MIA: History: USA: Publications: The Lumberjack/Voice of the People
The Lumberjack/Voice of the People
1913-1914
Introduction
An archive of a Wobbly Weekly Newspaper covering New Orleans, Orleans, Louisiana and focussing (at first) on the Lumberjacks of which it was named. It ran for the first half of 1913 before being revived as The Voice of the People.
The Lumberjack was founded in January 1913 in the midst of a protracted labor strike by the Brotherhood of Timber Workers (B.T.W.) in Merryville, Louisiana. Published by the Southern District of the National Industrial Union of Forest and Lumber Workers, the weekly paper was edited by Covington Hall (1871-1952), a member of the radical wing of the Socialist Party in New Orleans.
Hall had previously served as assistant editor of Oscar Ameringer’s Labor World, which Ameringer moved from Columbus, Ohio, to New Orleans in 1907. As editor of the Lumberjack, Hall called for the formation of timber workers’ unions in western Louisiana and east Texas and reported at length on the activities of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.), with which the B.T.W. had affiliated itself at its annual convention in Alexandria, Louisiana, in 1912. In addition to news of local strikes and the labor movement, the paper carried news of timber workers’ strikes elsewhere in the United States together with editorials on general topics such as child labor and the Ku Klux Klan, which Hall commented on from a socialist viewpoint. Also of interest is Hall’s original poetry on labor-related subjects.
In July 1913, timber industry leaders persuaded the Lumberjack’s printer in Alexandria to stop printing the paper. Publication resumed in New Orleans under a new title, the Voice of the People. The Lumberjack’s motto, “An Injury To One Is An Injury To All,” was retained, as was its four-page, three-column format. The focus of reporting initially remained the same; by 1914, however, having grown frustrated with largely unsuccessful efforts to organize southern timber workers, Hall was devoting greater attention to the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest and Montana, as well as to labor disputes associated with the United Fruit Company in Central America and the Caribbean.
Vol. 2, no. 46 was published concurrently, but with completely different contents, in New Orleans and Portland, Oregon. In July 1914, lack of support in the South finally led Hall to transfer publication of the paper in full to Portland, where he served as editor for two months before turning the job over to B. E. Nilsson and returning to New Orleans. The Voice of the People appears to have found no more of an audience in the Northwest than in the South, and its last issue was published on December 3, 1914.
Text from libcom.org
The Lumberjack
All issues of Lumberjack were downloaded from libcom.org here: https://libcom.org/library/lumberjack. File names follow libcom conventions.1913
Vol.1, No. 2, January 16, 1913
Vol.1, No. 3, January 23, 1913
Vol.1, No. 4, January 30, 1913
Vol.1, No. 5, February 6, 1913
Vol.1, No. 6, February 13, 1913
Vol.1, No. 7, February 20, 1913
Vol.1, No. 8, February 27, 1913
Voice of the People
All issues of Voice of the People were scanned by Tim Davenport from microfilm from the Library of Congress.1913
Vol. 2, No. 31, August 7, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 32, August 14, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 33, August 21, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 34, August 28, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 35, September 4, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 36, September 11, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 37, September 18, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 38, September 25, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 39, October 2, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 40, October 9, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 41, October 16, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 42, October 23, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 43, October 30, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 44, November 6, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 45, November 13, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 46, November 20, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 47, November 27, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 48, December 4, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 49, December 11, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 50, December 18, 1913
Vol. 2, No. 51, December 25, 1913
1914
Vol. 4, No. 52, January 1, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 2, January 8, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 3, January 15, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 4, January 22, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 5, January 29, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 6, February 5, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 7, February 12, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 8, February 19, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 9, February 26, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 11, March 12, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 12, March 19, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 13, March 26, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 24, April 2, 1914 [Last issue]
Vol. 4, No. 16, April 16, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 17, April 23, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 30, August 6, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 31, August 13, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 32, August 20, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 33, August 27, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 34, September 3, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 35, September 10, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 36, September 17, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 37, October 1, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 38, October 8, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 39, October 15, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 40, October 22, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 41, October 29, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 42, November 5, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 43, November 12, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 44, November 19, 1914
Vol. 4, No. 45, November 26, 1914
Last updated on 12 December 2018