While square critics derided them as "the left wing of the Beat Generation," the multi-racial, working-class editorial groups of The Rebel Worker and its sister journal Heatwave in London became well known for their highly original revolutionary perspective, innovative social/cultural criticism, and uninhibited class-war humor. Rejecting traditional left dogma, and proudly affirming the influence of Bugs Bunny and the Incredible Hulk, these playful rebels against work expanded the critique of Capital into a critique of daily life and developed a truly radical theory and practice, rooted in poetry, provocation, blues, jazz and the pleasure principle. Active in strikes, free-speech fights and other tumults, they also introduced countless readers to important writings by and about surrealists, situationists, IWWs, anarchists, libertarian Marxists, Provos, the Japanese Zengakuren, and other political/cultural revolutionary-minded individuals and movements from all over the world. This lavish tome provides dozens of selections from all the editions of both journals, with a wealth of related documents, communiques and articles, a bibliography, and detailed introduc tions by the original editors. What a book! What other work could Murray Bookchin, Sam Dolgoff and Guy Debord all agree was worthwhile and revolutionary!
A truly immense, staggering, and wonderful anthology - profusely illustrated - focussing on the most world-reverberating vent in American labor history: the Haymarket Affair of 1886-67, and on the vast, incredibly varied and enduring influence it has exerted in the United States and across the globe. Divided into three massive sections - The Martyrs & Their Movements, Defense & Amnesty and The Heritage, contributors include William J Adelman, Carlotta Anderson, Paul Avrich, Sam Dolgoff, Richard Drinnon, Philip Foner, Joseph Jablonski, Bruce Nelson, Fred Thompson and many more. It features reprints of hard-to-find speeches and writings from the likes of the Haymarket martyrs themselves, Oscar Ameringer, Edward Bellamy, Ralph Chaplin, Voltaiarine de Cleyre, Eugene Debs, Emma Goldman, Sam Gompers, Mother Jones, Peter Kropotkin, Jo Labadie, Lucy Parsons, Kenneth Rexroth, Carl Sandburg and a whole lot more. Also included are an abundance of cartoons and other illustrations from the likes of Flavio Constantini, Walter Crane, Robert Green, Mike Konopacki, Ernest Riebe, Art Young, and numerous others. Truly a comprehensive, engaging, and enlightening work. 250 massive pages, oversize and abundant.
A monumental work, expansive in scope, and not only the life, times, and culture of that most famous of the Wobblies (songwriter, poet, hobo, thinker, humorist, martyr), but crucially - and in great detail - the issues that he raised then - capitalism, white supremacy, gender, religion, wilderness, law, prison, industrial unionism - and their enduring relevance, and impact in the century since his death. Collected too is all his art, plus scores of other illustrations featuring Hill-inspired art by IWWs from Ralph Chaplin to Carlos Cortez, as well as other labor artists. "It has been a long time since so much new material on Joe Hill and the Wobblies has been collected in one volume. All students of the IWW, labor cartoons and songs, radical humor, and the history of blue-collar countercultures in the US will find this book indispensable." [Salvatore Salerno] "In Franklin Rosemont, Joe Hill has finally found a chronicler worthy of his revolutionary spirit, sense of humor, and poetic imagination. This is no ordinary biography. It is a journey into the Wobbly culture that made Joe Hill and the capitalist culture that killed him. But as Rosemont suggests in this remarkable book, Joe Hill never really dies. He will live in the minds of young rebels as long as his songs are sung, his ideas are circulated, and his political descendants keep fighting for a better day." [Robin D G Kelley]
What do Lucy Parsons, Clarence Darrow, Carl Sandburg, Mary MacLane, Lawrence Lipton, Elizabeth Davis (Queen of the Hoboes), Jun Fujita, Sherwood Anderson, Ralph Chaplin, Katherine Dunham, Djuna Barnes, Kenneth Rexroth, Sam Dolgoff, and Slim Brundage have in common? They were all Dil Picklers! Founded in 1914 by former Wobbly Jack Jones, Irish revolutionist Jim Larkin, and a group of fantastic IWW-oriented Bughouse Square hobos and soapboxers, the Dil Pickle in just a few years was widely recognized as the wildest, most playful, most creative, and most radical nightspot in the known universe—especially after Dr. Ben Reitman joined the club in 1917. In this book, Rosemont has collected 41 reminiscences of the Dil Pickle by poets, artists, journalists, novelists, hobos, scholars, anarchist, wobblies, and other assorted radicals and oddballs. Among them are accounts by the club's founders, habitués, visitors, and critics. Rosemont's introduction provides the fullest account so far of the Dil Pickle's chaotic history, and goes on to explore the role of the Picklers in the arts and the "Chicago Renaissance," along with its meaning(s) for our own troubled times.