biography
| name: |
Haywood, William Dudley
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| |
nickname Big Bill Haywood
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1869–1928)
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| biography:
| Labour leader, born in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. A miner at age nine, he worked at other jobs but kept returning to mining. Joining the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) (1896) and elected secretary-treasurer (1900), he led the WFM through several violent years of labour strife. In 1905 he co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) with the goal of eventually uniting all unions in ‘one big union’. Later that year he was accused of involvement in the murder of an anti-labour former governor of Idaho, Frank Steunenberg. Defended by Clarence Darrow, he was acquitted and became a hero to labour, but his continued radicalism, including a call to destroy capitalism, led the WFM to withdraw from the IWW, and to his dismissal (1918). A member of the Socialist Party from 1901, he was also dropped from that party's councils for advocating violence (1912). He gained a new following when he championed the organizing of unskilled workers and led textile strikes in Lawrence, MA (1912), and Paterson, NJ (1913). Convicted of violating wartime alien and sedition acts, he was sentenced to 20 years in jail (1918) but jumped bail and fled to the Soviet Union (1921). |
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