Memoirs of a Wobbly

Published here for the first time, this lively narrative by old-time Wobbly Henry McGuckin (1893–1974) is not like any other book on the Industrial Workers Of The World. Although "Mac" knew and worked with many of the best-known Wobblies—Big Bill Haywood, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Frank Little, and others—his purpose here is not to discuss prominent personalities or world-famous events, but rather to tell of the unsung tens of thousands of militant working men and women who, in the 1910s, made the IWW one of the grandest labor organizations the world has ever seen. Here at last is the Wobblies' inside story: how they lived and worked and hoboed; how they organized; how they ran their legendary strikes and free-speech fights; how they went about "fanning the flames of discontent" each and every day all across America. Packed with invaluable firsthand information unavailable anywhere else, this splendid, compact chronicle of a rank-and-filer's exciting adventures fighting for working class emancipation takes its place among America's labor classics. The memoir also includes a 1914 article by McGuckin from the International Socialist Review and a sketch of the author's later life by his son, Henry McGuckin Jr.