Masters Thesis

I can’t speak: social control and the iww free speech movement

Beginning in the spring of 1910, downtown Fresno became the center of a heated free speech strike. Police Chief Shaw ordered the arrest of members of the Industrial Workers of the World, known as Wobblies, for giving speeches on downtown street corners without a permit. Wobblies flocked to Fresno to protest the policy by attempting to give speeches and being themselves arrested. This thesis offers a rhetorical criticism of the rhetoric of control that was expressed by the ruling class of Fresno. The policies restricting speech on public streets, and local newspaper reports that were written during the strike comprised the rhetoric of control that sought to silence the Wobblies. This thesis also critiques the rhetoric of resistance produced by the IWW. This rhetoric of resistance was composed of the rhetorical acts, firsthand accounts and contemporaneous stories published in the IWW’s own press. This study examines the use of the war metaphor as found in each of these rhetorics, and it identifies the images that were used in each of these rhetorics to support the metaphor. The thesis makes the argument that in the rhetoric of control the war metaphor and the images used in its support, restricted the popular understanding of the strike resulting in negative outcomes. In the rhetoric of resistance, the war metaphor and images used by the IWW worked to build support for the union and galvanize the union membership.

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