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