1890s
Flowers for Homestead at Dulwich Picture Gallery - Practical History
Leaflets distributed at a talk on Henry Frick's art collection, reflecting on the 1892 Homestead strike, and the origins of the wealth of the industrialists whose collections founded many of Britain's major art galleries.
As a small gesture in the field of historical memory and forgetting, flowers and a poster with the following text were placed on 21 July 2000 at the entrance to Dulwich Picture Gallery in South London, where a talk on the art collection of Henry Clay Frick had been scheduled.
1892: The Homestead Strike
Extracts from Louis Adamic, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman describing the Homestead Strike in 1892, and the circumstances of Berkman’s shooting of Henry Clay Frick, the head of the Carnegie Steel Company’s strike-breaking operation.
Document One: from Dynamite: a century of class violence in America 1830–1930, Louis Adamic, 1934 (reprinted by Rebel Press, London, 1984)
1880-1945: Yiddish-speaking libertarians in France
Short article tracing the development of the Jewish Yiddish language anarchist and syndicalists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in France.
In the pletzl (Marais) and in Montmartre in Paris (pictured, above), Jewish anarchists had a real influence. In 1907, police reports indicated the presence of about 450 anarcho-communists, an enormous figure if one realises that the immigrant Jewish population living in Paris at the time was about 20,000.
1892-1894: The prison revolt and massacre at Cayenne
A short history of the brutal repression at the Cayenne island prison camp in French Guyana. A rebellion against a prisoner's murder was followed by a massacre of anarchists by the authorities.
The Iles du Salut are situated off Cayenne, in what was French Guyana in South America. These three prison islands – of which Devil's Island is the most infamous - were reserved by the French authorities for hard cases, for repeated escapees and for political prisoners. In the course of time many anarchists were sent to these hell-holes.
1891: Miners against prison labour
Howard Zinn's account of American miners' struggles against the use of slave prison labour.
There were eruptions against the convict labour system in the South, in which prisoners were leased in slave labour to corporations, used thus to depress the general level of wages and also to break strikes.
1890-1924: Anarchism in Hungary
A history of the anarchist movement, and key anarchists in Hungary up until the aftermath of the 1918 Revolution.
In reaction to the pedestrian Hungarian Social-Democratic Party, founded in 1890, which constantly appealed to the bourgeoisie, often forming alliances with its progressive elements, emerged a far more radical anarchist current. Count Ervin Batthany became friends with Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin whilst in London.
1895-1921: The CGT, France
A history of the anarchist origins of the largest trade union in France and the development and decline of revolutionary ideas and practice within it.
Revolutionary Syndicalism in the French CGT
1894: The Pullman railway strike
Howard Zinn on the history of the militant struggle of workers at the Pullman railway car company in Chicago against wage cuts and sackings.
Coming two years after the massive Homstead steel strike, in June 1894, workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company walked out.
1890: The Australian maritime strike
A short history of the 1890 strike of seamen in Australia against mass wage cuts amongst other things, which ended in defeat for the workers.
Although the origins of the 1890 maritime strike are disputed, the events that accompanied and followed this strike were a turning point in Australian history. The strike began in Adelaide and rapidly spilled over into all the other colonies. The battle was particularly bitter in Victoria and New South Wales. Both employers and unions were itching for a fight.
12. The Empire and the People
Theodore Roosevelt wrote to a friend in the year 1897: "In strict confidence . . . I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one."
