Debating the
Documents
Interpreting Alternative Viewpoints
in Primary Source Documents
The Haymarket
Square Riot
Were the Haymarket defendants completely innocent
victims or were they partly to blame for their fate?
©2006 MindSparks, a division of Social Studies School Service
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ISBN: 978-1-57596-227-6
Product Code: HS478
Teacher
Introduction
Teacher Introduction
Using Primary Sources
Primary sources are called “primary” because they are firsthand records of a past era or historical event. They are the
raw materials, or the evidence, on which historians base
their “secondary” accounts of the past.
A rapidly growing number of history teachers today are
using primary sources. Why? Perhaps it’s because primary
sources give students a better sense of what history is and
what historians do. Such sources also help students see the
past from a variety of viewpoints. Moreover, primary sources
make history vivid and bring it to life.
However, primary sources are not easy to use. They can
be confusing. They can be biased. They rarely all agree.
Primary sources must be interpreted and set in context.
To do this, students need historical background knowledge.
Debating the Documents helps students handle such
challenges by giving them a useful framework for analyzing
sources that conflict with one another.
“Multiple,
conflicting
perspectives are
among the truths
of history.
No single
objective or
universal account
could ever put an
end to this endless
creative dialogue
within and
between the past
and the present.”
From the 2005 Statement on Standards of
Professional Conduct of the Council of the
American Historical Association.
The Haymarket Square Riot | Debating the Documents
3
Teacher
Introduction
The Debating the Documents Series
Each Debating the Documents booklet includes the same sequence of reproducible
worksheets. If students use several booklets over time, they will get regular practice at
interpreting and comparing conflicting sources. In this way, they can learn the skills and
habits needed to get the most out of primary sources.
Each Debating the Documents Booklet Includes ...
• Suggestions for the Student and an Introductory Essay. The student gets
instructions and a one-page essay providing background on the booklet’s topic.
A time line on the topic is also included.
• TWO Groups of Contrasting Primary Source Documents. In most of the
booklets, students get one pair of visual sources and one pair of written sources. In
some cases, more than two are provided for each. Background is provided on each
source. Within each group, the sources clash in a very clear way. (The sources are
not always exact opposites, but they do always differ in some obvious way.)
• Three Worksheets for Each Document Group. Students use the first two
worksheets to take notes on the sources. The third worksheet asks which source
the student thinks would be most useful to a historian.
• CD-ROM. The ImageXaminer lets students view the primary sources as a class,
in small groups, or individually. A folder containing all of the student handouts in
pdf format, including a graphic organizer for use with the ImageXaminer’s grid tool,
allows for printing directly from the CD.
• One DBQ. On page 22, a document-based question (DBQ) asks students to write
an effective essay using all of the booklet’s primary sources.
How to Use This Booklet
All pages in this booklet may be photocopied for classroom use.
1. Have students read “Suggestions for the Student” and the
Introductory Essay.
Give them copies of pages 7–9. Ask them to read the instructions and then read the
introductory essay on the topic. The time line gives them additional information on that
topic. This reading could be done in class or as a homework assignment.
2. Have students do the worksheets.
Make copies of the worksheets and the pages with the sources. Ask students to study
the background information on each source and the source itself. Then have them take
notes on the sources using the worksheets. If students have access to a computer,
have them review the primary sources with the ImageXaminer. You may also ask them
to use its magnifying tools to more clearly focus their analysis.
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Debating the Documents | The Haymarket Square Riot
Teacher
Introduction
3. “Debate the documents” as a class.
Have students use their worksheet notes to debate the primary source documents
as a class. Use the overheads to focus this discussion on each source in turn. Urge
students to follow these ground rules:
• Use your worksheets as a guide for the discussion or debate.
• Try to reach agreement about the main ideas and the significance of each primary
source document.
• Look for points of agreement as well as disagreement between the primary
sources.
• Listen closely to all points of view about each primary source.
• Focus on the usefulness of each source to the historian, not merely on whether
you agree or disagree with that source’s point of view.
4. Have students do the final DBQ.
A DBQ is an essay question about a set of primary source documents. To answer
the DBQ, students write essays using evidence from the sources and their own
background knowledge of the historical era. (See the next page for a DBQ scoring
guide to use in evaluating these essays.)
