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Home , Rose Schneiderman, Thomas McGrath (poet)

American Working-Class Literature An Anthology

EDITED BY Nicholas Coles University of Pittsburgh Janet Zandy Rochester Institute of Technology

New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2007 Contents

Preface xv Introduction xix

I. Early American Labor: Hard, Bound, and Free 1600s-1810s 1 "The Trappan'd Maiden: or, the Distressed Damsel" (mid-1600s) 6 James Revel, "The Poor, Unhappy Transported Felon" (1680s) 7 Gottlieb Mittelberger, "Gottlieb Mittelberger's Journey to Pennsylvania in the Year 1750 and Return to Germany in the Year 1754" (1754) 13 "Petition of a Grate Number of Blackes" to Thomas Gage, May 25, 1774 16 Olaudah Equiano, ["I Was in Another World: The Slave Ship"]* from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself (1789) 16 Phillis Wheatley "To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for North America, Etc." (1773) 23 "A Sea Song" 25 Francis Hopkinson, "The Raising: A New Song for Federal Mechanics" by A. B. (1788) 26 John Mcllvaine, "Address to the Journeymen Cordwainers L. B. of Philadelphia" (1794) 27 Tecumseh's Speech to the Osages (Winter 1811-12) 28 II. New Kinds of Work, Old Practices 182Os-185Os 31 \ Sorrow Songs and Spirituals 33 "Nobody knows de trouble I've seen" 34 "Steal away, to Jesus" 35 "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" 35 "Many Thousand Gone" 35 "Bredden, don't git weary" 36 W E. B. DuBois, "The Sorrow Songs" (1903) 36 Maria W. Stewart, "Lecture Delivered at the Franklin Hall, , September 21, 1832" • 44 The Lowell Mill Girls 48 , Josephine L. Baker, "A Second Peep at Factory Life" (1845) 49 Mary Paul, "Letters to Her Father" (1845-1848) 52 "The Lowell Factory Girl" 58

* Items in brackets are titles assigned by the editors.

vn viii American Working-Class Literature

Harriet Hanson Robinson, "Characteristics of the Early Factory Girls" (1898) 59 Helena Minton, "From The Same Cloth: For the Mill Girls, Lowell, Massachusetts, circa 1840" (1985) 62 Frederick Douglass, ["In the Shipyards"] (1845 and 1855) 62 "An Address to the Colored People of the United States" from The North Star (1848) 68 Herman Melville, "The Paradise of Bachelors" and "The Tartarus of Maids" (1855) 72 John Greenleaf Whittier, "The Ship-Builders" (1850) 85 Fanny Fern (Sara Payson Willis Parton), "Soliloquy of a Housemaid" (1854) 87 "The Working-Girls of " (1868) 88 Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, "The Slave Mother" (1857) 90 Harriet E. Wilson, ["Keep her . . . She's real handsome and bright, and not very black, either."] 91 Walt Whitman, "A Song for Occupations" (1855) 96 "The Wound-Dresser" (1865) 101 Nineteenth-Century Work Songs 103 "Peg An'Awl" 104 "Paddy Works on the Railway" 105 "The Housekeeper's Lament" 106 "The Farmer Is the Man" 107 "John Henry" 108 III. Beneath the Gilded Surface: Wording-Class Fictions and Realities, 1860-1890S 111 Rebecca Harding Davis, "Life in the Iron Mills" (1861) 113 I. G. Blanchard "Eight Hours" (1866, poem; set to music, 1878) 137 Lucy Parsons, "To Tramps" (1884) 140 Songs of the Knights of Labor 142 "Knights of Labor" (1898) 143 "Storm the Fort, Ye Knights" (1885) 144 "Thirty Cents a Day" (1892) 145 "America" (1890) 145 "Father Gander's Melodies" (1887) 146 "One More Battle to Fight" (1892) 147 The Battle of Homestead, 1892 148 AAISW Preamble (from the Constitution of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers) 150 "Tyrant Frick" 150 o "A Man Named Carnegie" 151 "Father Was Killed by the Pinkerton Men" 152 "A Fight for Home and Honor" 153 Stephen Crane, "The Men in the Storm" (1894) 154 Hamlin Garland, "Under the Lion's Paw" (1889) 158 Edwin Markham, "The Man with the Hoe" (1899) 167 "Lifelets: Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans" from the Independent 169 "A Georgia Negro Peon" (1904) 169 "The Autobiography A Labor Leader": James Williams (1902) 174 "A Negro Nurse" (1912) 178 Contents ix

