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Origins: Bread and roses

DigiTrad:
BREAD AND ROSES


Related threads:
Bread & Roses (singing group) (6)
happy? – Feb 5 ('Bread & Roses') (3)
happy? – Jan 11 ('Bread & Roses' strike) (3)
Lyr Req/Add: They All Sang Bread and Roses (S Kahn (3)
bread and roses (10)


In Mudcat MIDIs:
Bread and Roses [Caroline Kohlsaat, possibly Martha Coleman] (This is the same as the tune in the Digital Tradition, and should be deleted.)
Bread and Roses [music by Mimi Farina] (different from the tune in the Digital Tradition)


Animaterra 16 Jan 98 - 08:34 PM
Bo 16 Jan 98 - 08:52 PM
dulcimer 16 Jan 98 - 11:25 PM
Animaterra 17 Jan 98 - 07:32 AM
Bo 17 Jan 98 - 02:27 PM
Julia 17 Jan 98 - 06:57 PM
RS 18 Jan 98 - 06:21 PM
RS 18 Jan 98 - 06:33 PM
Joe Offer 19 Jan 98 - 03:51 AM
Animaterra 19 Jan 98 - 07:26 AM
dick greenhaus 19 Jan 98 - 12:44 PM
Joe Offer 19 Jan 98 - 01:34 PM
KickyC@aol.com 07 Feb 98 - 03:10 PM
Joe Offer 06 Apr 98 - 02:38 AM
Moira Cameron 06 Apr 98 - 04:33 PM
Sandy Paton 18 Oct 00 - 10:41 PM
GUEST,jaze 19 Oct 00 - 01:44 AM
Callie 19 Oct 00 - 02:20 AM
GUEST,rich r 31 Dec 02 - 02:36 PM
Mark Ross 31 Dec 02 - 06:01 PM
Felipa 08 Mar 04 - 04:29 PM
Haruo 22 Jan 05 - 05:56 PM
Mark Ross 23 Jan 05 - 12:59 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 23 Jan 05 - 01:55 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 23 Jan 05 - 02:41 PM
Susanne (skw) 23 Jan 05 - 05:17 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 23 Jan 05 - 06:05 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 23 Jan 05 - 08:34 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 23 Jan 05 - 08:38 PM
Susanne (skw) 23 Jan 05 - 09:05 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 23 Jan 05 - 09:25 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 23 Jan 05 - 11:28 PM
Joe Offer 24 Jan 05 - 12:04 AM
emjay 24 Jan 05 - 02:07 AM
Q (Frank Staplin) 24 Jan 05 - 01:18 PM
Bat Goddess 24 Jan 05 - 04:16 PM
GUEST,Carlos 04 Mar 05 - 01:02 AM
LadyJean 04 Mar 05 - 01:21 AM
Q (Frank Staplin) 11 Jan 06 - 02:33 PM
GUEST,Tess 07 Mar 09 - 06:21 PM
GUEST,Gerry 07 Mar 09 - 09:51 PM
Susanne (skw) 11 Mar 09 - 05:21 PM
GUEST,Gerry 11 Mar 09 - 06:51 PM
David Ingerson 12 Mar 09 - 03:21 AM
Felipa 22 Feb 22 - 10:46 PM
Felipa 02 May 23 - 10:26 AM
Felipa 02 May 23 - 10:57 AM
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Subject: Bread and roses
From: Animaterra
Date: 16 Jan 98 - 08:34 PM

I am looking for the original source of the suffragette song, "Bread and Roses". Who wrote the tune? Is it copyrighted? I have a women's chorus (named Animaterra) who wants to sing this.


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: Bo
Date: 16 Jan 98 - 08:52 PM

I have a great CD called Carry It On -- Songs of America's working people with Pete Seeger, Jane Sapp & Si Kahn

Bread and Roses is the 4th song and the credits read (M.Farina-J.Openheim/Farina Music) I suspect "M. Farina & Farina Music might be a good place to start.

BMI at http://www.bmi.com/repertoire/database.html turned up a half dozen songs or versions with the name bread & roses. It also turned up one M.Farina a Mauro.

Ascap didnt return anything on "Bread and Roses".

Hope thats of some help!

