The current issue of SingOut! prints the Farina tune for Bread and Roses. SingOut! continues to credit Martha Coleman for the tune they published previously in the 1970's. John Denver created his own tune for the poem that appears on his Higher Ground CD.

More interesting is a short essay in SingOut! that accompanies the text/music. It was written by Jim Zwick. The key point he makes is that the poem did not derive from the Lawrence, MA strike, but rather had its inspiration in an earlier labor strike in Chicago. The most importnat piece of information is that the poem was first published a month before the Lawrence strike began. In that publication Oppenheim included the attribution: "'Bread for all, and Roses, too' - a slogan of the women in the West". The complete text of Zwick's essay can be found at his own website.

http://www.boondocksnet.com/labor/history/bread_and_roses_history.html


rich r