Lawrence History Center, Lawrence, Massachusetts, and University of Massachusetts Lowell History Department and students
Standoff between militia and strikers, Lawrence, Mass. 1912. Prompted by a wage cut, the walkout spread quickly from mill to mill across the city. Strikers defied the assumptions of conservative trade unions within the American Federation of Labor that immigrant, largely female and ethnically diverse workers could not be organized. The Lawrence strike is referred to as the “Bread and Roses” strike and “The Strike for Three Loaves.”