bread and roses strike

Type: Event

As of November 2026, bread and roses strike has been mentioned in one podcast episode on American History Tellers (May 2025). The Bread and Roses strike was a significant labor action in Lawrence, Massachusetts, that brought attention to the poor working conditions of textile workers.

The Lawrence Textile Strike, also known as the Bread and Roses Strike, was a strike of immigrant workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1912 led by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Prompted by a two-hour pay cut corresponding to a new law shortening the workweek for women, the strike spread rapidly through the town, growing to more than twenty thousand workers and involving nearly every mill in Lawrence. On January 1, 1912, the Massachusetts government enforced a law that cut mill work