Joe Hill ― The Iww & the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture

The only biography of musician, IWW labor activist, and martyr Joe Hill to fully explore his politics and cultural contributions as well as his lasting effect on the radical counterculture

This expansive work covers the life, times, and culture of that most famous member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) or “Wobblies”—songwriter, poet, hobo, thinker, humorist, martyr—Joe Hill. Many aspects of the life and lore of Joe Hill receive their first and only discussion in IWW historian Franklin Rosemont’s opus. In great detail, the issues that Joe Hill raised and grappled with in his life: capitalism, white supremacy, gender, religion, wilderness, law, prison, and industrial unionism are shown in both the context of Hill’s life and for their enduring relevance in the century since his death. Collected too is Joe Hill’s art, plus scores of other images featuring Hill-inspired art by IWW illustrators. As Rosemont suggests in this remarkable book, Joe Hill never really died as he lives in the minds of rebels as long as his songs are sung, his ideas are circulated, and his political descendants keep fighting for a better day.

Franklin Rosemont was a poet, an artist, and an activist who was involved in the history of surrealism and the radical labor movement in the United States. He is the author ofAn Open Entrance to the Shut Palace of Wrong Numbers and several collections of poetry and the editor of several books, includingWhat Is Surrealism? Selected Writings of Andre Breton. He was the cofounder of the Chicago Surrealist Group.David Roediger is a professor of American studies and history at Kansas University. He is the author ofHow Race Survived U.S. History and The Wages of Whiteness and the coauthor ofOur Own Time: A History of American Labor and the Working Day. His articles have appeared inAgainst the Current, History Workshop Journal, New Left Review, theProgressive, and Radical History Review. He lives in Chicago.