Robert L Tyler

Rebels of the Woods is the story of the Industrial Workers of the World in the Pacific Northwest. This is a scholarly work but quite accessible. It doesn't attempt to be the whole story of the Wobblies but it does provide some background to the intellectual underpinnings of that union.

It doesn't spend a lot of time on big names like Bill Haywood, the figure usually identified with the Wobblies. Rather it is a history of the IWW in the Pacific Northwest, its rise, successes and ultimately its decline under through government repression during World War I.

The book does a great job of explaining some key events-the free speech movement in Spokane and Everett, which ultimately led to the bloody Verona incident, the success of the timber strike in 1917, and the Centralia massacre in 1919.

Author Robert Tyler also suggests there may have been role for the IWW in the General Strike, not in any organized way because most of the union members were arrested or became "dual card holders" in AFL craft unions. However these old wobblies may have supported the more radical action of the general strike over merely sympathizing with the striking shipyard workers.

An interesting and informative read.… (meer)