Andersen, Jacob (Brigham Young University)
Faculty Advisor: DeSchweinitz, Rebecca (Brigham Young University, History)
During the 1912 Lawrence, Massachusetts Textile Strike, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a speaker and organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), planned to address local workers at a Greek Catholic Church. Before she stepped to the pulpit, a local priest forbid her from speaking because she was a woman. She only spoke to the audience that night after she convinced the priest that she "spoke as an organizer, not as a woman." This incident hints at the complex and often contradictory role of gender in the IWW. Indeed, many scholars have argued that while the IWW preached universal human equality, in practice they maintained a limited, domestic vision for women. Francis Shor, in particular, has argues that the IWW's approach to gender constituted a kind of "virile syndicalism," in which their aggressive tactics were a form of "masculine posturing" in defiance of industrial capitalism. While an important insight about the role of gender in the IWW, few scholars have used his theory to understand women's experiences in the IWW. This paper will examine the role of gender in the IWW through the lives and experiences of three women: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Matilda Robbins, and Jane Street. All three women came from different backgrounds and made unique contributions to the IWW, yet the IWW's virile syndicalism circumscribed their activities within the bounds of the IWW's narrow gender ideology. The lives of these women suggest that virile syndicalism in the IWW limited the role of Wobbly women and curbed the IWW's ability to effectively organize workers in the long term. Indeed, the IWW notoriously struggled to maintain an organized base of workers; their distinctly gendered tactics may help explain why.