Bo


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: dulcimer
Date: 16 Jan 98 - 11:25 PM

According to Judy Collins on the insert to her Bread and Roses album (1976)--"Mimi Farina sent me a copy of the poem from which she took her company's name, Bread and Roses, . . . James Oppenheim's poem was so beautiful that I asked Mimi to set it to music." However, some place I have read the song (or poem) came from the early part of the 20th century, possibly originating in New England area, as kind of a protest, suffragette song. I will keep looking for verification. Maybe information about Oppenheim is the key.


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: Animaterra
Date: 17 Jan 98 - 07:32 AM

Thanks! I knew Mimi Farina had set it to music but I also thought there was an earlier tune. I remember an early 1970's BBC production on the early British suffragette movement that used the melody that Judy Collins recorded.


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: Bo
Date: 17 Jan 98 - 02:27 PM

This would make a nice set with "up from the ashes" grow the roses of success, from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

bo


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: Julia
Date: 17 Jan 98 - 06:57 PM

The title comes from signs carried by striking mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912. The signs had the slogan "We want Bread and Roses too". James Oppenheim wrote the poem after seeing the signs (presumably in support of the strike).

There are at least two tunes. The Judy Collins version was composed by Mimi Fariña. The older one can be found at http://underground.liquid.com/cgi-bin/dtrad/lookup?ti=BRDnROSE&tt=BRDnROSE

(sorry, I don't know how to do hyperlinks)

but I don't know who wrote it.


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Subject: Lyr/Chords Add: BREAD AND ROSES (James Oppenheim)
From: RS
Date: 18 Jan 98 - 06:21 PM

Here is the info from my personal songbook, presently residing on my hard drive...

BREAD AND ROSES

From: The Digital Tradition Folk Song Database - downloaded direct from the Internet
And Lift Every Voice! Songbook - words in brackets are from here

Words by James Oppenheim

Music: Per Lift Every Voice! Songbook: Music by Martha Coleman; Arranged by David Labovitz. No date is given to this tune, but it must predate the first printing of the songbook in 1953.

Per The Digital Tradition Folk Song Database: Music: Mimi Farina, 1984; @political @mill @work @feminist; filename[ BRD&ROSE; play.exe BRD&ROSE

There is a discrepancy here. The tune that plays in Digital Tradition at "Click Here to Play," attributed to Mimi Farina, 1984, is the *same* as that in the Lift Every Voice! Songbook, attributed to Martha Coleman, predating 1953. Was Mimi Farina publishing music as early as 1953? Is it possible her tune is an adaptation of Martha Coleman's, rather than a completely new one? ... Need further information to clarify this!


Information from Lift Every Voice! Songbook:

This song came out of the great Lawrence, Massachusetts textile strike of 1912. Most of the strikers were women who worked in the textile mills and during the course of the struggle they raised the stirring slogan of "Bread and Roses!" James Oppenheim, inspired by the strike and the slogan wrote this poem which was later set to music by Martha Coleman.

Chords from Lift Every Voice!:
E - G m B7 / - - E - / - - A - / - - G A /
G - C 7 F m / - - E - / A - E - / B7 - E - /

As we go (come) marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: (")Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!(")

As we go (come) marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts (can) starve as well as bodies; ("G)give us bread, but (and) give us roses.(")

As we go (come) marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient call for (song of) bread.(;)
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.(--)
Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses(,) too.

As we go (come) marching, marching, we bring the greater days,(;)
The rising of the women means the rising of the race (us all).
No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories:(,) Bread and roses, bread and roses.

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts (can) starve as well as bodies; bread and roses, bread and roses.

Further information from www.shamash.org/jwa/rose.html - Rose Schneiderman
- Jewish Women's History Week - March 2 - 9, 1997
- in The Jewish Women's Archive Web Site

"What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist... the worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too." - Rose Schneiderman

Eight-year-old Rose Schneiderman arrived in New York City from Poland in 1890 with her parents and three younger brothers. Five years later, after spending time in an orphanage when her poverty-stricken and recently widowed mother was unable to feed the family, Schneiderman quit school to support her mother and baby sister. Her first job in a department store demanded 64 hours of work for subsistence wages.

