The Union Maid

Today is International Workers Day, commemorating Chicago's Haymarket strike (and shootings, and bombing, and later trial and executions) of 1886. So here is this week's music post, one day early, with one of the most popular of the many union songs of the 1940s. Woody Guthrie wrote the lyrics to "Union Maid" in 1940 in Oklahoma City, and later performed it in New York City with the Almanac Singers. The tune is borrowed from "Pretty Red Wing," a 1907 popular song by Kerry Mills and Thurland Chattaway, which was in turn adapted from Robert Schumann's composition "The Happy Farmer" (see bottom of post). Guthrie's original lyrics included a final verse urging union women to "join the ladies auxiliary," which of course has been dropped or rewritten for contemporary renditions.

Pete Seeger singing the original lyrics:

More new lyrics:

The Almanac Singers, with Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Bess Lomax, and others (audio only):

Arlo Guthrie (with a nod to the Ladies Auxiliary):

Audio only:

The Happy Farmer

Red Wing instrumental by Asleep at the Wheel with Chet Atkins (audio only)

NOTE: Another variant lyric was added to the chorus during the 1952 steel strike, which was interrupted by Pres. Truman's (later overturned) nationalization of the steel mills: "I'm sticking to the union/Fuck Harry Truman." The steel workers had a legitimate grievance, but it was a little unfair to Truman who had vetoed the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, only to be overridden by Congress.

Comments

[Ellen Wertheimer]

Thank you for this glorious post!

[Shawn Fields]

Excellent post. I'm partial to the Old Crow Medicine Show cover, but then I'm partial to most things OCMS.

[Alexander Tsesis]

What a great version of this anthem to labor and equality! Thanks.

[Maybell Romero]

I love this. Thanks for sharing, Steve!