Maxine Hong Kingston, "The Grandfather of the Sierra Nevada Mountains" from China Men (1980) 182 Angel Island Poems by Chinese Immigrants (1910-1940) 197 Revolt, Represssion, and Cultural Formations: 1900-1929 201 Eugene V. Debs, "How I Became a Socialist" (1902) 204 "Statement to the Court" (1918) 207 Miners' and Other Labor Poems 209 J. A. Edgerton, "The Man Behind the Pick" (1903) 211 "Scab, Scab, Scab" (1904) 211 Shorty P., "The Eight Hour Day" (1904) 212 Joe R. Lazure, "A Colorado Miner's Fourth" (1905) 212 J. P. Thompson, "Union Poem" (1909) 215 Unknown Worker, "Labor Speaks" (1909) 215 Joe Foley, "Wadda Ya Want to Break Your Back for the Boss For" (c. 1917) 216 Berton Braley, "The Worker," (1917) 216 Eugene Barnett, "Political Prisoners" (1921) 217 "St. Peter and the Scab" (1923) 217 Upton Sinclair, ["The Hog-Squeal of the Universe"] from The Jungle (1906) 219 Jack London, "The Apostate" (1906) 226 ' "Pinched": A Prison Experience (1907) 238 Rose Schneiderman, "A Cap Maker's Story" (1905) 245 The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, March 25, 1911 249 Rose Schneiderman, "Triangle Memorial Speech" (1911) 251 Morris Rosenfeld, "Requiem on the Triangle Fire" (1911) 251 Contemporary Poems on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire 253 Mary Fell, "The Triangle Fire" 253 Chris Llewellyn, "Four from Sonya," "I Am Appalled," "Survivor's Cento," "Sear" 257 Carol Tarlen, "Sisters in the Flames" 260 Safiya Henderson-Holmes, "rituals of spring (for the 78th anniversary of the shirtwaist factory fire)" 261 , "" (1914) 265 Arturo Giovannitti, "The Walker" (1914) 266 John Reed, "War in Paterson" (1913) 271 Fellow Workers: IWW Oral Histories 277 (from Solidarity Forever, An Oral History of the IWW 1985) 277 Sophie Cohen, ["Paterson had a prison-like feeling"] 277 James Fair, ["Working the Docks"] 282 Mother Jones, "The March of the Mill Children" (1903) 284 The Wobblies, the "Little Red Song Book," and the Legacy of Joe Hill (1879-1915) 289 Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, "Joe Hill—Martyred Troubador of Labor" from The Rebel Girl: My First Life (1906-1926) 290 Joe Hill, "The Rebel Girl" (song) and letter to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn 294 From The Little Red Song Book (1913) 294 "Preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World" 294 Joe Hill, "The Tramp" 295 Ralph Chaplin, "Solidarity Forever!" 296 American Working-Class Literature

