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125-472: Joseph James Ettor, known to his friends as "Joe" or "Smiling Joe," was born on October 6, 1885, in New York City , the son of a laborer who had emigrated to America from Italy . Ettor went to work at the age of 12 selling newspapers. He later worked as a waterboy on a railroad, as a saw-filer in a lumber mill, as a barrel-maker, as a shipyard worker, and in a cigar factory. Joe Ettor went to work for

250-507: A " worldwide proletariat "; and a theoretical mechanism by which to stop wars between nation states. Industrial unionists such as Ralph Chaplin and Stephen Naft also identified four different levels of general strike, rising from a localised strike, to an industry-wide strike, to a nationwide strike, and finally to a revolutionary strike. In his study of the debates within the Second International , Niemeyer perceived

375-470: A "national holiday". The Chartists planned to carry out their month-long national holiday in August 1839, but following Benbow's arrest, the campaign was abandoned. Benbow was tried and found guilty of sedition. Although he attempted to continue his Chartist activities from prison, after being excommunicated from the movement by Feargus O'Connor , Benbow ceased his political activities. In April 1842, after

500-631: A decade between Irish immigrants and Black people for work. Rioters burned the Colored Orphan Asylum to the ground. At least 120 people were killed. Eleven Black men were lynched over five days, and the riots forced hundreds of Blacks to flee. The Black population in Manhattan fell below 10,000 by 1865. The White working class had established dominance. It was one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American history . In 1886,

625-561: A fruit orchard in San Clemente, California , where he died in 1948. New York City New York , often called New York City or NYC , is the most populous city in the United States , located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors . The city comprises five boroughs , each coextensive with a respective county . The city is the geographical and demographic center of both

750-633: A general strike by "every profession useful to society" against the "civil, military, or religious agents of government", contrasting "the People" against the "men who do nothing". Chassebœuf's work held a great influence in Great Britain, where it was distributed throughout the country by the London Corresponding Society , while his chapter on the general strike was reprinted for decades after its initial publication. The idea

875-537: A general strike was taken up by members of the far-left , such as Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg , who saw it as an instrument for obtaining political concessions . Having been completely frozen out of the International, the anarchists resolved to hold their own International Anarchist Congress , which met in Amsterdam in 1907. The Congress played host to a fierce debate between Errico Malatesta ,

1000-487: A general strike. In 1864, the International Workingmen's Association (IWA) was established as a federation of trade unions by delegates from England and France. The French trade union delegates, such as Eugene Varlin , saw the nascent International as a means to coordinate support for strike actions by its members. In the first volume of Das Kapital , published in 1867, Karl Marx conceived of

1125-412: A general strike. Benbow called for workers themselves to declare a month-long "holiday", which would be financially supported first by workers' savings and then by exacting "contributions" from the wealthy. He also proposed the formation of workers' councils to keep the peace, distribute food and elect delegates to a congress , which would itself carry out wide-reaching societal reforms. Months after

1250-662: A number of anti-authoritarian and anti-clerical polemics. At meetings of the National Union of the Working Classes , Benbow expressed impatience with the progress of the Reform Bill and called for armed resistance against the government. In January 1832, Benbow published a pamphlet titled Grand National Holiday and Congress of the Productive Classes , in which he outlined his proposals for

1375-523: A part of the colony of New York . It became a center of slavery , with 42% of households enslaving Africans by 1730. Most were domestic slaves ; others were hired out as labor. Slavery became integrally tied to New York's economy through the labor of slaves throughout the port, and the banking and shipping industries trading with the American South . During construction in Foley Square in

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1500-406: A proponent of classical anarcho-communism , and Pierre Monatte , a disciple of the new current of anarcho-syndicalism . The latter upheld the central role of the trade union in organising a revolutionary general strike to overthrow capitalism, after which the unions would form the basis for the construction of a new stateless society with a socialist economy . But the advancement of syndicalism

1625-519: A reputation as a despotic leader. He instituted regulations on liquor sales, attempted to assert control over the Dutch Reformed Church , and blocked other religious groups from establishing houses of worship. In 1664, unable to summon any significant resistance, Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam to English troops, led by Colonel Richard Nicolls , without bloodshed. The terms of the surrender permitted Dutch residents to remain in

1750-531: A result of Sandy, and the economic losses in New York City were estimated to be roughly $ 19 billion. The disaster spawned long-term efforts towards infrastructural projects to counter climate change and rising seas, with $ 15 billion in federal funding received through 2022 towards those resiliency efforts. In March 2020, the first case of COVID-19 in the city was confirmed. With its population density and its extensive exposure to global travelers,

1875-598: A revolutionary general strike, which would overthrow the state and establish workers' control over the means of production . This view was particularly supported by the Spanish Regional Federation , which itself organised a general strike in Alcoy , although it was quickly put down by Spanish government forces. At the Geneva Congress of 1873 , Belgian delegates proposed the adoption of

2000-485: A speech denying the request, which was paraphrased on the front page of the New York Daily News as "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD." The Municipal Assistance Corporation was formed and granted oversight authority over the city's finances. While a resurgence in the financial industry greatly improved the city's economic health in the 1980s, New York's crime rate continued to increase through that decade and into

