On November 5, 1916, 250 Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) members (“Wobblies”) sailed from Seattle to Everett on the steamship Verona to make street speeches in support of a shingle weavers strike. As the ship landed they were confronted by a crowd of several hundred residents. A gun battle erupted. Two townspeople and five Wobblies were killed.

Some key historical questions: Why did this incident occur? Why did a group of local residents gather to stop the Wobblies from landing and making their speeches? Why were the Wobblies intent on making street speeches in Everett? Why were local business and law enforcement people determined to keep them from landing? How did the tactics of the Wobblies and and the business groups that opposed them bring about this confrontation? Who was brought to trial? What was the outcome of the trial? How did this incident affect labor relations in Everett and the Pacific Northwest? What impact did it have on the IWW?

Be sure to consider other possibilities for historical questions as you analyze and interpret this topic.

Primary Sources:

Governor Lister’s Papers IWW Judiciary Files Secret Service Records	Washington State Archives – State Government Archives
King County Superior Court Criminal Case Files 8338, 8339 and 8340	Washington State Archives – Puget Sound Regional Archives
Oscar Carlson Papers Oral History Collection	Everett Public Library
Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation Casualty and Wreck Reports (#2506) RG21 Federal District Court Records 1917-1920 ARC Online Collections Digital Photographs attributed to the IWW and original case file for sedition (2 items found under Industrial Workers of the World)	National Archives - Pacific Alaska Region
Chronicles (brief account of the event and injured men brought to Providence Hospital)	Providence Archives, Seattle (Sisters of Providence)
Everett Prisoners Defense Committee Records IWW Seattle Joint Branch Office Records John L. Miller Reminiscences Regional Newspaper and Periodical Index Anna Louise Strong Papers	University of Washington Libraries
Everett Daily Herald: newspaper for Everett Everett Tribune: newspaper for Everett The Labor Journal: newspaper for Everett Trades Council Northwest Worker: Socialist newspaper based in Everett IWW Trial Evidence (MS 143)	Washington State Library

Secondary Sources:

Mill Town: A Social History of Everett by Norman H. Clark
Forested Land: A History of Lumbering in Western Washington by Robert E. Ficken
Lumber and Politics, The Career of Mark E. Reed by Robert E. Ficken
Washington: A Centennial History by Robert E. Ficken and Charles LeWarne
History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Volume VII: Labor & World Wa I, 1914-18 by Philip S. Foner
Radical Heritage: Labor, Socialism, and Reform in Washington and British Columbia, 1885-1917 by Carlos Schwantes
Rebels of the Woods: The IWW in the Pacific Northwest by Robert Tyler
"Bloody Sunday Revisited" Pacific Northwest Quarterly, April 1980 by William J. Williams
"The IWW and the Golden Rule" Sunset, the Pacific Monthly, February 1918 by Waler Woehlke

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