Salvatore Salerno

Salvatore Salerno is the author of Red November, Black November: Culture and Community in the Industrial Workers of the World and has contributed articles to the Haymarket Scrapbook and many other publications. He is a professor on the Community Faculty staff of Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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Praise

“This engaging anthology features the lyrics to 250 or so Wobbly songs, rich with references to job sharks, shovel stiffs, capitalist tools, and plutocratic parasites. Wobbly wordsmiths such as the fabled Joe Hill, T-Bone Slim, Haywire Mac, and Richard Brazier set their fighting words to popular tunes of the day, gospel hymns, old ballads and patriotic anthems.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“This collection, the last major work both of the late ‘laborlorist’ Archie Green and of the late surrealist poet and labor publisher Franklin Rosemont, should be of great value to folklorists, activists, and singers alike.”
—Journal of American Folklore

“In The Big Red Songbook, the editors have thoughtfully documented twentieth-century Wobbly song in all of its foot-stompin’ glory.”
—International Labor and Working-Class History

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About

The activist authors of the texts in this collection challenged the prevailing stereotypes. As they point out, the practices of direct action and sabotage are as old as class society itself and have been an integral part of the everyday work life of wage-earners in all times and places. To the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) belongs the distinction of being the first workers’ organization in the U.S. to discuss these common practices openly, and to recognize their place in working-class struggle. Viewing direct action and sabotage in the spirit of creative nonviolence, Wobblies readily integrated these tactics into their struggle to build industrial unions.

This new edition from the Charles H. Kerr Library contains “Direct Action and Sabotage” (1912) by William E. Trautmann, “Sabotage: Its History, Philosophy & Function” (1913) by Walker C. Smith, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s “Sabotage: The Conscious Withdrawal of the Workers’ Industrial Efficiency” (1916), edited and with an introduction by Salvatore Salerno.

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Book Events

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Reviews

• Direct Action in Anarchist Studies
• The Protest Songs That Drove the Wobblies a Century Ago Are Still Lighting Fires

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Interviews

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Mentions

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Blog

• http://www.davidroediger.org/