Workers: Lucy Parsons

Lucy Parsons (c.1851-1942) was an anti-capitalist labor organizer.. She founded the Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World) and The International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), and advocated for the 8-hour workday.    

For Further Reading:

• WBEZ Reporter Arionne Nettles 
• Book Review of Lucy's Parsons biography 
• 25 min audio story on Lucy Parsons via WBEZ’s Curious City  
• Lucy Parsons as defined by (Industrial Workers of the World) 

This month we’re talking about workers: Women who fought for labor rights and shaped the way we do business today. They advocated and innovated to make the “office” – wherever it is – a more equitable place.

History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.

Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello from Wonder Media Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this
is Womanica. This month, we're talking about workers, women who
fought for labor rights and shaped the way we do
business today. They advocated and innovated to make the office
wherever it is, a more equitable place. Today, we're talking
about an outspoken labor organizer who used her racial ambiguity

(00:24):
to rise to the top of the labor movement. Let's
talk about Lucy Parsons. Little is really known about Lucy
Parson's upbringing, and that was exactly how she wanted it.
In one telling, she claimed that her mother was Mexican
and her father Indigenous. In another, she reversed the parentage.

(00:48):
We know today that she was probably born in Virginia
in the early eighteen fifties to an enslaved woman named Charlotte.
There's a good chance her father, Thomas, owned the plantation.
Towards the end of the Civil War, Thomas moved his
operations to Texas. Once there, it's thought that Charlotte and
her family escaped. They reappeared in Waco, a central Texas

(01:11):
city with a strong community of free black people. There
were work opportunities, schools, jobs, Lucy got married young to
an older man. She had a child who died in
infancy and the marriage didn't last. In the early eighteen seventies,
Lucy met a white former Confederate soldier a newspaper editor

(01:33):
named Albert Parsons. They said they were married, though a
few records exist to support that claim. Albert had political
aspirations but failed when the Democrats gained control of the
Texas legislature, so he and Lucy packed up and moved
to Chicago. Chicago was a place of opportunity for Albert

(01:55):
and Lucy. The city of Big Shoulders was exploding inside
and becoming a major industrial hub. There, Lucy reinvented herself.
She took advantage of being racially ambiguous and started telling
people she was Mexican, a Native American. She became a seamstress,
and she and Albert immersed themselves in the socialist labor movement.

(02:17):
Albert quickly became a prominent face, often speaking to audiences
in the tens of thousands about the socialist cause. Lucy
thrived behind the scenes, strategizing the next move By the
eighteen eighties, industrial workers had grown tired of labor inequities
and began protesting their mistreatment. In some cases, strikes became violent,

(02:39):
with police and protesters going head to head. On May fourth,
eighteen eighty six, labor organizers gathered in Haymarket Square in Chicago.
A few days earlier, they'd kicked off a massive strike
in support of an eight hour work day. Violence between police,
striking workers and strike breakers had erupted police opened fire,

(03:01):
killing six people. Now in Haymarket Square, nearly two thousand
workers in activists joined together in peaceful protest, one of
them being Lucy's husband Albert, who spoke. When police arrived
at Haymarket Square to disperse the crowd, someone threw a bomb.
Police once again opened fire. In the chaos, seven officers

(03:24):
and at least one civilian died and countless others were injured.
Lucy and Albert were actually at a bar during the riots,
but that didn't stop the police from arresting them both
the next day, along with six other socialist radicals. Albert
was tried for murder. During the trial, Lucy advocated for
her husband and began getting attention. Lucy, a beautiful young

(03:48):
mother with a sharp tongue, was captivating. Unfortunately for Lucy,
the more she spoke, the more interested reporters became in
her and Albert's story. Some of them went so far
as to interview people the couple knew back in Waco, Texas.
But when confronted with her racial identity, both Lucy and
Albert doubled down. She wasn't black. She was Mexican, a

(04:09):
Native American. She'd grown up an orphan, but she knew
her maiden name, Gonzalas, or maybe it was her middle name.
Despite public obsession with the trial, Albert was convicted of
conspiracy to commit murder on November eleventh, eighteen eighty seven.
He was executed. After Albert's death, Lucy dove even deeper
into radical labor theory and became one of the most

(04:32):
recognized voices in the labor movement. She edited a monthly
anarchist communist newsletter that broadcast labour struggles nationwide. She spoke
to striking factory workers and joined them in Boycott's and
as she continued to deny her own identity, Lucy focused
on the struggles of the white working class. In the

(04:53):
early nineteen hundreds, Lucy helped found the industrial workers of
the world known as the Wobbles and began editing their
pag The Liberator. She also began advocating for women's autonomy,
the right to divorce, the right to remarry, the right
to birth control. Her feminism and her socialism intersected as
she worked more with unemployed women advocating for better hunger policies.

(05:17):
Lucy's power was in her contradictions. She was a pretty
young widow dressed in proper hats, but her fiery rhetoric
was unmatched. A favorite praise of hers was that she
loved to run the guillotine machine that would cut off
the heads of capitalist robber barons. The Chicago Police Department
called her more dangerous than a thousand rioters. Lucy continued

(05:41):
giving speeches into her eighties. On March seventh, nineteen forty two,
Lucy was killed in an accidental fire. Though her library
of over fifteen hundred books on sex, socialism, and anarchy survived,
they were confiscated by the FBI. All month were talking
about workers. For more information, find us on Facebook and

(06:02):
Instagram at Wamanica podcast special thanks to Lise Kaplan, my
favorite sister and co creator. Talk to you tomorrow