IWW Historical Archives
"Yaas," said the farmer reflectively, "all the I.W.W. fellers I've met seemed to be pretty decent lads, but them 'alleged I.W.W.'s' must be holy frights."
--From page 19 of the IWW Little Red Songbook, 15th edition, (1919)
The IWW has a very rich and colorful history (with as many cultural traditions as we have political contributions to the class struggle) and we continue to have a vibrant organization and culture today. Here we explain and clarify our current positions and historical traditions:
IWW Cultural Icons - including the nickname "Wobbly", Joe Hill, The Little Red Songbook, Free Speech Fights, Hoboes, The Black Cat, The General Strike, and more!
Minutes of the Founding Convention of the IWW - Travel back in time to late June / early July 1905 when the founding of the One Big Union took place. Read the entire history of the IWW's creation here!
Chronology of the IWW's History - Get a glimpse of the IWW's most significant moments from its conception to the present.
IWW Union Dictionary - Here we explain much of the vernacular and slang used by the IWW today and throughout its rich and colorful history.
An Annotated Bibliography of Books on the IWW (PDF File) - Compiled by Steve Kellerman, Revised June 2007.
IWW Documents Library - a thorough, but by no means complete, collection of documents about the IWW, by IWW members and non-members, organized by author.
IWW Campaigns - a selective list of significant, specific IWW campaigns, either targeting specific industries or employers or focusing on specific issues.
IWW Resolutions - a selective list of significant resolutions passed by the IWW membership and/or General Executive Board on various matters of importance.
IWW Biography - a selective gallery of famous (and not-so-famous) IWW members, their stories, their contributions to the IWW, and the cause of abolition of wage slavery.
- IWW Cultural Icons
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention
- Minutes of the IWW's Founding Convention - Part 1
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 2
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 3
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 4
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 5
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 6
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 7
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 8
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 9
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 10
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 11
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 12
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 13
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 14
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 15
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 16
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 17
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 18
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Part 19
- Minutes of the IWW Founding Convention - Appendix 1
- Chronology of IWW History
- IWW Chronology (1904 - 1911)
- IWW Chronology (1912 - 1915)
- IWW Chronology (1916 - 1920)
- IWW Chronology (1921 - 1931)
- IWW Chronology (1932 - 1944)
- IWW Chronology (1946 - 1971)
- IWW Chronology (1972 - 1977)
- IWW Chronology (1978 - 1983)
- IWW Chronology (1984 - 1989)
- IWW Chronology (1990 - 1995)
- IWW Chronology (1996 - 1997)
- IWW Chronology (1998 - 1999)
- IWW Union Dictionary and Glossary
- IWW Documents Library
- Documents by the IWW
- Lumber Workers - You Need Organization!
- Lumber Workers Industrial Union 120 of the I.W.W.
- Plates on the Roof: IU640 Stories of Radical Hotel and Restaurant Workers
- "Jersey Justice" at Work
- A Union For All Railroad Workers
- An Economic Interpretation of the Job
- Chapter I. Labor Power
- Chapter II. Exchange Value
- Chapter III. Surplus Value
- Chapter IV. The Source of Profit
- Chapter IX. Origin of New Capital
- Chapter V. Prices of Commodities
- Chapter VI. Price Regulation
- Chapter VII. The Standard of Living
- Chapter VIII. Piece Work
- Chapter X. The Market Law
- Chapter XI. In Conclusion
- Introduction
- Chicago Replies to Moscow (1945)
- Cut Down The Hours Of Work!
- Education and System: The Basis of Organization
- Exposed! - Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union of the I. W. W. Replies to Accusations Made Against It by Andrew Furuseth
- Giant Industry and the I. W. W.
- Industrial Union Manifesto
- The I. W. W. - What It Is And What It Is Not
- The IWW Reply to the Red Trade Union International
- (1) We Want Proof, Not Assertions
- (2) The IWW With and For Labor
- (3) Compare The I.W.W. With its Defamers
- (4) I.W.W Not a Syndicalist Organization
- (5) European Labor Politics Shortcircuited Russian Revolution
- The Communist Internationale to the I.W.W. - an appeal of the Executive Committee of the Third Internationale at Moscow
- The general strike that didn't happen: a report on the activity of the IWW in Wisconsin
- Unemployment and the Machine
- Documents by Judi Bari
- But What About Jobs?
