In 1913 the IWW led a massive strike of silk workers in Paterson, New Jersey, the center of American silk production. Workers struck first against the introduction of multiple-loom systems that threatened their jobs, and soon some 25,000 had walked out, demanding an eight-hour day and an end to the speed-up. The walkout effectively shut the industry down for months.
Organizers including Big Bill Haywood, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and Carlo Tresca sustained the strike through mass picketing in the face of thousands of arrests. In a novel bid for support, sympathizers staged the "Paterson Pageant" at Madison Square Garden, with strikers reenacting their struggle before a New York audience. Despite this solidarity, the strike was ultimately broken when the mill owners outlasted the workers’ resources — a costly defeat that tested the IWW’s ability to win long industrial battles in the East.
