In February, 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, a small group of unionized workers at the Electric Auto-Lite company of Toledo, Ohio, went on strike. When management failed to sign a promised contract by the April 1 deadline, more workers went on strike. And this time they had help from the Unemployed League. What started as a small walkout turned into a massive demonstration by 10,000 strikers, and a battle with the Ohio National Guard, and is now regarded as one of the most important strikes in U.S. history.

Joining me on this episode to help us learn more about the Auto-Lite strike is labor historian Dr. Bradley Sommer.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The episode image is the front page of The Toledo News-Bee on May 24, 1934.

 

Selected Sources:

• “The More Things Stay the Same: Lessons from 1934,” by Bradley Sommer, Labor and Working-Class History Association, June 17, 2015.
• “From Toledo to Standing Rock,” by Bradley Sommer, Jacobin, October 2016.
• “Lou Hebert on the Auto-Lite Labor Strike,” C-SPAN, July 22, 2019.
• “Auto-Lite Strike,” Toledo Lucas County Public Library.
• “Blue-collar origins: Toledo is a city built on the back of labor,” by Jay Skebba, The Toledo Blade, September 2, 2019.

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