It was as a sewing machine operator that Schneiderman organized the first women's local of the Jewish socialist union, United Cloth, Hat, Cap and Millinery Workers. "All of a sudden . . . not lonely any more," Schneiderman had discovered "that poverty was not ordained . . . working people could help themselves." The energy and companionship that she found through union organizing fueled Schneiderman's leadership for the rest of her life, serving as the basis of the "family" of cross-class women activists who supported her throughout the years ahead.

Through her forty-five year involvement as a leader of the Women's Trade Union League, Schneiderman organized countless strikes, trained young leaders, helped negotiate labor disputes, and worked to establish continuing education programs for female workers. She was an extremely popular speaker who travelled throughout the country enlisting support for labor and women's suffrage. She ran for the United States Senate in 1920 and was the only woman appointed in Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration in 1933. Her influence, commitment and persistence were crucial in drafting and passing much of the legislation that has long been taken for granted by workers in the United States including: social security; worker's compensation; the elimination of child labor; maternity leave; safety laws; minimum wage; and unemployment insurance.

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 11-Jun-02.


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: RS
Date: 18 Jan 98 - 06:33 PM

Just checked out the written music at http://underground.liquid.com/cgi-bin/dtrad/lookup?ti=BRDnROSE&tt=BRDnROSE (See the posting just before mine). This is the same music as in the Lift Every Voice Songbook, and the Click & Play at Digital Tradition, therefore presumably it is the original Martha Coleman version. Can anybody direct me to a site where I could find the newer Mimi Farina tune?


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Subject: Tune Add: BREAD AND ROSES
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Jan 98 - 03:51 AM

Hmmm. this is getting curiouser and curiouser. I have a songbook called "Songs of Work and Protest," by Edith Fowke & Joe Glazer. That book claims the tune is by Caroline Kohlsaat. It's the same tune that's here in the database, just in a different key. So, was it Kohlsaat, or was it Martha Coleman?
Fowke/Glazer say there's an Italian song with the same title, "Pan e rose," written by Italian-American poet Arturo Giovanitti, and used by the Italian Dressmakers' Local 89 of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.
I'm not very familiar with the Kohlsaat/Coleman/Whatever tune. The one I usually hear is the one by Fariña:

MIDI file: BREAD&~1.MID

Timebase: 192

Name: Bread And Roses
Text: By Mimi Fariña
Copyright: Copyright © 1976, Fariña Music
TimeSig: 4/4 24 8
Start
0000 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 64 110 0256 0 64 000 0032 1 65 110 0094 0 65 000 0002 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 69 110 0160 0 69 000 0032 1 67 110 0336 0 67 000 0048 1 65 110 0094 0 65 000 0002 1 64 110 0094 0 64 000 0002 1 69 110 0160 0 69 000 0032 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 65 110 0160 0 65 000 0032 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 62 110 0336 0 62 000 0240 1 62 110 0160 0 62 000 0032 1 64 110 0256 0 64 000 0032 1 65 110 0094 0 65 000 0002 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 69 110 0160 0 69 000 0032 1 67 110 0336 0 67 000 0048 1 72 110 0160 0 72 000 0032 1 71 110 0256 0 71 000 0032 1 71 110 0094 0 71 000 0002 1 69 110 0160 0 69 000 0032 1 62 110 0160 0 62 000 0032 1 67 110 0336 0 67 000 0240 1 72 110 0160 0 72 000 0032 1 72 110 0256 0 72 000 0032 1 69 110 0094 0 69 000 0002 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 62 110 0160 0 62 000 0032 1 60 110 0160 0 60 000 0224 1 62 110 0094 0 62 000 0002 1 64 110 0094 0 64 000 0002 1 65 110 0094 0 65 000 0002 1 64 110 0256 0 64 000 0032 1 62 110 0256 0 62 000 0032 1 60 110 0094 0 60 000 0002 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 62 110 0336 0 62 000 0048 1 72 110 0094 0 72 000 0002 1 72 110 0094 0 72 000 0002 1 72 110 0256 0 72 000 0032 1 69 110 0094 0 69 000 0002 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 62 110 0094 0 62 000 0002 1 60 110 0256 0 60 000 0032 1 62 110 0160 0 62 000 0032 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 65 110 0160 0 65 000 0032 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 62 110 0160 0 62 000 0032 1 60 110 0160 0 60 000 0032 1 62 110 0720 0 62 000 0048 1 60 110 0336 0 60 000
End

This program is easy to learn. Try it!