The DBQ assignment on page 22 includes guidelines for writing a DBQ essay.
Here are some additional points to make with students about preparing to write
this kind of essay.
The DBQ for this Booklet (see page 22):
The Haymarket anarchists often discussed the use of violence for
political purposes. Even if they were innocent of the Haymarket
bombing, were their critics right to see them as a danger to Chicago
and the nation? Why or why not?
• Analyze the question carefully.
• Use your background knowledge to set sources in their historical context.
• Question and interpret sources actively. Do not accept them at face value.
• Use sources meaningfully to support your essay’s thesis.
• Pay attention to the overall organization of your essay.
The Haymarket Square Riot | Debating the Documents
5
Teacher
Introduction
Complete DBQ Scoring Guide
Use this guide in evaluating the DBQ for this booklet. Use this scoring guide with students who
are already familiar with using primary sources and writing DBQ essays.
Excellent Essay
• Offers a clear answer or thesis explicitly addressing all aspects of the essay question.
• Does a careful job of interpreting many or most of the documents and relating them
clearly to the thesis and the DBQ. Deals with conflicting documents effectively.
• Uses details and examples effectively to support the thesis and other main ideas.
Explains the significance of those details and examples well.
• Uses background knowledge and the documents in a balanced way.
• Is well written; clear transitions make the essay easy to follow from point to point. Only a
few minor writing errors or errors of fact.
Good Essay
• Offers a reasonable thesis addressing the essential points of the essay question.
• Adequately interprets at least some of the documents and relates them to the thesis and
the DBQ.
• Usually relates details and examples meaningfully to the thesis or other main ideas.
• Includes some relevant background knowledge.
• May have some writing errors or errors of fact, as long as these do not invalidate the
essay’s overall argument or point of view.
Fair Essay
• Offers at least a partly developed thesis addressing the essay question.
• Adequately interprets at least a few of the documents.
• Relates only a few of the details and examples to the thesis or other main ideas.
• Includes some background knowledge.
• Has several writing errors or errors of fact that make it harder to understand the essay’s
overall argument or point of view.
Poor Essay
• Offers no clear thesis or answer addressing the DBQ.
• Uses few documents effectively other than referring to them in “laundry list” style, with no
meaningful relationship to a thesis or any main point.
• Uses details and examples unrelated to the thesis or other main ideas. Does not explain
the significance of these details and examples.
• Is not clearly written, with some major writing errors or errors of fact.
6
Debating the Documents | The Haymarket Square Riot
Student
SUGGESTIONS
Suggestions to the Student
Using Primary Sources
A primary source is any record of evidence from the past. Many things are primary sources:
letters, diary entries, official documents, photos, cartoons, wills, maps, charts, etc. They
are called “primary” because they are first-hand records of a past event or time period. This
Debating the Documents lesson is based on two groups of primary source documents. Within
each group, the sources conflict with one another. That is, they express different or even
opposed points of view. You need to decide which source is more reliable, more useful, or
more typical of the time period. This is what historians do all the time. Usually, you will be able
to learn something about the past from each source, even when the sources clash with one
another in dramatic ways.
How to Use This Booklet
1. Read the one-page introductory essay.
This gives you background information that will help you
analyze the primary source documents and do the exercises
for this Debating the Documents lesson. The time line gives
you additional information you will find helpful.
2. Study the primary source documents for this lesson.
For this lesson, you get two groups of sources. The sources within each group conflict with
one another. Some of these sources are visuals; others are written sources. With visual
sources, pay attention not only to the image’s “content” (its subject matter), but also to its
artistic style, shading, composition, camera angle, symbols, and other features that add
to the image’s meaning. With written sources, notice the writing style, bias, even what the
source leaves out or does not talk about. Think about each source’s author, that author’s
reasons for writing, and the likely audience for the source. These things give you clues as to
the source’s historical value.
3. Use the worksheets to analyze each group of primary source documents.
For each group of sources, you get three worksheets. Use the “Study the Document”
worksheets to take notes on each source. Use the “Comparing the Documents” worksheet
to decide which of the sources would be most useful to a historian.
4. As a class, debate the documents.
Use your worksheet notes to help you take part in this debate.
