National Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, precursor to IBEW, founded - 1891

In response to an ongoing attempt by coal mine owners to replace miners with convicts leased by the state, a group of miners burn the Tennessee Coal Mining Company stockade in Briceville and seize the Knoxville Iron Company stockade at Coal Creek, freeing over 300 convicts and supplying them with food and civilian clothes.

Tennessee sends in leased convict laborers to break a coal miners strike in Anderson County. The miners revolted, burned the stockades, and sent the captured convicts by train back to Knoxville - 1891

Two African-American sharecroppers are killed during an ultimately unsuccessful cotton-pickers strike in Lee County, Ark. By the time the strike had been suppressed, 15 African-Americans had died and another six had been imprisoned. A white plantation manager was killed as well - 1891

African-American cotton pickers organize and strike in Lee County, Tex. against miserably low wages and other injustices, including a growers’ arrangement with local law enforcement to round up blacks on vagrancy charges, then force them to work off their fines on select plantations. Over the course of September a white mob put down the strike, killing 15 strikers in the process - 1891

The Coast Seamen's Union merges with the Steamship Sailor's Union to form the Sailors’ Union of the Pacific - 1891

Mine explosion in Mount Pleasant, Penn. leaves more than 100 dead – 1891

In convention at Topeka, Kansas, delegates create the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America. The men who repaired the nation's rail cars were paid 10 or 15 cents an hour, working 12 hours a day, often seven days a week - 1890

Knights of Labor strike New York Central railroad, ultimately to be defeated by scabbing - 1890

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Wobblie organizer, born - 1890

New York garment workers win closed shop and firing of scabs after 7-month strike - 1890

The leadership of the American Federation of Labor selects the Carpenters union to lead the eight hour movement. Carpenters throughout the country strike in April; by May 1, some 46,000 carpenters in 137 cities and towns have achieved shorter hours - 1890