iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 09/02/2025

Just packed years' worth of collected DSA and labor movement ephemera, buttons, clothes etc. into a 27-gallon storage bin forebodingly labeled "Left archive *1*"...

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 19/01/2025

Days after some of these photos were taken, workers at the plant -- still on strike -- held a vote on whether to switch union representation. UE was forced out after local officers refused to sign federal affidavits vowing they weren't Communists, a requirement of the then-new Taft-Hartley Act.

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 19/01/2025

Some good picket signs (not to mention some great '40s styles) among Westinghouse UE strikers in Beaver, Pa., 1948. From Pitt's United Electrical Workers archive, which is worth perusing: digital.library.pitt.edu/collection/u...

A group of women strikers with sandwich board signs outside a plant gate

Strikers inside a building with signs reading "Beaver Westinghouse workers on strike" and similar messages

Strikers circling outside a plant fence with "Strike" signs

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 05/01/2025

Labor historians have written about the national impacts of World War II wildcat strikes and the push against the no-strike pledge (you can find a PDF of the great Martin Glaberman's book on the topic here: libcom.org/article/wart...)

libcom.org

Wartime strikes: The struggle against the no-strike pledge in the UAW during World War II - Martin Glaberman

Martin Glaberman's examination of American car industry workers wildcat strike wave, despite their own union's no strike pledge, during World War 2.

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 05/01/2025

Local workers -- plumbers, bus drivers and factory workers, among many others -- carried out wildcat strikes throughout the war. I wrote a brief piece on local 1943 coal strikes here: redpgh.com?p=59

redpgh.com

Striking coal in wartime - Red Pittsburgh

In late April 1943, as allied troops drove the last German forces to the tip of Tunisia, U.S. coal miners launched an unprecedented wartime strike wave that would last more than six months. Standing a...

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 05/01/2025

Further walkouts rattled the company after union leaders were fired, reportedly with the support of United Steelworkers officials (national unions maintained a no-strike pledge during World War II).

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 05/01/2025

On this day in 1944, thousands of Westmoreland County workers joined a wildcat strike wave that disrupted local war industries. Robertshaw Thermostat workers reportedly struck in protest against a foreman, with those in other locations joining in sympathy. (Plant photo Kristina Serafini/TribLive)

Newspaper headline "400 are idle as steel mill strikes grow -- Plane production hard hit in new walkout at Youngwood plant."

Photo of cars parked outside a factory, ca. 1940s

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 05/01/2025

This god me curious so I checked, and now I'm honored that someone thought my lil' local history book was worth uploading to Libgen

Libgen entry for my book, "Pittsburgh and the Great Steel Strike of 1919"

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 02/01/2025

This cute @demsocialists.bsky.social calendar that arrived in the mail today; as a left history nerd I appreciate any source of "this day in history" factoids to offer unsolicited

Democratic Socialists of America 2025 calendar

June page of calendar, with left history events shown each day of the month

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 02/01/2025

I've never actually read his political work, but as an amateur astronomy dilettante, his History of Astronomy is a really fascinating (if presumably dated?) introduction.

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 31/12/2024

(Source: Communist Collection of A.E. Forbes, Pitt special collections)

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 31/12/2024

Ring in 1938 with a New Year's cabaret from the Communist-run Pittsburgh Workers School! 50 cents to see the show (and hear Agnes Pendergrast and Her Sweethearts of Rhythm).

Poster: "Beat the New Year in! Cabaret Dance and floor show." Sponsored by Pittsburgh Workers School. A figure hangs from a ringing bell.

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Rich Condon @richcondon.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

In response to the June 1863 Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania the free Black community of McGuire’s Hill, on Pittsburgh’s south side, labored on what they dubbed Fort Robert Smalls. Today an effigy of fort’s namesake made it to the site of the all but forgotten stronghold.

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 25/12/2024

The mantel with all family spiritual traditions represented: Christmas, Hanukkah, Festivus, Marx

Mantelpiece with a menorah, mini Christmas tree, tiny Festivus pole and books including Capital

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Daisy Pitkin @daisy-pitkin.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

Stores shut down across 13 major cities, including Pittsburgh, which is absolutely a union town!

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Starbucks Workers United @sbworkersunited.org · 21/12/2024

day 1 was amazing....... but wait until you see day 2 😏 Here's today's anchor pickets! While many more stores are going on ULP strike today, workers want you to turn out for THESE pickets! ⬇️ Don’t live near a picket line? We still need you! Host a canvassing event - tinyurl.com/SBWU-canvass

A grungy black background features a sunglassed SBWU member with their fist in the air and holding two signs: "HONK!!" and "Starbucks, this is your sign to BE KIND TO YOUR WORKERS."

Text says "SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21ST. SUPPORT THESE PICKET LINES! Starbucks baristas at these "anchor" pickets need allies to turn up! Each day we're on ULP strike, we'll announce additional locations."