5. Do the final DBQ.
“DBQ” means “document-based question.” A DBQ is a question along with several primary
source documents. To answer the DBQ, write an essay using evidence from the documents
and your own background history knowledge. The DBQ is on page 22.
The Haymarket Square Riot | Debating the Documents
7
Introductory
ESSAY
•
The Haymarket Square Riot •
It was evening, May 4, 1886. In Chicago’s
Haymarket Square, two or three thousand
workers had gathered. They listened as
speakers protested police shootings at a riot
at the McCormick Harvester plant the day before.
The last Haymarket speaker was just finishing
up. Only a few hundred people remained when
police on horseback moved in and ordered
everyone to leave. Suddenly, someone threw
a bomb. It exploded. Police began shooting.
People screamed and fled. Seven policemen and
at least four workers died. An eighth policeman
died of his wounds much later.
Long before 1886, Chicago had become a
tense, deeply divided city. After the Civil War,
it grew rapidly, even uncontrollably. Tens of
thousands of workers labored long hours for low
pay in its factories, warehouses, and stockyards.
A huge demand for laborers made Chicago a
magnet pulling in immigrants from Germany,
Ireland, Poland, Italy, and many other nations. As
they struggled to find their way in a strange land,
they often met with suspicion and hostility. Many
native-born Chicagoans saw these immigrants
as a threat to social order and a more traditional
way of life.
Struggles to organize unions often brought
these tensions to the surface. Powerful business
owners fought bitterly to keep the unions out. In
the 1870s and ‘80s, several strikes led to riots
and violent clashes between the police and the
workers. The Haymarket bombing itself took place
at the high point of a national movement for the
eight-hour workday. The Chicago newspapers
generally backed the owners in such labor
battles. The press often depicted union organizers
as dangerous, foreign-born radicals who were
merely using the workers to bring about a violent
socialist revolution.
Clerks, professionals, small business owners,
and other middle-class Chicagoans knew little
about the radical ideas brought to Chicago by
German or other foreign-born socialists and
anarchists. What they did know was that these
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Debating the Documents | The Haymarket Square Riot
radicals always seemed to be stirring up trouble
among the city’s workers.
Their fears were not entirely unreasonable.
Some radicals, foreign and native-born, did
call for revolution. And at times, they did
seem to glorify the use of violence to bring
it about. In anarchist newspapers such as
the German Arbeiter-Zeitung or the English
language paper The Alarm, some writers seemed
almost glowing in their view that dynamite could
be the great equalizer in the war between the
bosses and the workers.
Following the Haymarket bombing, terrified
Chicagoans directed their rage at the
anarchist leaders of the Haymarket protest.
Eight of those leaders were convicted of
inciting the violence, even though none were
linked to the bomb or the bomb thrower.
Four were hung. One committed suicide.
Most historians agree that the Haymarket
trial was deeply flawed. Witnesses were
highly unreliable. The judge was openly hostile
to the defendants. Only people already
suspicious of the anarchists were allowed on
the jury. In 1893, after tempers had cooled
somewhat, a reform-minded governor
pardoned the remaining three Haymarket
defendants still in jail.
From the four documents provided here, you
will NOT be able to decide the innocence
or guilt of the anarchists on trial. Instead,
these documents will help you understand
the ideas of the anarchists and the views of
their critics. Your task is not to act as a jury
in what was clearly an unjust trial. Instead,
it is to understand the radicalism of the late
1800s and the views of those opposed to it.
The documents should help you debate the
larger meaning of Haymarket to Chicago and the
nation at that time.
A Haymarket Square
TIME LINE
A Haymarket Sqaure Time Line
1869
The first transcontinental railroad is completed. Chicago begins its rapid
growth as a major industrial city. Uriah Stephans organizes a new union known
as the Knights of Labor.
1873
The Panic of 1873 is followed by several years of economic hard times.
1877
A railroad strike protesting recent wage cuts spreads to many railroads and
large cities. Widespread violence occurs. Federal troops are called out when
some state militias side with the strikers.
1883
Anarchists August Spies and Albert Parsons are among the radicals who
organize the International Working People’s Association and issue the
“Pittsburgh Manifesto.” It calls for the “destruction of the existing class
rule, by all means.”
