During the pit of the Depression, the IWW led auto strikes in Detroit at Briggs and Murray Body that helped lay the groundwork for the CIO victories later in the decade. The organization that made these strikes possible was underlaid by a vigourous social life whose backbone was the women and the ethnic organizations of the IWW.

A Wobbly Wedding

Frank and Jenny Cedervall were married in Detroit in 1933. Looking back, they agree that the IWW social life was half the battle of organizing. Their wedding ceremony under the auspices of the IWW was an example of the vitality of those times.

Frank Cedervall, at 29, met Jenny Annakite, 19, while teaching her Junior Wobbly class. The Junior Wobblies at that time included everyone under 21. In the spring of 1933, they drove all the way to Monroe, Michigan to be married by a justice of the peace. Frank explains that while they didn’t believe that marriage had to be legalized to be moral, they felt that it was wise to avoid giving the police any grounds to harass them.

When they returned to Detroit, their friends insisted that they have a proper IWW wedding. It took place on May 2, 1933, with Lloyd Jones, an IWW member and an ordained Pentecostal minister, presiding. The IWW hall at 3747 Woodward was packed with friends and Wobblies to hear the following ceremony and have a party later:

It is not only customary and regular but a duty impelled upon us to unite this couple of rebels that have so joyously but falsely united themselves under a form of society and in a tradition contrary to their own social ideals.

We now ask the Bride and Groom to join their right hands.

Fellow Worker Cedervall, do you agree herewith to united under the regular laws governing social functions of the IWW to this fair maiden, Miss Jenny Annakite?

Do you agree to accept her as your lawfully wedded Wobbly companion.

Do you agree to use direct action on the job?

Do you agree never to walk out on strike against your wife and future offspring?

Do you also agree to love, nourish, and cherish her through sickness, health, and poverty without cheating, scabbing, or discriminating on her or any Wobbly born to her?

We, the IWWs, do now pronounce you husband and wife.

Frank notes in retrospect that the one-sided vows were a little sexist.

In addition to weddings, the Detroit IWW social life included a dance every Saturday night and a forum every Friday, both open to the public. The Finnish IWW group staged plays and musicals, and the IWW made a 15-minute radio broadcast on WEXL every night. Tireless organizing created such a demand for red cards that people stood in line at the hall while Jenny and three other women made out cards as fast as they could write.

Women Wobblies

The proportion of women paying dues was small compared to the amount of work the women did. Frank and Jenny recall some reasons. First, many of the women did not work outside the home, and thus were not recruited through the organizing campaigns in industry to the degree that men were. Many housewives who were sympathetic to the union were active without being members. However, husbands and fathers often took a dim view of their participation and refused to let them go to meetings.

Changing Communities

The ethnic groups – Finnish, Hungarian, Rumanian and others – were another part of the backbone of the organizing efforts. They provided the financial and education resources to get the drives started. By that time, the ethnic groups were in decline. The new minority group, Southern blacks migrating north, didn’t come into the union with the cohesiveness of the Finns and Hungarians. While blacks came into the union as individuals during the organizing drives, the IWW didn’t gain a toehold in the growing black community.

Detroit has changed since 1933. The city’s population is over 60% black, and the old ethnic groups are a fading social force. In Detroit, as nationwide, more women of all ages are working for wages than are working solely in the home. And the auto plants have now been organized for four decades.

Some basic things haven’t changed. As President Reagan leads us into another Great Depression, the need for one democratic union for all workers, employed and unemployed, remains. The need for respect for cultural differences, and the strength that can be derived from cultural organizations, now applies as much as it did in the 1930s. The growing forces of racism now divide those of us at the bottom of the barrel – the blacks, Appalachians, and new arrivals from the Middle East. The need to establish the idea that the IWW is a place for women as full members is still with us. And the need for bread and roses too will always be a constant of successful organizing.

Transcribed by Juan Conatz