2125-458: A statewide general strike as a response to those legislative proposals. The SCFL website states, At SCFL's monthly meeting Monday, Feb. 21, delegates endorsed the following: "The SCFL endorses a general strike, possibly for the day Walker signs his 'budget repair bill.'" An ad hoc committee was formed to explore the details. SCFL did not CALL for a general strike because it does not have that authority. The largest general strike that ever stopped

2250-505: A store where he picked up his mail. But the plot was quickly detected and Ettor continued organizing the strike. During the walkout, which came to be known as the Bread and Roses Strike , IWW striker Anna LoPizzo was shot and killed. Joseph Caruso was charged with the murder and Ettor and Giovannitti, both of whom were giving speeches several miles away from the crime scene, were arrested as accomplices. The three were eventually acquitted in

2375-489: A strike vote without prior authorization of the national officers of the union concerned". The change was intended to "check the spread of general strike sentiment and prevent recurrences of what happened at Seattle and is now going on at Winnipeg ". The penalty for any unauthorised strike vote was revocation of that body's charter. As part of the fight for the Indian independence movement , leader Mahatma Gandhi promoted

2500-619: A trial before Salem judge Joseph F. Quinn . Ettor was one of the leaders of the Waiters strike of 1912 in New York City , and the Brooklyn barbers strike of 1913. The question of violence was a perennial matter of discussion and debate within the IWW. Some, like Giovannitti, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn , and Vincent St. John , took the position that while the union did not favor violence, it would not shy away from its use if necessary to accomplish

2625-467: Is an established safe haven for global investors. As of 2023 , New York City is the most expensive city in the world for expatriates and has by a wide margin the highest U.S. city residential rents; and Fifth Avenue is the most expensive shopping street in the world. New York City is home by a significant margin to the highest number of billionaires , individuals of ultra-high net worth (greater than US$ 30 million), and millionaires of any city in

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2750-866: The Atlantic port to the agricultural markets and commodities of the North American interior via the Hudson River and the Great Lakes . Local politics became dominated by Tammany Hall , a political machine supported by Irish and German immigrants . In 1831, New York University was founded. Several prominent American literary figures lived in New York during the 1830s and 1840s, including William Cullen Bryant , Washington Irving , Herman Melville , Rufus Wilmot Griswold , John Keese , Nathaniel Parker Willis , and Edgar Allan Poe . Members of

2875-909: The Crown , with as many as 10,000 escaped slaves crowded into the city during the British occupation, the largest such community on the continent. When the British forces evacuated New York at the close of the war in 1783, they transported thousands of freedmen for resettlement in Nova Scotia , England, and the Caribbean . The attempt at a peaceful solution to the war took place at the Conference House on Staten Island between American delegates, including Benjamin Franklin , and British general Lord Howe on September 11, 1776. Shortly after

3000-618: The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 , the IWPA armed and drilled its members into workers' militias, seeing violent action as a necessary complement to strike action. On 1 May 1886, the IWPA organised a nationwide general strike for the eight-hour day , which had been a focus of demands for Parsons and the Chicago anarchists. Throughout the United States, hundreds of thousands of workers went on strike. The general strike's epicenter

3125-668: The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1906 as an organizer, continuing in that capacity for the next decade. An outstanding and inspirational public speaker who was fluent in Italian and English, Ettor's earliest organizing work on behalf of the IWW took place in the Western United States, where he had worked unionizing miners and migrant laborers. He also had cut his teeth organizing foreign-born workers in

3250-552: The International Working People's Association (IWPA), which developed anarchist tendencies and held itself to be a continuation of the defunct IWA. Inspired by the example of the Paris Commune , IWPA members such as the Chicago anarchist Albert Parsons formulated a kind of revolutionary syndicalism that eschewed the general strike in favour of popular insurrection. In response to the repression of

3375-742: The New York City Fire Department and 71 law enforcement officers. The area was rebuilt with a new World Trade Center , the National September 11 Memorial and Museum , and other new buildings and infrastructure, including the World Trade Center Transportation Hub , the city's third-largest hub. The new One World Trade Center is the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere and the seventh-tallest building in

3500-692: The Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area , the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. by both population and urban area . New York is a global center of finance and commerce , culture , technology , entertainment and media , academics and scientific output , the arts and fashion , and, as home to the headquarters of the United Nations , international diplomacy . With an estimated population in 2023 of 8,258,035 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km ),

3625-1000: The Northwest Passage to the Orient for the Dutch East India Company . He sailed up what the Dutch called North River (now the Hudson River), named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange . Hudson claimed the region for the Dutch East India Company. In 1614, the area between Cape Cod and Delaware Bay was claimed by the Netherlands and called Nieuw-Nederland (' New Netherland '). The first non–Native American inhabitant of what became New York City

3750-576: The Statue of Liberty , a gift from France , was dedicated in New York Harbor. The statue welcomed 14 million immigrants as they came to the U.S. via Ellis Island by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is a symbol of the United States and American ideals of liberty and peace. In 1898, the City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then a separate city),

3875-709: The Stonewall riots were a series of violent protests by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village . They are widely considered to be the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights . Wayne R. Dynes , author of the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality , wrote that drag queens were

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4000-591: The United States , the 1835 Philadelphia General Strike lasted for three weeks, after which the striking workers won their goal of a ten-hour workday and an increase in wages. The idea of the general strike was first formulated by William Benbow , a Quaker and shoemaker that became involved in the British radical movement of the early 19th century. After he was arrested for his political activities, Benbow turned away from reformism and began to publish

