ABSTRACT
Bill Haywood had cut his teeth with the Western Federation of Miners, a union that won tough strikes in isolated areas by building strong networks of family and community support. The Industrial Workers of the World's dream of overcoming the divisions of sex, skill, and nationality to build working-class solidarity came closest to fulfillment in the famous "bread-and-roses" strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, a center of wool cloth production. The word had dangerous connotations, but Flynn described sabotage as nonviolent resistance used by disgruntled employees when they could not get their demands met through strikes. Workers in Paterson would stage future strikes, winning an eight-hour day in 1919, but in 1913 the leaders of the IWW felt the sting of defeat. A strong community of radical Italian immigrants rallied to their defense, bringing Flynn into a fateful meeting with Carlo Tresca. Flynn's vision of women's freedom differed, however, from that of most of her feminist contemporaries.