- IWA Rank-and-File Union Millworkers Reply: Victims of G-P’s Fort Bragg Mill PCP Spill Speak Out
- IWW Local 1 Letters to OSHA on behalf of the IWA Rank and File Millworkers
- Judi Bari interviews Louisiana Pacific Mill Workers
- Minutes of the founding meeting of IWW Local #1
- Notes From Hell - Working at the L-P Mill
- Revolutionary Ecology, Biocentrism and Deep Ecology
- Taking Back the Woods: Judi Bari Interviews Ernie Pardini
- The New Wave of Environmental Loggers (Part 1)
- The New Wave of Environmental Loggers (Part 2)
- The Secret History of Tree Spiking - Part 1
- The Secret History of Tree Spiking - Part 2
- Timber Wars: Footloose Wobs Urgently Needed
- Documents by Paul Brissenden
- Documents by James P. Cannon
- Documents by Ralph Chaplin
- The General Strike by Ralph Chaplin
- The Centralia Conspiracy
- Introduction to the 1973 Edition
- Part 1 - A Tongue of Flame
- Part 10 - The Conspiracy Develops
- Part 11 - Failure and Desperation
- Part 12 - Shadows Cast Before
- Part 13 - The Plot Leaks Out
- Part 14 - The Scorpion's Sting
- Part 15 - Wesley Everest
- Part 16 - The Night of Horrors
- Part 17 - Lynching: an American Institution
- Part 18 - Hypocrisy and Terror
- Part 19 - A Labor Movement on Trial
- Part 2 - Lumber: A Basic Industry
- Part 20 - The Two Raids
- Part 21 - Why Were the Shots Fired?
- Part 22 - The Lumber Trust Wins the Jury
- Part 3 - The Human Element "The Timber Beast"
- Part 4 - Why the Loggers Organized
- Part 5 - The Eight Hour Day and "Treason"
- Part 6 - Autocracy vs. Unionism
- Part 7 - Sinister Centralia
- Part 8 - Pioneers of Unionism
- Part 9 - The 1918 Raid
- Documents by Noam Chomsky
- Documents by James Connolly
- Documents by Eugene V. Debs
- Documents by Daniel DeLeon
- Documents by Sam Dolgoff
- The Cuban Revolution: A Critical Perspective
- Chapter 1 - The Cuban Revolution: an Anarchist Perspective
- Chapter 2 - Castro's Friendly Critics
- Chapter 3 - The Character of the Cuban Revolution
- Chapter 4 - The Ideology of Spanish Anarchism
- Chapter 5 - Anarchism in Cuba: the Forerunners
- Chapter 6 - The Batista Era
- Chapter 7 - The Revolution in Perspective
- Chapter 8 - Anonymous Heroes of the Revolution
- Chapter 9 - The Cuban Revolution: Anarchist Eyewitness Reports
- Chapter 10 - Why the Anarchists Broke with Castro's Regime
- Chapter 13 - Structure of Power in Cuba
- The American Labor Movement: A New Beginning
- The Cuban Revolution: A Critical Perspective
- Documents by Justus Ebert
- Documents by Greg Jackson
- Documents by Joseph Ettor
- Documents by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
- Documents by William Z Foster
- Documents by John Reimann
- Documents by Jonathan Christiansen
- Documents by Juan Conatz
- Documents by Luther "Butch" Gaylord
- One Big Union Monthly
- Documents by William "Big Bill" Haywood
- Documents by Mary Harris "Mother" Jones
- Civilization in Southern Mills
- The Autobiography of Mother Jones
- Chapter 1 - Early Years
- Chapter 10 - The March of the Mill Children
- Chapter 11 - Those Mules Won’t Scab Today
- Chapter 12 - How the Women Mopped Up Coaldale
- Chapter 13 - The Cripple Creek Strike
- Chapter 14 - Child Labor
- Chapter 15 - Moyer, Haywood and Pettibone
- Chapter 16 - The Mexican Revolution
- Chapter 17 - How the Women Sang themselves Out of Jail
- Chapter 18 - Victory in West Virginia
- Chapter 19 - Guards and Gunmen
- Chapter 2 - The Haymarket Tragedy
