[SOCIALISM - WIIU] DANNENBERG, Karl (ed)

First of May Magazine. A Journal of Constructive Revolution [2 Annual Issues]

Detroit / Troy: Literature Bureau of the Workers' International Industrial Union, 1919 - 1923. First Edition. Quarto (30cm). Staple-bound pictorial card wrappers; 40pp; illus. Issue for 1919 in clean, unmarked condition, Very Good or better. Issue for 1923 worn, with wrappers darkened and stained, contents slightly age-toned, with corner-creases and occasional thumb-soil; complete and just Good. Annual souvenir of the Workers' International Industrial Union.

The WIIU, the labor union arm of the Socialist Labor Party, was effectively formed in 1908 following the split of the SLP faction from the Industrial Workers of the World; the group identified itself as the 'Detroit IWW' until 1915, at which point the name was changed to Workers International Industrial Union (a typically De Leonist mouthful!). The WIIU never throve; its membership probably never numbered above about 2500 workers, a number that dropped quickly following the death of Daniel De Leon in 1915. By the 1920s the WIIU was an afterthought, and the group was finally disbanded in 1925.

Contents include articles by Michael Altschuler, Herman Richter, W.J. Dodge, Henry Kuhn and others; literary contributions by Samuel French, Fred H. Hartmann, Richard Le Galienne, William Morris, and Walt Whitman; portraits and reproductions of artworks by Eugene Higgins, Jan Styka, and Eugene Chaperon. An attractive and rather uncommon American labor souvenir book; OCLC notes 6 physical locations for any issue (2018); the 1923 issue, printed on clearly inferior paper (probably a reflection of the Union's impending demise), appears to be in the catalogue of only a single OCLC member institution (NYPL).

Price: $300.00

Go Back