‘Solidarity Forever:’ Songs of unions and labor

COURTESY
SPRINGFIELD, Vt. — All are welcome to the Springfield Town Library at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 13 to celebrate the 2018 Vermont Reads title “Bread and Roses, Too,” by Katherine Paterson, through song.

For centuries, working people have used songs to express protest and hope and as an organizing tool. In the U.S., the I.W.W (or Wobblies), which led the 1912 Bread and Roses strike, was especially known for its rousing and satirical songs, including the anthemic “Solidarity Forever.”

Using live and recorded music, Mark Greenberg will survey American labor songs from the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, through the Wobblies, and into the coal wars of the 1930.

Greenberg is an educator, writer, musician, and media producer. He has taught at Goddard College and the University of Vermont and produced award-winning recordings and radio and video documentaries. He wrote for the JVC-Smithsonian Folkways Video Anthologies of Music and Dance of the Americas, Europe, and Africa and has recorded music by recent immigrants and refugees in the state for the Vermont Folklife Center’s New Neighbors project.

In related news, Paterson, the book’s author, will be speaking at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 26 at the Springfield High School Auditorium. Free copies of Paterson’s book will be available at the library as long as supplies last.

This program is sponsored by the Friends of the Springfield Town Library, Springfield Town Library, Vermont Humanities Council, Springfield Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Springfield Art and Historical Society, and the Springfield Co-op. It is free, accessible to all people, and open to the public.