Just packed years' worth of collected DSA and labor movement ephemera, buttons, clothes etc. into a 27-gallon storage bin forebodingly labeled "Left archive *1*"...

Some good picket signs (not to mention some great '40s styles) among Westinghouse UE strikers in Beaver, Pa., 1948. From Pitt's United Electrical Workers archive, which is worth perusing: digital.library.pitt.edu/collection/u...

On this day in 1944, thousands of Westmoreland County workers joined a wildcat strike wave that disrupted local war industries. Robertshaw Thermostat workers reportedly struck in protest against a foreman, with those in other locations joining in sympathy. (Plant photo Kristina Serafini/TribLive)

This god me curious so I checked, and now I'm honored that someone thought my lil' local history book was worth uploading to Libgen

This cute @demsocialists.bsky.social calendar that arrived in the mail today; as a left history nerd I appreciate any source of "this day in history" factoids to offer unsolicited

I've never actually read his political work, but as an amateur astronomy dilettante, his History of Astronomy is a really fascinating (if presumably dated?) introduction.

Ring in 1938 with a New Year's cabaret from the Communist-run Pittsburgh Workers School! 50 cents to see the show (and hear Agnes Pendergrast and Her Sweethearts of Rhythm).

In response to the June 1863 Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania the free Black community of McGuire’s Hill, on Pittsburgh’s south side, labored on what they dubbed Fort Robert Smalls. Today an effigy of fort’s namesake made it to the site of the all but forgotten stronghold.

The mantel with all family spiritual traditions represented: Christmas, Hanukkah, Festivus, Marx

Stores shut down across 13 major cities, including Pittsburgh, which is absolutely a union town!

day 1 was amazing....... but wait until you see day 2 😏 Here's today's anchor pickets! While many more stores are going on ULP strike today, workers want you to turn out for THESE pickets! ⬇️ Don’t live near a picket line? We still need you! Host a canvassing event - tinyurl.com/SBWU-canvass

A news item this day in 1931: a meeting of the Squirrel Hill branch of Pittsburgh's Socialists. They met at the site of today's Murray Ave. Giant Eagle. While this was long after the party's local heyday (eclipsed by Communists), the Socialists still held regular meetings all over the city.

My treasured original copy of "Punching Out," Glaberman's classic 1952 pamphlet (which you can read here: libcom.org/article/punc...)

Utopian communities in the mid-19th century US. From: Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty, vol 1.

👁

In 1900, the local press identified the western end of the modern-day Strip District as "the center of the Italian 'reds' of Pittsburgh." Anarchist clubs and houses could be found along Penn Ave. (this article IDs the site of the modern Penn Liberty Plaza as a meeting house).

Saturday night 🤌

In the 1930s and '40s, Pittsburgh was home to a robust left-wing Lithuanian culture, including meeting halls and workers' organizations. I wrote about that largely forgotten history: redpgh.com?p=249

A pleasant 1885 gathering by German socialists on the North Side of Pittsburgh. "A number of outsiders were present who were disappointed, as they expected to hear bloodthirsty and dire threats."

"Since he became an anti-Fascist..." FIGHT: Against War & Fascism, Nov. 1936

Today in 1975: A Beechwood teacher walks the picket line in the first days of an eight-week teachers' strike. Public school teachers struck over pay, class sizes and job security, among other issues.

In 1913, thousands gathered at Kennywood to hear Arturo Giovannitti -- of "bread and roses" strike fame -- speak in English and Italian. "The working class is no longer fighting to feed its stomach," he said. "It now has noble ambitions to struggle for and an ideal to reach."

Some local Communist events 90 years ago this month: labor talks, a Russian Revolution anniversary party and a Thanksgiving dance at the downtown Slovak Hall -- "sponsored by the Workers Book Shop." (From the Pitt archives)

Graduate workers at the University of Pittsburgh voted overwhelmingly to unionize. Over 97% of Graduate Teaching Assistants, Teaching Fellows, Graduate Student Researchers, and Graduate Student Assistants voted to join the @steelworkers.bsky.social Tally: 1033 YES - 28 NO

Now reading. I'm on a feudalism kick; this month is all about escheat and scutage and banalités and similarly cool words

A British newsreel shows the deadly 1933 clashes between Beaver County deputies and members of the Communist Party-affiliated Steel and Metal Workers Industrial Union at the Spang-Chalfant mill in Ambridge. www.youtube.com/watch?v=_20T...

Thanks to a handful of starter packs, I -- a guy who works in customer service and posts history research as a hobby -- am now followed by labor historians and Marxist scholars whose books are on my shelves. Now I feel a weighty responsibility to make non-terrible posts.

over the summer I embroidered this giant tapestry about mill towns and textile strikes. now I’m working on another one about streetcar drivers and their militant labor struggle in the early 20th century!

Read about Joseph Frick, a Pittsburgher who fought in the revolutions of 1848, joined Marx's First International and lived through the formative years of U.S. anarchism. "Our existence depends upon unity," he once said. redpgh.com?p=487

1891: The police break up "a tough joint" on Spring Garden Ave. in Pittsburgh. Cops think "it is composed of anarchists, as the crowd which has been meeting there was a very tough-looking lot of citizens."

My followers may think "there's no way Ryan can find a Pittsburgh angle on this week's niche Scandinavian Marxism posting." They'd be wrong! Did you know that, circa 1916, Pittsburgh's Socialist Party had a Scandinavian Branch headquartered along Penn Ave.? "All Swedes invited!" (Danes unclear)

Welcome! I am the official archivist of the UAW labor union, and work at the Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University. I hope to share lessons from labor history through items from the archives, such as this art from 1990 issues of Solidarity magazine.

Handing out copies of "Steel Labor" newspaper at the end of a shift, Aliquippa, 1941. (Library of Congress)

If you look to the south on Forbes Ave. in Squirrel Hill, you'll find a building that once housed Jewish progressive groups. When the authorities raided the building in the '50s, they claimed it was a Communist training center where a Spanish Civil War vet organized a radical "goon squad."

"Mucho fucking malo!" Glossary of slang terms used by American International Brigaders in Spain. Compiled in 1938 by New York volunteer Alvah Bessie's later published in "Spanish Civil War Notebooks" Spanish, Brit English+ Russian influence there. He also uses avión for plane in diary

Near the turn of the 20th century, the first Finnish immigrants arrived in the Monongahela Valley. They brought a rich socialist culture with them, building meeting halls and cooperative stores. Some eventually settled in the USSR: redpgh.com?p=463

1941: Amid a Teamsters strike, a company truck is found burned under the Liberty Bridge at Arlington Ave.

We hope you will attend our Organizing Fair this Sunday: bit.ly/pghorgfair And we hope you will join DSA: pghdsa.org/join-us If you can’t make the Fair or you want to come to more events, we also have a bunch more that are great for folks looking to learn more!

A full Socialist social calendar, circa 1913: a Thanksgiving party, sandwiched between dance lessons and a party for the Northside left-wing baseball team (the Reds, of course).

Between kids and union stuff, I got away from posting Pittsburgh left/labor history for a good while. But we're back! For starters, here's my most beloved pic from the old site: "Picket" the union cat, with striking friends outside Jones & Laughlin Steel. Aliquippa, January 1946. (Post-Gazette)