Solidarity Forever

For the union makes us strong

Hi all,

Thank you for joining me for today’s song, “Solidarity Forever”, by Ralph Chaplin, sung by Pete Seeger with the Almanac Singers. If you’d like to hear the song before you read about it, I’ve included a YouTube video below the article. For Japanese students, vocabulary words in bold are provided in Japanese below. TOEIC (PBT) 450+, Eiken 2, CEFR B1. 

You can listen to each article of “Social Issues in Song” on the Substack App. Download it here:

(581 words)

The music for today’s song is quite old. It began in the U.S. as a religious song written in the 1850s. Later, the song "John Brown's Body" used the same tune, but the words were about a man who tried to encourage a slave rebellion at Harpers Ferry in 1859. This song was popular among Union soldiers during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Later, in 1861, the words to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic" were written by Julia Ward Howe. She wrote new lyrics that gave the song a more religious and patriotic tone, making it a hymn for the Union cause.

As the industrial revolution progressed, workers realized that they had very little power against large companies and the rich men who owned them. The workers experienced many hardships, including very low pay, bad houses to live in, dangerous working conditions, little or no health care, and poor education for their children. All over the country, workers started to form unions. Sometimes they stopped working and demanded that the conditions change. Sometimes they lost, but other times, they won and they received better pay and better working conditions. They learned that when the union members stayed together (solidarity), they were more powerful.

Hard rock miners (Library of Congress, public domain)

Ralph Chaplin was a poet, artist, writer, and helped organize the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Chaplin wrote the words to "Solidarity Forever" in 1915. There was going to be a march led by Lucy Parsons, a founding member of the IWW. Ralph Chaplin said he wanted a song that was exciting and had a chorus that was strong and proud. 

The first verse talks about the effects of working together in a union. It makes people feel stronger. Being alone (the weak strength of one), you don’t have much power.

When the union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one
But the union makes us strong

Solidarity forever
Solidarity forever
Solidarity forever
For the union makes us strong

The workers are the people who dug the ground to build farms. They built the tall buildings in the cities…

It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid

Even though they did these important things, they were not paid enough to feed their families:
Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made
But the union makes us strong

The owners of the factories and mines made millions of dollars, but they never dug out the coal, and they never worked long hours on a factory line for very little pay.

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn

The union workers understood that without the workers, the factories would stop. The owners would lose money day after day.
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong

The last verse inspires people to work together to overcome injustice and to work for a better future:

In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold
Greater than the might of atoms, magnified a thousand-fold (a thousand times)
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old
For the union makes us strong

New_Orleans_Streetcar_Strike_1920 (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

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Question:

Have you ever worked together with others and found that you had even more power than you would working alone?

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Vocabulary

encourage 奨励する

slave rebellion　奴隷反乱

patriotic　愛国的

hymn　賛美歌

experience　経験

hardship　困難

feeble　弱々しい

dug (dig)　掘る

plow　耕す

prairie　草原

mine　鉱山

outcast　追放者

starve　飢える

midst  (amidst) ～のうち

untold 数え切れない

haughty 傲慢な

hoard 蓄える

atoms 原子

magnified 拡大

ash 灰

Sources

Ashbaugh, C. (2012). Lucy Parsons: An American revolutionary. Haymarket Books.

“John Brown’s body” song, 1861. “John Brown’s Body” Song, 1861 | State Historical Society of Iowa. https://history.iowa.gov/history/education/educator-resources/primary-source-sets/abolitionist-movement/john-browns-body-song Accessed 15 Sep 2024.

Kornbluh, J. L., Thompson, F., & Rosemont, F. (2011). Rebel voices: An IWW anthology. PM Press.

Solidarity forever. Zinn Education Project. (2022, April 28). https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/solidarity-forever/ Accessed 15 Sep 2024.