Arresting Strikers, Le Messager, Lewiston, Maine, April 24, 1937. Courtesy of the Maine State Library.
Arresting Strikers, Le Messager, Lewiston, Maine, April 24, 1937. Courtesy of the Maine State Library.
“Red Wednesday” is depicted in this panel. On April 21, 1937 a thousand shoe workers marched across the Androscoggin Bridge connecting Lewiston and Auburn. State and local police confronted the marchers on the Auburn side of the bridge. Violence erupted when State Police Lieutenant George Fowler grabbed a woman by her hair and raised his club. A group of women came to her defense, striking the officer with a stone and knocking him unconscious. As the crowd surged forward, officers launched tear gas and began swinging their sticks, scattering the marchers and pushing them back to Lewiston. The next day, Governor Lewis O. Barrows called up the National Guard to stop strikers in the two cities.