- Chapter 20 - Governor Hunt
- Chapter 21 - In Rockefeller’s Prisons
- Chapter 22 - “You Don’t Need a Vote to Raise Hell”
- Chapter 23 - In a West Virginia Prison Camp
- Chapter 24 - The Steel Strike of 1919
- Chapter 25 - Struggle and Lose: Struggle and Win
- Chapter 26 - Medieval West Virginia
- Chapter 27 - Progress in Spite of Leaders
- Chapter 3 - A Strike in Virginia
- Chapter 4 - Wayland’s Appeal To Reason
- Chapter 5 - Victory at Arnot
- Chapter 6 - War in West Virginia
- Chapter 7 - A Human Judge
- Chapter 8 - Roosevelt Sent for John Mitchell
- Chapter 9 - Murder in West Virginia
- Documents by Jason Justice
- Classrooms First! - A History of the 1996 Oakland Teacher's Strike
- Chapter 1 - The Strike Conceived
- Chapter 2 - The Birth of the Strike
- Chapter 3 - A Disgruntled Response
- Chapter 4 - District Tactics
- Chapter 5 - Teacher Tactics
- Chapter 6 - Solidarity Forever
- Chapter 7 - Negotiations
- Chapter 8 - The Victory
- Chapter 9 - The Betrayal
- Chapter 10 - Reflecting on the Outcome of the Strike
- Solidarity With Teachers
- Classrooms First! - A History of the 1996 Oakland Teacher's Strike
- Documents by Helen Keller
- Documents by James Kennedy
- The Lumber Industry and Its Workers
- Chapter 1 - Lumber In Its Relation to Other Industries
- Chapter 2 - Early Methods of Logging
- Chapter 3 - Evolution of the Lumber Industry
- Chapter 4 - Private Monopoly of Natural Resources
- Chapter 5 - How Rich Grafters Got Possession of the Timber Lands of the Country
- Chapter 6 - Ruinous Mismanagement of Stolen Property
- Chapter 7 - Labor Conditions in the Lumber Industry
- Chapter 8 - Organization
- Chapter 9 - Right versus Wrong Methods of Organization
- Chapter 10 - Past Battles of the Lumber Workers
- Chapter 11 - How the Workers Can Manage Industry
- Organization
- The Lumber Industry and Its Workers
- Documents by Gilbert Mers
- Documents by William Meyers
- Documents by Arthur J. Miller
- Berry Picking in Oregon
- What Ever Happened to the Eight Hour Day?
- On Communication
- Developing Working Class Environmentalism
- Dignity of Labor
- A Dinosaur's Tale
- Down at the Low Dive Cafe
- The Fate Of The New Carissa
- No One is Illegal
- The Legacy of the Bunker Hill Mine
- The Legacy of the Bunker Hill Mine - Part 2
- Not One Day Longer!
- Remembering Old Fiddlin' Dan
- Riding a Wildcat Down
- Turnaround in Oil
- Because
- Blazing a Path Through Reality To Our Dreams
- Building a New World from the Shell of the Old; The Old Time Wobblies
- Confessions of a Dual Unionist
- Industrial Experience
- Origins of a Wobbly Life
- Progressive Organizing
- Screwed Again
- The Modern Relevance of the IWW
- The Wobblies Still Live!: Life As A Wobbly
- Thinking Like Workers
- Truckin' Into Reality
- Working Class Culture
- Working: No More Than A Wage Slave
- We, the Workers
- Why Do They Take So Much and Leave Us With So
- Yardbird Blues - by Arthur J. Miller
- Part Two - The Making of a Yardbird
- Part Three - Down Houston Way
- Part Four - Types of Maritime Vessels
- Part Five - Making Dreams Real
- Part Six - Blues Again
- Part Eight - Improving the Goods
- Part Nine - Asbestos, the Dust of Death
- Part Ten - Speed up and Die!
- Part 11 - Working on the Mississippi River and
- Part Twelve - The 1984 New Orleans Metal Trades
- Part Thirteen - Pains in my Wrists
- Part Fourteen - Meeting Up With Todd Again
- Part Fifteen - It's a Love Boat!