Joe Hill, "The Preacher and the Slave" 296 T-Bone Slim, "The Popular Wobbly" 297 Joe HiU, "Joe Hill's Last Will" 298 Ralph Chaplin, "Mourn Not the Dead" 298 Alfred Hayes, "Joe HiU" (1928) 299 Cheri Register, "A Dream of Joe Hill" (2000) 299 . . . - . Sarah N. Cleghorn, "Through the Needle's Eye: 1. Comrade Jesus 308 2. Quatrain" (1915) 309 Carl Sandburg, "Chicago" (1916) 310 "Muckers" (1916) 311 "Child of the Romans" (1916) 311 from "The People, Yes" (1936) 312 Lola Ridge, "The Ghetto" (1918) 314 Anzia Yezierska, "The Free Vacation House" (1920) 328 Edith Summers Kelley, "Billy's Birth," restored chapter of Weeds (1923) 333 Poetry of the Harlem Renaissance 342 James Weldon Johnson, "O Black and Unknown Bards" (1908) 344 Jean Toomer, "Reapers" (1923) 345 Claude McKay, "The Harlem Dancer" (1917) 345 "If We Must Die" (1919) 345 "The Lynching" (1920) 346 Countee Cullen, "For a Lady I Know" (1925) 346 "From the Dark Tower" (1927) 346 Sterling A. Brown, "Ma Rainey" (1930) 347 "Scotty Has His Say" (1932) 348 "Call Boy" (1932) 349 Alice Dunbar-Nelson, "I Sit and Sew" (1920) 350 Angelina. Weld Grimke, "Fragment" (c. 1930) 351 John Beecher, "Report to the Stockholders" (1925) 351 "Beaufort Tides" (1934) 354 Bartolomeo Vanzetti, "Last Speech to the Court" (1927) 354 Agnes Smedley, ["The Wanderlust in My Blood"] from Daughter of Earth (1929) 357 "Mining Families" 1937 364 V. Economic Depression and Cultural Resurgence: 1930s 367 Langston Hughes, "The Weary Blues" (1925) 369 "Johannesburg Mines" (1928) 371 ° "Christ in Alabama" (1931) 371 "Park Bench" (1934) 371 "Let America Be America Again" (1936) 372 "Office Building Evening" (pub. 1960) 374 Genevieve Taggard, "Words Property of the People" (1934) 374 "Life of the Mind, 1935" (1935) 375 "At Last the Women Are Moving" (1935) 376 Mary Heaton Vorse, "The Emergency Brigade at Flint" (1937) 377 Mike Gold, "Go Left, Young Writers!" (1929) 380 " and Christians" from Jews Without Money (1935) 383 Appalachia Voices 389 Aunt Molly Jackson, "Kentucky Miners' Wives Ragged Hungry Blues" (1932) 391 Sarah Ogan Gunning, "I Am a Girl of Constant Sorrow" 392 Contents xi

Kathy Kahn, "They Say Them Child Brides Don't Last: Florence Reece" from Hillbilly Women (1972) 393 Florence Reece, "Which Side Are You On?" (1931) 396 Jim Garland, "The Murder of Harry Simms" 399 Tillman Cadle, "Commentary on Harry Simms" (1932) 400 John Dos Passos, "Harlan: Working Under the Gun" (1931) 400 Maggie Anderson, "Among Elms and Maples, Morgantown, West Virginia, August, 1935" (1986) 408 "Mining Camp Residents, West Virginia, July, 1935" (1986) 408 "Long Story" (1992) 409 Don West, "Clods of Southern Earth: Introduction" (1946) 411 "Mountain Boy" (1931-1932?) 415 "Clodhopper" (1940) 416 "There's Anger in the Land" (1950) 417 "No Lonesome Road" (1940) 418 "I Am a Woman Worker": A Scrapbook of Autobiographies from the Summer Schools for Women Workers (1936) 419 "Soldering" 419 "One Day of Labor" 420 "Bean Picking" 420 "The Piece-Work System" 421 "The President Visits the Mill" 422 Boxcar Bertha (Ben Reitman) [" 'Are You Bill's Broad?' "] from Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha (1937) 422 Richard Wright, "I Have Seen Black Hands" (1935) 427 "Fire and Cloud" (1938) 429 Tillie Olsen, "I Want You Women Up North to Know" (1934) 461 , "I Was Marching" (1934) 465 "Eroded Woman" (1948) 471 Muriel Rukeyser, from The Book of the Dead (1938) 475 "The Road" 476 "Gauley Bridge" 477 "Praise of the Committee" 478 "Absalom" 480 "The Disease" 481 \ "George Robinson: Blues" 482 "The^BookoftheDead" 483 Joseph Kalar, "Night Shift" (1934) 487 "Proletarian Night" (1934) 488 "PapermiU" (1931) 489 "Worker Uprooted" (1932) 489 "Now that Snow Is Falling" (1930) 490 Kenneth Patchen, "Joe Hill Listens to the Praying" (1936) 491 "The Orange Bears" (1949) 495 Jack Conroy "Monkey Nest Camp" from the Disinherited (1933) 495 Pietro Di Donato, "Geremio" from Christ in Concrete (1939) 500 Tom Kromer, ["Three Hots and a Flop"] from Waiting for Nothing (1935) 508 Zora Neale Hurston, ["Polk County Blues"] from Mules and Men (1935) 515 John Steinbeck, "Starvation Under the Orange Tree/' (1938) 524 ["The spring is beautiful in California"] from The Grapes of Wrath (1939) 527 Sanora Babb ["Dust"] from Whose Names Are Unknown (2004) 529 xii American Working-Class Literature

Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel, from A Primer for Buford (1990) 533 "A Primer for Buford" 534 "Origins" 534 "Farm Children in the Grip of 1933" 535 "Via Dolorosa" 535 "You Can't Go Back" 535 "Okie Boy Boss at Puccinello's, 1936" 536 "Abdication Day" 536 "Picking Grapes, 1937" 536 "American Folk Music, 1937" 537 "Roster" 537 "Day of Return, August 4, 1986" 538 Woody Guthrie, "Pretty Boy Floyd" (1939) 539 "1913 Massacre" (1945) 541 "Two Good Men" (1946) 542 "Christ for President" (circa 1938) 543 ["Listening to the Little Girls' Song Drift Out Across the Dark Wind"] from Bound for Glory (1943) 544 Clifford Odets, Waiting for Lefty (1935) 547 Thomas Bell, "Zinc Works Craneman to Wed" (1936) 565 William Attaway, ["The Moss Brothers Enter the Mill"] from Blood on the Forge (1941) 570

VI. Affluence, Cold War, and the Other America: 1940s-1970s 583 Ann Petry, "Like a Winding Sheet" (1946) 585 Carlos Bulosan, "If You Want to Know What We Are" (1940) 592 "The Story of a Letter" (1946) 594 Harriette Arnow, ["I'm Gertie Nevels from Ballew, Kentucky"] from The Dollmaker (1954) 598 Alice Childress, "Like One of the Family" (1956) 611 "Sometimes I Feel So Sorry" (1956) 613 Hisaye Yamamoto, "Seventeen Syllables" (1949) 614 Edwin Rolfe, "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been" (c. 1952) 622 "Little Ballad for Americans, 1954" 624 ' Thomas McGrath, "A Long Way Outside Yellowstone" (1940) 625 "Ars Poetica: or Who Lives in the Ivory Tower?" (1949) 626 "A Little Song About Charity" (1949) 627 "On the Memory of a Working-Class Girl" (1940s) 627 "O'Leary's Last Wish: In Case the Revolution Should Fail" (1940s) 628 Tillie Olsen, "I Stand Here Ironing" (1956) 629 Gwendolyn Brooks, "Bronzeville Woman in a Red Hat" (1960) 633 "The Ballad of Rudolph Reed" (1960) 636 "The Blackstone Rangers" (1968) 638 James Wright, "Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio" (1963) 639 "Honey" (1982) 640 , "The Common Woman" (1969) 641 Breece D'J Pancake, "The Honored Dead" (posthumous, 1983) 646 Studs Terkel, from Working (1972) 651 "Dolores Dante, waitress" 652 •, "Mike Lefevre, steelworker" 656 , "The Lesson" (1972) 661 Contents xiii

