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U.S. History 1877-Present 4: IWW and Socialism 631 Views
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Description:
Today's lesson will be about the Wobblies. No, it's not the hot new kids show of the day, this was a socialist movement back in the early 1900s. Yeah, we're not sure how they gained so much traction with such a silly name either.
Transcript
- 00:03
right time to focus on a socialist labor union called the
- 00:07
Industrial Workers of the world aka the IWW aka the Wobblies and we know the
- 00:13
Wobblies isn't exactly an intimidating nickname it's hard to be afraid of an
- 00:17
organization that sounds like the lovable clumsy cousins of the [Teletubbies appear in a field]
- 00:20
Teletubbies well despite the name the Wobblies were led by a dead serious
Full Transcript
- 00:25
socialist named Eugene V Debs gets had a major crush on Karl Marx who's usually
- 00:30
credited as the father of modern socialism and communism and hey with a
- 00:35
beard like Marx's what's not to love it was kind of like the Communist Santa [Marx dressed as Santa]
- 00:39
Claus yeah well Debs even loved socialism so much that he ran as a
- 00:43
socialist candidate for president in 1904 1908 1912 and 1920 let's say yeah
- 00:49
that didn't work out proving once again that trying really really hard and doing [Newspaper front page of Eugene imprisoned]
- 00:53
your best doesn't mean you won't fail okay all right we're just kidding this
- 00:57
not a lesson we endorse do try super hard there schmooper stay in school
- 01:01
yadda yadda yadda well like many socialist Deb's was sick of a huge gap
- 01:05
between the rich and poor created by unchecked capitalism he thought that it
- 01:09
would be much nicer if factories and farms were all collectively owned by the
- 01:13
workers and now sharing is caring after all or at least that's how socialists [Collective ownership definition appears on paper]
- 01:18
saw it some of the Deb's earliest hits included the Pullman Strike but when the
- 01:22
Pullman car company asked its workers to take a pay cut and they refused 5,000 [Pullman speaking to worker]
- 01:27
were fired well here's where Eugene stepped in as head of the American
- 01:31
railway Union he told the members to refuse to operate any trains using
- 01:35
Pullman cars the action was deemed illegal by President Grover Cleveland [Go directly to jail card with Grover holding handcuffs]
- 01:40
and even though it was hard to take threat seriously from a guy named Grover
- 01:43
the strike was broken by federal troops and debts was imprisoned the Debs wasn't
- 01:49
going to let it get him down it guess he was a glass-half-full kind of guy well [Debs with glass half full]
- 01:53
along with William big bill Haywood and others Debs founded the IWW in 1905
- 01:59
urging employees to take action against their employers the Wobblies protested [People protesting]
- 02:05
unfair treatment by boycotting and striking differently from their
- 02:08
predecessors they said what as to any efforts from management to negotiate a
- 02:12
labor contract and said to sha-2 collective bargaining
- 02:15
agreements instead they decided to strike until they got what they wanted [Teletubbies striking]
- 02:19
when the United States entered World War one in 1917 the IWW had a hundred
- 02:24
thousand members and because of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Russia's
- 02:28
subsequent withdrawal from the war Americans were super worried about the
- 02:33
socialist message of the wobbly they also made people mad by refusing to stop
- 02:37
striking during wartime which was said to hurt wartime production in the war [Man begging at teletubbies]
- 02:41
effort in general well of course the Wobblies didn't care not only did they
- 02:45
evader draft they also publicly denounced the war well none of this was
- 02:50
cool to the most American around this time the Espionage Act and various Act [Espionage Act appears]
- 02:54
outlawing membership and socialist organizations were passed
- 02:58
well this spelled doom for the Wobblies weirdly the Teletubbies kept on truckin [Boy watching teletubbies]
- 03:02
though that creepy baby son thing probably had the American government
- 03:06
it's back pocket many soon found themselves in jail cells simply because [Man being picked up by officers]
- 03:10
they were part of a socialist organization well after World War one
- 03:13
the IWW faded from the spotlight but they're passionate actions showed
- 03:17
Americans that labor issues had to be dealt with one way or another until [Puppet giving a speech]
- 03:20
robots came along in the cell with and permits the IWW is still around today
- 03:25
but World War one marked the end of its significance in American history this
- 03:30
day some still argue that it was all because of the dumb nickname well maybe [Debs and man discussing the wobblies]
- 03:34
we could just argue that yeah whatever
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