Timothy Lynch: Strike Songs

Wed., July 16

Today, Timothy Lynch came in to speak to us about strike songs, eminently useful tools to teaching the effects of industrialization and the importance of unions. He focused his presentation on three important strikes during the depression, all of which occurred before any federal legislation supporting union organizing.

Although the workers failed to achieve their goals, the Gastonia strike waged by the National Textile Workers in 1929 was a significant one. In this strike, Ella Mae Wiggins, one of the songwriters to emerge out of the tumult, was killed. We spent much time today talking about her most popular protest song “The Mill Mother’s Lament”, a personal account of the indecent living conditions of the mill workers and a gentle plea to organize. Told from a woman’s point of view, the song has a monotonous melody which everyone, especially the choir teachers, complained about. And many of us thought the song lacked the charging crescendo to really inspire any union activity, but apparently the song was very inspiring because ultimately the bosses had Ella Mae offed. Deane Root closed our discussion on this song by saying that it was the personal account that made it powerful. Indeed.

The second strike of the Depression era that Lynch pointed out to us was the Harlan County coal miners strike of 1930-1931. In this strike, another female figure, Aunt Mollie Jackson, emerges and captures national interest. Her family even moves to New York where “Aunt Mollie” (why always with the first names for women??) rubs elbows with the likes of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, probably introducing some of her rural flair to the big city.

I was interested to learn that the popular Civil Rights song “We Shall Overcome” was first used as a union strike song in the 1940’s.

The third strike he covered was the Flint Sit-down Strike of 1936-1937. On Dec. 30, 1936, the GM workers decided to “sit down”. They went on to occupy the plant for 44 days, something the workers themselves never imagined would happen. Music was an important part of the strike partially because it killed time. The union organizers planted a decoy strike at one of the buildings while stealthily taking over one of the important work rooms in another area. The union won this battle and GM caved. Despite police and eventually National Guard involvement, no one on either side was killed.

Here were the songs he included in his presentation.
“Mill Mother’s Lament”
“Hungry Ragged Blues”
“Which Side Are You On”
“Sit Down”