4125-525: The general strike of 1904 resulted in no political reforms but strengthened the social movement; in 1908, syndicalists led a two-month general strike in Parma , but were likewise defeated; and in 1911, anarcho-syndicalists mobilised a general strike against the Italian invasion of Libya , blocking troop trains and even assassinating an army officer. This series of syndicalist-led general strikes brought about

4250-612: The steamship General Slocum caught fire in the East River , killing 1,021 people. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire , the city's worst industrial disaster, killed 146 garment workers and spurred the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and major improvements in factory safety standards. New York's non-White population was 36,620 in 1890. New York City

4375-470: The waterfronts since Dutch colonial times; reclamation is most prominent in Lower Manhattan, with developments such as Battery Park City in the 1970s and 1980s. Some of the natural relief in topography has been evened out, especially in Manhattan. General strike A general strike is a strike action in which participants cease all economic activity, such as working, to strengthen

4500-455: The "largest and in all probability the most important Convention ever held" by the organisation, in part for having engineered the "overwhelming defeat of the so-called Radical element" via crushing a " One Big Union proposition", and also for defeating a proposal for a nationwide general strike, both "by a vote of more than 20 to 1". The AFL amended its constitution to disallow any central labour union (i.e., regional labour councils) from "taking

4625-552: The 1990s, the African Burying Ground was discovered; the cemetery included 10,000 to 20,000 graves of colonial-era Africans, some enslaved and some free. The 1735 trial and acquittal in Manhattan of John Peter Zenger , who had been accused of seditious libel after criticizing colonial governor William Cosby , helped to establish freedom of the press in North America . In 1754, Columbia University

4750-538: The 19th century, the city was transformed by both commercial and residential development relating to its status as a national and international trading center , as well as by European immigration, respectively. The city adopted the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 , which expanded the city street grid to encompass almost all of Manhattan. The 1825 completion of the Erie Canal through central New York connected

4875-683: The Amsterdam Congress as a means to establish an international anarchist organisation, efforts in this direction were sabotaged by the conflict between the two factions. Despite all the calls for a general strike to prevent war, by the outbreak of World War I , many socialists dropped their anti-militarism and instead threw their support behind the Allied war effort. The Second International itself collapsed, leaving only anarcho-syndicalists and Bolsheviks to rally an anti-war opposition. The 1926 United Kingdom general strike started in

5000-700: The British occupation began, the Great Fire of New York destroyed nearly 500 buildings, about a quarter of the structures in the city, including Trinity Church . In January 1785, the assembly of the Congress of the Confederation made New York City the national capital. New York was the last capital of the U.S. under the Articles of Confederation and the first capital under the Constitution of

5125-530: The Bronx , and Staten Island . Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District, Manhattan , New York City has been called both the world's premier financial and fintech center and the most economically powerful city in the world. As of 2022 , the New York metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan economy in the world , with a gross metropolitan product of over US$ 2.16 trillion. If

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5250-597: The Chartists and took on a revolutionary character. But government forces intervened, cracking down on the protests and arresting its leaders, eventually forcing a return to work. Strike actions by workers in Barcelona played a prominent role in the Spanish Revolution of 1854 , which gave way to a progressive period that extended a number of civil liberties to Spanish workers. But labour unrest grew as

5375-845: The Confederacy of its main source of labour in what W. E. B. Du Bois described as a "general strike" in his book Black Reconstruction in America . However, this conception were rebuffed by African-American economist Abram Lincoln Harris , who dismissed Du Bois' claims of a general strike as fantastical. A. A. Taylor also rejected Du Bois' interpretation, noting that the flight from the plantations did not constitute an organised movement to achieve economic or political concessions. And American historian Arthur Charles Cole criticised what he described as "discrepancies between well established facts and extravagant generalization" in Du Bois' claims of

5500-399: The County of New York (which then included parts of the Bronx), the County of Richmond, and the western portion of the County of Queens. The opening of the New York City Subway in 1904, first built as separate private systems, helped bind the new city together. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication. In 1904,

5625-459: The Dutch West India Company relinquished its monopoly over the fur trade, leading to growth in the production and trade of food, timber, tobacco, and slaves (particularly with the Dutch West Indies ). In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant began his tenure as the last Director-General of New Netherland. During his tenure, the population of New Netherland grew from 2,000 to 8,000. Stuyvesant has been credited with improving law and order; however, he earned

5750-413: The Dutch colonial Director-General Peter Minuit , as charged by the Dutch West India Company , purchased the island of Manhattan from the Canarsie , a small Lenape band, for "the value of 60 guilders " (about $ 900 in 2018). A frequently told but disproved legend claims that Manhattan was purchased for $ 24 worth of glass beads. Following the purchase, New Amsterdam grew slowly. To attract settlers,

5875-478: The Dutch instituted the patroon system in 1628, whereby wealthy Dutchmen ( patroons , or patrons) who brought 50 colonists to New Netherland would be awarded land, local political autonomy, and rights to participate in the lucrative fur trade. This program had little success. Since 1621, the Dutch West India Company had operated as a monopoly in New Netherland, on authority granted by the Dutch States General . In 1639–1640, in an effort to bolster economic growth,