1884
The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions passes a resolution
calling for an eight-hour work day by May 1, 1886.
1885
The Knights of Labor lead a successful strike against railroad tycoon Jay
Gould. Membership in the Knights soars (including in Chicago).
1886
March. Knights of Labor unions lead more than 200,000 workers in
another huge strike against two railroads owned by Jay Gould. Clashes
occur between strikers and Pinkerton detectives working for Gould. State
militias are brought in, sparking even more violence.
May 1. Workers across the nation rally to demand the eight-hour day.
Albert Parsons helps lead 80,000 members of the Knights of Labor and
other workers in a march down Michigan Avenue in Chicago.
May 3. At the McCormick Reaper Works a strike turns violent and police
kill four people. Some anarchists and others meet that night to plan a
protest the next day in Haymarket Square.
May 4. At the Haymarket rally, Spies, Parsons, and Samuel Fielden speak.
As the rally is ending, police move in to urge people to leave.
A bomb is thrown, police begin firing, and several people are killed.
May 5. In the hysteria following the Haymarket bombing, many radicals are
rounded up. Eight will ultimately go on trial.
June 21–October 9. The Haymarket defendants are tried and found guilty.
Seven are sentenced to death.
November–December. The Knights especially are harshly blamed for
the troubles in Chicago. Their great railroad strike had petered out that
summer. Membership plunges as many leave to join the new American
Federation of Labor.
1887
On November 11, Spies, Parsons, Adolph Fischer, and George Engel are
hanged. The evening before, a fifth defendant, Louis Lingg, committed
suicide in prison.
1893
Reformist Governor John Peter Altgeld pardons Fielden, Oscar Neebe, and
Michael Schwab after deciding all eight defendants were innocent.
The Haymarket Square Riot | Debating the Documents
9
First Group of Documents
DOCUMENT 1
Visual Primary Source Document 1
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Information on Document 1
Thomas Nast was one of the most famous
American editorial cartoonists of the late
1800s. This cartoon of his appeared in the
national news magazine Harper’s Weekly
shortly after the verdict was handed down
in the trial of the Haymarket anarchists.
Harper’s Weekly covered the Haymarket
riot and bombing heavily. It was
relentlessly hostile toward the anarchists,
depicting them as a grave danger to the
republic.
10
The female figure shown here was often
used in political cartoons to stand for
justice or for the nation united in a just
cause. Nast shows only the figure’s
powerful hands. One of these hands
has grasped the wriggling and helpless
Haymarket defendants. The hand holding
the sword has a wedding band labeled
“UNION.” This female figure may also
suggest the Statue of Liberty newly arrived
in New York Harbor.
Debating the Documents | The Haymarket Square Riot
First Group of Documents
DOCUMENT 2
Visual Primary Source Document 2
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Information on Document 2
German immigrant August Spies was a
key anarchist leader, editor of the ArbeiterZeitung and a defendant in the Haymarket
trial.
to speak at the rally unless these words
were removed. Fischer agreed to this, and
the result was a second version of the
handbill, the one on the right.
On the morning of May 4, he agreed to
speak at the Haymarket meeting set for
that evening. Later, at the Arbeiter-Zeitung,
he noticed a handbill calling on workers
to attend the meeting. It is the one on
the left here. It was prepared by another
Haymarket defendant, Adolph Fischer.
Spies objected to the line "Workingmen
Arm Yourselves and Appear in Full Force."
He told the Haymarket jury that he refused
The corrected handbill was the main
one used, but a few uncorrected ones
were also distributed. Prosecutors said
the uncorrected handbills proved that
the anarchists planned violence. But
Fischer said he put the “Arm Yourselves”
line in only “because I didn't want the
workingmen to be shot down in that
meeting as on other occasions.”
The Haymarket Square Riot | Debating the Documents
11
Study the Document
First group of documents
Study the Document: Visual Source 1
Instructions: Take notes on these questions. Use your notes to discuss the documents and answer
the DBQ.
1
Main Idea or Topic
In your own words, explain what the
cartoon’s four-word caption means
and what it has to do with the
Haymarket bombing.
