Today in Labor History March 13, 1848: The German revolutions of 1848-1849 began in Vienna. While the middle classes were fighting for a unified German state and increased civil liberties, the working class had more revolutionary aspirations. Participants in the revolution included communist and anarchist revolutionaries like Marx, Engels and Bakunin, as well as the composer Wagner. The aristocracy exploited the split between the classes, facilitating their eventual violent defeat, with great loss of life and mass imprisonment. Many fled to the U.S. and became known as “forty-eighters.” They moved to places like Cincinnati’s Ober der Rhine neighborhood, or Saint Louis. After risking their lives fighting against serfdom in Europe, many were so horrified by the persistence of slavery in their new country that they dedicated themselves to the cause of abolition and free thinking, joining organizations like the Freimӓnverein (Society of Freemen) and the Wide Awakes (a radical militia that defended free blacks and fought Confederates in the streets). Some of them also became publishers, like Henry Boernstein, who had previously published “Vorwärts!” in Paris with Karl Marx, Engels, Heinrich Heine and others.
You can read more on The Wide Awakes and the Antebellum Roots of Wokeness here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/04/27/the-wide-awakes-and-the-antebellum-roots-of-wokeness/
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