6000-412: The French CGT and Dutch NAS attempted to continue participation, but after being physically attacked while trying to join the London Congress of 1896 , the anarchists finally abandoned the International. Nevertheless, the anarchist defense of the general strike left a lasting legacy within the International. At the Paris Congress of 1900 , the French socialist politician Aristide Briand adopted

6125-403: The German delegates, who feared repression by the authorities. Finally, at the Copenhagen Congress of 1910 , a proposal for a general strike to prevent war was put forward by the French socialist Édouard Vaillant and the Scottish labour leader Keir Hardie , but this too was voted down by the other delegates. While it was consistently defeated by the social democrats, the anarchist proposal for

6250-414: The IWW participated in the Seattle General Strike, that action was called by the Seattle Central Labor Union, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL, predecessor of the AFL–CIO ). In June 1919, the AFL national organisation, in session in Atlantic City, New Jersey , passed resolutions in opposition to the general strike. The official report of these proceedings described the convention as

6375-436: The IWW, remaining in that capacity until 1914. On January 1, 1912, in accordance with a new state law, the textile mills of Lawrence, Massachusetts , posted new rules limiting the hours of workers to 54 a week, down from a standard of 56 previously in effect. It soon became clear that the employers had no intention of adjusting wage rates upwards to compensate for the lost work time, and a strike ensued. On January 12, 1912,

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6500-454: The International could be the organisation through which trade unions could build such strike actions into a revolutionary general strike, which would abolish capitalism and institute socialism. The proposals for a revolutionary general strike to overthrow the state were rejected by the Marxist faction , who instead proposed the creation of political parties to take state power. Through the General Council, which had centralised control over

6625-417: The International, Marx moved to expel Bakunin's anti-authoritarian faction at the Hague Congress of 1872 . In response, the expelled sections established the Anti-Authoritarian International , which was designed to operate according to a federal structure . The anti-authoritarians upheld the syndicalist view of using the International as a coordinating body to support strike actions and build them towards

6750-407: The Italian language branch of IWW Local 20 decided to send to New York City for Joe Ettor, the organization's top Italian language leader, to come to Lawrence and lead the strike. Ettor arrived with Arturo Giovannitti , secretary of the Italian Socialist Federation , a language federation of the Socialist Party of America and editor of the socialist newspaper Il Proletario [The Proletarian], who

6875-420: The Native Americans and epidemics brought on by contact with the Europeans caused sizeable population losses for the Lenape between 1660 and 1670. By 1700, the Lenape population had diminished to 200. New York experienced several yellow fever epidemics in the 18th century, losing ten percent of its population in 1702 alone. In the early 18th century, New York grew in importance as a trading port while as

7000-405: The New York metropolitan area were its own country , it would have the tenth-largest economy in the world . Despite having a 24/7 rapid transit system , New York also leads the world in urban automobile traffic congestion . The city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by market capitalization of their listed companies: the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq . New York City

7125-578: The Revolutionary War and escaped slaves, a significant free-Black population gradually developed in Manhattan. The New York Manumission Society worked for abolition and established the African Free School to educate Black children. It was not until 1827 that slavery was completely abolished in the state . Free Blacks struggled with discrimination and interracial abolitionist activism continued. New York City's population jumped from 123,706 in 1820 (10,886 of whom were Black and of which 518 were enslaved) to 312,710 by 1840 (16,358 of whom were Black). Also in

7250-415: The United States . As the U.S. capital, New York City hosted the inauguration of the first President, George Washington , and the first Congress , at Federal Hall on Wall Street . Congress drafted the Bill of Rights there. The Supreme Court held its first organizational sessions in New York in 1790. In 1790, for the first time, New York City surpassed Philadelphia as the nation's largest city. At

7375-423: The Wobbly conception of industrial democracy is intentionally not presented in detail by IWW theorists; in that sense, the details are left to the "future development of society". However, certain concepts are implicit. Industrial democracy will be "a new society [built] within the shell of the old". Members of the industrial union educate themselves to operate industry according to democratic principles, and without

7500-403: The World (IWW) began to fully embrace the general strike in 1910–1911. The ultimate goal of the general strike, according to Industrial Workers of the World theory, is to displace capitalists and give control over the means of production to workers. In a 1911 speech in New York City , IWW organiser Bill Haywood explained his view of the economic situation, and why he believed a general strike

7625-459: The anarcho-syndicalist model. Members of the Belgian section began to advocate for a dictatorship of the proletariat and electoralism , while the French and Italian sections moved towards anarcho-communism and proposed the theory of propaganda of the deed . By 1880, the debates within the International had led to its collapse. In 1881, a revolutionary socialist faction of the Socialist Labor Party of America (SLPA) split off and established

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7750-432: The area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême (New Angoulême ). A Spanish expedition, led by the Portuguese captain Estêvão Gomes sailing for Emperor Charles V , arrived in New York Harbor in January 1525 and charted the mouth of the Hudson River , which he named Río de San Antonio ('Saint Anthony's River'). In 1609, the English explorer Henry Hudson rediscovered New York Harbor while searching for

7875-423: The bargaining position of a trade union or achieve a common social or political goal. They are organised by large coalitions of political, social, and labour organizations and may also include rallies, marches, boycotts, civil disobedience, non-payment of taxes, and other forms of direct or indirect action. Additionally, general strikes might exclude care workers, such as teachers, doctors, and nurses. Historically,