VII. The New World Order and Its Consequences: 1980s to 2005 667 Philip Levine, "You Can Have it" (1979) 670 "Among Children" (1992) 672 "What Work Is" (1992) 673 Nellie Wong, "Unemployment" (1983) 674 "The Death of Long Steam Lady" (1986) 676 Tomas Rivera, from . . . y no selo trago la tierra I And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (1987) 679 "It's That It Hurts" 679 "And the Earth Did Not Devour Him" 682 "The Portrait" 685 "When We Arrive" 687 John Gilgun, "Counting Tips" (1995) 690 "Whitman's Hands" (1991) 691 Bill Witherup, "Mother Witherup's Top Secret Cherry Pie" (1989) 691 Lucille Clifton, excerpt from Generations: A Memoir (1976) 695 "At the cemetery, walnut grove plantation, south Carolina, ,1989" (1991) 698 Marge Piercy, "To Be of Use" (1973) 699 "Her Gifts" (2002) 700 Sue Doro, "The Cultural Worker" (1992) 701 "Hard Times in the Valley" (1992) 704 "Blue Collar Goodbyes" (1992) 705 Simon J. Ortiz, "My Father's Song" (1988) 706 "Final Solution: Jobs, Leaving" (1992) 707 "We Have Been Told Many Things" (1992) 709 Gloria Anzaldua, from Borderlands/La Frontera (1987) 710 "We Call Them Greasers" 711 "To Live in the Borderlands Means You" 712 Hattie Gossett, "the cleaning woman/labor relations #4" (1988) 713 Larry Smith, "The Company of Widows" (2002) 715 Ernie Brill, "Crazy Hattie Enters the Ice Age" (1980) 722 Karen Brodine, "Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking" (1984) 732 , "Making Do" (1986) 741 "The New Apartment, Minneapolis" (1988) 746 , "Blessing" (1994) 747 Carolyn Chute, "Faces in the Hands" (2000) 748 Yusef Komunyakaa, "Work" (1988) 758 "The Whistle" (1992) 759 Michael Casey, "The Company Pool" (1999) 761 "Positivity Poster" (1999) 762 "Positivity Poster #75" (1999) 763 "Urgent Need for Blood" (1999) 763 "Positivity Poster #76" (1999) 764 , "Lullaby" (1981) 765 Dorothy Allison, "Mama" (1988) 771 Leslie Feinberg, ["It was time to find a factory job"] from Stone Butch Blues (1990) 779 Susan Eisenberg, "Homage" (1984) 785 "Hanging in Solo" (1984) 785 "First Day on a New Jobsite" (1984) 787 "Wiretalk" (1984) 789 American Working-Class Literature

Dagoberto Gilb, "Romero's Shirt" (1994) 789 , "The Woman Hanging from the Thirteenth Floor Window" (1983) 794 "Perhaps the World Ends Here" (1994) 795 Jeanne Bryner, "The Story of My Village" (1999) 796 "Mileage" (1999) 797 "Release of the Spirit" (1999) 798 "Blue Collar" (1999) 799 Kate Rushin, "The Black Back-Ups" (1993) 800 Cherrie Moraga, "Heroes and Saints" (1983) 803 , "The New Warden" (1979) 846 "So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from Americans" (1982) 848 "Perfecto Flores" (1986) 849 Jan Beatty, "Awake in a Strange Landscape" (1994) 851 "Louise" (2002) 852 "The Rolling Rock Man" (1994) 853 "A Waitress's Instructions on Tipping" (1994) 854 "The Waitress Angels Speak to Me in a Vision (2002) 855 Helena Maria Viramontes, "The Cariboo Cafe" (1988) 856 Peter Oresick, "My Father" (1977) 864 "The Story of Glass" (1977) 865 "After the Deindustrialization of America" (1990) 866 "Toward the Heaven of Full Employment" (1990) 868 "Now", (1990) 868 Jim Daniels, "Digger Thinks About Numbers" (1985) 869 "Digger Goes on Vacation" (1985) 870 "Digger Laid Off" (2002) 873 "Digger, the Birthday Boy" (2002) 873 "Digger's Territory" (1989) 874 Martin Espada, "Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper" (1993) 875 "The Toolmaker Unemployed" (1993) 876 "Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100" (2002) 877 Lois-Ann Yamanaka, "Lovey's Homemade Singer Sewing Class Patchwork Denim Hiphuggers" (1996) 878 Melida Rodas, "El Olor de Cansansio (The Smell of Fatigue)" (2000) 883

Contents by Genre 886 Select Bibliography 893 A Timeline of American Working-Class History 903 Credits 910 Index by Author 917 Index by Title 919 About the Editors 925