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“We Can't Get Them to Do Aggressive Work”: Chicago's Anarchists and the Eight-Hour Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Bruce C. Nelson
Bruce C. Nelson
Affiliation:
Northern Illinois University
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Extract

In the last month before the Haymarket Riot, Chicago's labor movement staged two grand demonstrations as it prepared to inaugurate the Eight Hour Day on May 1. The Knights of Labor and the Trade and Labor Assembly arranged the first on April 10, the International Working Peoples' Association (IWPA) and the Central Labor Union (CLU) arranged the second, two weeks later, on Easter Sunday, April 25. The two demonstrations shared a common purpose—to rally the city's labor movement around shorter hours—but they could not have been more different.

Type
The Haymarket
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 29 , Spring 1986 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1986

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References

NOTES

1. The quotations all come from the Chicago Tribune, 11 April 1886, 8 and 26 April 1886, 3. This comparison however draws upon a variety of other accounts, including Svornost, Chicago Times and Inter Ocean, the Illinois Staats-Zeitung, The Alarm, and Der Vorbote.

2. David, Henry, The History of the Haymarket Affair: A Study in the American Social-Revolutionary and Labor Movements [1936] (rev. ed. New York, 1958)Google Scholar; Kann, Kenneth, “Working Class Culture and the Labor Movement in Nineteenth Century Chicago” (Ph.D. diss., University of California at Berkeley, 1978)Google Scholar; Hirsch, Eric, “Revolution or Reform: An Analytical History of an Urban Labor Movement” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1981)Google Scholar; Avrich, Paul, The Haymarket Tragedy (Princeton, 1984)Google Scholar; Schneirov, Richard, “The Knights of Labor in the Chicago Labor Movement and in Municipal Politics, 1877–1887” (Ph.D. diss., Northern Illinois University, 1984)Google Scholar; Nelson, Bruce, “Culture and Conspiracy: A Social History of Chicago Anarchism, 1870–1900” (Ph.D. diss., Northern Illinois University, 1985).Google Scholar

3. Die Chicagoer Arbeiter Zeitung [hereafter ChAZ], 31 October 1879, 4; Inter Ocean, 3 November 1879, 3; ChAZ: 12, 16, 19, 26 December 1879, (all p. 4); Times, 30 January 1880, 8; ChAZ: 27 February 1880, 4; 26 March 1880, 4; 7 May 1880, 2.

4. See Suhrbur, Tom, “Ethnicity in the Formation of the Chicago Carpenters Union, 1855–1890,” in German Workers in Industrial Chicago, 1850–1910: A Comparative Perspective, ed., Keil, Hartmut and Jentz, John (DeKalb, III, 1983), 86–103Google Scholar; and Leslee Snyder, “Mobility and Class Consciousness: The Cigarmakers of Chicago, 1864–1886” (paper presented to the Chicago Area Labor History Group, Newberry Library, 6 May 1983).

5. Progress (“Official Organ of the Cigar Makers' Progressive Union of America,” New York), 25 07 1884, 6Google Scholar; ChAZ, 5 June 1884, 4; ibid., 16 June 1884, 4; Der Vorbote, 18 June 1884, 8; ChAZ, 10 September 1884, 4.

6. The sample of 277 Trades Assembly officers was compiled from city directories and annual elections; ethnicity was determined by surname. The Alarm: 5 September 1885, 1; 24 January 1885, 2; 7 February 1885, 4.

7. Schneirov, “The Knights of Labor in Chicago,” 311–57, quotations from 343, 350, 356, 351. See Chicago Groups of the International Working Peoples' Association, “The Ballot. A Review of the Work of the Illinois State Labor Convention” (circa March 1884), Albert R. Parsons Papers (hereafter Parsons Papers). Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison.

8. Progress, 18 September 1885, 3; ChAZ, 16 June 1884, 4; Plan of Organization, Method of Propaganda and Resolutions, Adopted by the Pittsburgh Congress of the International Working Peoples' Association in Session from October 14th to October 16th, 1883 (Chicago, n.d. [1883?]), in the Parsons Papers.

