During the late 1800s and early 1900s, labor unions organized thousands of workers in many major industries. The unions' heaquarters became day care centers, social clubs, chapels, dining halls, and military headquarters for the class struggle.
The workers couldn't afford fine jewelry, but they often did sport lovingly crafted, fringed ribbons with enameled, brilliantly colored cameos of their union craft's tools and finely detailed gilded reliefs.
Members proudly wore their union ribbons, colors out, for the Labor Day Parades. And when a fellow unionist left this mortal coil, you would turn the ribbon over, black side out, for the funeral march.
Keep reading below for some pretty pictures and narratives.
The International Typographical Union, and the affiliated Pressmen, were organized in 1852. But automation of the printing industry, beginning with the newspapers, evaporated the Typographical and Pressmens' crafts. The ITU, the oldest US union, dissolved in 1986, with the remaining printers merging into the Communication Workers Union. They Pressmen were formed in 1899, and merged with the Graphic Communications Union in 1973.
Here are some other examples of neat badges and ribbons. The Brewery workers are the white badge with the brown lions and keg. I like the locomotive below it, from the Engineers' Union.
Often the unions would issue a special ribbon or button for each Labor Day or special event. One Missouri ribbon sports a picture of Mark Twain, while a California shipyard town's union ribbon displays a battleship. May Day was once a militant holiday, and a couple of May Day celebration buttons are left of center.
Other displays remind us of struggles long ago fought, and unions and social movements that rose and fell. The soldiers on the postcard were crushing the strike of the turpentine workers, who were not paid in money, but in script good only at the company store.
The ILA (International Longshore Association) button was the West Coast union that became the ILWU and led the General Strike of 1934 in San Francisco.
Below the ILA button, is a red button from Boilermakers #104, whose Seattle shipyard strike triggered a general strike in 1919.
Other buttons urge voting for FDR, for New York Mayor LaGuardia on the American Labor Party ticket (A communist Party front), for supporting the 8 hour day, not forgetting Joe Hill (executed by a Utah firing squad), for opposing the Taft-Hartley anti-labor law, and buying a "stamp" to fund the court defense of Pat McNamara, ultimately convicted of bombing a Los Angeles newspaper building.
And there's the little rhyme on the Printers' white ribbon, with sentiments I can sympathize with.
Who remembers the boycotts of grape and lettuce and Farah Jeans and JP Stevens sheets? Labor won them all, for a time.
Labor joined with progressives against South Africa, and against some wars. The One Union for All Workers organized every single working person in Austin. Minnesota in the 1930s. Their blue button is right below the Hormel scab bacon button, a reminder of the big strike against the Hormel packinghouse in Austin in 1985.
Note the button urging cradle to grave health care. Do we have it yet?
Finally, let's see the faces of those who organized workers against the bosses, the police, the army, and the Klan in the days of our grandparents, and before, plus a little propaganda from the International Workers of the World, aka the Wobblies.