User:Dexter1967/sandbox

Background
Postcard of American Woolen Co., Washington Mills, Lawrence, Mass. Founded in 1845, Lawrence was a flourishing but deeply-troubled textile city. By 1900, mechanization and the deskilling of labor in the textile industry enabled factory owners to eliminate skilled workers and to employ large numbers of unskilled immigrant workers, mostly women. Work in a textile mill took place at a grueling pace, and the labor was repetitive and dangerous. About one third of workers in the Lawrence textile mills died before the age of 25.In addition, a number of children under 14 worked in the mills. Half of the workers in the four Lawrence mills of the American Woolen Company, the leading employer in the industry and the town, were females between 14 and 18. Falsification of birth certificates, allowing for girls younger than 14 to work, was common practice at the time. Lawrence had the 5th highest child mortality rate of any city in the country at the time, behind four other mill towns in Massachusetts (Lowell, Fall River, Worcester, and Holyoke).[1]

Aftermath
Ettor and Giovanniti, both members of IWW, remained in prison for months after the strike was over. Haywood threatened a general strike to demand their freedom, with the cry "Open the jail gates or we will close the mill gates." The IWW raised $60,000 for their defense and held demonstrations and mass meetings throughout the country in their support; the Boston authorities arrested all of the members of the Ettor and Giovannitti Defense Committee. On March 10th, 1912, an estimated 10,000 protestors gathered in Lawrence demanding the release of Ettor and Giovannitti. Then, 15,000 Lawrence workers went on strike for one day on September 30 to demand the release of Ettor and Giovannitti. Swedish and French workers proposed a boycott of woolen goods from the US and a refusal to load ships going there, and Italian supporters of the Giovannitti men rallied in front of the US consulate in Rome.