Bread & Roses

Bread & Roses, by Michael Steele, 2021

I was recently asked if I would create an artwork inspired by the Bread & Roses Strike. The Bread & Roses Strike (or Lawrence Textile Strike) was an important event for both the Women’s Rights and Worker’s Rights movements. In January 1912 in Massachusetts, a strike started in the Lawrence Textile Mill by immigrant workers as a response to the Massachusetts government introducing a new law that reduced the working week for women working in mills by two hours as well as a pay cut. The Strike lasted two months in a icy cold winter. The organisers had united workers from over 51 different nationalities. The workers gained public support, especially when coverage of police brutally assaulting strikers at the Lawrence train station. The Lawrence and New England mill owners settled on a up to 20% raise for workers.
The Lawrence strike is commonly referred to as the "Bread and Roses" strike. It has also been called the "strike for three loaves".[6] The phrase "bread and roses" actually preceded the strike, appearing in a poem by James Oppenheim published in The American Magazine in December 1911.