8000-493: The beginning of the 1990s. By the mid-1990s, crime rates started to drop dramatically due to revised police strategies, improving economic opportunities, gentrification , and new residents, both American transplants and new immigrants from Asia and Latin America. New York City's population exceeded 8 million for the first time in the 2000 United States census ; further records were set in 2010 , and 2020 U.S. censuses. Important new sectors, such as Silicon Alley , emerged in

8125-534: The business elite lobbied for the establishment of Central Park , which in 1857 became the first landscaped park in an American city. The Great Irish Famine brought a large influx of Irish immigrants, of whom more than 200,000 were living in New York by 1860, representing over a quarter of the city's population. Extensive immigration from the German provinces meant that Germans comprised another 25% of New York's population by 1860. Democratic Party candidates were consistently elected to local office, increasing

8250-510: The city from New Jersey. The East River—a tidal strait —flows from Long Island Sound and separates the Bronx and Manhattan from Long Island. The Harlem River , another tidal strait between the East and Hudson rivers, separates most of Manhattan from the Bronx. The Bronx River , which flows through the Bronx and Westchester County , is the only entirely freshwater river in the city. The city's land has been altered substantially by human intervention, with considerable land reclamation along

8375-425: The city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York City has more than double the population of Los Angeles , the nation's second-most populous city. With more than 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York City is one of the world's most populous megacities . The city and its metropolitan area are

8500-439: The city rapidly replaced Wuhan , China as the global epicenter of the pandemic during the early phase, straining the city's healthcare infrastructure. Through March 2023, New York City recorded more than 80,000 deaths from COVID-19-related complications. New York City is situated in the northeastern United States , in southeastern New York State, approximately halfway between Washington, D.C. and Boston . Its location at

8625-447: The city's economy. The advent of Y2K was celebrated with fanfare in Times Square . New York City suffered the bulk of the economic damage and largest loss of human life in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks . Two of the four airliners hijacked that day were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, resulting in the collapse of both buildings and the deaths of 2,753 people, including 343 first responders from

8750-615: The city's ties to the South and its dominant party. In 1861, Mayor Fernando Wood called on the aldermen to declare independence from Albany and the United States after the South seceded, but his proposal was not acted on. Anger at new military conscription laws during the American Civil War (1861–1865), which spared wealthier men who could afford to hire a substitute, led to the Draft Riots of 1863 , whose most visible participants were ethnic Irish working class. The draft riots deteriorated into attacks on New York's elite, followed by attacks on Black New Yorkers after fierce competition for

8875-523: The class struggle, and about what it will take to execute an eventual general strike for the purpose of achieving industrial democracy. During the final general strike, workers would not walk out of their shops, factories, mines, and mills, but would rather occupy their workplaces and take them over. Prior to taking action to initiate industrial democracy, workers would need to educate themselves with technical and managerial knowledge in order to operate industry. According to labor historian Philip S. Foner ,

9000-551: The coal industry and rapidly escalated; the unions called out 1,750,000 workers, mainly in the transport and steel sectors, although the strike was successfully suppressed by the government. The year 1919 saw a number of general strikes throughout the United States and Canada , including two that were considered significant—the Seattle General Strike , and the Winnipeg General Strike . While

9125-574: The collective efficacy of strikes as a bargaining tool. An early predecessor of the general strike were the Jewish traditions of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years , the latter of which involves widespread debt relief and land redistribution . The secessio plebis , during the times of the Roman Republic , has also been noted as a precursor to the general strike. Early conceptions of

9250-688: The colony and allowed for religious freedom. In 1667, during negotiations leading to the Treaty of Breda after the Second Anglo-Dutch War , the victorious Dutch decided to keep the nascent plantation colony of what is now Suriname , which they had gained from the English, and in return the English kept New Amsterdam. The settlement was promptly renamed "New York" after the Duke of York (the future King James II and VII). The duke gave part of

9375-622: The colony to proprietors George Carteret and John Berkeley . On August 24, 1673, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War , Anthony Colve of the Dutch navy seized New York at the behest of Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest and rechristened it "New Orange" after William III , the Prince of Orange . The Dutch soon returned the island to England under the Treaty of Westminster of November 1674. Several intertribal wars among

9500-474: The current hierarchical ownership/management structure. Issues such as production and distribution would be managed by the workers themselves. In 1927 the IWW called for a three-day nationwide walkout to protest the execution of anarchists Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti . The most notable response to the call was in the Walsenburg coal district of Colorado , where 1,132 miners stayed off

9625-455: The definition and practice of a general strike changed in modern times to mean periodic days of mass action coordinated, often, by unions, but not an official or prolonged strike. Since then, in the US and Europe the general strike has become a tool of mass economic protest often in conjunction with other forms of electoral action and direct civil action. Two of the main forms of general strike are:

9750-417: The development of large housing tracts in eastern Queens and Nassau County , with Wall Street leading America's place as the world's dominant economic power. The United Nations headquarters was completed in 1952, solidifying New York's global geopolitical influence, and the rise of abstract expressionism in the city precipitated New York's displacement of Paris as the center of the art world. In 1969,

