I can finally confirm dates of some of the earliest I.W.W. stickers in my collection. The August 31, 1918, edition of The Literary Digest ran an article called “Branding the I.W.W.” that features three stickers with the caption, “Typical I.W.W. Propaganda—Stickers Circulated in the Northwest.” Unfortunately, the article doesn’t say anything about the stickers themselves, but it describes the conviction of 100 I.W.W. members for treason soon after the beginning of World War I and the subsequent passage of the U.S. Espionage Act. The artist and poet Ralph Chaplin, whom I’ve written about in previous posts and for the People’s…
Three new Industrial Workers of the World “stickerettes” for the Street Art Graphics digital archive! For more on “stickerettes,” see my previous posts: I.W.W. “stickerettes” “Stickerettes at NYU’s Tamiment Library More on I.W.W. “stickerettes” “Stickerette” ad in 1917 I.W.W. Solidarity newspaper 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…
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…
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…
The Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at NYU’s Tamiment Library contains close to 30 original stickerettes, i.e., the “silent agitators” I wrote about in my previous post. I went down to NYC last week to see them in person and had no idea there would be so many different designs. From what I’ve been reading, some were used as early as the 1910s, while a later one referred to the fighting in Viet Nam (sic). I also saw a catalogue for an exhibition entitled “Wobbly” 80 Years of Rebel Art that was held at the Labor Archives and Research Center…
After learning recently about S.D.S. stickers (Students for a Democratic Society) in the U.S., I’ve been expanding my collection with a few more examples like these from the 1970s. Online today, I came across something even older – stickers from the early 1910s-1920s that were created for the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W) and used as “silent agitators” or “silent organizers.” On Facebook, the Labor Archives and Research Center at San Francisco State University features six stickers, which at the time were called “stickerettes,” and writes, “they were easy to anonymously stick on surfaces throughout the job site (including…
TRAVELING EXHIBITION – NOW AVAILABLE FOR 2025-2028 110+ Years of Adhesive Art & Culture Dial it up to eleven with the expanded blockbuster edition! In the last forty years, street art has exploded dramatically from the spray-painted graffiti that vandalized subway stations, back alleys, and train yards during the 1970s and ’80s. Today, new forms of visual communication are created in public spaces, often attracting viewers in more interactive and contemplative ways. Street art stickers, or simply “stickers,” have burst forth as a vehicle for self-expression and as an effective way to engage passersby. Stickers may be used to “tag”…
Exhibition and Book Proposal Catherine Tedford Hidden in plain sight, publicly placed stickers with printed images and/or text have been used for decades as a form of sociopolitical protest or to advocate sociopolitical agendas. In the United States, for example, as early as the 1910s, labor unions such as the Industrial Workers of the World created the first “stickerettes” or “silent agitators” to oppose poor working conditions, intimidate bosses, and condemn capitalism. Later, during World War II, Allied and Axis countries dropped gummed “paper bullets” or “confetti soldiers” from the sky as a form of psychological warfare to demoralize both…
Since 2010, I have had the good fortune to collaborate with Oliver Baudach on four traveling sticker exhibitions. Oli is the founder and director of Hatch Kingdom Sticker Museum in Berlin, Germany, the world’s first and only of its kind. Our international collections complement each other well in that his collection of over 30,000 stickers focuses on urban art/artists and street and skateboard culture, while my collection of over 18,000 stickers focuses on political stickers. Digital image files of our scanned stickers from two exhibitions are also sorted by themes, countries, and dates. Scroll down to see examples from Paper…