marked one of their first large attempts to organize Mexican workers in the Southwest. According to historian Katherine Benton-Cohen, the strike for the IWW was "a harbinger" of later IWW activity in Bisbee, Arizona. While the WFM local union survived the strike, claiming about 40 members in 1914, the company refused to rehire many of the strikers, and by the end of 1913, many of them had left El Paso. Following the strike's collapse, Tanner helped to get the strikers jobs elsewhere throughout the American Southwest. According to an article published by the WFM shortly after the strike's end, the strike may have been undercut by a large availability of workers caused by a mass influx of refugees to El Paso during the Mexican Revolution. Speaking of the strike in a 1996 book, historian Camille Guerin-Gonzales stated that, despite its failure, "Mexican immigrant workers had demonstrated their organizational abilities and showed their willingness to fight exploitative conditions", while historian Monica Perales stated in a 2010 book that, "[a]lthough it ultimately failed, the action represented a critical moment in border labor history and revealed that the Mexican workers were willing to risk their jobs and their lives to be respected as smelter men". According to Mellinger, "[m]ore Mexican working-class community activism developed in the Southwest soon after this strike", and Mellinger theorizes that some of the workers who left El Paso and took up jobs in other metallurgical fields throughout the American Southwest may have been involved in other labor disputes over the next several years. It wouldn't be until the 1930s and 1940s that another major push for unionizing the Mexican workers of the smelter came to fruition, this time under the leadership of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and the 1913 strike would remain the last one at the plant until a 1946 strike that also involved workers for the Phelps-Dodge smelting plant in El Paso. In the 1970s, residents of Smeltertown were forced to relocate after environmental studies revealed hazardous amounts of lead in the area caused by the smelter. Notes References Sources Further reading 1913 in Texas 1913 labor disputes and strikes Asarco Copper industry Hispanic and Latino American history History of El Paso, Texas Industrial Workers of the World in Texas Labor disputes in Texas Labor disputes led by the Industrial Workers of the World Mexican-American history Manufacturing industry labor disputes in the United States Progressive