The Paterson Silk Workers Strike of 1913: Labor Strife in America

We selected the topic, the Paterson Silk Strike of 1913 because we wanted to learn about the city where we live, Paterson. We thought about how back then the working environment was extremely different from today. We both thought it would be good to learn about the history of our own city. So we started researching the topic and were engaged in learning about it. Our topic overall was very interesting.We were interested when we first heard about the topic. During our research, we found many resources like news articles from the time showing who the strikers were and their survival. We also found a poster of the Paterson Silk Strike Pageant.

Some flyers showed how people were informed of the meetings and when it started. The books that we used were helpful. One book is “Herbst, J. A., and Catherine Keene. Life and Times in Silk City: a Photographic Essay of Paterson, New Jersey. The American Labor Museum, 1984.” It showed us the perspective of a striker and showing us their struggles. We also went to a few museums in our city. The museum that we found the most useful for our research was the Labor Museum. We were learning about the strike from experts on the topic and were able to use their words in our documentary. Another place where we conducted research was the American Labor Museum.When we first looked into how we can put our information together, a documentary came to mind first. We decided that it would be a good way to present lots of information about our topic in a simple way. We would also be able to post visuals of our topic, such as newspapers about the strike to show the judges what was really going on during the strike. After all of our research was done, we needed to write a script. It had all of the information that we would say during the documentary. It would also tell us about the transitions with pictures and such while we were filming and editing our documentary. Making the documentary was a bit of a challenge because we were having trouble finding sufficient and entertaining information for our audience. We also had some trouble looking for music, so we then choose “Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture.” Because of this, we were able to make our documentary.

The Paterson Silk Strike was a battle about workers with owners and an industrial system for workers rights. The strikers fought, for the right of having safer work conditions, higher wages, and fewer work hours. They wanted more, instead of the little they had. They struck for the things that they wanted for the hard, dangerous work. So the Industrial Workers of the World had helped the strikers with their quest. The silk workers demanded, and with the IWW’s help, tried to resolve the conflict but failed. The IWW and strikers worked together, though was brief, help create a compromise that changed the course of the worker's rights.