A People's Art History of the United States: 250 Years of Activist Art and Artists Working in Social Justice

by Nicolas Lampert

  The price reduction guaranteed a full house but left the profit margin in doubt. Regardless, the audience of 15,000 would not be disappointed with the show. The pageant opened with the start of the strike, followed by scenes of police violence, and the funeral of a fallen worker. The third and fourth scenes included Haywood, Flynn, Tresca, and others reenacting speeches that they had given to the strikers, encouraging them to continue their hold-out. The fifth scene portrayed the evacuation of Paterson children to safe houses in New York City, and the last scene revolved around more speeches and the strikers vowing to continue their struggle.

  When the pageant came to a close, it was likely that most, if not all, of the participants—performers and audience alike—were deeply moved by what they had seen. The New York press reflected this sense of optimism and largely hailed the pageant as a success. Many reviews were positive, and even the New York Times comment—that the production was meant to stimulate “mad passion against law and order”—could be construed as a compliment, an admission by the anti-IWW paper that the event had accomplished its intended goals.15

  Other reviews understood that the pageant was unlike any event that had ever been witnessed before. The New York Tribune wrote, “Certainly nothing like it had been known before in the history of labor agitation . . . Lesser geniuses might have hired a hall and exhibited [a] moving picture of the Paterson Strike. Saturday night’s pageant transported the strike itself bodily to New York.”16 And the New York Evening Post wrote, “It must be judged by its effect upon the performers as well as its effect upon the audience. Has any other art form so complicated a criterion?”17

  Pageant inside Madison Square Garden, June 7, 1913 (Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives and Radicalism Photograph Collection, Tamiment Library, New York University)

  This review summarized the many complexities of the pageant, but in reality any press helped satisfy the IWW organizers’ goal of generating more national publicity for the strike itself. The pageant had been devised to garner more press, to make new allies, and to raise much-needed money for the relief fund—all of which might hopefully break the deadlock within the strike.

  The pageant succeeded in the first two goals, but not the last. A few days after the event, the pageant organizers learned to their dismay that the sold-out event had actually lost money. The high costs of the production had forced them to take out loans, and ticket sales and merchandise failed to generate enough of a profit. Dodge, Reed, and others had been frivolous with their spending and did not take the necessary precautions to make sure that the event earned a profit. They spent huge sums of money in renting Madison Square Garden, a special train, and an assortment of props. Fifteen thousand programs were printed at a high cost, yet the organizers didn’t arrange for enough people to sell them on the night of the show and ten thousand programs were later discarded. Additionally, the short three-week time span devoted to organizing an event of this scale was not enough time to cover all the bases needed to avoid any pitfalls.

  The blame for the financial loss, however, fell largely upon the IWW, setting up a disastrous public-relations scenario that the corporate media took joy in exploiting. In Paterson, Haywood and other IWW leaders received a cold reception from the strikers, who expected that their work would at the very least generate money for the relief fund.

  The strikers became even more inflamed when they learned that Reed and Dodge had bolted to Florence, Italy, the following day for vacation.

  A. Lessig, Bill Haywood, Patterson, ca. 1913 (LC-B2- 2658-9 [P&P], Library of Congress, Flickr Commons Project)

  Reed later noted that he suffered from exhaustion and the trip was a way to recover both physically and mentally, but the timing was poor. To the silk workers who did not have the opportunity to go on such a vacation, Reed’s and Dodge’s departure symbolized the privileged position that many Greenwich Village artists and intellectuals occupied, and contributed to the sense that their involvement had simply been temporary—that they could abandon the struggle at their own convenience. This was not the case with Reed—he remained active, reporting on and partaking in both the Mexican Revolution and the Russian Revolution. Yet, the message that Reed and Dodge conveyed had deep consequences that influenced not only the workers’ impression of them, but the Greenwich Village scene itself; they jeopardized the trust and collaboration that had been built between the Paterson workers and the New York artists over the duration of the strike.

  The strike collapsed seven weeks after the pageant, with workers returning to their jobs without making significant gains. The 25,000 silk workers and their families were in desperate need of food and holding out in these conditions proved to be impossible. During the aftermath of the strike, IWW organizers searched for answers as to what had gone wrong. Flynn offered her perspective in a speech entitled “The Truth About the Paterson Strike,” delivered on January 31, 1914, at the New York Civic Club Forum.18 Flynn examined a number of factors in the strike’s collapse, one of them being the Paterson Pageant, which she referred to as both the high point of the strike’s success as well as the source of its decline. She emphasized the loss in morale when funds were not received, but her other points are both compelling, and contentious, for she raised doubts about the overall value of using art—a pageant—to aid with workers’ struggles.

