Amazon.com: Imagine being a workers' rights activist at the time of the Industrial Revolution. As shown in Wobblies!: A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World, you had to have resolve as steely as anything produced on the factory floor. It's slightly ironic, then, to have these heroic, life-and-death tales of class warfare captured in the ephemeral medium of a comic book. Created as a collaboration between historians and graphic novelists, it is an engaging, informative, and sometimes uneven look at a time of violent social upheaval. The editors of this collection assume that their readers are at least somewhat familiar with the history of the Wobblies--this is not a children's primer. Many entries are similar, filled with pedantic text, but two in particular are superb, harnessing the potential power of the graphic novel form to great emotional effect. "Strike! (Lawrence 1912)," by Seth Tobocman, tells of ruling-class cruelty against striking workers with a ghostly grace born from its wood-cut graphical style. Nicole Schulman's "Mourn Not the Dead" strikes the right balance between storytelling and artistry, bringing the terrible reality of the Cook County Prison--where Wobblies died from mistreatment behind bars--to unforgettable reality. These entries alone fulfill the promise of a book that seeks to make the often overlooked history of the Wobblies relevant again. --Jennifer Buckendorff
Book Description: A vibrant history in graphic art of the "Wobblies," published for the centenary of the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World and promoted by a major US tour.
The stories of the hard-rock miners' shooting wars, young Elizabeth Gurly Flynn (the "Rebel Girl" of contemporary sheet music), the first sit-down strikes and Free Speech fights, Emma Goldman and the struggle for birth control access, the Pageant for Paterson orchestrated in Madison Square Garden, bohemian radicals John Reed and Louise Bryant, field-hand revolts and lumber workers' strikes, wartime witch hunts, government prosecutions and mob lynching, Mexican-American uprisings in Baja, and Mexican peasant revolts led by Wobblies, hilarious and sentimental songs created and later revived—all are here, and much, much more.
The IWW, which has been organizing workers since 1905, is often cited yet elusive to scholars because of its eclectic and controversial cultural and social character. Wobblies! presents the IWW whole, scripted and drawn by old-time and younger Wobbly and IWW-inspired artists.
Contributors include Carlos Cortez (former editor of the Industrial Worker), Harvey Pekar (author of American Splendor), Peter Kuper (current artist of MAD's Spy vs. Spy), Sue Coe, Seth Tobocman, Chris Cardinale, Ryan Inzana, Spain Rodriques, Trina Robbins, Sharon Rudahl, and the circle of artists for World War 3 Illustrated.
Hopefully we can learn by example The history uses many cartoonists, many cartoon styles. Text outside the cartoons is minimized. Footnotes are light. But compelling reading as an introduction to the Wobblies, from their beginnings to this 2005 publication. A lot of information despite (or maybe because of) the cartoon format.
These are not neutral presentations. You may wonder whether our government and corporations really mistreated workers in this way. That many jailed, that many killed? This is within the past 100 years. If we're not careful, whatever progress workers have made since the Wobblies began may be lost.
Read this great intro and get charged up. Then, by all means, seek out other sources to check what you've been told here. Section six of this book, "IWW Lives", alerts us that, although smaller than in the past, the IWW is active. Seek them out on the Web: you too can be a wobbly.
"Don't mourn, organize!" This is one of the most enjoyable books on the hidden and suppressed labor history of American workers. Made all the more enjoyable by the variety of people's artists/cartoonists that have contributed to what is surely a labor of love. This is not what you're going to be taught in schools or colleges. This book portrays clearly that long memorable struggle for dignity among the working class that continues to the present day. The Wobblies held to a grass roots approach of organizing workers, prefering "crude vigor to polished banality", a system of priorites too little seen in these waning days of capitalism. Each young person, parent and school should have this information available to them, for any soul not born with a silver spoon wedged in their mouth will come away from this history with a lump in your throat and a new spring in your step. In light of encroaching globalism (that is no friend to worker's anywhere) this is a handbook to inspire and encourage a new generation to take control of their own destiny. Solidarity Forever! P.S.- Check out the recordings of Utah Phillips, the modern troubadour/sage of the Wobblies.
a great intro to the Wobblies I teach AP high school US History and I just got my masters degree in history, and this is a great source for both people who know a lot (a disappearing breed) and almost nothing about the Wobblies. It's appropriate that on the 100th anniversary of its founding, the Wobblies, an organization that used visual communication so brilliantly to recruit and communicate with its members (because so many of its membership did not speak English), would get a book like this published written both by leading labor historians and cartoonists in the relatively recent graphic novel movement. The history is solid, the drawings are great, and it successfully tells a compelling story to a broad audience. I wish I had written this book.
Not ready for Prime Time As a historian of the IWW, I bought this title hoping for something new and insightful. While the presentation is new, it really suggests what Henry Adams referred to as the devolution of America. The real IWW did some interesting things with the graphic arts -- none of which are cited or displayed by the author. While portrayed as a serious history, this is truly a comic book posing as history. I would not buy it again/
A picture book for grown-ups This book has everything: words, pictures, history, exciting stories, and disaffected workers. There are almost as many different artists as stories, so it's easy to look at each episode with fresh eyes.
The IWW may have been small, but they were also hugely important, and there are more scholarly ways to learn about them, but there can't be any that are more fun than this.
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