To download the January 15 MIDItext 98 software and get instructions on how to use it click here

ABC format:

X:1
T:Bread And Roses
M:4/4
Q:1/4=120
K:C
E7/4z/4E11/4z/4FG7/4z/4|E7/4z/4A7/4z/4G7/2z/2|
FEA7/4z/4G7/4z/4F7/4z/4|E7/4z/4D7/2z5/2|D7/4z/4E11/4z/4FG7/4z/4|
E7/4z/4A7/4z/4G7/2z/2|c7/4z/4B11/4z/4BA7/4z/4|
D7/4z/4G7/2z5/2|c7/4z/4c11/4z/4AG7/4z/4|E7/4z/4D7/4z/4C7/4z9/4|
DEFE11/4z/4D2|-D3/4z/4CE7/4z/4D7/2z/2|ccc11/4z/4AG7/4z/4|
E7/4z/4DC11/4z/4D7/4z/4|E7/4z/4F7/4z/4E7/4z/4D7/4z/4|
C7/4z/4D6|-D3/2z/2C7/2||


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: Animaterra
Date: 19 Jan 98 - 07:26 AM

This is great! I've never used this forum before and I'm so grateful for the wealth of info. Thanks to all, esp. RS. I do think that Mimi Farina must have written the Judy Collins vs., and that (dare I suggest?) the tune in Digital Tradition may be mis-attributed? But I don't know who wrote it, if so! The background history was great! I'm not even sure if I'll use the song in my program, but it's great to know so much more about the song. thanks!


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 19 Jan 98 - 12:44 PM

Attribution in the DT is no worse (and no better) than our sources provide. If we're wrong, please let us know and we'll try to do better.


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Jan 98 - 01:34 PM

....and in this one, the issue is still unresolved. Edith Fowke & Joe Glazer claim the tune is by Caroline Kohlsaat. Other sources above blame it on Martha Coleman. Does anybody have a definitive answer?
-Joe Offer-


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: KickyC@aol.com
Date: 07 Feb 98 - 03:10 PM

I have a copy of "American History Songbook" by Jerry Silverman, published by Mel Bay. This version of "Bread and Roses" gives credit to Martha Coleman. My copy of "Rise Up Singing" gives both the Caroline Kohsleet and Mimi Farina versions. Whoever wrote it, I love it.


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Subject: Tune Add: BREAD AND ROSES
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Apr 98 - 02:38 AM

Posting updated MIDITXT tune

MIDI file: BREAD&~1.MID

Timebase: 192

Name: Bread And Roses
Text: By Mimi Fariña
Copyright: Copyright © 1976, Fariña Music
TimeSig: 4/4 24 8
Start
0000 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 64 110 0256 0 64 000 0032 1 65 110 0094 0 65 000 0002 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 69 110 0160 0 69 000 0032 1 67 110 0336 0 67 000 0048 1 65 110 0094 0 65 000 0002 1 64 110 0094 0 64 000 0002 1 69 110 0160 0 69 000 0032 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 65 110 0160 0 65 000 0032 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 62 110 0336 0 62 000 0240 1 62 110 0160 0 62 000 0032 1 64 110 0256 0 64 000 0032 1 65 110 0094 0 65 000 0002 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 69 110 0160 0 69 000 0032 1 67 110 0336 0 67 000 0048 1 72 110 0160 0 72 000 0032 1 71 110 0256 0 71 000 0032 1 71 110 0094 0 71 000 0002 1 69 110 0160 0 69 000 0032 1 62 110 0160 0 62 000 0032 1 67 110 0336 0 67 000 0240 1 72 110 0160 0 72 000 0032 1 72 110 0256 0 72 000 0032 1 69 110 0094 0 69 000 0002 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 62 110 0160 0 62 000 0032 1 60 110 0160 0 60 000 0224 1 62 110 0094 0 62 000 0002 1 64 110 0094 0 64 000 0002 1 65 110 0094 0 65 000 0002 1 64 110 0256 0 64 000 0032 1 62 110 0256 0 62 000 0032 1 60 110 0094 0 60 000 0002 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 62 110 0336 0 62 000 0048 1 72 110 0094 0 72 000 0002 1 72 110 0094 0 72 000 0002 1 72 110 0256 0 72 000 0032 1 69 110 0094 0 69 000 0002 1 67 110 0160 0 67 000 0032 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 62 110 0094 0 62 000 0002 1 60 110 0256 0 60 000 0032 1 62 110 0160 0 62 000 0032 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 65 110 0160 0 65 000 0032 1 64 110 0160 0 64 000 0032 1 62 110 0160 0 62 000 0032 1 60 110 0160 0 60 000 0032 1 62 110 0720 0 62 000 0048 1 60 110 0336 0 60 000
End

