It grew in size and prominence in the early days of the American labor movement from the mid- to lates and played a key role in the Great Railroad Strike of Uriah Stevens, Knights The New York Draft Riots occurred in July , when the anger of working-class New Yorkers over a new federal draft law during the Civil War sparked five days of some of the bloodiest and most destructive rioting in U.
Hundreds of people were killed, many more The Detroit Riots were among the most violent and destructive riots in U.
By the time the bloodshed, burning and looting ended after five days, 43 people were dead, injured, nearly 1, buildings had been burned and some 7, National Guard and U. The explosion in Haymarket Square came during a period of nationwide labor upheaval. Scottish-born Andrew Carnegie was an American industrialist who amassed a fortune in the steel industry then became a major philanthropist.
Carnegie worked in a Pittsburgh cotton factory as a boy before rising to the position of division superintendent of the Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Labor in the s Strikes by industrial workers were increasingly common in the United States in the s, a time when working conditions were often dismal and dangerous and wages were low. Haymarket Riot Begins The May 4, , rally at Haymarket Square was organized by labor radicals to protest the killing and wounding of several workers by the Chicago police during a strike the day before at the McCormick Reaper Works.
Recommended for you. How the Troubles Began in Northern Ireland. Ask Steve: The Riots. Bush on Los Angeles Riots. And within that left wing, there was a fringe of anarchists who counseled the use of bombs and dynamite. They justified it — at least publicly — as something they would only resort to in the face of police violence and as a defensive mechanism.
But it seems clear there was a fringe of anarchists who were stockpiling bombs. Carl Smith: I think most of the Haymarket defendants are nonviolent people. They were convicted for what they said, not what they did. But yes, they certainly rhetorically preached violence as a solution. They preached a sense that violence is being practiced on them, day in and day out in the system — the billy clubs of the police. In their worldview, it was a life-and-death battle.
Messer-Kruse: Among those eight defendants , there clearly were people who were willing to use violence for political ends — Louis Lingg, very clearly. The evidence is overwhelming that he made the bombs, including the bomb that was thrown at the Haymarket rally.
He had dedicated his life to the violent overthrow not only of the government but essentially all bourgeois institutions. The Haymarket defendants include individuals who philosophically agree that the industrial society was so unjust, so murderous in its daily operation, that it had to be overthrown through some sort of mass, violent insurrection. Pacyga: Oh, it devastated the labor movement and the radical movement.
Everybody who was involved with the May Day strike was tainted by the bombing. But the people in power used this as an excuse to really destroy the labor movement, to destroy the labor press and to move against all attempts to organize workers across the city.
Smith: What the press and leading businessmen tried to do was tar all labor organizing with the brush of anarchism and to link anarchism with bombing. People started associating labor unions with bomb-throwers. Messer-Kruse: Haymarket definitely threw a big monkey wrench into the direction of American labor activism. When the bomb went off, Chicago went from being a city involved in what was becoming a complete general strike to a city pretty much on lockdown, with police investigations of this bombing.
The eight-hour movement was stopped in its tracks. Many workers in Chicago and elsewhere were actually winning concessions from their employers. Workers had been peacefully on strike, negotiating with their employers.
When that bomb went off and police were killed, labor activists suddenly lost a lot of power and lost a lot of respect. Many employers who had conceded the eight-hour day in Chicago took it back.
They simply tore up those contracts and took it back. Had that bombing not happened, it could very well have gone otherwise. When the bomb went off, it went exactly the other direction. Labor leaders abandoned any idea of mobilizing this kind of public activism. They primarily become concerned with the interests of their own narrow sector of the workforce, and not with the nation as a whole.
Green: It was certainly a crushing blow to that revolutionary left wing. The doctrine of force as a political philosophy disappears.
What it did was drastically limit what the public debate about working conditions could be. It was no longer admissible to talk about it being so bad that something radical had to happen. That was out the window. Pacyga: There was a tremendous amount of public reaction against labor unions and against the Knights of Labor , which was the largest union at the time. There were about , members nationally.
From that point on, the Knights of Labor really struggled and there was not that much future for it. Fink: Chicago was a leading Knights of Labor center. The Knights encompassed everyone from small businessmen and professionals down to the unskilled, including African-Americans and women. They were probably the most inclusive social movement of the late 19th century.
And they were a powerful social force. They saw themselves as the preserver of the American Dream for the mass of people in the aftermath of the Civil War. They were against monopoly and against the seizure of the political system by a new moneyed elite. They believed in the ballot box. They believed in peaceful protest. They really were not in favor of strikes or confrontations, and engaged in them only as a last resort. So, their leadership was quick to disassociate itself from the anarchists, but Haymarket tarred their public reputation.
They never ever recovered. The setback here reverberated around nation. But even then, the labor unions were pretty much kept out of power until well into the s. Green: Eventually, more and more workers win the eight-hour day. In , it becomes a mandate of Congress. Chicago remained a labor stronghold throughout this period and well into the 20th century, and the politics revolved around labor.
Pacyga: People on both sides of the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans, tried to get leniency for the Haymarket martyrs. But Marshall Field really pushed — he wanted them to be punished. People like Haymarket defendant Albert Parsons had been a pain in his side for a long time. Marshall Field wanted them hanged. Green: Lyman Trumbull a former U. Smith: No mainstream politician defended them. And Altgeld Gov. He called it a miscarriage of justice.
The Haymarket Square Riot set off a national wave of xenophobia, as hundreds of foreign-born radicals and labor leaders were rounded up in Chicago and elsewhere. A grand jury eventually indicted 31 suspected labor radicals in connection with the bombing, and eight men were convicted in a sensational and controversial trial.
Judge Joseph E. Gary imposed the death sentence on seven of the men, and the eighth was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Of the three others sentenced to death, one died by suicide on the eve of his execution and the other two had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment by Illinois Governor Richard J.
Governor Oglesby was reacting to widespread public questioning of their guilt, which later led his successor, Governor John P. Altgeld, to pardon fully the three activists still living in But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
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