2 Context
In addition to the Haymarket bombing,
what else do you need to know about to
understand this document? Why do you
think the entire nation in the 1880s was
so concerned about this tiny group of
anarchists in Chicago?
3 Bias
What opinion of the anarchists does this
cartoon seem to express?
4 Visual Features
Why do you think the artist focused only
on the female figure’s hands? How does
this focus add to the cartoon’s impact?
What other visual features express its
meaning and point of view?
5 Usefulness
This illustration does express a clear
bias. Could a historian still use this
document as evidence of some sort? If
so, does its bias add to its usefulness as
a primary source or make it less useful?
Explain your answers.
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Debating the Documents | The Haymarket Square Riot
Study the Document
First group of documents
Study the Document: Visual Source 2
Instructions: Take notes on these questions. Use your notes to discuss the documents and answer
the DBQ.
1
Main Idea or Topic
Briefly describe these two documents
and explain what their main
purpose was.
2 Context
The two handbills taken together are
important to any understanding of the
Haymarket bombing and trial. From
what you know about the bombing and
the trial, can you explain why? What
else about Chicago or the nation at
the time helps explain what you see in
these handbills?
3 Visual Features
These handbills are made up only of
words. Yet the way they are designed
does help add to their meaning. What
design features (typefaces, type sizes,
arrangements of words, etc.) help add
to their impact?
4 Usefulness
What use could a historian make of
these two handbills taken together?
What use, if any, could a historian make
if only one of the handbills existed?
The Haymarket Square Riot | Debating the Documents
13
Comparing the
DOCUMENTS
Comparing the Documents
The Visual Sources
Answer the question by checking one box below. Then complete the statements on the
Comparison Essay worksheet. Use all your notes to help you take part in an all-class debate
about these documents—and to answer the final DBQ for the lesson.
Which of these two primary source documents
would be most useful to a historian trying to
understand the Haymarket riot? (In this case,
“Document 2” means both handbills.)
Document 1
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Debating the Documents | The Haymarket Square Riot
Document 2
Comparing the
DOCUMENTS
Comparison Essay
I chose Document ______ because:
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
I did not choose Document ______.
However, a historian still might use the document in the following way:
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
KEEP THIS IN MIND: Some sources are very biased. A biased source is one that shows you
only one side of an issue. That is, it takes a clear stand or expresses a very strong opinion
about something. A biased source may be one-sided, but it can still help you to understand
its time period. For example, a biased editorial cartoon may show how people felt about an
issue at the time. The usefulness of a source depends most of all on what questions you
ask about that time in the past.
The Haymarket Square Riot | Debating the Documents
15
Second Group of Documents
DOCUMENT 1
Written Primary Source Document 1
Information on Document 1
On September 14, 1887, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the convictions of the Haymarket
anarchists. The national news magazine Harper’s Weekly very strongly favored this decision.
These passages are from its October 1, 1887, editorial praising the state court and explaining
exactly why the Haymarket defendants were guilty even though they were not linked directly
to the bomb or the bomb thrower.The first paragraph here refers to one of the convicted
anarchists, Albert Parsons, who turned himself in the day the trial began.
• Document 1 •
Parsons surrendered himself for trial
unquestionably because he supposed that
the actual thrower of the bomb could not
be identified, and therefore that no criminal
connection could be established between
the speeches and writings and plans of the
anarchists and the fatal act. That was the
feeling of some other observers, who have
been inclined to think that the anarchists
were really tried for their opinions, and
in the event of their execution, would be
regarded as martyrs of free speech.
But even upon the showing of the summary
of the trial published by their own friends,
it is almost impossible not to hold the
anarchists legally and morally guilty of the
crime. The meetings, the justification of
force, the appeal to force, the manufacture
of the bombs for a purpose, the call
to arms after the riot at McCormack’s,
the determination to resist the police as
myrmidons of bloody capital, the Haymarket
meeting, the harangues, the approach
of the police, and the catastrophe are all
inextricably connected and are all steps
toward the crime. Anarchy contemplates a
forcible subversion of society, which must
begin, if at all, in the very way that was
adopted at Chicago ...
