The first general strike in the United States was largely organized by the largest and one of the most important 1880's what?
1877 St. Louis general strike Generally accepted as the first general strike in the United States, the 1877 St. Louis general strike grew out of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. The general strike was largely organized by the Knights of Labor and the Marxist-leaning Workingmen's Party, the main radical political party of the era. When the railroad strike reached East St. Louis, Illinois in July 1877, the St. Louis Workingman's Party led a group of approximately 500 people across the river in an act of solidarity with the nearly 1,000 workers on strike. The party transformed, through speeches and organization, an initial strike among railroad workers into a strike by thousands of workers in several industries for the eight-hour day and a ban on child labor. One speaker was noted to say, At another large rally a black man spoke for those who worked on the steamboats and levees. He asked, "Will you stand to us regardless of color?" The crowd shouted back, "We will!"
Ellen Dawson Ellen "Nellie" Dawson Kanki (14 December 1900 - 17 April 1967), best known as Ellen Dawson, was a Scottish-American political activist and trade union organizer in the textile industry. Dawson is best remembered as an active participant in three of the greatest textile strikes of the 1920s; the 1926 Passaic textile strike, the 1928 New Bedford textile strike, and the 1929 Loray Mill strike in Gastonia, North Carolina. An activist in the Communist Party USA during the 1920s, Dawson was the first woman ever elected to a leadership position in an American textile union.