1. CALIFORNIA
MAKING IT HAPPEN:
LABOR THROUGH THE GREAT DEPRESSION
& BEYOND

2. MAKING IT HAPPEN
 The Great Depression and California: it came late to
California because its economy was diversified.
 Mid-19th century: a spurt of labor unions come to be, and
continue to flourish
 Frank Roney, Burnette Haskell, Andrew Furuseth, Alfred
Fuhrman, and even Woodrow Wilson had hands in
establishing better labor laws for manual labor workers.
 Labor strikes and riots - especially during smaller
"depressions" that affected the economy before the big one
hit - led many people to lose their lives.

3. MAKING IT HAPPEN
 tensions mount! The Wobblies (IWW, or Industrial Workers of
the World) carve quite the niche for themselves in the labor-
activist landscape
 1927: Mexican American filed workers grew frustrated. They
organized the Confederation of Mexican Workers to protest the
conditions under which they were treated
 The Criminal Syndicalism Act, passed in 1919 - due, in part,
because of the behavior of the Wobblies - did not tolerate such
protests or strikes.

4. MAKING IT HAPPEN
 Depression strikes: California is inundated midwesterners
looking for work
 Riots and protests worsened as the working conditions
worsened.
 The largest single agricultural strike: ten thousand cotton
pickers in the San Joaquin Valley, led namely by CAWIU
(Canners and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union )
organizers Patrick Chambers, Sam Darcy, and Caroline
Decker
 Union after Union, protest after protest, the Great
Depression had so many varying affects on the country.