Category: Stickerettes

I.W.W. “stickerettes” in 1917 publication + other blog posts on “stickerettes”

I found another early reference to I.W.W. stickerettes from The International Socialist Review dated February 1917 (Vol. XVII, No. 8, page 455). An article called “Hitting the Trail in the Lumber Camps” by Harrison George states, “WHILE the Lumber Workers’ Union, the bull-pup of the Industrial Workers of the World, was in convention at Portland, Ore., during the last week of December, the rumblings of revolt began half way across the continent among workers of that industry in Minnesota. North and westward of the Mesaba Iron Range lies millions of acres of swamp lands. In the primeval state, these swamps…

I.W.W. stickerettes at Cornell University

I made another trip to Cornell last month to look at the I.W.W. stickerettes in the Kheel Center for Labor Management Documentation & Archives at the Catherwood Library. Cornell has quite a collection of I.W.W. materials, in fact. I was particularly interested in the collection 5210G (Boxes 1 and 9). One of the pages in the scrapbook below called the little adhesives “dodgers,” too, but I’ve never seen that term used before. Some were printed by an I.W.W. office at 308 Stewart Avenue in Ithaca, NY. The librarian told me that “Vernon Briggs Jr. donated the materials in 5210G, but…

Early history of I.W.W. “stickerettes” or “silent agitators”

[Note: a shorter version of this essay first appeared as “Silent Agitators: Early Stickerettes from the Industrial Workers of the World” in Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics & Culture. Volume 6 (February 2018), PM Press. See also the timeline I put together of early advertisements and newspapers articles about I.W.W. stickerettes.] Founded in Chicago in 1905, the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W. or “Wobblies”) fought for economic justice for the working class using many tactics, including the widespread use of cartoons, slogans, leaflets, poetry, and songs that appealed to uneducated, immigrant, and itinerant workers. As early as…

I.W.W. “stickerettes” or “silent agitators” newspaper articles and advertisements – timeline

Special thanks to DJ Alperovitz and the I.W.W. Materials Preservation Project for sending me the earliest example of a stickerette from 1906 and for the advertisements from the I.W.W. newspapers Solidarity and Industrial Worker (primarily 1910-1917 with some later ads done in 1933). The other newspaper articles reported on Ralph Chaplin, who designed many of the first stickerettes, and the over 100 I.W.W. members who were arrested by the U.S. government in September 1917 for alleged acts of sabotage under the Espionage Act of 1917. Ralph Chaplin edited Solidarity from March 10 through September 6, 1917, according to the Sacramento…

1937 Advertisement for I.W.W. “Stickerettes”

Someone who asked to remain anonymous kindly sent me a gift out of the blue last month of the May 1937 edition of the I.W.W. publication, The One Big Union Monthly. Featured on the back cover is an advertisement for stickers on sale for $2.00 per thousand. It still surprises me how prolific these stickerettes/stickers were in the early 1900s and how rare they are to find today. While I recognize most of the images, the two black and white cartoons featured here are completely new to me. These are some of the actual stickers. This was also on the…

Vote Republican 1926 sticker

I recently came across a U.S. political sticker from Iowa in 1926 that is one of the first of its kind, from what I’ve seen, that isn’t an I.W.W. Wobbly labor union stickerette (see previous posts on I.W.W. stickerettes).  What’s interesting, however, is how Ralph Chaplin, a 1910s-era I.W.W. key artist/agitator, talked about printed labels on various fruit and vegetable cartons that helped inspire him to create political stickers.  I’ll dig up those references for a later post.

Two new “stickerettes”

I’ve acquired two new unused stickerettes for my collection and sticker exhibition.  The smaller stickerette is a real favorite.  NYU has one, too.  It measures 3 1/4 x 2 3/8 inches, and the text reads: “The capitalist’s [heart] is in his pocketbook, And he uses the [club] Over you so he can wear [diamonds].  By organizing right, we can give him a [spade] With which to earn an honest living.” The second stickerette measures 6 x 6 inches and is the largest and rarest I’ve ever come across.  It was issued by the S.F. (San Francisco) Trades Union Promotional League…

“Stickerette” ad in 1917 I.W.W. Solidarity newspaper

This is the first image I’ve ever seen of someone putting up stickers.  I found it in two issues of an I.W.W. newspaper called Solidarity published in Cleveland on September 9 and 16, 1917.  Stickerettes were advertised in Solidarity between at least June 24, 1916, and August 25, 1917, though I’ve seen a reference that they might have been advertised as early as November 20, 1915.  In 1916, one could buy stickerettes in packages – 110 per package cost 15 cents, or a box of 1,100 cost $1.00. I’ve been trying to find photographs of stickerettes put up on buildings or…

More on I.W.W. “stickerettes”

I’ve had the luxury of spending several hours during the last few days doing research on the I.W.W. stickerettes that I posted about previously on June 3, 2012 and July 28, 2012.  I’ve decided that I need to include some historical background information about stickerettes in my sticker book, which I am tentatively calling Takin’ it to the Streets and Stickin’ it to the Man: Contemporary Sticker Art as Cultural Expression and Political Protest.  It’s a terribly long title.  The other title I’ve been thinking of lately, however, is simply Paper Bullets.  Short and sweet! The commercial artist Ralph Chaplin…