The Wobblies
Thematic Chair-Making, Ship-Breaking, Pole-Dancing, Coal-Mining, Thread-Cutting, Cart-Pushing, Cane-Cutting, Chain-Forging: Films on Work & Labor Curated by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
The Industrial Workers of the World, or IWW, billed itself as “One Big Union,” and welcomed all workers, regardless of their trade, gender, or race. Wobblies, as they were known, came from textile mills, copper mines, logging camps, and everywhere in between, and together generated more controversy, perhaps, than any other organized-labor group in U.S. history. Made in 1979, The Wobblies is enriched by the reminiscences of IWW members, who, in their eighties and nineties, are lucid and lively on the subject of the union’s heyday during the 1910s. Intercut with remarkable archival footage, their accounts of textile strikes, pitched battles over free-speech rights, lumberjack work stoppages, and the methods and theories of industrial sabotage are set to the sounds of rousing music straight from the “little red songbook.” AK
Directors
Stewart Bird, Deborah Shaffer
Producers
Stewart Bird, Deborah Shaffer
Editors
Stewart Bird, Deborah Shaffer
Cinematographers
Sandi Sissel, Judy Irola, Peter Gessner, Bonnie Friedman
Release Year
1979
Festival Year
2010
Country
United States
Run Time
89 minutes