First episode of the Working Class Literature podcast, about the life and work of radical hobo author T-Bone Slim. A prolific columnist for the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union in the United States, he was also a poet and songwriter as well as a barge captain working on the New York waterfront.
Continue reading “WCL E01: T-Bone Slim – the laureate of the logging camps”
In this podcast episode, historian Joey DeFrancesco tells the story of the first factory strike in US history when in 1824, young women and girls working in the mills in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, organised themselves and walked out, winning better conditions. Joey also explains how the development of capitalist industry in the north was dependent on the labour of enslaved people in the south.
Continue reading “E32: The Pawtucket mill strike”
As protests have swept Hong Kong in the last few weeks, we begin an occasional series on the British Empire with a double episode on a previous wave of demonstrations, riots, strikes and bombings in the city, then a British colony. We speak with three people who were there about what happened, and learn new revelations about one of Hong Kong’s most notorious unsolved murders – of radio commentator Lam Bun. Continue reading “E30-31: The Hong Kong riots, 1967”
Our latest podcast miniseries this Pride month is about Lesbians & Gays Support the Miners, a small group of LGBTQ people in London who began to raise money for striking workers in the Welsh valleys during the great miners’ strike of 1984-5. Unknown to them at the time, they would end up transforming both communities, and Britain as a whole. Continue reading “E27-29: Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners”
Summer 2019 marks 50 years since the iconic rebellion against the police raid of the Stonewall Inn in New York City. The LGBTQ patrons and locals, many of them people of colour, and most of them working class, fought back against the police in 6 days of rioting. Then they organised, revolutionising the LGBTQ rights movement, and sparking Pride. Continue reading “E25-26: The Stonewall riots and Pride at 50”
John from WCH appeared in a personal capacity on the Rev Left Radio podcast, for the first episode in a series they are producing called “in dialogue with anarchism”. They have a constructive and friendly discussion about anarchism and Marxism, their similarities and differences. Continue reading ““In dialogue with anarchism”: WCH on Rev Left Radio”
Working Class History are delighted to be launching the first season of our new occasional podcast, WCH Crime, where true crime meets the struggle for a better world. Our first series is about the Columbia Eagle mutiny in 1970, perhaps the most spectacular act of resistance to the Vietnam war, when two sailors hijacked their ship transporting thousands of tonnes of napalm for US forces, and sailed it to Cambodia. But they never could have predicted what would happen next… Continue reading “E21-24: WCH Crime – The Columbia Eagle mutiny”
John from WCH appeared on the podcast of our friends at historic_ly to talk about the history of working class rebellion and direct action from ancient Egypt to today. Listen below.
Continue reading “WCH on the historic_ly podcast talking about direct action”
Podcast episode about the workers at the Lusty Lady strip club in San Francisco who in 1997 were the first women who managed to unionise a strip joint in the United States, and who later took it over and ran it as a workers’ co-operative. Continue reading “E20: The Exotic Dancers Union”
Episode on the early history of the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World union in Australia, in conversation with Paula DeAngelis. Paula is a historian and contributed to Wobblies of the World: a global history of the IWW. Continue reading “E19: The IWW in Australia”