[2] In the words of IWW historian Melvyn Dubofsky, the Industrial Pioneer is "one of the finest examples of the poetry, prose, fiction, art, and socioeconomic analysis produced in America's past by self-educated working-class radicals.

In 1920, the IWW created the Bureau of Industrial Research to address such issues, in part due to the influence of the technocratic ideas of Howard Scott.

The first, pro-Communist editor of the Industrial Pioneer published articles by Communists like Solomon Lozovsky and Karl Radek, but was not simply preaching Bolshevism.

The Industrial Pioneer published some noteworthy figures in American labor history, including Eugene V. Debs,[10][11] Bartolomeo Vanzetti,[12] Ricardo Flores Magon,[13] and Upton Sinclair.

[14] Upton Sinclair, for example, was involved with the free speech fight that grew out of a strike in San Pedro in 1923, and the August, 1923 issue of the Industrial Pioneer covers these events.

"[15] In addition, "The national office of the IWW began to give space in the Industrial Pioneer to reviews of Sinclair's literary efforts and sought to enlist him as a California speaker in its campaign for amnesty for political prisoners.