>Margaret Coleman wrote:
> > Good one, Gene, but I was refering to the nineteenth century
>labor song "Bread and
>> Roses." It was the hook of a song sung by laboring women who said they were
>> fighting not just for bread, but for roses too--as in more than
>>basic subsistence.
> > If I could remember all the lyrics, I would put them down
>here......maggie coleman
>
>I've read conflicting versions of the origins of that song, is author,
>the events that triggered it, etc. I vaguely remember one that had it
>written several years after the Lawrence strike and by a male onlooker,
>or something like that. So you have a definite version from a definite
>source?
>
>Carrol
***** Document 27: James Oppenheim, "Bread and Roses," in Poems of
Justice, compiled by Thomas Curtis Clark (Chicago: Willett, Clark &
Colby, 1929), 124-25.
Introduction
James Oppenheim was born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1882 but was
raised in New York City. After attending Columbia University for a
period he taught briefly and then began a literary career, writing
short stories and poetry. He edited a literary magazine, The Seven
Arts, but controversy stirred by the magazine's editorial opposition
to U.S. entry into World War I undermined its fundraising and led to
its demise. There are various accounts of how Oppenheim came to write
the poem and use the title. Oppenheim's header to the poem's first
publication suggests that strike supporters in Lawrence first used
the phrase "Bread and Roses," but the editor found no independent
evidence to support this reference, which may be apocryphal. Rose
Schneiderman's early use of the phrase in her suffrage speeches
offers the first documented use of "Bread and Roses" in the way
Oppenheim draws on the phrase in his poem. For a fuller exploration
of the evidence concerning the origin of the phrase "Bread and Roses"
in association with the Lawrence Strike, see Kerri Harney, "Bread and
Roses in United States History: The Power of Constructed Memory,"
also on this website <http://womhist.binghamton.edu/law/thesis.htm>.
Bread and Roses
By James Oppenheim
In a parade of the strikers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, some young
girls carried a banner inscribed, "We want Bread, and Roses too!"
As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead,
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is for bread we fight for -- but we fight for roses, too!
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!
<http://womhist.binghamton.edu/law/doc27.htm> *****
Also see <http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/breadrose.html>.
Listen to the song at <http://www.albany.edu/wc/news/bread_rose.ram>.
Yoshie
