Bread and Roses Strike of 1912: Two Months in Lawrence, Massachusetts, that Changed Labor History

Area colleges and universities played competing roles in aiding and opposing the strike of 1912. The president of Harvard gave students the permission to serve in their local militia companies on strike duty in Lawrence during final exams. Harvard students who were absent for a final exam due to their service with the militia were automatically awarded a C in their school marks.

Alternatively, strikers received lots of support from several women's colleges, including Smith College, Mt. Holyoke College, Wellesley College, and Radcliffe College (now part of Harvard). Ellen Hayes and Vida Dutton Scudder, prominent professors at Wellesley College, visited Lawrence to speak before a strike meeting. This stirred up controversy and led many at Wellesley to demand that Hayes and Scudder resign. At the other women's colleges student groups formed to raise money for the strikers and to confront the issues that the strike was popularizing.