Novelist Jack London is born. His classic definition of a scab?someone who would cross a picket line and take a striker's job: "After God had finished the rattlesnake, the toad, the vampire, He had some awful substance left with which He made a scab. A scab is a two-legged animal with a cork-screw soul, a water-logged brain, a combination backbone of jelly and glue. Where others have hearts, he carries a tumor of rotten principles" - 1876
The IWW-organized ?Bread & Roses? textile strike of 32,000 women and children begins in Lawrence, Mass. It lasted 10 weeks and ended in victory. The first millworkers to walk out were Polish women, who, upon collecting their pay, exclaimed that they had been cheated and promptly abandoned their looms - 1912
President Roosevelt seizes the railroads to avert a nationwide strike. His decision to temporarily place the railroads under the ?supervision? of the War Department prompts the five railroad brotherhoods to agree to his offer to arbitrate the wage dispute - 1943