Agnes Burns Wieck Explained

Agnes Burns Wieck
Birth Name:Agnes Burns
Birth Date:January 4, 1892
Birth Place:Sandoval, Illinois
Death Date:October 22, 1966 (aged 74)
Occupation:Labor activist, journalist, editor
Children:David Wieck

Agnes Burns Wieck (January 4, 1892 – October 22, 1966) was an American labor activist and journalist, described as "a Coal Field 'Hell Raiser'".[1]

Early life

Agnes Burns was born in Sandoval, Illinois.[2] Her parents were both born in Kentucky; her father, Patrick Burns, was a coal miner active in union organizing.[3] She remembered accompanying her mother to ask farmers for food during an 1897 bituminous coal strike.[4] She trained as a teacher and attended a course on labor organizing at the University of Chicago, on a scholarship from the National Women's Trade Union League.

Career

Wieck was a teacher for five years as a young woman.[5] She participated in strikes by women workers in Boston and Philadelphia. From 1924 to 1930 Wieck wrote for The Illinois Miner, and was its women's page editor. In 1928, she actively supported the presidential campaign of Al Smith.[6]

During the Illinois Coal Wars, Wieck was founder and first president of the short-lived Illinois Women's Auxiliary of the Progressive Miners of America (PMA) in 1932.[7] [8] She led a January 1933 march to the Illinois state capitol by the Illinois Women's Auxiliary,[9] including 54 recent widows and orphans from the 1932 mine disaster at Moweaqua; she presented a petition to the governor.[10] In August 1933 she was "dragged", "manhandled", arrested and jailed, after a PMA meeting was attacked by the United Mine Workers and the county sheriff's department.[11] She worked with Thyra J. Edwards to include Black women in the auxiliary's work.[12] She was compared to Mother Jones,[13] and a 1933 headline described her as a "Coal Field 'Hell Raiser'". In 1934 she represented Illinois coal field women at a women's conference of the International League against War and Fascism in Paris.[14]

Wieck moved to New York in 1934 with her husband and son. She was editor of The Woman Today. She also wrote about racism in mining country for The New Republic.[15] During World War II, she worked to get her son and other imprisoned conscientious objectors amnesty and better prison conditions.[16] [17] [18]

Publications

Personal life and legacy

Agnes Burns married labor activist Edward A. Wieck in 1921. Their son was philosophy professor and activist David Wieck. She died in 1966, aged 74 years. Her papers are held in the Reuther Library at Wayne State University.[24] In 1985, she was inducted posthumously into the Illinois Labor History Society's Hall of Honor. Her son wrote a biography, Woman from Spillertown: A Memoir of Agnes Burns Wieck (1991), published by Southern Illinois University Press.[25] [26] A 2015 radio documentary about Wieck aired on public radio stations in Illinois.[27]

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Swart . Charles M. . 1933-10-22 . Agnes Burns Wieck, Coal Field 'Hell Raiser' . 25 . The Decatur Daily Review . 2022-07-04 . Newspapers.com.
  2. News: Gelman . Ben . 1992-01-05 . Wieck Fought for Miners and their Wives . 33 . Southern Illinoisan . 2022-07-04 . Newspapers.com.
  3. News: 1934-01-15 . Mrs. Agnes Wieck's Father Dies at 74 at Home of his Son . 1 . Belleville Daily Advocate . 2022-07-04 . Newspapers.com.
  4. Book: Gorn, Elliott J. . Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America . 2015-06-02 . Farrar, Straus and Giroux . 978-1-4668-9400-6 . 121 . en.
  5. Web site: Steinhour . Gale . July 22, 1992 . Memories of mining . 2022-07-04 . Illinois Issues.
  6. News: 1928-10-27 . Smith Rally in Smithton Tomorrow . 2 . The Belleville News-Democrat . 2022-07-04 . Newspapers.com.
  7. Merithew, Caroline Waldron. "‘We Were Not Ladies’: Gender, Class, and a Women’s Auxiliary Battle For MIning Unionism", Journal of Women’s History, Vol.  18 No. 2, page 66.
  8. News: 1933-02-13 . New Feminine Leader Enters Miners' Battle . 6 . Albuquerque Journal . 2022-07-04 . Newspapers.com.
  9. Book: Biggers, Jeff . Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland . 2010-01-26 . PublicAffairs . 978-1-56858-618-2 . 169 . en.
  10. News: 1933-01-27 . Women of Miners Hold Peace March; 7,000 Led by Widows of 54 Lost in Pit Disaster, Parade in Springfield, III. . en-US . 7 . The New York Times . 2022-07-04 . 0362-4331.
  11. News: Allard . Gerry . 1933-08-11 . Blue Eagles Meaningless to Officers . 3 . The American Guardian . 2022-07-04.
  12. Book: Andrews, Gregg . Thyra J. Edwards: Black Activist in the Global Freedom Struggle . 2011-06-14 . University of Missouri Press . 978-0-8262-1912-1 . 38–39 . en.
  13. News: 1933-02-15 . New 'Mother Jones' . 2 . Lancaster Eagle-Gazette . 2022-07-04 . Newspapers.com.
  14. News: 1934-06-12 . Agnes B. Wieck to Go to Paris . 7 . The Belleville News-Democrat . 2022-07-04 . Newspapers.com.
  15. Wieck, Agnes. "Ku Kluxing in the Miners' Country." The New Republic 38 (1924): 122-24.
  16. News: 1946-05-12 . Free Objectors, Pickets Demand . 1 . The Ogden Standard-Examiner . 2022-07-04 . Newspapers.com.
  17. Book: Bennett, Scott H. . Radical Pacifism: The War Resisters League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915-1963 . 2003-12-01 . Syracuse University Press . 978-0-8156-3028-9 . 118 . en.
  18. Bennett . Scott H. . July 2003 . 'Free American Political Prisoners': Pacifist Activism and Civil Liberties, 1945-48 . Journal of Peace Research . en . 40 . 4 . 413–433 . 10.1177/00223433030404004 . 145734494 . 0022-3433.
  19. Burns . Agnes . March 1916 . At the League's Training School . Life and Labor . 6 . 38–40.
  20. News: Wieck . Agnes Burns . 1925-10-02 . Our Children's Ideals and the Splendid Program of the Pioneer Youth Movement . 6 . The American Guardian . 2022-07-04 . Newspapers.com.
  21. News: Wieck . Agnes Burns . 1926-05-14 . The British Strike . 6 . The American Guardian . 2022-07-04 . Newspapers.com.
  22. News: Wieck . Agnes Burns . 1928-10-26 . A Blind Man's Plea . 2 . The American Guardian . 2022-07-04 . Newspapers.com.
  23. News: Wieck . Agnes Burns . 1929-03-26 . Mrs. Wieck Interviews Mrs. Brechnitz--or Trys to . 1 . The Belleville News-Democrat . 2022-07-04 . Newspapers.com.
  24. https://reuther.wayne.edu/files/LP001476.pdf Agnes Burns Wieck Collection
  25. Book: Wieck, David Thoreau . Woman from Spillertown : a memoir of Agnes Burns Wieck . 1992 . Southern Illinois University Press . Paul Avrich Collection . 0-8093-1619-6 . Carbondale . 22860471.
  26. Keiser . John H. . 1993 . Review of Woman from Spillertown: A Memoir of Agnes Burns Wieck . Illinois Historical Journal . 86 . 1 . 62–63 . 40192712 . 0748-8149.
  27. Web site: September 4, 2015 . WSIU Radio presents broadcast premiere of documentary . 2022-07-04 . The Southern . en.

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