9. The sample of 287 officers was compiled from Knights of Labor, “District Assembly 24, Chicago, Minutes, 1882–1886” (hereafter “DA 24 Minutes”), in the George A. Schilling Collection (hereafter Schilling Collection), Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield, bound volume 3.

10. Van Patten, Philip to Powderly, Terence V. (hereafter TVP), 28 02 1880Google Scholar, emphasis in original; Patten, Van to TVP, 20 05 1880 (both reel 2)Google Scholar; cf. Halley, William to TVP, 28 07 1882Google Scholar and McGann, David to TVP, 20 11 1882Google Scholar (both reel 4), Terence V. Powderly Papers (hereafter Powderly Papers), Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., microfilm edition.

11. “DA 24 Minutes,” 15 October 1882, in the Schilling Collectizon, bound volume 3.

12. Journal of United Labor (Washington, D.C.), April 1883, 442–46; March 1884, 662.

13. McPadden, Myles to TVP, 1 02 1882Google Scholar (reel 3); McPadden, to TVP, 23 02 1882Google Scholar (reel 2); Griffiths, Richard to TVP, 28 10 1881Google Scholar (reel 3); TVP to Griffiths, , 31 10 1881Google Scholar (reel 45); Page, John to TVP, 11 01 1882Google Scholar (reel 3); TVP to Page, , 13 01 1882Google Scholar (reel 45), Powderly Papers.

14. Ware, Norman, The Labor Movement in the United States, 1860–1895 [1929] (reprint Gloucester, Mass., 1959), 316Google Scholar; Keil, Hartmut, “The Knights of Labor, The Trade Unions, and German Socialists in Chicago, 1870–1890,” in Impressions of a Gilded Age: The American Fin-de-Siecle, ed., Chenetier, Marc and Kroes, Rob (Amsterdam, 1983), 301–23Google Scholar; “DA 24 Minutes,” Schilling Collection, bound volume 3. In reconstituting their Chicago memberships I found biographical information, in varying amounts, on 565 members of the SLP and 723 members of the IWPA, see Nelson, “Culture and Conspiracy,” 188–235.

15. See Oestreicher, Richard, “Solidarity and Fragmentation: Working People and Class Consciousness in Detroit, 1877–1895” (Ph.D. diss., Michigan State University, 1979)Google Scholar; TVP to Cannon, J.M., 19 11 1882Google Scholar, cited in Falzone, Vincent, Terence V. Powderly: Middle-Class Reformer (Washington, D.C., 1978), 140Google Scholar, emphasis in original.

16. Albert Parsons to TVP, quoted in David, Haymarket Affair, 124–25; The Alarm, 24 April 1886, 3.

17. Schneirov, “The Knights of Labor in Chicago,” 404–82, esp. 412–20; Bisno, Abraham, Abraham Bisno, Union Pioneer (Madison, Wisc., 1967), 66–71.Google Scholar

18. Tribune, 10 October 1885, 8; ibid., 7 December 1885, 8; Chicago, Express, 10 10 1885, 8Google Scholar; ibid., 19 December 1885, 8; Chicago, Herald, 2 02 1885, 4Google Scholar; The Alarm, 23 January 1886, 2; ibid., 6 February 1886, 2.

19. Der Vorbote: 10 March 1886, 3; 14 April 1886, 3; (both) trans, in Keil, “The Knights of Labor, The Trade Unions, and German Socialists in Chicago,” 17.

20. The Alarm, 3 April 1886, 4; Der Vorbote, 10 March 1886, 4; Neebe, Oscar, “Autobiography,” in The Autobiographies of the Haymarket Martyrs, ed. Foner, Philip. [1887] (New York, 1969), 167.Google Scholar

21. Chicago, Mail, 27 02 1886, 3Google Scholar; Ozanne, Robert, A Century of Labor-Management Relations at McCormick and International Harvester (Madison, Wise., 1967), 3–21Google Scholar; Fuss, Hanns-Theodor, “Massenproduktion und Arbeiterbewusstsein: Deutsche Arbeiter in den McCormick Reaper Works, 1873–1886,” Amerikastudien, 29/2 (1984), 149–68, esp. 162–68.Google Scholar

22. See the report of a “Polnischer Achtstunden Verein,” with 70 members, Der Vorbote, 30 December 1885, 8; and the advertisement for a meeting of the “Polnischer Arbeiter Club,” ibid., 3 February 1886, 8; Times, 12 January 1886, 6; Polisensky, Josef, “Cesky podil na predhistorii Prvniho maje,” in Zaciatky ceskej a slovenskej emigracie do USA, ed., Gosiorovsky, Milos, (Bratislava, 1970), 163–85Google Scholar; Bisno, Union Pioneer, 73–78.

