January 27, 1913: The great Paterson silk mill strike began with a walkout of the 800 men and women employed by the Henry Doherty Silk Company after the company rejected worker demands to not introduce new machinery said to cause the loss of jobs. Doherty contended that jobs would be lost anyway, as he could not otherwise compete with factories in Pennsylvania using newer loom technology. The walkout eventually led to a general strike of all the Paterson silk mills involving 25,000 workers that lasted into the summer but was, for the era, remarkably violence-free, although the city and police force of Paterson, firmly on the side of the mill owners, made a number of mass arrests of picketers. In the end the strikers broke down and negotiated with individual mill owners and returned to work by July. The concept of the general strike failed, despite the support of writers, artists and left wing celebrities who adopted it as a cause of the moment.