"LA: 10am PST @ 1190 W Alameda Ave Ste G-2, Burbank CA

Seattle: 3pm PST @ 1124 Pike St, Seattle WA

Chicago: 12pm CST @ 519 Main St. Evanston, IL

Denver: 12pm MST @ 2700 S Colorado Blvd, Denver, CO

Columbus: 12pm EST @ 1784 N High St, Columbus OH

Pittsburgh: 10am EST @ 4765 Liberty Ave, Pittsburgh PA"

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 19/12/2024

A news item this day in 1931: a meeting of the Squirrel Hill branch of Pittsburgh's Socialists. They met at the site of today's Murray Ave. Giant Eagle. While this was long after the party's local heyday (eclipsed by Communists), the Socialists still held regular meetings all over the city.

A news item, "Socialists to meet," detailing the meeting of a Pittsburgh socialist branch in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood.

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 16/12/2024

Is the South Fork mentioned here the one near Johnstown? Just curious

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 13/12/2024

My treasured original copy of "Punching Out," Glaberman's classic 1952 pamphlet (which you can read here: libcom.org/article/punc...)

The cover of "Punching Out" by Martin Glaberman, under the pseudonym Jack Kramer

A page featuring a hand-drawn cartoon of two workers chatting on a break

A page featuring several women in 1950s clothes working in a factory

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Randall Stephens @randalljstephens.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Utopian communities in the mid-19th century US. From: Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty, vol 1.

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 09/12/2024

Back when I was working in news in Altoona, I avoided this dispute by always writing "west-central Pennsylvania" so no one could yell at me

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 08/12/2024

One of these days I need to research a more detailed history of Italian anarchism in Pittsburgh. Errico Malatesta supposedly caused a stir here when he refused to wear Italian colors at a banquet. @mgouldhawke.bsky.social, have you come across any Malatesta writings that reference time spent here?

News clipping of a story in which anarchist Errico Malatesta caused a stir by refusing to wear Italian colors at a Pittsburgh banquet honoring local cultural societies.

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 08/12/2024

In 1900, the local press identified the western end of the modern-day Strip District as "the center of the Italian 'reds' of Pittsburgh." Anarchist clubs and houses could be found along Penn Ave. (this article IDs the site of the modern Penn Liberty Plaza as a meeting house).

A news clipping from 1900 identifying the locations of anarchist clubs in Pittsburgh. It quotes a hotel keeper who names addresses along Penn Ave. as "red" hangouts.

An 1890 Pittsburgh map section showing Penn Ave. from 11th Ave. up.

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 08/12/2024

The famously individualistic middle ages, when people weren't subject to a complex web of mutual obligations

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 07/12/2024

Saturday night 🤌

The books "The Golden Horde" by Nanni Balestrini and Primo Moroni, "Workers and Capital" by Mario Tronti, "Storming Heaven" by Steve Wright

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 05/12/2024

In the 1930s and '40s, Pittsburgh was home to a robust left-wing Lithuanian culture, including meeting halls and workers' organizations. I wrote about that largely forgotten history: redpgh.com?p=249

redpgh.com

Pittsburgh’s lost Lithuanian left - Red Pittsburgh

Lithuanian immigrants in Pittsburgh joined communist and socialist groups and sparred over national politics. Today, only a few signs of the era remain.

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 03/12/2024

A pleasant 1885 gathering by German socialists on the North Side of Pittsburgh. "A number of outsiders were present who were disappointed, as they expected to hear bloodthirsty and dire threats."

Social Socialists: A number of Allegheny Socialists gave an entertainment at Jefferson Hall, Allegheny, last evening. The exercises were opened by a concertina solo, followed by a zither duet. The event of the evening was a comedy in the German language entitled the "Warming Pan." Judging from the enthusiastic applause some of the sayings must have been funny.

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Alexander M. Dunphy @dunphyalexander.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

"Since he became an anti-Fascist..." FIGHT: Against War & Fascism, Nov. 1936

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 02/12/2024

Today in 1975: A Beechwood teacher walks the picket line in the first days of an eight-week teachers' strike. Public school teachers struck over pay, class sizes and job security, among other issues.

A person in a coat and scarf over their face walks with a sign reading "PFT -- Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers on Strike."

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 29/11/2024

In 1913, thousands gathered at Kennywood to hear Arturo Giovannitti -- of "bread and roses" strike fame -- speak in English and Italian. "The working class is no longer fighting to feed its stomach," he said. "It now has noble ambitions to struggle for and an ideal to reach."

A newspaper article titled "Immense throng hears Giovanitti, the workers' poet."

An old photograph of a clean-shaven Italian man in a jacket and cravat.

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 26/11/2024

Based on another 1930s clipping, this one from the Daily Worker, it appears the address of the short-lived Pen & Hammer bulletin was the Slovak National Home in Downtown. Lots of radical Slovak connections!

A clipping from the Daily Worker newspaper listing Pittsburgh addresses for a union federation meeting. One is 522 Court Place, the shared address of the Slovak National Home and a radical news sheet.