9875-406: The end of 1790, the national capital was moved to Philadelphia . During the 19th century, New York City's population grew from 60,000 to 3.43 million. Under New York State's gradual emancipation act of 1799, children of slave mothers were to be eventually liberated but to be held in indentured servitude until their mid-to-late twenties. Together with slaves freed by their masters after

10000-740: The establishment of the Italian Syndicalist Union (USI), which itself led a further series of general strikes that culminated in the Red Week of 1914. In 1889, the Labour and Socialist International was established by classical Marxists and social democrats , such as those of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). At the Brussels Congress of 1891 , it became clear that the International

10125-531: The establishment of which would put a final end to all wars. In a letter to Friedrich Engels , Marx himself rejected what he described as "the Belgian nonsense that it was necessary to strike against war". When Mikhail Bakunin joined the International the following year, he declared his own support for these proposals. Bakunin rejected political participation, instead advocating for workers to take strike actions to improve their working conditions. He argued that

10250-457: The founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island . In 1625, construction was started on a citadel and Fort Amsterdam , later called Nieuw Amsterdam (New Amsterdam), on present-day Manhattan Island. The colony of New Amsterdam extended from the southern tip of Manhattan to modern-day Wall Street , where a 12-foot (3.7 m) wooden stockade was built in 1653 to protect against Native American and English raids. In 1626,

10375-446: The general strike as a means by which to build class consciousness . At the International's Brussels Congress of 1868 , the Belgian delegate César De Paepe proposed that a general strike could be used to prevent the outbreak of war, which he considered to be a means for the ruling class to subordinate working people. He further declared that trade unions themselves constituted the mechanism for replacing capitalism with socialism ,

10500-471: The general strike as a revolutionary instrument, with the French anarchist Joseph Tortelier taking up the idea of the revolutionary general strike, which then spread to Italian and Spanish anarchists. Albert Parsons' wife Lucy Parsons also adopted the revolutionary general strike in her own platform, which became a founding precept of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The first trade union to adopt

10625-532: The general strike as a tactic for social revolution . This motion was supported by the Jura Federation , which additionally stressed the need for smaller strikes as a means to achieve wage increases. The discussions over strike action at the Geneva Congress lay the foundations for what was to become known as anarcho-syndicalism . But before long, the anti-authoritarians began to move away from

10750-795: The general strike were proposed during the Renaissance by Étienne de La Boétie , and during the Age of Enlightenment by Jean Meslier and Honoré Gabriel Riqueti . With the outbreak of the French Revolution , the idea was taken up by radicals such as Jean-Paul Marat , Sylvain Maréchal and Constantin François de Chassebœuf , who proposed a strike that included merchants and industrialists alongside industrial workers and farmworkers . In his essay Les Ruines , Chassebœuf proposed

10875-592: The general strikes of this period reached revolutionary levels: the Russian Revolution of 1905 demonstrated the efficacy of the general strike as a revolutionary instrument, but was ultimately suppressed; in 1909, the Catalan syndicalist union Solidaridad Obrera called a general strike against conscription for the Spanish invasion of Morocco , briefly bringing Barcelona under workers' control before

11000-599: The government of the new Republic of Cuba . In the Netherlands , the railroad strikes of 1903 resulted in harsh repression against the Dutch workers' movement. The Swedish general strike of 1909 was broken up without achieving its demands, accelerating the split of syndicalists from the social-democratic unions and the formation of the Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden (SAC). Some of

11125-473: The ice (and its subsequent retreat) contributed to the separation of what is now Long Island and Staten Island. That action left bedrock at a relatively shallow depth, providing a solid foundation for most of Manhattan's skyscrapers. The Hudson River flows through the Hudson Valley into New York Bay . Between New York City and Troy, New York , the river is an estuary . The Hudson River separates

11250-598: The idea of the revolutionary general strike in order to boost his popularity with the syndicalists. At the Amsterdam Congress of 1904 , another French socialist politician defended the general strike as a means to convince socialist voters that they were not merely supporting career politicians . At the Stuttgart Congress of 1907 , the anarchist calls for a general strike to prevent war were taken up by Gustave Hervé , but these were ardently opposed by

11375-674: The job, and only 35 went to work, a participation rate which led directly to the Colorado coal strike of 1927 . On 18 March 2011, the Industrial Workers of the World supported an endorsement of a general strike as a follow-up to protests against Governor Scott Walker 's proposed labour legislation in Wisconsin , following a motion passed by the South Central Federation of Labor (SCFL) of Wisconsin endorsing

11500-554: The last American stronghold in Manhattan, causing George Washington and his forces to retreat across the Hudson River to New Jersey , pursued by British forces. After the battle, in which the Americans were defeated, the British made the city their military and political base of operations in North America. The city was a haven for Loyalist refugees and escaped slaves who joined the British lines for freedom promised by

11625-419: The most populous urbanized area in the world in the early 1920s, overtaking London . The metropolitan area surpassed 10 million in the early 1930s, becoming the first megacity . The Great Depression saw the election of reformer Fiorello La Guardia as mayor and the fall of Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance. Returning World War II veterans created a post-war economic boom and

11750-560: The mouth of the Hudson River , which feeds into a naturally sheltered harbor and then into the Atlantic Ocean , has helped the city grow in significance as a trading port. Most of the city is built on the three islands of Long Island, Manhattan, and Staten Island. During the Wisconsin glaciation , 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, the New York City area was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet . The erosive forward movement of

