EVERETT — Kids today have been deprived of their labor history.

So says Kay Powers, the former Everett Public School teacher who tangled with the district over First Amendment issues.

She and other volunteers are sharing a bit of that labor history at a dinner and auction to raise money for scholarships. That event is scheduled tonight at an Everett machinists hall.

They’ve accumulated artifacts from the regional labor movement for the auction, including rare posters, decades-old picket signs and a collection of unusual wooden-block union stamps.

One item has a heck of a story behind it.

The haul includes a battered leather suitcase from the 1920s stuffed with vintage labor items. The suitcase is believed to have belonged to a Pinkerton, the name given to the private detectives known for union busting. Powers, who taught labor history in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, said the case was picked up at a garage sale in the 1980s.

She believes the items inside were likely collected during a raid on an Industrial Workers of the World union hall in Idaho.

That’s the same organization — known as the Wobblies — that was involved in the 1916 Everett Massacre, the bloodiest labor battle in the Northwest.

The items found in the suitcase are from 1917 to 1925. They include pamphlets that were meant to educate itinerant workers about labor history, membership cards and lists of workers injured and killed on the job.

Also in the case are Dues Stamps, which look like postage stamps, dated 1923. Union members would purchase these stamps for 50 cents apiece and place them in their Dues Books. The proceeds would go toward freeing their jailed associates.

The Dues Stamps in the case feature a man who looks like he might have a black eye standing behind bars and the words “Lest we forget.”

There are also Silent Agitators — little cards union members would plaster around places they felt needed agitating. One of the cards features a shoe squishing the Man and this quote: “Sabotage means to push back, pull out or break off the fangs of Capitalism.”

Some of the items will be auctioned with the suitcase; other items will be auctioned separately.

Powers thinks the very existence of these items may be evidence that the original owner of the suitcase was a reluctant Pinkerton. A certain segment of former union members ended up turning to the private agency for work out of desperation, she said.

Usually the items collected during union raids were destroyed. She speculates that perhaps these were saved because whoever confiscated them sympathized with the labor movement.

The event tonight is intended to raise money for the Puget Sound Labor Agency’s First Amendment Scholarships for local students. The event is being held at the Machinists Hall at 9729 Airport Road, Everett. If you’d like to attend the auction or donate, organizer Suzanne Moreau requests that you call her first at 425-252-1112.

A brief history of the IWW in the region

The Industrial Workers of the World began with a 1905 meeting in Chicago. “Wobbly” is a term for a member of the IWW union, known for radical anti-capitalist politics. Here are key activities involving the IWW in Washington, where the union was influential with loggers:

1908, Spokane: IWW organizer James H. Walsh reorganizes an inactive union local. On Jan. 1, 1909, Spokane bans street meetings.

1913, Grays Harbor County: Loggers in the Forest & Lumber Workers Union of the IWW vote to strike. The strike is short and unsuccessful.

1916, Everett: Two boatloads of Wobblies sail from Seattle to support striking shingle weavers and free speech. Five workers on the steamer Verona and two deputies on the dock are killed. It is known as the Everett Massacre.

1917, Northwest: The U.S. War Department gives orders empowering the Army to “suppress civilian acts of seditious intent.”

1917, Seattle: Soldiers and sailors attack the IWW office. Police arrest 41 Wobblies.

1917: In Pasco, Wenatchee, Cle Elum, Ellensburg and Easton, Wobblies are arrested and detained without charge.

1919, Centralia: After a parade, American Legion members go to the IWW hall. Shots are fired and four Legionnaires are killed. Vigilantes pull one Wobbly, Wesley Everett, from jail and hang him from a Skookumchuck River bridge.

1919, Seattle: A strike by shipyard workers gains support. On Feb. 6, 1919, the five-day General Strike begins. Work in the city largely stops, except for essential jobs organized by strikers.

Source: HistoryLink and the IWW