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 26/11/2024

Some local Communist events 90 years ago this month: labor talks, a Russian Revolution anniversary party and a Thanksgiving dance at the downtown Slovak Hall -- "sponsored by the Workers Book Shop." (From the Pitt archives)

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connor chapman @cmchapman.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Graduate workers at the University of Pittsburgh voted overwhelmingly to unionize. Over 97% of Graduate Teaching Assistants, Teaching Fellows, Graduate Student Researchers, and Graduate Student Assistants voted to join the @steelworkers.bsky.social Tally: 1033 YES - 28 NO

members of the Pitt Graduate Workers Organizing Committee hold a blue banner that reads "Pitt Graduate Workers Union- USW. The university runs on grad labor."

a legal notepad with a vote counters final Tally. the paper is divided into 2 columns, with 1033 tick marks in the yes column and 28 ticks in the no column

pitt graduate workers hug after final tallies are complete

graduate worker organizers celebrate after the union victory

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 22/11/2024

Now reading. I'm on a feudalism kick; this month is all about escheat and scutage and banalités and similarly cool words

A copy of Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism by British Marxist historian Rodney Hilton

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 22/11/2024

Hard to say without a visible date, but I don't think that's the US Daily Worker (or maybe isn't a real issue). Circa spring 1937 they don't use a hammer and sickle:

Copy of Daily Worker in February 1937, with top headline: "Chevrolet No. 4 Sit-down Bolsters Strike."

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 20/11/2024

When Ambridge workers struck for recognition with the SMWIU, the ensuing police crackdown left a bystander dead and many workers wounded or jailed. Thousands returned to work. James Egan, a strike leader and Communist candidate for Pittsburgh mayor, was soon nabbed and jailed on a prior charge.

A photo collage from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Oct. 6, 1933, showing deputies wielding clubs and wearing white armbands outside the Spang, Chalfant & Co. steel mill in Ambridge, Pa.

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 20/11/2024

The union -- part of the short-lived Trade Union Unity League that sought to supplant the AFL -- was headquartered in Pittsburgh, near the corner of today's Washington Place and Fifth Ave. (near PPG arena). Here's a brief history from Pitt's labor archive: exhibit.library.pitt.edu/labor_legacy...

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 20/11/2024

A British newsreel shows the deadly 1933 clashes between Beaver County deputies and members of the Communist Party-affiliated Steel and Metal Workers Industrial Union at the Spang-Chalfant mill in Ambridge. www.youtube.com/watch?v=_20T...

youtube.com

It Happened! (1933)

YouTube video by British Pathé

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 20/11/2024

Thanks to a handful of starter packs, I -- a guy who works in customer service and posts history research as a hobby -- am now followed by labor historians and Marxist scholars whose books are on my shelves. Now I feel a weighty responsibility to make non-terrible posts.

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tabitha @thetolerantweft.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

over the summer I embroidered this giant tapestry about mill towns and textile strikes. now I’m working on another one about streetcar drivers and their militant labor struggle in the early 20th century!

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 19/11/2024

Read about Joseph Frick, a Pittsburgher who fought in the revolutions of 1848, joined Marx's First International and lived through the formative years of U.S. anarchism. "Our existence depends upon unity," he once said. redpgh.com?p=487

redpgh.com

Joseph Frick: A witness to the U.S. left - Red Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh's Frick lived through the German revolutions of 1848, joined Marx's First International and was present for the birth of American anarchism.

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 19/11/2024

Not an academic, but I do write about local socialist history here in Pennsylvania!

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 19/11/2024

1891: The police break up "a tough joint" on Spring Garden Ave. in Pittsburgh. Cops think "it is composed of anarchists, as the crowd which has been meeting there was a very tough-looking lot of citizens."

A newspaper clipping titled "A Tough Joint -- Allegheny Authorities Break Up a Gang of Anarchists."

A 19th-century map of Pittsburgh's Spring Garden neighborhood, with a red dot over the address of the alleged anarchist meeting house.

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 17/11/2024

My followers may think "there's no way Ryan can find a Pittsburgh angle on this week's niche Scandinavian Marxism posting." They'd be wrong! Did you know that, circa 1916, Pittsburgh's Socialist Party had a Scandinavian Branch headquartered along Penn Ave.? "All Swedes invited!" (Danes unclear)

A newspaper clipping from the 1910s advertising the activities of the Scandinavian branch of Pittsburgh's Socialist Party. It includes a list of activities and discussions, including one on the working class preventing war. It says "all Swedes invited."

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UAW Archivist @uawarchivist.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

Welcome! I am the official archivist of the UAW labor union, and work at the Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University. I hope to share lessons from labor history through items from the archives, such as this art from 1990 issues of Solidarity magazine.

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 14/11/2024

Apologies for no alt text! I've set bsky to require it, but it posted without for whatever reason.

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Ryan Brown @redpgh.com · 14/11/2024

Handing out copies of "Steel Labor" newspaper at the end of a shift, Aliquippa, 1941. (Library of Congress)

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