  Flynn criticized the pageant for distracting the workers from focusing on the strike itself. She explained that while the workers were engaged in rehearsing, maintaining the picket lines was cast aside, allowing the first scabs to enter into the mills. She labeled the workers’ shift in priorities as “turning to the stage of the hall, away from the field of life.”19

  Flynn also pointed out that while 1,000 strikers took part in the pageant, others were left behind. Her criticism was aimed at the Greenwich Village artists and intellectuals when she stated, “I wonder if you ever realized that you left 24,000 disappointed people behind? The women cried and said, ‘Why did she go? Why couldn’t I go?’ . . . Between jealousy, unnecessary but very human, and their desire to do something, much discord was created in the ranks.”20 Flynn noted that the pageant itself was “splendid propaganda for the workers in New York,” yet she stressed that its overall effect upon the strike was negative.21

  Flynn’s analysis, however, merits critique.22 She failed to acknowledge the pageant’s success in both generating press for the strike and the influence that it had on those who took part in the performance.23 One wonders if her critique would have been so harsh had the pageant earned a substantial amount of money for the relief fund. More significantly, had the pageant raised money—would that have boosted the silk workers to victory?

  Art Young, Uncle Sam Ruled Out (Solidarity, June 7, 1913, courtesy of Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company)

  A case can be made that it would not have. A boost in relief funds would have extended the strike, but the manufacturers showed little evidence that they would move from their position of nonnegotiation. Their ability to operate mills in Pennsylvania had allowed them to stonewall the strikers. Additionally, silk cloths were not viewed as a necessity and the general public was not exactly clamoring for an end to the strike.

  The manufacturers were dead set against negotiating with the IWW, which they viewed as a hostile group of outside agitators who had misled Paterson workers—despite the fact that it was the workers who initiated and led the strike. Many workers might have been singlemindedly focused on their conditions, but the manufacturers clearly understood the larger implications of the strike. To them, it was also about broader class struggle. If the Paterson mill owners caved in to the IWW, other labor victories might follow in the future. At stake was maintaining management’s position within the capitalist order. Manufacturers felt it imperative to confront the revolutionary tide of the IWW, immigrant workers, socialism, and anarchism, and they did so with the force of the government, the law, and the corporate press lined up behind them.

  Paterson represented a ma
jor defeat for the IWW. Its reputation among workers suffered, and the months following the strike saw divisions and infighting within the organization. The year 1913 would mark the IWW’s decline from prominence on the East Coast, and it never truly recovered.24 After Paterson, the IWW turned its focus to the West, organizing migrant laborers in mining and lumber towns.

  Paterson was also a tremendous loss for those who believed in the revolutionary potential of artists collaborating with working-class movements in the United States. The bitterness that swept Paterson poisoned the positive memories of the pageant and the possibilities that it presented. Artists involved with the strike had left the isolation of their studios and their small circles, and had used their talents for a greater cause. The defeat sent many of these same artists, although not all, back to the confines of their studios and isolated scenes.

  Also forgotten was the initial reason for becoming involved. Hadn’t artists become active with the Paterson strike because they were deeply inspired by the actions of the silk workers and signs that revolution was moving beyond theory and into practice? It had, and the Paterson strike gave artists the opportunity to actively engage in a working-class struggle of national and international significance.25 However, the defeat of the strike made it seem as if the very involvement of artists with strikes was problematic—a notion that was further encouraged by Flynn’s critique of the pageant.

  This notion was one of the many tragedies of the Paterson strike for solidarity matters. The Paterson Pageant represented a unique collaboration between three different groups—artists, IWW organizers, and silk workers—each with their own strengths and weaknesses. This collaboration—an act in solidarity in itself—allowed each group to learn from the other, and forced them to question their previous biases and assumptions about each other.26 The pageant gave these different groups the opportunity to work together, with each side contributing its own set of skills. It presented the opportunity for trust and understanding to exist between working-class people and bohemian artists, something that was as uncommon then as it is today.27

  In Paterson this collaboration ultimately fell short, and a defeat—any defeat—raises doubts about the merits of specific alliances. In hindsight, one wonders what would have happened had the IWW allowed creative forms of resistance to emerge out of the 25,000 silk workers on strike? In Paterson, the IWW negated a key aspect of their own practice: allowing IWW culture to emerge from within—from their own workers. In Paterson, they brought in artists from New York City and “instructed” the silk workers how to use culture in their struggle. In essence, they placed greater trust in outsiders than the workers themselves. This decision caused anger and distrust to boil over when the pageant failed to deliver on its promise of funds, but the benefit of hindsight is always 20/20. What if the fragile alliance had worked? At the very least, the pageant served as a moment when outside artists attempted to aid a working-class struggle. It fell short, but the lessons should not be to abandon these types of alliances and acts of solidarity, it should be to improve upon them, and to persist, especially in defeat.

  10

  The Masses on Trial

  IN THE 1910S, THE GREATEST threat to labor and anticapitalist movements was the United States’ entry into World War I. War, as it always seems to do, brought forth a tidal wave of patriotism that the government used as an excuse to stifle dissent.