16
In the commission of such crimes it is those
who instill the idea in more ignorant minds,
those who justify the deed, who point
out the criminal means, and who inflame
murderous passions to the utmost, who
are morally guilty. During the last two years
there has been enormous suffering among
honest laboring men and women, produced
by strikes under a hundred pretexts. Now is
it the unhappy and terrorized men who have
obeyed despotic leaders, or is it the leaders
themselves, who are really responsible for
all the suffering and loss? The man who
in every way incites forcible revolution is
responsible when revolution begins, and
if he be a courageous man he does not
shrink from the consequences. Those who
resisted the operation of the Fugitive Slave
Law, and sought to save the innocent
slave from torture and unspeakable wrong,
counted the cost and endured the penalty,
whether of the law or of public opinion.
Anarchists who justify and counsel murder
as necessary to the overthrow of society,
when murder begins in consequence of
their incitement, cannot be held guiltless.
Debating the Documents | The Haymarket Square Riot
Second Group of Documents
DOCUMENT 2
Written Primary Source Document 2
Information on Document 2
These passages are from an editorial written by Michael Schwab, who was one of those
convicted of inciting the Haymarket bombing. The editorial appeared in the Arbeiter-Zeitung on
May 4, 1886, the day of that bombing. However, it was written in response to the riot at the
McCormick factory the day before. It was written in deep anger about the police actions in that
riot. Yet it offers views that were often expressed by the anarchists, including their views on the
use of violence by the workers. The editorial was entered as People’s Exhibit 73 at the trial of
the Haymarket anarchists.
• Document 2 •
Blood has flowed. It happened as it had
to. Order has not drilled and disciplined her
murdering hounds in vain. The militia has not
been drilled in street fighting for mere sport.
The robbers who know best themselves what
a mean rabble they are, who keep up their
mammon by rendering the masses wretched,
who make the slow murdering of laboring
men’s families their vocation, they are the
last to be afraid of directly butchering the
laboring men. Down with the rabble is their
watchword. Is it not an historical fact, that
private property has had its origin in acts of
violence of all sorts? And shall the “rabble,”
the laboring men, allow this capitalistic pack
of robbers to carry on through hired assassins
their bloody orgies? Nevermore! The war of
classes has come. In front of McCormick’s
factory workmen were shot down yesterday
whose blood cries for vengeance. Who will
any longer deny that the ruling tigers are
thirsting for the workman’s blood? Countless
victims have been slaughtered upon the
altars of the golden calf amidst the triumphant
shouts of the capitalistic band of robbers.
One has only to think of Cleveland, New
York, Brooklyn, East St. Louis, Fort Worth,
Chicago, and countless other places in order
to recognize the tactic of the extortioners. It is
“Terror to our working cattle”. But the laborers
are not sheep, and the white terror will be
answered with the red. Do you know what
that means? Very well, you will find that out
yet.
Modesty is a vice of the workingmen, and can
there be anything more modest than this eight
hour demand? Peaceably the workmen made
it already a year ago, in order not to neglect
to give the extortioner opportunity to prepare
for it; and the answer to this was: to drill the
police force and the militia, and to browbeat
the laborers who worked in favor of the eight
hour system. And yesterday blood flowed.
This is the manner in which these devils reply
to a modest petition of their slaves!
Death rather than a life of wretchedness! If
workmen must be shot at, well then, let us
answer them in a manner which the robbers
will not soon forget again. The murderous
capitalistic beasts have become drunk with
the smoking blood of laborers. The tiger lies
ready for the jump; his eyes sparkle eager for
murder; impatiently he whips his tail, and the
sinews of his clutches are drawn tight. Self
defense causes the cry “To arms!” “To arms!”
If you do not defend yourselves you will be
torn in pieces and ground by the animal’s
teeth. The new yoke which awaits you in case
of cowardly retreat is heavier still and harder
than the severe yoke of slavery as it exists
now.
The Haymarket Square Riot | Debating the Documents
17
Study the Document
SECOND group of documents
Study the Document: Written Source 1
Instructions: Take notes on these questions. Use your notes to discuss the documents and answer
the DBQ.
1
Main Idea or Topic
What main point does this editorial
make about the guilt or innocence of the
Haymarket anarchists?
2 Author, Audience, Purpose
From the document and the information
on it, who do you think the audience for
this editorial was? What purpose do you
think the editorial hoped to achieve?
