Father Hagerty's Wheel

FATHER HAGERTY’S WHEEL. Thomas J. Hagerty (ca. 1862-1920?) had a brief but spectacular impact on the movement for industrial unions that took shape at the turn of the century. At the time of his ordination as a Catholic priest in 1892, Hagerty was already a proponent of Marxist ideas. His consistent agitation among Colorado miners during the succeeding decade led to his formal suspension from the clergy in 1903. Hagerty continued his political activism and is usually credited with being the major author of the preamble to the constitution of Industrial Workers of the World. His greatest fame, however, came from a chart he created to illustrate the nature of the new industrial society he envisioned. His wheel chart first appeared in Voice of Labor (May 1905) a month before the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World.

Although Hagerty soon disappeared from the labor scene, his wheel was continuously reproduced for many years. It was extremely popular among all those inclined to syndicalism, but it was also used extensively by the Socialist Labor Party. His wheel placed every wage-earning occupation then in existence under one of eight departments that formed the wheel’s rim: Manufacture, Public Service, Distribution, Food Stuffs, Agriculture, Mining, Transportation, and Building. The hub of the wheel was labeled “General Administration,” and specific job categories were located between the hub and the rim under the appropriate department. In an age when illiteracy was common among working people, the chart proved an invaluable aid to organizers and propagandists.

Doherty, Robert E. “Thomas J. Hagerty, the Church, and Socialism.” Labor History 3 (winter 1962).

Kornbluh, Joyce L. Rebel Voices: An IWW Anthology. Rev. and expanded ed. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1988.

“Father J. Haggerty’s Wheel: The One Big Union Structure.” Website of the Industrial Workers of the World.

https://archive.iww.org/about/official/wheel/