Many organizations have used stickers to publicize their philosophy or cause. The Industrial Workers of the World

Industrial Workers of the World

The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...

 (IWW), which during its colorful history has pioneered a variety of creative tactics, calls their stickers silent agitators, or silent organizers. Professor Eric Margolis has written about the history of such media,

Wobbly organizers were revolutionary fish swimming in the sea of bindle

Bindle

Bindle is a term used to describe the bag, sack, or carrying device stereotypically used by the commonly American sub-culture of hobos. The person carrying a bindle was called a bindlestiff, combining bindle with the Average Joe sense of stiff....

 stiffs and tramp

Hobo

A hobo is a term which is often applied to a migratory worker or homeless vagabond, often penniless. The term originated in the Western—probably Northwestern—United States during the last decade of the 19th century. Unlike 'tramps', who work only when they are forced to, and 'bums', who do not...

 workers. The Wobbly card was a ticket to ride the rails. "Side door coaches," as box cars were called, were plastered with paper stickers, "silent organizers," that Wobs put up everywhere they passed: "Join the One Big Union," "I Will Win," "Win a World." Slaughter in Serene: the Columbine Coal Strike Reader, 2005, Prof. Eric Margolis, pp. 28.

Silent agitators were produced by the millions.The Autobiography of Big Bill Haywood, 1929, by William D. Haywood, pp. 282. Professor Margolis described the way such stickers were used when the Wobblies called a strike

Columbine Mine massacre

The first Columbine Massacre, sometimes called the Columbine Mine massacre to distinguish it from the Columbine High School massacre, occurred in 1927, in the town of Serene, Colorado. A fight broke out between Colorado state police and a group of striking coal miners, during which the unarmed...

 in 1927:

Bill Lloyd, Superintendent at the Puritan Mine (in Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

's northern coal field), went to work one chilly Autumn morning to discover Wobbly stickers pasted on every timber and cross beam in the place: "Join the Wobblies, Join the Wobblies," he said indignantly, "From the bottom of the shaft clear to the working faces, see, they had these posters."Slaughter in Serene: the Columbine Coal Strike Reader, 2005, Prof. Eric Margolis, pp. 31.

Big Bill Haywood

Bill Haywood

William Dudley Haywood , better known as "Big Bill" Haywood, was a founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World , and a member of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America...

 described in his autobiography how the IWW issued stickers to propagandize against the war

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. The stickers declared, "Don't be a soldier, be a man. Join the I.W.W. and fight on the job for yourself and your class

Working class

Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

."The Autobiography of Big Bill Haywood, 1929, by William D. Haywood, pp. 294.