A bit of background to BREAD AND ROSES - we sing this in the Solidarity Choir. There are two different tunes. We sing the Mimi Farina one. It can all be found in the DT.

By the beginning of the twentieth century the industrialisation of Western Europe and the USA was bringing new social and political movements into world history. Trade Unions were making headway in a grim struggle to win for working people a fairer share of the benefits of industrialisation, and women too began to organise and campaign for their right to vote, and to earn a decent living from their work. Like today, many women were employed in the textile industry for very low wages.

In 1912 during a massive strike in Lawrence Massachusetts a woman mill-worker carried a placard which read "We Want Bread! And Roses Too!!". The strike not only won important concessions from the wool companies, it also inspired James Oppenheim to write the poem "Bread And Roses".

Jenny