This program is worth the effort of learning it.

To download the March 10 MIDItext 98 software and get instructions on how to use it click here

ABC format:

X:1
T:Bread And Roses
M:4/4
Q:1/4=120
K:C
E2E3FG2|E2A2G4|FEA2G2F2|E2D6|D2E3FG2|E2A2G4|
c2B3BA2|D2G6|c2c3AG2|E2D2C4|DEFE3D2|-DCE2D4|
ccc3AG2|E2DC3D2|E2F2E2D2|C2D6|-D2C7/2||


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: Moira Cameron
Date: 06 Apr 98 - 04:33 PM

I gave a recording by a British women's trio called "the Ranting Sleezos" to a friend of mine. They have a verion of this song on their album, and it's a different tune than the Mimi Farina version. However, I couldn't tell you which version it was. I thought, though, that their tune suited the song better than Farina's.


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 18 Oct 00 - 10:41 PM

Caroline and I accept the Fowke/Glazer attribution to Caroline Kohlsaat. Edith Fowke was an outstandinmg scholar and Joe Glazer is as steeped in labor history and lore as anyone in this country other than Archie Green. I see from the above entry that RUS even managed to get Kohlsaat's name wrong. I'm told that Utah Phillips wrote a tune as well, so close to the Kohlsaat tune that one might begin to believe in Jung's concept of the "collective unconscious."

Joe Glazer's life story, by the way, is about to be published -- Labor's Troubadour. I think it's from the University of Illinois Press.

Sandy


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: GUEST,jaze
Date: 19 Oct 00 - 01:44 AM

Speaking of Mimi Farina, has anyone heard how she is doing? I read that she was diagnosed with lung cancer.She always seemed to be a gentle soul who had to live in her big sister's(Joan Baez)shadow. Her Bread and Roses Foundation was a worthy effort to bring music to the less fortunate (she WAS Joan Baez' sister after all). but Bread and Roses was HER thing and I think she deserves a lot of respect for her efforts. I wish her well and pray for healing.


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: Callie
Date: 19 Oct 00 - 02:20 AM

YOu can hear a choir I belong to sing the song at the following link:

www.geocities.com/soho/1095/solidarity


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: GUEST,rich r
Date: 31 Dec 02 - 02:36 PM

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


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: Mark Ross
Date: 31 Dec 02 - 06:01 PM

There is another tune to BREAD AND ROSES from the singing of Utah Phillips. It can be heard on his album WE HAVE FED YOU ALL FOR A THOUSAND YEARS.
Actually the poem seems to have been written BEFORE the strike(about a year earlier).

Mark Ross


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Subject: RE: Bread and roses
From: Felipa
Date: 08 Mar 04 - 04:29 PM

we alwayds sing "Bread and Roses" on this date (International Women's Day)


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Subject: RE: bread and roses
From: Haruo
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 05:56 PM

What does the expression "Our lives will not be sweated" mean? I was thinking maybe it (DT) should read "wasted"??

Haruo


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Mark Ross
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 12:59 PM

Sweated. it definitely says "sweated".

