Silent agitators

File:I.W.W. advertisement for stickers.png

"Agitate - Educate - Organize" I.W.W. advertisement, 1911

File:I.W.W. stickerette "For More of the Good Things of Life".tif

I.W.W. "stickerette" - For More of the Good Things of Life

File:I.W.W. "stickerette" Why Be A Soldier? Be A Man.tif

I.W.W "stickerette" - Why Be a Soldier? Be a Man.

File:One Half Million Stickerettes.jpg

"One Half Million Stickerettes" Solidarity, November 20, 1915

Silent agitators (also called silent organizers and stickerettes) are stickers used by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).

The IWW publication Industrial Worker of Spokane, Washington, advertised stickers as early as April 20, 1911.

File:Advertisement for "stickerettes".png

Industrial Workers of the World 1916 advertisement for "stickerettes"

Sociologist Eric Margolis has written about the history of such media:

Silent agitators were produced by the millions. Margolis described the way such stickers were used when the Wobblies called a strike in 1927:

IWW leader Big Bill Haywood described in his autobiography how the IWW issued stickers to propagandize against the war. The stickers declared, "Why be a soldier? Be a man. Join the I.W.W. and fight on the job for yourself and your class."

See also

• Black cat
• Wobbly lingo
• Industrial Workers of the World philosophy and tactics