11875-597: The new authorities again prohibited freedom of association and work stoppages, leading to the outbreak of the 1855 Catalan general strike , the first in Spanish history. After months of strike action and attempted negotitations, the general strike was suppressed and the draft constitution suspended in a coup by Leopoldo O'Donnell . During the American Civil War , millions of black slaves escaped southern plantations and fled to Union territory, depriving

12000-496: The only " transgender folks around" during the June 1969 Stonewall riots. The transgender community in New York City played a significant role in fighting for LGBT equality. In the 1970s, job losses due to industrial restructuring caused New York City to suffer from economic problems and rising crime rates. Growing fiscal deficits in 1975 led the city to appeal to the federal government for financial aid; President Gerald Ford gave

12125-519: The pamphlet's publication, Benbow was arrested for leading a 100,000-strong demonstration, which he had intended as a "dress rehearsal" for his proposed "national holiday". The passage of the Reform Act brought with it the collapse of the radical movement, including Benbow's National Union. But six years later, in an atmosphere of rising disillusionment with the progress of political reform, the nascent Chartist movement adopted Benbow's platform for

12250-427: The political strike, which aims to achieve political and economic reform ; and the revolutionary strike, which aims to overthrow capitalism and the state in a social revolution . Other forms, identified by Gerhart Niemeyer, include: the general strike as a "revolutionary exercise" which would eventually lead to a transformation of society; a one-day demonstration on International Workers' Day , aimed at identifying

12375-482: The premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States . As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York City, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. In 2021, the city was home to nearly 3.1 million residents born outside the U.S., the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world. New York City traces its origins to Fort Amsterdam and a trading post founded on Manhattan Island by Dutch colonists around 1624. The settlement

12500-603: The revolt's suppression by government forces; and following the Revolution of 1910 in Portugal , a syndicalist-led general strike briefly brought Lisbon under workers' control before being repressed, resulting in the formation of the National Workers' Union  [ pt ] by Portuguese socialists and anarchists . In Italy , there was a particularly large wave of general strikes during this period:

12625-528: The revolutionary general strike into its platform was the French General Confederation of Labour (CGT). The CGT launched its own campaign for workers themselves to institute the eight-hour day, culminating in a general strike which secured French workers a reduction in working time and workload, an increase in wages and the introduction of the weekend . The CGT's example accelerated the spread of revolutionary syndicalism throughout

12750-597: The second Chartist Petition was rejected by the British Parliament, demands for fairer wages and conditions across many different industries finally exploded into the first general strike in a capitalist country. The strike began in the coal mines of Staffordshire and soon spread throughout Britain, affecting factories , mills and mines from Scotland to South Wales . Although the general strike started as an apolitical demand for better working conditions, by August 1842, it became directly associated with

12875-471: The social revolution. Ettor, on the other hand, shared the orientation of "Big Bill" Haywood that the only kind of force to which the organization could lend its name was the use of the general strike for the overthrow of capitalism . Ettor became a member of the executive council of the IWW. In 1916, he left the IWW along with Flynn after a dispute over the Mesabi range strike. In later years, Ettor ran

13000-458: The socialist-friendly general strike for political rights within the system and the general strike as a revolutionary mechanism to overthrow the existing order—which he associated with a "rising anarcho-syndicalist movement"—as mutually exclusive. Niemeyer believed that the difficulty arose from the fact that the general strike was "one instrument", but was frequently considered "without distinction of underlying motives". The Industrial Workers of

13125-561: The steel mills and shoe factories of the East. Ettor was active in the 1907 lumber strike in Portland, Oregon , the 1909 McKees Rocks Strike and another lesser-known steel strike later that year in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania , a strike of Pennsylvania coal miners in 1909–10, and a Brooklyn shoe factory strike in 1910–11. In 1908, Ettor was named to the governing General Executive Board of

13250-417: The term general strike has referred primarily to solidarity action , which is a multi-sector strike that is organised by trade unions who strike together in order to force pressure on employers to begin negotiations or offer more favourable terms to the strikers; though not all strikers may have a material interest in each other's negotiations, they all have a material interest in maintaining and strengthening

13375-453: The toil of textile workers, Ettor called for an even larger walkout. "Monday morning you have got to close the mills that you have caused to shut down, tighter than you have them now." Ettor then set up fourteen strike committees based on nationality, and began meeting daily with everyone from the mayor of Lawrence to the various strikers in committee. Mill owners instantly recognized Ettor's power and tried to discredit him by planting dynamite in

13500-408: The use of what is called Hartal , a mass protest and a form of civil disobedience that often involved a total shutdown of workplaces, offices, shops, and courts of law. In America, after the passage of the anti-union Taft–Hartley Act in 1947, the general strike changed from a tool of labor strike solidarity into a general form of social, political, and economic protest. US Congress passed the law in

13625-545: The wake of the women-led 1946 Oakland General Strike . It outlawed actions taken by unionized workers in support of workers at other companies, effectively rendering both solidarity actions and the general strike itself illegal. Before 1947 and the passage of the Taft–Hartley Act the term general strike meant when various unions would officially go on strike in solidarity with other striking unions. The act made it illegal for one union to go on strike to support another. Hence,