Mark Ross


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 01:55 PM

The 1992 edition of "Rise Up Singing," a Sing Out publication, ed. Peter Blood and Annie Patterson, p. 245, credits Caroline Kohsleet, I and Mimi Fariña, II for music.
As noted above, the name is spelled Kohlsaat in the Fowke and Glazer "Songs of Work and Freedom." This seems to be the correct spelling.
This website, credits both Caroline Kohlsaat and Martha Coleman, 1912, for the music. 1912

I presume that the attribution in the book "Rise Up Singing" is a correction of the earlier Sing Out! printing.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 02:41 PM

Sorry. 1912

More fill-in-
The Holt Labor Library credits Caroline Kohlsaat Holt Library

Courses taught at Rochester credit Caroline Kohlsaat- Bread and Roses

Utah Phillips (Caroline Kohlsaat credited), may have used a different tune, but the lyrics in his "We have Fed You All a Thousand Years" do not differ from the music in Fowke and Glazer, 1960, Labor Education Division, Roosevelt University, 1960, reprint Dolphin Books Doubleday, pp. 70-71. Utah Phillips

Cannot find any definite information on Martha Coleman. Kohlsaat collaborated on a book of songs for children.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 05:17 PM

Haruo, I've always read it as "We will not be subjected to sweated labour."

Whatever it means, I love the song, and I think the older tune (by Caroline Kohlsaat, as far as I am concerned) fits it's fighting spirit much better than the Farina one - I haven't heard the others.

I have an article by Jim Zwick, Bread and Roses: The Lost Histories of a Slogan and a Poem (published in Sing Out! 46 (Winter 2003): 92-93), in which he disputes the song's association with the 1912 Lawrence strike. Unfortunately the web address doesn't work any more, and the article is fairly long. Should I post it?


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 06:05 PM

The poem "Bread and Roses" first appeared in the American Magazine, No. 73, December, 1911, a month or more before the strike.

I believe that the music was set to the poem after the strike but I could be wrong- 1915 is the date I have for the music, but that could be a later printing.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 08:34 PM

The reference that had both Caroline Kohlsaat and Martha Coleman as composers of the music was 1912
No supporting evidence is given.

The Holt Labor Library, in their online write-up, says "Legend has it that the ...song was inspired by a banner carried by some of the strikers with the slogan, "We want bread and roses too."
Legend it is, since the Oppenheim poem was written before the strike took place.

Anyone have proof of the date when the poem became a song? Susanne?


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 08:38 PM

1912- One of those references still in Google, but doesn't work as a link. www.janevoss.net/america1912.html


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 09:05 PM

More than you ever wished to know about this song, I suspect:

article removed by request (threat) of the author but can be found here:
http://www.boondocksnet.com/labor/history/bread_and_roses_history.html


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 09:25 PM

Thank You for printing the article, Susanne. It fills in a lot of the holes with regard to the Chicago and Lawrence strikes which, though unrelated to the writing of the poem, nevertheless became part of the legend.

Now if the date of Kohlsaat's music can be tied down- and who was Martha Coleman?


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 11:28 PM

James Oppenheim's inspiration?
Chinese proverb: If you have two loaves of bread, sell one and buy a lily.

More legend? "It [Bread and Roses] was the slogan of women garment workers in New York in 1908 when 15,000 women marched after the death of 128 women in a factory fire." In a website with a song by Michael Whelan, a new version of "Bread and Roses," intended as a song of Irish labor.
www.dcu.ie/~comms/hsheehan/b&roses.htm

I believe the reference is to the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in New York in 1911. Some 20,000 shirtwaist workers in New York went on strike in fall, 1909. In 1910, there was an arbitrated agreement, but it didn't include the Triangle company.
There is a song, the "Uprising of the 20,000." I don't believe it is in the Mudcat DT or Forum yet.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 12:04 AM

At the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border, there are two textile mill museums that are very worth visiting - one operated by the National Park Service in Lowell, Massachussets; and one operated by the State of Massachusetts in Lawrence. The museum in Lawrence gives more direct coverage of the labor movement. At Lowell, you can actually see the looms in operation. Together, these museums will bring this song to life for you.

Q, can you post "Uprising"?

