Today in Labor History July 26, 1894: President Grover Cleveland created a Strike Committee to investigate the causes of the Pullman strike and the subsequent walkout by the American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs. After four months, the commission absolved the strikers and placed the blame entirely on Pullman and the railroads for the conflict. Roughly 250,000 workers participated in the strike. An estimated 70 workers died, mostly at the hands of cops and soldiers. To appease workers, the government came up with a new holiday, Labor Day, to commemorate the end of the Pullman Strike. However, President Cleveland had other interests in creating the new holiday. Rather than rewarding workers, his goal was to bury the history of the Haymarket Affair and the radical anarchist and socialist history of the labor movement by choosing any day other than May 1 as the new national labor holiday.
On May 1, 1886, 350,000 workers went on strike across the U.S. to demand the eight-hour workday. It was the world’s first May Day/International Workers’ Day demonstration—an event that has been celebrated ever since, by nearly every country in the world, except for the U.S. Two days later, Chicago Police and Pinkertons attacked protesters, killing at least one person. On May 4, anarchists organized a demonstration at Haymarket Square to protest that police violence. Somebody threw a bomb, which killed at least one cop. The police opened fire, killing another seven workers. Six police also died, likely from “friendly fire” by other cops.
The authorities went on a witch hunt, rounding up most of the city’s leading anarchists and radical labor leaders. They ultimately convicted seven anarchists, even though none of them were present at Haymarket Square when the bomb was thrown, and executed four of them in 1887, including Albert Parsons. After her husband’s execution, Lucy Parsons continued her radical organizing, writing, and speeches. In 1905, Lucy cofounded the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), along with Mother Jones, Big Bill Haywood, Eugene Debs, James Connolly, and others.
You can read my complete article about the Great Upheaval here:
https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/03/31/the-great-upheaval/
You can read my biography of Lucy Parsons here:
https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2024/03/24/lucy-parsons/
#workingclass #LaborHistory #pullman #strike #railroad #eugenedebs #socialism #laborday #haymarket #anarchism #union #policebrutality #police #IWW #lucyparsons #pinkertons #mayday
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