Bread and Fire: A Novel
First Edition. Novel in which the editor of a New York socialist newspaper becomes a worker in a Pennsylvania (Bethlehem) steel mill, among other places, and participates in the 1919 industry-wide steel strike. According to Blake, “the strike, as well as the other incidents of factory life, is knowledgeably and credibly portrayed.” BLAKE p.245; COAN p.87; HANNA 3656.
Charles Rumford Walker, (1893-1974).
Bread and Fire.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1927.
Lehigh University Catalog Record: https://asa.lib.lehigh.edu/Record/10549016
A version of this text has been digitized and is available through Hathitrust.
If you're interested in learning more about the historical events that inspired this novel, please refer to the links below:
The Great Steel Strike and its Lessons by William Z. Foster, published by B. W. Huebsch, Inc., 1920, pp. 182-4. Accessed via Project Gutenberg, released 5 May 2011.
"TROOPERS STOP MEETINGS" Pittsburgh: Sept. 21, in The New York Times, 22 September 1919.
"BETHLEHEM WORKERS TO ASK RECOGNITION" Bethlehem: Sept. 21, in The New York Times, 22 September 1919.
"'Mother' Mary Harris Jones urging on steel workers during the 1919 Steel Strike." image from the Library of Congress, on ExplorePAHistory.com.
The significance of unionization at Bethlehem Steel in 1910 and 1918-1919 by Peter M. Pizzola, 1996, Lehigh University, Master's Thesis.
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