-Joe Offer-


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: emjay
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 02:07 AM

Well, I don't know if the origin was in a Chinese Proverb, as Q states, or something else, but I am going to pass on another version. The "Old Ranger" who hosted a program called Death Valley Days back in the 50s, (some old B movie actor named Reagan did a stint on that program,too) but it was the Old Ranger who once recited: "If thou of fortune be bereft, and in thy store two loaves are left, Sell one and with the dole, sell hyacinths to feed the soul." Later I heard that originated with verses from the Koran. I have no idea if that is true or not.
John Denver sang Bread and Roses or one version of it. He probably recorded it. I heard him sing it in a concert and found it very affecting. I'm a sucker for a good song anytime.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 01:18 PM

Hi, emjay. The hyacinths proverb is Persian- Don't know, it may have come from the Koran.

Joe, I mentioned the "Uprising" song because I can't find it- just mentions. I will post a lyr. req.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 04:16 PM

"hyacinths to feed the soul" was written by the Iranian Sufi poet Shaikh Muslihuddin Sadi
(1184 - 1291)

Here's what else I found out about him: (by the way, I've loved and quoted those lines for years) --

Shaikh Sadi came to Baghdad from Shiraz and studied and lived there till 1226. While in Baghdad, there lived a well-known Sufi Shaikh Shihabuddin Suharwardi, of whose unselfish piety, Sadi made mention in his first major work Bostan.

Between 1226 and 1256, Shaikh Sadi travelled widely and visited Central Asia, India, Syria, Egypt, Arabia, Ethiopia and Morocco.

In 1256, after his return to Shiraz he completed Bostan a collection of poems on ethical subjects. And in 1258 he completed his Gulistan, a collection of moral stories in prose interspersed with grains of wisdom and always evidencing a practical train of thought. His knowledge of the world added much to his cosmopolitan views and thought. He sometimes, sounded Machiavellian as was evident from his famous adage that 'An expedient falsehood is preferable to a mischievous truth'. He preached a 'This-Worldliness' with only a moderate fatalism and he disapproved of extreme piety.

Shaikh Sadi was born in Shiraz, and he took his poetical pseudonym of Sadi from his patron Sad Bin Zangi, the ruler of Iran.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: GUEST,Carlos
Date: 04 Mar 05 - 01:02 AM

Check the CD "Fellow Workers" by Ani DiFranco & Utah Phillips. Phillips gives a brief description of the origins of the song, and the rest of the CD is excellent.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: LadyJean
Date: 04 Mar 05 - 01:21 AM

What I know is that I heard Judy Collins sing it at the 1989 March for Women's Equality Womens' Lives. The most amazing thing was that she sounded like Judy Collins, even over a truly abysmal P.A. system. A voice for the ages.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 02:33 PM

"Uprising of the 20,000"

I have been unable to find full lyrics, although there are many references to the poem. Partial lyrics:

And we gave new courage to the men
Who carried on in nineteen-ten
And shoulder to shoulder we'll win through
Led by the ILGWU
Hail the shirtmakers of nineteen-nine
Making their stand on the picket line,
Breaking the power of those who reign
Pointing the way, smashing the chain.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: GUEST,Tess
Date: 07 Mar 09 - 06:21 PM

We shall not be sweated" refers to the notorious sweat shops that employed young women - many of them young girls. Conditions in sweat shops (which still exist today in different parts of the world )included excessively long hours and 6 or 7 day weeks; Unsanitary and dangerous working conditions – with high accident rates; Low pay and often changes that effectively lowered hourly rates; Unscrupulous owners, and subcontractors who disregarded basic workers' rights and imposed unsafe working conditions on employees. The irony was that women were glad to get the work – it was considered "steady". That women found ways to fight back, and the role of unions played in this is still underappreciated. And yes, the poem came before the 1912 Lawrence Strike but was inspired by women workers


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 07 Mar 09 - 09:51 PM

A few posts up, it says,

"article removed by request (threat) of the author but can be found here:
http://www.boondocksnet.com/labor/history/bread_and_roses_history.html"

Not any more. My machine sez,

Safari can't open the page "http://www.boondocksnet.com/labor/history/bread_and_roses_history.html" because it can't find the server "www.boondocksnet.com".

So is the article still around somewhere? or is my copy of Safari playing games?


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 05:21 PM

Hi Gerry, thanks for pointing out that the article I posted was removed by author's request. He's got every right to do that, of course, but I still think it regrettable. If you were a member you could send me a PM about it!


