The film is one of the first pictures to advance the feminist social and political point of view. Its plot centers on a long and difficult strike, based on the 1951 strike against the Empire Zinc Company in Grant County, New Mexico. In the film, the company is identified as "Delaware Zinc," and the setting is "Zinctown, New Mexico." The film shows how the miners, the company, and the police react during the strike. In neorealist style, the producers and director used actual miners and their families as actors in the film. The film was called subversive and blacklisted because the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers sponsored it and many blacklisted Hollywood professionals helped produce it.
A very nice compilation for Labor Day!
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting getting all the things on Labor Day today. I especially noted that it was a reaction from then President Cleveland in 1894 to placate the angry working classes, though it had been unofficially going for a few years before. Still, when congress decided to make the celebration in September instead of May 1st -- like the rest of the world -- they did so because they wanted to avoid anyone making connections to the Haymarket style protests or socialist parallels.
I had always wondered why the US had an established Labor Day different from the rest of the world... now I know it was an intervention from another reactionary president!
Besos, not borders,
Ana/Adjunct Justice
The Ludlow Massacre in Colorado is another part of Labor Day history that does not get much attention. After posting, I remembered that Jonathan Rees co-coordinated the 2014 Ludlow Centennial. I'll add links for that to the Zinn and the DU Ludlow Project. Then I want to look for for Labor Day links immigrants and migrant workers. Immigrants were central in developing the US Labor movement. Maybe that's why the Rethuglicans don't want more of them.
DeleteI couldn't resist the labrador/Labor Day pun.