- Part Sixteen - Fire on the Water
- Part Seventeen - Such a Foolish Notion
- Part 18 - Environmentalism and the Maritime Industry
- Part 19 - In the Belly of a Love Boat
- Part 20 - Greed Upon the Oceans: Flag of Convenience Ships
- Part Twenty-One - Spiraling Downwards
- Part Twenty-Two - The Final Chapter
- Documents by Walter T. Nef
- Documents by Lucy Parsons
- Documents by Grover H. Perry
- Documents by James Rowan
- The IWW in the Lumber Industry
- Chapter 1 - The Monopoly of the Lumber Trust
- Chapter 2 - The Lumber Trust Autocracy Over Labor
- Chapter 3 - The One Big Union of the Workers Versus Bosses
- Chapter 4 - The Early Struggle for Camp & Sawmill Democracy
- Chapter 5 - The Lumber Workers' Struggle for Freedom and the Lumber Trusts' Struggle for Profits
- Chapter 6 - The Job Strike
- Chapter 7 - Victory, but not the Final Victory
- Epilogue - A Job & Political Bunk, by Ernest Riebe
- The IWW in the Lumber Industry
- Documents by Vincent Saint John
- Documents by Tom Scribner
- Lumberjack - By Tom Scribner, 1966
- Special Introduction - By x344543, May 15, 2000
- Chapter 1 - Author's Forward
- Chapter 2 - Era of the IWW (Wobblies)
- Chapter 3 - Jungle Warfare
- Chapter 4 - Bigfoot
- Chapter 5 - The Fast Rigs I've Seen
- Chapter 6 - The American Standard of Living
- Chapter 7 - Council Meeting in Barbaria
- Chapter 8 - The Jack Ash Society
- Chapter 9 - The "Clean" Bomb
- Chapter 10 - Lumberjack Science Fiction
- Chapter 11 - Surplus and Shortages
- Chapter 12 - The Social Revolution
- Chapter 13 - The Communist Era (Part 1)
- Chapter 13 - The Communist Era (Part 2)
- Chapter 14 - Sierra Pond Monkey
- Chapter 15 - Excerpts from Lumberjack News and Dawn
- Chapter 16 - Big George and the Scab
- Chapter 17 - What's Going On (May 1965)
- Chapter 18 - Militarism
- Chapter 19 - Army of Lumberjacks
- Chapter 20 - Tranquilizers
- The Lumberjack's Prayer - by T-Bone Slim
- Chapter 23 - The Developing Crisis
- Chapter 24 - The Incumbents
- Chapter 25 - Eureka Pond Monkey
- Chapter 26 - The Common Soldier
- Chapter 28 - For a Socialist America
- Chapter 29 - The Modern Umbrella Man
- Chapter 31 - Incident at Shiloh
- Chapter 32 - Excerpts from Redwood Ripsaw
- Chapter 33 - What's Going On? (June 1965)
- Chapter 35 - Conclusion
- Three Poems
- Lumberjack - By Tom Scribner, 1966
- Documents by Abner Woodruff
- Documents by IWW Branches
- Santa Cruz, California General Membership Branch
- O'ahu, Hawai'i General Membership Branch
- Lawrence, Kansas General Membership Branch
- Burlington, Vermont General Membership Branch
- Communications Workers iu560 Local 23
- Grand Rapids, Michigan General Membership Branch
- Marine Transport Workers iu510 Local #9 (San Francisco Bay Area Ports)
- Phildelphia, Pennsylvania General Membership Branch
- San Francisco Bay Area General Membership Branch
- Santa Barbara, California General Membership Branch
- Twin Cities, Minnesota General Membership Branch
- Weakening the Dam
- (1) Introduction: More and Better Organizers
- (10) Goals. Then Strategy. Then Tactics. Part II of II
- (11) Workplace Organizing and Member Development Checklist
- (12) Sample Campaign Time-Line
- (2) Lasting Lessons from the Class Struggle
- (3) Emotional Pressure and Organization Building
- (4) Talking to Bosses: Stick to the Script!
- (5) Know the Union, Hear the Union, See the Union
- (6) Know the Union, Hear the Union, See the Union: Still Good Advice
- (7) Charting
- (8) Replace Yourself
- (9) Goals. Then Strategy. Then Tactics. Part I of II
- Weakening the Dam
- Documents by Jane Street
- Documents by Walker C. Smith
- Documents by William E. Trautmann
- Miscellaneous Documents
- Importance of French Workers' Struggle to Keep 35 Hour Week Shouldn't be Underestimated
- Will We Lose the 8-hour Day?
- Less Time for Work, More Time for Life!
- Arguments For a Four-Hour Day
- The Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the IWW
- A Fight for Free Speech in San Diego
- "Virile Syndicalism" in Comparative Perspective: a Gender Analysis of the IWW in the United States and Australia
- "High Spots" of the 13th IWW Convention (Part 2)
- ...They'd Make it Illegal: The Green Party Illusion
- A Short History of IWW Organizing in Ann Arbor 1981-1989
- Black Working Class Radicalism In Detroit, 1960-1970
- Business Unionism vs. Revolutionary Unionism
- Enviro-Unionists
- Greening of the IWW: What Happens When We Win?
- How An Industrial Union Works
- How the IWW can contribute to Working Class Revolution
- IWW Organizing in the 1970s
- If Voting Could Change Things ... The Labor Party Illusion
- Reply to the De Leonist Society of Canada
- The Brief Origins of May Day
- The IWW and Electoral Politics: An Historical Overview
- The One Big Union of Canada
- The Railroad Industry & the Need for One Big Union
- Two Concepts For IWW Organizing: Industrial Unionism And One Big Unionism
- A Brief History of the IWW outside the US (1905 - 1999)
- The IWW - Its First 100 Years
- The Scab
- Chilean IWW Under the "White Terror" of Chilean Bourgeoisie
- "High Spots" of the 13th IWW Convention (Part 1)
- The Work Peoples' College
- Documents by the IWW