running a business.

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