  World War I is particularly extreme example. President Woodrow Wilson lobbied heavily for the passage of the Espionage Act in 1917 and the Sedition Act in 1918, which made speaking out against the war illegal. Part of section 3 of the Espionage Act reads:

  Whoever when the United States is at war, shall willfully cause or attempt to cause, or incite or attempt to incite, insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, in the military or naval forces of the United States, or shall willfully obstruct or attempt to obstruct the recruiting or enlistment services of the United States, and whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States or the Constitution of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag of the United States, or the uniform of the Army or Navy of the United States into contempt, scorn, contumely, or disrepute, or shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any language intended to incite, provoke, or encourage resistance to the United States . . . shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 or the imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both.

  These acts were part of the “Red Scare,” a domestic battle against antiwar and anticapitalist activism. The weight of these draconian laws came down especially hard upon labor leaders, socialists, and anarchists. More than 2,000 people were persecuted under the Espionage Act.1

  In 1919, Eugene V. Debs of the Socialist Party was sentenced to ten years in prison, and served three, for making a speech that obstructed recruiting. In 1920, he campaigned for president from a prison cell in Atlanta and received 913,664 votes (3.4 percent), the largest total ever for a Socialist Party presidential candidate in the United States. His famous campaign pin featured a portrait of him behind bars with the slogan, “For President Convict No. 9653.”

  Also during the Red Scare, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) members became, in the words of labor historian Franklin Rosemont, “members of what is probably the single most incarcerated organization in US history.”2 In September 1917, the government raided IWW offices in more than fifty cities in an attempt to destroy the organization. Documents and artwork were seized or destroyed and leaders were rounded up, put on trial, sent to prison, and sometimes killed. All told, more than one thousand IWW members would be arrested under the Espionage Act.

  The Espionage Act ensured that war resisters would be jailed, and that antiwar publications would be banned. This was the fate of the socialist magazine The Masses, founded in 1911, and silenced in 1917 after government harassment forced it out of business. During its run, however, The Masses was a vital publication, a clearinghouse of radical art and politics, one that painted a picture of the spirit of dissent found in the 1910s, prior to World War I.

  Ralph Chaplin, poster for the IWW defense effort, (Solidarity, August 4, 1917, courtesy of Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company)

  Located in Greenwich Village—the epicenter of bohemian culture in New York in the 1910s—The Masses was a group of artists and writers who sought to promote both socialism and individual free expression. In an eclectic format, political essays coexisted with poetry and visual art, some of which was didactic, some more experimental and whimsical. The subtext of the magazine was an internal conflict over its identity. Was it a socialist publication dedicated to revolutionary politics and working-class movements? Or was it a journal that honored the creative arts, expressed through the spirit of bohemian lifestyles and individuality? This dilemma was never truly resolved, creating tension from within the group and generating criticism from outside; yet this hybrid approach was precisely what made the publication so vital.

  The Masses was unique, for it embraced the socialist movement while rejecting the doctrine of a strict ideological stance, rejecting both the Socialist Party line and the conservative cultural norms of the day.3 Other publications filled the role of party building, most notably the International Socialist Review and magazines that followed in the wake of The Masses—The Liberator and The New Masses. Yet The Masses was different, for it chose to operate around the periphery of socialism. There, it could both critique and champion the socialist movement. Most important, it made individual freedom the ground rule for its engagement in the movement.

  The Masses was unique, but it was not the first socialist magazine to merge politics with art and poetry. The Comrade (1901–1905) had earlier blazed this path and was more utopian with its message. Prints by the British artist Walter Crane complemented poems and essays from people ranging from Walt Whitman and Jack London to
Eugene Debs and Mother Jones.4

  Walter Crane, A Garland for May Day, 1895 (Interference Archive)

  The Comrade was ahead of its time, but a small circulation of only a few thousand copies limited its overall influence, and after four years of existence it merged with the International Socialist Review. The Review (a Chicago-based Charles H. Kerr publication) had also pioneered the use of visual art within a political magazine, primarily photographs taken by amateurs documenting labor strikes. The Masses followed more closely in the footsteps of The Comrade and utilized illustrations as a central feature.

  Piet Vlag (a Dutch immigrant who championed small workers’ cooperatives) founded The Masses in 1911, and for the first year it existed as a relatively safe and mainstream socialist publication. Vlag’s tenure was short-lived. The magazine failed to generate much interest, and he left the project behind him. Luckily, artists on the staff, including Art Young and John Sloan, resurrected the magazine and recruited Max Eastman (who at the time was a philosophy instructor) to become the editor in December 1912, a job opportunity that started without pay.

  Eastman wanted both to move the publication toward the far left and to “make The Masses a popular Socialist magazine—a magazine of pictures and lively writing.”5 Key artists, in addition to Young and Sloan, included Maurice Becker, Henry Glintenkamp, Robert Minor, Boardman Robinson, and two artists who would, along with Sloan, later become synonymous with the Ashcan School: Robert Henri and George Bellows. All of these artists donated their time and energy, and the magazine honored both their politics and their art. The layout of the art was exceptional, as was the printing quality and the space afforded to the images.