3 Bias
What two or three sentences or phrases
in the editorial best express its view of
the anarchists? What two or three
sentences or phrases express its view
of ordinary workers?
4 What Else Can You Infer?
What is suggested or implied by this
document? For example, what can you
infer from it about overall business-labor
relations at this time? What can you infer
about the views of those who supported
the Haymarket defenders?
18
Debating the Documents | The Haymarket Square Riot
Study the Document
SECOND group of documents
Study the Document: Written Source 2
Instructions: Take notes on these questions. Use your notes to discuss the documents and answer
the DBQ.
1
Main Idea or Topic
What overall point about relations between
business owners and workers does this
document make?
2 Author, Audience, Purpose
Read the information provided with this
document. How does it help you better
understand the point of the document and
the tone of its author?
3 Context
To better understand this document, what
would a reader need to know about labor
and industry in late nineteenth-century
America? What would they need to know
about socialist and anarchist ideas?
4 Bias
The document seems to defend the idea
of workers using force and violence in their
struggles. What case does it make for
this? Do you think the case is sound?
Why or why not?
5 Usefulness
This document was used to convict the
Haymarket anarchists. Was this fair? Why
or why not? Could a historian use this
document fairly? If so, in what way could
this be a useful historical document?
The Haymarket Square Riot | Debating the Documents
19
Comparing the
DOCUMENTS
Comparing the Documents
The Written Sources
Answer the question by checking one box below. Then complete the statements on the
Comparison Essay worksheet. Use all your notes to help you take part in an all-class debate
about these documents—and to answer the final DBQ for the lesson.
Which of these two primary source documents
would be most useful to a historian trying to
understand the Haymarket riot?
Passages from an
Passages from an
editorial in Harper’s Weekly
editorial in the
on October 1, 1887,
Arbeiter-Zeitung,
praising the state court
May 4, 1886, written
for upholding the
by Michael Schwab, a
convictions of the
defendant convicted in
Haymarket anarchists.
the Haymarket bombing.
Document 1
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Debating the Documents | The Haymarket Square Riot
Document 2
Comparing the
DOCUMENTS
Comparison Essay
I chose Document ______ because:
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
I did not choose Document ______.
However, a historian still might use the document in the following way:
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
KEEP THIS IN MIND: Some sources are very biased. A biased source is one that shows you
only one side of an issue. That is, it takes a clear stand or expresses a very strong opinion
about something. A biased source may be one-sided, but it can still help you to understand
its time period. For example, a biased editorial cartoon may show how people felt about an
issue at the time. The usefulness of a source depends most of all on what questions you
ask about that time in the past.
The Haymarket Square Riot | Debating the Documents
21
Document-Based
QUESTION
Document-Based Question
Your task is to answer a document-based question (DBQ) on the Haymarket Square riot. In a
DBQ, you use your analysis of primary source documents and your knowledge of history to write
a brief essay answering the question. Using all four documents, answer this question.
Document-Based Question
The Haymarket anarchists often discussed the use of violence for
political purposes. Even if they were innocent of the Haymarket
bombing, were their critics right to see them as a danger to
Chicago and the nation? Why or why not?
Below is a checklist of key suggestions for writing a DBQ essay. Next to each item, jot down a few
notes to guide you in writing the DBQ. Use extra sheets to write a four- or five-paragraph essay.
Introductory Paragraph
Does the paragraph clarify the DBQ itself? Does it present a clear thesis, or overall answer, to that DBQ?
The Internal Paragraphs — 1
Are these paragraphs organized around main points with details supporting those main ideas? Do all
these main ideas support the thesis in the introductory paragraph?
The Internal Paragraphs — 2
Are all of your main ideas and key points linked in a logical way? That is, does each idea follow clearly
from those that went before? Does it add something new and helpful in clarifying your thesis?
Use of Primary Source Documents
Are they simply mentioned in a “laundry list” fashion? Or are they used thoughtfully to support main ideas
and the thesis?
Concluding Paragraph
Does it restate the DBQ and thesis in a way that sums up the main ideas without repeating old information
or going into new details?
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Debating the Documents | The Haymarket Square Riot