100 years ago in American Labor History: The Bread and Roses Strike
The 1912 Lawrence Textile Strike, which united dozens of immigrant communities under the leadership of the Industrial Workers of the World, was led to a large extent by women. The popular mythology of the strike includes signs being carried by women reading "We want bread, but we want roses, too!", though the image is probably ahistorical. A 1915 labor anthology, The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest by Upton Sinclair, is the first known source to attribute the phrase to the Lawrence strikers. A republication of Oppenheim's poem in 1912, following the strike, attributed it to "Chicago Women Trade Unionists". To circumvent an injunction against loitering in front of the mills, the strikers formed the first moving picket line in the US.
The strike was settled on March 14, 1912 on terms generally favorable to the workers. The workers won pay increases, time-and-a-quarter pay for overtime, and a promise of no discrimination against strikers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_Roses
According to Boston Globe reporter Katie Johnston in her article this year “100 years later, Bread and Roses strike still resonates”: “when the state reduced the workweek from 56 to 54 hours, and mill owners responded by speeding up machines and cutting pay accordingly, some 25,000 workers walked off the job on Jan 12. The action, known as the Bread and Roses strike, not only called attention to horrific conditions in the mills, but also to the concentration of wealth and power in the United States, an issue that 100 years later would spur protesters to Occupy Wall Street, Boston, and other cities across the country.”
http://becomingamerica.edublogs.org/2012/01/12/bread-and-roses-strike-centennial-today/
more info at: http://massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=16
The slogan "Bread and Roses" originated in a poem of that name by James Oppenheim, published in The American Magazine in December 1911, which attributed it to "the women in the West." It is commonly associated with a textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts during January–March 1912, now often known as the "Bread and Roses strike". The slogan appeals for both fair wages and dignified conditions.
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And inspirational.