Frank Little and the IWW: The Blood That Stained an American Family

Jane Little Botkin

University of Oklahoma Press Hardcover $34.95 (512pp) 978-0-8061-5500-5 Little’s is, above all, a human story about a man who fought for justice and fair treatment for workers.

Both a work of history and biography, Jane Little Botkin’s Frank Little and the IWW views the early days of the US labor movement through the lens of the author’s ancestor’s life. Botkin pumps life into the era between 1890 and 1920 in her detailed examination of Frank Little’s life and work as a labor rights activist.

When he was ten years old, Franklin Henry Little traveled with his family from Illinois to