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 11 Mar 09 - 06:51 PM

Susanne, you could email me at gerry@ics.mq.edv.av, just change each v to u.


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: David Ingerson
Date: 12 Mar 09 - 03:21 AM

Maybe I'm picking at nits here but what I have heard (from what I considered to be a reliable source--unfortunately I don't remember who) is that those working for universal suffrage called themselves suffragists. In an attempt to belittle and marginalize them many politicians, other leaders and the media labeled them suffragettes. That formerly insulting name stuck. I always use suffragist now, for what little difference it makes.

Can anyone confirm this story?

Cheers,

David


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Felipa
Date: 22 Feb 22 - 10:46 PM

some recordings:
recorded by Judy Collins

sung by Rosie Upton McGregor

sung by Cinncinati Women's Choir


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Felipa
Date: 02 May 23 - 10:26 AM

re David Ingerson's 2009 comment, in recent years I have come across Suffragists used a general term for people in favour of extending the vote (and in particular, to giving women the right to vote), with Suffragettes being used to describe those protesters who were willing to use more extreme methods of protest such as smashing windows.

The song and phrase Bread and Roses doesn't refer to voting rights but to workers' rights. But here is a link between the two, in reference to Rose Schneiderman (who spoke publically of women needing both bread and roses): " ... in 1907, at the First Convention of Women Trade Unionists, Schneiderman argued that the political enfranchisement of women was necessary to address their poor working conditions. Accordingly, she helped expand the women's suffrage movement – which was primarily associated with middle-class women – to include working-class women, especially factory workers, and to incorporate the issues they faced.
... ... In 1912, on behalf of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), she traveled throughout Ohio's industrial cities, giving lectures to working men to garner support for a state suffrage referendum. To win men's support, she emphasized how beneficial the enfranchisement of working women would be for labor issues. As she later explained, 'My argument to them was that if their wives and daughters were enfranchised, labor would be able to influence legislation enormously.' " Schneiderman, Rose (1967). All for One. New York: P.S. Eriksson. p. 122, cited in Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Schneiderman (accessed 2 May 2023)

Schneiderman's words tie in nicely with the Bread and Roses' line "As we come marching, marching, We battle too for men"


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Subject: RE: Origins: Bread and roses
From: Felipa
Date: 02 May 23 - 10:57 AM

are Martha Coleman and Caroline Kohlsaat names for the same composer??? [I've found an article saying attribution to Martha Coleman is erroneous: https://peacenews.info/node/10581/radical-music-bread-and-roses ]

"Caroline Kohlsaat was first to write a tune for it, in 1917. It appeared in a Rebel Songbook in 1935 (incorrectly credited to Martha Coleman)."
"... it wasn’t until Mimi Fariña adapted a new tune in 1974 that the song really took off. Mimi and Joan Baez (her sister) sang the song together. Judy Collins released it on her 1976 Bread and Roses album, reaching a much wider audience. Other less-widely-sung tunes followed, including by Leon Rosselson, Utah Philips and John Denver."

Hear the older tune and read some background notes (quoted below) at
https://jamesconnollyupstatenyiww.bandcamp.com/track/bread-roses-james-oppenheim-martha-coleman

Schneiderman linking universal suffrage and workers' rights:
"the concept phrase, 'bread and roses' was coined by socialist, unionist and suffragist Rose Schneiderman in a speech in which she advocated for the right to vote and for every woman’s right to 'life, and the sun and music and art.' She said 'What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist... The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. Help, you women of privilege, give her the ballot to fight with.'"

more about the connection with the textile workers' strike in Lawrence, Mass:
"The phrase became forever associated with workers in the textile mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts who went out on strike in 1912, a strike led by IWW fellow workers, including Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Bill Haywood, and Joseph Ettor. The successful strike became known as the 'Bread and Roses Strike.' Although there is no photographic record, Upton Sinclair included Oppenheim’s poem in his 1915 anthology, The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest and made the reference that connected the two for all time, 'In a parade of strikers of Lawrence, Massachusetts, some young girls carried a banner inscribed, We want Bread, and Roses too!'"


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