History 350
June 2, 2015
Announcements
• The final exam is scheduled for Monday, June 8 at 12:30. Instructions and
essay questions are now online at
http://pages.uoregon.edu/dapope/350final--spring15.htm
• If you’re doing the take-home, bring hard copy to my office, 366 McKenzie
by 12:15 Monday, June 8. After that, bring it to our classroom by the 12:30
start of the in-class exam.
• The fourth forum question (on radical labor) is now available. The deadline
for posts is 11:59 p.m. Wed., June 10.
• Late papers will be accepted until class time Thursday (June 4). Bring hard
copy to my office, 366 McKenzie, or to class. They’ll be penalized one
grading notch for each weekday they’re late.
• Note: Last Thursday, I showed the three YouTube clips about Haymarket
listed on the next slide. They provide a brief overview of the bombing and
its context. Although they’re much less complete than Duberman’s novel,
you may want to watch them to complement your reading of the book.
Here are the links : part 1
part 2 part 3 (about 15 min. total)
Some Websites of Interest
• PBS American Experience documentary Chicago: City of
the Century website—note the section on anarchists.
• The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 video (12 min.)
• Preamble and Declaration of Principles of the Knights
of Labor
• Excerpts from Chicago: City of the Century on
Haymarket affair: part 1 part 2 part 3 (about 15 min.
total)
• An archive of material on Haymarket. (This is part of a
massive “Anarchy Archives”— “an online research
center on the history and theory of anarchism”.
• An extensive site on “The Dramas of Haymarket”
Map: “Labor Unrest in Chicago, April
25-May 4, 1886”
• [Link for the map:
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/
pages/1769.html]
McCormick Reaper Works: May 3
The Revenge Circular
A Conspiratorial Meeting?
The Protest and the Bomb
The Bomb—People’s Exhibit 129a
Cartoon Depiction of the Bombing
Martial Law
Arresting Louis Lingg
The Trial: Judge and Jury
The Courtroom
Juror Selection: Juror accepted for
service
Instructions to the Jury
The March to the Grave, Nov. 13, 1887
Gallows Pin Worn by Opponents of the
Executions
Were They Innocent?
• Recently, historian Timothy Messer-Kruse has
published two books, both indicating that the
Haymarket anarchists were in fact guilty of a
conspiracy.
• He sees them as part of a trans-Atlantic
network of anarchists who had rejected the
possibility of achieving power by electoral
politics and adopted the theory of “attentat,”
or “propaganda of the deed.”
Johann Most
Anarchism and Dynamite
Louis Lingg and the Bombs
• Louis Lingg, who committed
suicide in prison the day
before he was scheduled to
be hanged, was an eager
bomb-maker.
“Louis Lingg and the Bombs” is a
French punk band. Among their songs:
“Conspiracy”, “Louis Lingg, Anarchist”
and “Death in the Haymarket”. Here’s a
link to some of their songs.
Did Their Guilt or Innocence Matter?
•
•
•
•
For public opinion?
For understanding the criminal justice system?
For later radical workers’ organizations?
For the Haymarket anarchists as symbols of an
unjust system?
America’s First “Red Scare”
• New York Times headline:
• Anarchy’s Red Hand
•
Rioting and Bloodshed in the
Streets of Chicago.
• Police mowed down with
dynamite
• Strikers killed with volleys from
revolvers.
• The slaughter following an
anarchist meeting-twelve
policemen dead or dying – the
number of killed or injured
civilians unknown but very large
– the bravery of the police force.
• Chicago Tribune headline:
A Hellish Deed
A Dynamite Bomb Thrown Into a
Crowd of Policemen
It explodes and covers the street
with dead and mutilated officers –A
storm of bullets follows- The police
return the fire and wound a number
of rioters- Harrowing scenes at the
Desplaines Street Station- A night of
terror.
• Chicago Times editorial:
"Let us whip these slavic wolves back
to the European dens from which
they issue, or in some way
exterminate them."
Controlling Labor Unrest
• In the aftermath of Haymarket, business
interests in Chicago donated land to the
Federal government to build a military fort,
later named Fort Sheridan, in what is now
suburban Chicago.
1889: Anarchy and Anarchists
• In 1889, Captain
Michael Schaack of the
Chicago Police
published Anarchy and
Anarchists, which luridly
described the bombing
and the anarchists’
terrorist conspiracies
behind it.
1893: Altgeld Pardon
• In 1893, with three Haymarket defendants still
in prison, Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld
issued a pardon, releasing them from prison.
• The “Red Scare” mood was still strong.
Altgeld’s pardon was political
suicide and it ended the career of
a politician who had been talked
about as a future Presidential
candidate.
Labor Violence Continues
• 1892: Homestead Steel Strike near Pittsburgh
– Pinkerton private police battle workers, dozens of casualties
– Anarchist Alexander Berkman attempts an attentat—tries to assassinate
the General Manager of the steel mill.
– Berkman and his lover, Emma Goldman, had become anarchists in response
to the hanging of the Haymarket martyrs. Emma became the most
prominent anarchist in America.
• 1894: Pullman Strike—National railroad strike beginning at
Pullman, Illinois factories for making sleeping cars. About
thirty deaths in Chicago area alone.
• Army troops from Fort Sheridan called on to suppress the
strike
• One study found 700 instances of labor conflict in the U.S.
with deaths recorded. In 160 conflicts, the U.S. military
intervened to suppress strikes.
The Legacy of Haymarket
Police Monument
Martyrs’ Monument
Monumental Histories: The Police
Monument
• 1889: Chicago Tribune, the city’s leading
newspaper, leads fundraising campaign for a
police monument
• 1927: Streetcar crash damages monument.
Motorman says he’s "sick of seeing that
policeman with his arm raised.”
• 1969 and 1970: Monument bombed, statue
moved to Police Department Headquarters
• 2007 Monument rededicated near Haymarket
Square
Labor Monuments
• Martyrs’ Monument
dedicated 1893 in
Waldheim Cemetery.
Rededicated 2011 on
125th anniversary of the
bombing.
• It’s still controversial.
Note anarchist graffiti
on monument plaque.
A New Memorial: Dedicated 2004
A Souvenir Photograph for You
Into the Twentieth Century
• The meanings of equality
– The limits of equality of opportunity
– Is equality sameness?
• Do rights make sense?
– “Rights talk” as political rhetoric?
– Rights and the existing power structure
• Sources of radicalism in capitalist America
• And in post-industrial society?