May 26, 1824 - On this day in 1824, 102 women and girls organized the first factory strike in the United States at Pawtucket’s Slater Mill, a textile factory in Rhode Island. After owners slashed their pay 25% and added unpaid hours (calling their wages “extravagant”), women fought back. The strike grew into a fiery revolt. The girls and women were joined by other working-class sectors and the bosses were forced to finally negotiate. Their defiance ignited a wave of worker uprisings. [link]
The strike spread to seven other mills, and 500 workers walked off the job. And they didn’t just shut down the mills. They went to the owners’ houses, shouted insults at them and broke their windows. A local judge wrote that the streets were, ‘literally filled with Men Women and Children — making a mob of very daring aspect, insulting the managers of cotton mills in every shape — pulling and hauling — screaming and shouting thro the streets.’ On the last day of the strike, one of the mills burned down in a fire probably set by a striker. The owners agreed to a compromise, the details of which are lost to history. On June 3, the strikers returned to work.[source]
