strikers

typo in title. 'biding" should be 'building'

Thanks for the tip! We’ll need to correct the typo so that we can keep the information we show here in Flickr and in our own catalog ( http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html) in sync

This is probably the 1912 strike, the first ever national coal strike. The strikers were fighting for the establishment of a national minimum wage and the men in the photograph are strike-breaking scabs.

more info on this strike at www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2163064455

this is on main street new york mills, ny

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called American Polonia History and Culture, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

cheers to all the strikers !

The company owned the worker housing, so when the workers struck in 1912 and/or 1916, the company simply evicted them. Old company rent records show page after page, "Evicted." Strikers sold real-photo postcards to raise money and gain sympathy. See the book, "United We Stand" by James Pula and the late Eugene Dziedzic for the whole story. New York Mills is a separate incorporated village, immediately west of Utica.

Thanks so much for this information smithtelfer. Seems that Pula and Dziedzic wrote another book called "New York Mills" about the Polish workers and their efforts to unionize. We'll add some of this information to the record the next time we update.