Bread and Roses! Bread and Roses!
The Bread & Roses is an award-winning free house right in the heart of Clapham. Owned by The Battersea and Wandsworth Trade Union Council (BWTUC) and run by the Workers Beer Company, part of BWTUC Trading, it prides itself as a pub with a social consciousness.
The Bread & Roses is named in recognition of the struggle of workers around the globe for a better quality of life. The name is taken from a song written during a strike of women textile workers in Lawrence Massachusetts, USA in 1912. 27.000 women went out onto the streets and marched for eleven weeks to improve their working conditions. Their banners called for bread and roses. A poet among them, James Oppenheim, wrote the lyrics to what became the trademark song for women trade unionists around the world. It is still sung by delegates to conclude the ICTU Women's Conference.
To find out more about the company’s ethos, celebrated proudly by The Bread & Roses, or how to fundraise with the Workers Beer Company, please visit www.workersbeer.co.uk.
The Bread & Roses is named in recognition of the struggle of workers around the globe for a better quality of life. The name is taken from a song written during a strike of women textile workers in Lawrence Massachusetts, USA in 1912. 27.000 women went out onto the streets and marched for eleven weeks to improve their working conditions. Their banners called for bread and roses. A poet among them, James Oppenheim, wrote the lyrics to what became the trademark song for women trade unionists around the world. It is still sung by delegates to conclude the ICTU Women's Conference.
To find out more about the company’s ethos, celebrated proudly by The Bread & Roses, or how to fundraise with the Workers Beer Company, please visit www.workersbeer.co.uk.
BREAD AND ROSES
As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day;
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts grey, are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses;
For the people hear us singing; Bread and roses! Bread and Roses!
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men for they are women's children and we mother them again;
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies, give us bread but give us roses! As we come marching, marching unnumbered women dead;
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread;
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew;
Yes, it is bread we fight for but we fight for roses too!
As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day;
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts grey, are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses;
For the people hear us singing; Bread and roses! Bread and Roses!
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men for they are women's children and we mother them again;
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies, give us bread but give us roses! As we come marching, marching unnumbered women dead;
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread;
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew;
Yes, it is bread we fight for but we fight for roses too!