Big Bill Haywood · the Autobiography of William D. Haywood

**Big Bill Haywood** , first published in 1929 as *Bill Haywood's Book* , is the autobiography of labor leader William D. Haywood (1869-1929), a founder and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) union and a member of the executive committee of the Socialist Party of America. Haywood recounts his childhood in Utah, his work as a miner, and, briefly as a homesteader and cowboy. Later, while a miner in Idaho, Haywood, inspired by a speech by Ed Boyce, president of the Western Federation of Miners, joined the W.F.M., and thus began his long career as a union-organizer, labor leader, and activist. The book also recounts his battles with local police, politicians, and mine-owners, and his court trials and imprisonment. The book ends with a chapter prepared after his death of his flight to the Soviet Union, where he died of diabetes and alcoholism at the age of 59.