Agnes Burns Wieck
A young white woman with dark hair
Agnes Burns (later Wieck), from a 1916 publication
Born
Agnes Burns

January 4, 1892
Sandoval, Illinois
DiedOctober 22, 1966 (aged 74)
Occupation(s)Labor activist, journalist, editor
ChildrenDavid 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.[1][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,[1] on a scholarship from the National Women's Trade Union League.[5]

Career

Wieck was a teacher for five years as a young woman.[1][6] She participated in strikes by women workers in Boston and Philadelphia.[1] From 1924 to 1930 Wieck wrote for The Illinois Miner, and was its women's page editor.[2] In 1928, she actively supported the presidential campaign of Al Smith.[7]

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.[8][9] She led a January 1933 march to the Illinois state capitol by the Illinois Women's Auxiliary,[10] including 54 recent widows and orphans from the 1932 mine disaster at Moweaqua; she presented a petition to the governor.[11] 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.[12] She worked with Thyra J. Edwards to include Black women in the auxiliary's work.[13] She was compared to Mother Jones,[14] and a 1933 headline described her as a "Coal Field 'Hell Raiser'".[1] In 1934 she represented Illinois coal field women at a women's conference of the International League against War and Fascism in Paris.[15]

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.[16] During World War II, she worked to get her son and other imprisoned conscientious objectors amnesty and better prison conditions.[17][18][19]

Publications

  • "At the League's Training School" (1916)[5]
  • "Ku Kluxing in the Miners' Country" (1924)[16]
  • "Our Children's Ideals and the Splendid Program of the Pioneer Youth Movement" (1924)[20]
  • "The British Strike" (1926)[21]
  • "A Blind Man's Plea" (1928, about Paul Farthing)[22]
  • "Mrs. Wieck Interviews Mrs. Brechnitz--or Trys to" (1929)[23]

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.[2] 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]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Swart, Charles M. (1933-10-22). "Agnes Burns Wieck, Coal Field 'Hell Raiser'". The Decatur Daily Review. p. 25. Retrieved 2022-07-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. 1 2 3 Gelman, Ben (1992-01-05). "Wieck Fought for Miners and their Wives". Southern Illinoisan. p. 33. Retrieved 2022-07-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ↑ "Mrs. Agnes Wieck's Father Dies at 74 at Home of his Son". Belleville Daily Advocate. 1934-01-15. p. 1. Retrieved 2022-07-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ↑ Gorn, Elliott J. (2015-06-02). Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 121. ISBN 978-1-4668-9400-6.
  5. 1 2 Burns, Agnes (March 1916). "At the League's Training School". Life and Labor. 6: 38–40.
  6. ↑ Steinhour, Gale (July 22, 1992). "Memories of mining". Illinois Issues. Retrieved 2022-07-04.
  7. ↑ "Smith Rally in Smithton Tomorrow". The Belleville News-Democrat. 1928-10-27. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-07-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ 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.
  9. ↑ "New Feminine Leader Enters Miners' Battle". Albuquerque Journal. 1933-02-13. p. 6. Retrieved 2022-07-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ Biggers, Jeff (2010-01-26). Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland. PublicAffairs. p. 169. ISBN 978-1-56858-618-2.
  11. ↑ "Women of Miners Hold Peace March; 7,000 Led by Widows of 54 Lost in Pit Disaster, Parade in Springfield, III". The New York Times. 1933-01-27. p. 7. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-07-04.
  12. ↑ Allard, Gerry (1933-08-11). "Blue Eagles Meaningless to Officers". The American Guardian. p. 3. Retrieved 2022-07-04.
  13. ↑ Andrews, Gregg (2011-06-14). Thyra J. Edwards: Black Activist in the Global Freedom Struggle. University of Missouri Press. pp. 38–39. ISBN 978-0-8262-1912-1.
  14. ↑ "New 'Mother Jones'". Lancaster Eagle-Gazette. 1933-02-15. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-07-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ↑ "Agnes B. Wieck to Go to Paris". The Belleville News-Democrat. 1934-06-12. p. 7. Retrieved 2022-07-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. 1 2 Wieck, Agnes. "Ku Kluxing in the Miners' Country." The New Republic 38 (1924): 122-24.
  17. ↑ "Free Objectors, Pickets Demand". The Ogden Standard-Examiner. 1946-05-12. p. 1. Retrieved 2022-07-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ↑ Bennett, Scott H. (2003-12-01). Radical Pacifism: The War Resisters League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915-1963. Syracuse University Press. p. 118. ISBN 978-0-8156-3028-9.
  19. ↑ Bennett, Scott H. (July 2003). "'Free American Political Prisoners': Pacifist Activism and Civil Liberties, 1945-48". Journal of Peace Research. 40 (4): 413–433. doi:10.1177/00223433030404004. ISSN 0022-3433. S2CID 145734494.
  20. ↑ Wieck, Agnes Burns (1925-10-02). "Our Children's Ideals and the Splendid Program of the Pioneer Youth Movement". The American Guardian. p. 6. Retrieved 2022-07-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ↑ Wieck, Agnes Burns (1926-05-14). "The British Strike". The American Guardian. p. 6. Retrieved 2022-07-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ↑ Wieck, Agnes Burns (1928-10-26). "A Blind Man's Plea". The American Guardian. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-07-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ↑ Wieck, Agnes Burns (1929-03-26). "Mrs. Wieck Interviews Mrs. Brechnitz--or Trys to". The Belleville News-Democrat. p. 1. Retrieved 2022-07-04 – via Newspapers.com.
  24. ↑ Agnes Burns Wieck Collection, Reuther Library, Wayne State University.
  25. ↑ Wieck, David Thoreau (1992). Woman from Spillertown : a memoir of Agnes Burns Wieck. Paul Avrich Collection. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 0-8093-1619-6. OCLC 22860471.
  26. ↑ Keiser, John H. (1993). "Review of Woman from Spillertown: A Memoir of Agnes Burns Wieck". Illinois Historical Journal. 86 (1): 62–63. ISSN 0748-8149. JSTOR 40192712.
  27. ↑ "WSIU Radio presents broadcast premiere of documentary". The Southern. September 4, 2015. Retrieved 2022-07-04.
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