23. On the furniture workers, see Der Vorbote, 14 April 1886, 7; on the bakers, see ibid., 17 March 1886, 3; on the butchers, see ibid., 24 March 1886, 3; and on the brewers, see Schlüter, Herman, The Brewing Industry and the Brewery Workers' Movement in America (Cincinnati, 1910), 122–23.Google Scholar

24. Der Vorbote, 1 April 1886, 8; The Alarm, 3 April 1886, 3; Tribune, 1 May 1886, 2. On the lumbershovers, see Richard Schneirov, “Czech Militancy and Socialism in Chicago's Pilsen Community, 1875–1887” (paper presented at the Chicago Area Labor History Group, Newberry Library, 28 September 1984), 20–23.

25. Der Vorbote, 21 April 1886, 8. Tribune, 19 April 1886, 2 confirms all of the numbers claimed by Der Vorbote; cf. Der Sozialist (New York), 10 April 1886, 6. On the Metal Workers Union, see Fuss, “Massenproduktion und Arbeiterbewusstsein,” 162–68.

26. Express, 19 December 1885, 2; Tribune, 22 March 1886, 3; Der Vorbote, 21 April 1886, 8; 28 April 1886, 8; Perlman, Selig, “Upheaval and Reorganization,” in Commons, John R. et al. , History of Labour in the United States (New York, 1918–1935), 2: 387Google Scholar; Tribune, 22 March 1886, 1; Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, Fourth Biennial Report, 1886 (Springfield, 1886), 221, 224–26.Google Scholar

27. Tribune, 1 May 1886, 1; cf. Der Vorbote's retrospective “Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung Chicago's,” 4 and 25 May 1887, 5.

28. Tribune, 3 May 1886, 2; on Cameron's rejection of European socialism, see Schneirov, “The Knights of Labor in Chicago,” 58–68.

29. David, Haymàrket Affair, 182; Public Opinion, I (1886), 82–86.

30. Keil, “The Knights of Labor, The Trade Unions, and German Socialists in Chicago,” 302; Illinois Staats-Zeitung, 8 March 1871, 2.

31. Montgomery, David, Beyond Equality: Labor and the Radical Republicans, 1862–1872 (New York, 1967), 42–43Google Scholar; Schilling, George, “Brief History of the Labor Movement in Chicago,” in The Life of Albert R. Parsons, ed. Parsons, Lucy (Chicago, 1889), xxxGoogle Scholar; Herald, , 5 04 1886, 1.Google Scholar

32. Gutman, Herbert, “Protestantism and American Labor,” in Gutman, , Work, Culture and Society in Industrializing America (New York, 1977), 79–117Google Scholar; quoted in Svornost, 27 May 1884, trans, in Chicago Foreign Language Press Survey [hereafter CFLPS] (Chicago, 1943)Google Scholar, reel 6; cf. Svornost, 16 September 1884, (CFLPS reel 1) and Schneirov, “Czech Militancy and Socialism.”

33. Barthel, O.H. to TVP, 22 05 1886Google Scholar (reel 16); Dan, [no last name] to TVP, 8 12 1884Google Scholar (reel 8); TVP to Charles Keegan, 12 July 1882 (reel 45); (all) Powderly Papers. Cf. Nelson, “Culture and Conspiracy,” 360–70.

34. Hobsbawm, Eric, “Religion and the Rise of Socialism,” in Hobsbawm, , Workers: Worlds of Work, (New York, 1984), 33–48Google Scholar; Montgomery, Beyond Equality, 201–02, 332–33.

35. Knights of Labor (Chicago), 22 May 1886, 2; Tribune, 3 May 1886, 1; Knights of Labor, 5 June 1886, 2; John Swinton's Paper (New York), 30 05 1886, 2.Google Scholar