13750-534: The working class. But the working class, on the other hand, has always been taught to take care of the capitalist's interest in the property. Bill Haywood believed that industrial unionism made possible the general strike, and the general strike made possible industrial democracy. According to Wobbly theory , the conventional strike is an important (but not the only) weapon for improving wages, hours, and working conditions for working people. These strikes are also good training to help workers educate themselves about

13875-529: The world by pinnacle height, with its spire reaching a symbolic 1,776 feet (541.3 m), a reference to the year of U.S. independence . The Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan began on September 17, 2011, receiving global attention and popularizing the Occupy movement against social and economic inequality worldwide. New York City

14000-515: The world, bringing with it a wave of general strikes at the turn of the 20th century, to mixed results. Although the Belgian general strike of 1893 was halted in order to prevent damage to the workers' movement, it eventually won its demand of universal manhood suffrage . Following the Cuban War of Independence , in 1902, anarcho-syndicalists organised the country's first general strike against

14125-513: The world. In 1664, New York was named in honor of the Duke of York (later King James II of England ). James's elder brother, King Charles II , appointed the Duke as proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland , including the city of New Amsterdam , when the Kingdom of England seized it from Dutch control. In the pre-Columbian era , the area of present-day New York City

14250-422: Was Juan Rodriguez , a merchant from Santo Domingo who arrived in Manhattan during the winter of 1613–14, trapping for pelts and trading with the local population as a representative of the Dutch colonists. A permanent European presence near New York Harbor was established in 1624, making New York the 12th-oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the continental United States , with

14375-566: Was heavily affected by Hurricane Sandy in late October 2012. Sandy's impacts included flooding that led to the days-long shutdown of the subway system and flooding of all East River subway tunnels and of all road tunnels entering Manhattan except the Lincoln Tunnel . The New York Stock Exchange closed for two days due to weather for the first time since the Great Blizzard of 1888 . At least 43 people died in New York City as

14500-539: Was a prime destination in the early 20th century for Blacks during the Great Migration from the American South, and by 1916, New York City had the largest urban African diaspora in North America. The Harlem Renaissance of literary and cultural life flourished during the era of Prohibition . The larger economic boom generated construction of skyscrapers competing in height. New York City became

14625-497: Was already divided over two main tactical issues: electoral politics , which the socialists embraced, but anarchists generally opposed; and, the general strike as a mechanism to prevent war, which anarchists supported, but socialists refused to endorse. As a result, at the Zürich Congress of 1893 , anarchists were ejected from the International and banned from attending future congresses. Anarchist trade union delegates from

14750-400: Was blocked chiefly by Malatesta, who objected to the class reductionism of the syndicalists. Malatesta was particularly critical of the general strike, which he dismissed as a "magic weapon" that was incapable of fighting a violent conflict with state militaries, which had the ability to starve out workers in the event of such an industrial dispute. Although the anarcho-syndicalists had seen

14875-809: Was founded. The Stamp Act Congress met in New York in October 1765, as the Sons of Liberty organization emerged in the city and skirmished over the next ten years with British troops stationed there. The Battle of Long Island , the largest battle of the American Revolutionary War , was fought in August 1776 within modern-day Brooklyn. A British rout of the Continental Army at the Battle of Fort Washington in November 1776 eliminated

15000-441: Was in Chicago, where protests against the police repression of striking workers escalated into a riot . Eight of the protest's organisers, including Parsons, were executed by hanging on charges of conspiracy. In the wake of their execution, the IWPA demand for the eight-hour day spread around the world and 1 May was declared International Workers' Day . Inspired by the IWPA's general strike, European anarchists began to reconsider

15125-534: Was inhabited by Algonquians , including the Lenape . Their homeland, known as Lenapehoking , included the present-day areas of Staten Island , Manhattan , the Bronx , the western portion of Long Island (including Brooklyn and Queens ), and the Lower Hudson Valley . The first documented visit into New York Harbor by a European was in 1524 by explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano . He claimed

15250-521: Was justified, The capitalists have wealth; they have money. They invest the money in machinery, in the resources of the earth. They operate a factory, a mine, a railroad, a mill. They will keep that factory running just as long as there are profits coming in. When anything happens to disturb the profits, what do the capitalists do? They go on strike, don't they? They withdraw their finances from that particular mill. They close it down because there are no profits to be made there. They don't care what becomes of

15375-566: Was later taken up by the British economist Thomas Attwood and the French communist Louis Auguste Blanqui . During the early years of the Industrial Revolution , an ill-defined conception of a general strike was expressed by workers in Nottingham and Manchester , but it lacked a systematic formulation. There were periodical strikes throughout the early 19th century that could loosely be considered as 'general strikes'. In

15500-468: Was named New Amsterdam in 1626 and was chartered as a city in 1653. The city came under English control in 1664 and was temporarily renamed New York after King Charles II granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York , before being permanently renamed New York in November 1674. New York City was the U.S. capital from 1785 until 1790. The modern city was formed by the 1898 consolidation of its five boroughs : Manhattan , Brooklyn , Queens ,

15625-461: Was not himself at the time a member of the IWW. Ettor instantly called on all his skills, including his ability to speak five languages, to rally the strikers. On his first afternoon in Lawrence, he addressed thousands of strikers, fostering solidarity and discouraging violence. "All the blood that is spilled in a strike is your blood," he told strikers. Denouncing the mill owners, sympathizing with

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