On this day in Labor History the year was 1917. That was the day that miners in Bisbee, Arizona were rounded up, taken by train and left in the desert on the New Mexico/Arizona border.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1892. Striking silver miners in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho blew up the Frisco Mill. The miners were upset because the company had hired Pinkerton guards to infiltrate the mine.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1902. A powerful gas and dust explosion occurred in the Rolling Mill Mine in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Johnstown was rich in coal resources. The coal industry in Cambria County gradually grew thanks to the rise of the industry in the region.

On this day in Labor History the year was1984. Jacqueline Vaughn became President of the Chicago Teachers’ Union. Jacqueline started out as a teacher and became a member of the collective bargaining team in 1968. She was elected Vice President of the CTU in 1972 and then became the first black woman to head up the third largest teacher’s union in the nation.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1862. Ella Reeves “Mother” Bloor was born in Staten Island, New York.

She was a labor activist who investigated child labor in glass factories and mines.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1905. It was the tenth day of the convention in Chicago, Illinois, where William (“Big Bill”) Haywood of the Western Federation of Miners, and Daniel De Leon and Eugene V. Debs of the Socialist Party founded the Industrial Workers of the World.

On this day in Labor History the year was 1892. At 3 AM an alarm sounded in the town of Homestead, Pennsylvania. The steelworkers who lived in the town were on strike. Andrew Carnegie was the owner of the mill, located just outside of Pittsburgh.

The great orator and abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, was invited to speak at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. The speech he gave that day would go down as one of his most powerful.