The Lawrence Textile Strike, also known as the Bread and Roses Strike, began on this day in 1912 in Massachusetts. Workers, mostly immigrant women and children, won their demands after months of violence and national press campaigns.

The strike was led by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and united immigrant workers of over forty nationalities. 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.

National attention to the strike greatly increased when two IWW leaders, "Smiling Joe" Ettor and Arturo Giovannitti, were arrested on fabricated charges related to the murder of a striking worker. Upon their arrest, "Big Bill" Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn took over leadership of the strike. They further sensationalized the condition of the striking workers by ostentatiously sending their hungry children to stay with families and supporters in New York City.

Striking workers and families were brutalized by police. When authorities tried to prevent more children from leaving the city, the police attacked a crowd of parents and their children, causing one pregnant woman to miscarry. Growing national sympathy for the strikers finally led the mill owners to agree to worker demands, and the parties agreed on significant pay raises to return to work.

Ettor and Giovannitti were in prison for months after the strike ended, but were eventually acquitted of all charges.

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