Death in the Haymarket

by James Green

  On the killing of Hampton and Clark, who died in a hail of seventy-nine bullets from police revolvers, see Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer, Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s (New York: Bantam Books, 1990) pp. 520–38.

  Press release from the Haymarket Square Workers Memorial Committee, April 25, 1969.

  Huebner, “Haymarket Revisited,” p. 16.

  Jonah Raskin, ed., The Weather Eye: Communiqués from the Weather Underground, May 1970–May 1974 (New York: Union Square Press, 1974), p. 5.

  Huebner, “Haymarket Revisited,” pp. 16, 22.

  Quote ibid., p. 14.

  This official reference to the Haymarket martyrs as “activists,” not as anarchists—along with everything else that transpired during the centennial ceremonies— enraged a band of 200 neo-anarchists who gathered in Chicago for the events, complete with black flags and banners with slogans such as “Eat the Rich, Feed the Poor.” Smith, Urban Disorder (see Prologue, n. 14), p. 277.

  The collection of documents and images is Roediger and Rosemont’s Haymarket Scrapbook. The walking tour is in Adelman, Haymarket Revisited (see chap. 4, n. 20). Warren Lemming’s cabaret production was published as Cold Chicago: A Haymarket Fable (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 2001). Scholarly publications include special issues of International Labor and Working Class History 29 (Spring 1986), edited by David Montgomery, and Chicago History 15 (Summer 1986), edited by Russell Lewis; Bruce C. Nelson’s impressively researched monograph on the Chicago anarchist movement, Beyond the Martyrs (see chap. 3, n. 37); Charnan Simon’s The Story of the Haymarket Riot (Chicago: The Children’s Press of Regensteiner Printing Enterprises, 1988); as well as chapters on the case in P. Foner, May Day (see Epilogue, n. 13); Udo Achten, Mathias Reichelt and Reinhard Schultz, eds., Mein Vaterland 1st International (Berlin: Asso Verlag, 1986); and Roediger and P. Foner, Our Own Time (see chap. 1, n. 16). In 1993, a researcher found 1,000 articles and books in which the case was discussed (not simply mentioned) and another 200 “imaginative works” that involved the Haymarket characters and events. Robert W. Glenn, The Haymarket Affair: An Annotated Bibliography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993). Since then, other writers who have devoted chapters to the story include Smith, Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief (1995); Miller, City of the Century (1996); Schneirov, Labor and Urban Politics (1998); Marco d’Eramo, Il maiale e il grattacielo (Milan: Feltrinelli Editore, 1999), translated into English as The Pig and the Skyscraper: Chicago, A History of Our Future (London: Verso, 2002); James Green, Taking History to Heart: The Power of the Past in Building Social Movements (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000); Palmer, Cultures of Darkness (2000); Clymer, America’s Culture of Terrorism (2003); and various entries in two superb encyclopedias of Chicago history: Schultz and Hast, eds., Women Building Chicago (see chap. 4, n. 17), and James R. Grossman, Ann Durkin Keating and Janice L. Reiff, eds., The Encyclopedia of Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). Now researchers may also consult the Web site “The Dramas of Haymarket” ( www.chicagohistory.org/dramas), created by the Chicago Historical Society and designed by the historian Carl Smith, and the Library of Congress digital transcript of the Haymarket trial at http:// www.memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/ichihtml/haybuild.htm.

  The landmark status came as a result of a Newberry Library project directed by James Grossman. The Waldheim site study was written by Robin Bachin, who argued that the memorial provided a symbol through which various groups could share pride in their radical heritage. “Haymarket Martyrs Monument,” National Historic Landmark Nomination by Robin Bachin for the Newberry Library, photocopy in author’s possession. Also see Robin Bachin, “Structuring Memory—The Haymarket Martyrs’ Memorial,” Cultural Resources Management 21 (1998), pp. 45–46; and Green, Taking History to Heart, pp. 130–32, 142–43.

  The ceremony held to rededicate the martyrs’ monument attracted 500 people to Waldheim on May 3, 1998, and, like nearly everything else about the case, it aroused protest and controversy. The whole affair infuriated some anarchists in attendance, who shouted protests against the very idea that the U.S. government would grant any kind of state recognition to men who died fighting against it. One critic bitterly noted that the labor union speakers all referred to Spies, Parsons and their comrades not as revolutionaries, but “as ‘labor activists’ who died for ‘workers’ rights, good American trade unionists who died in the fight for an eight-hour day, a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay, mom and apple pie.” G. L. Doebler, “The Contest for Memory: Haymarket Through a Revisionist Looking Glass,” reprint from Fifth Estate, Winter 1999, in a leaflet produced by the Louis Lingg League of Chicago, copies in author’s possession.

  The disaffected anarchists made a valid point. The memory of the Haymarket anarchists had been tamed when it was stripped of meaningful references to their revolutionary beliefs, violent speeches and confrontational tactics. Official commemorative efforts placed the Chicago anarchists within a legal discourse honoring dissenters who sacrificed themselves to expand civil liberties—freedoms granted by the very state the anarchists aimed to dismantle. This redemptive narrative of Haymarket, common in the telling of other national tales of catastrophe, seemed to modern anarchists to be a betrayal of the martyrs’ memory and a perversion of history. On a similar taming of Emma Goldman’s memory, as part of constitutional history, see Oz Frankl, “What Ever Happened to ‘Red’ Emma? Emma Goldman, From American Rebel to American Icon,” Journal of American History 83, no. 3 (December 1996), pp. 903–42.

  Nonetheless, the labor movement’s memory of Parsons, Spies and their mates as free-speech fighters and fearless organizers had truth on its side as well. After all, the International did call the rally in the Haymarket to make a peaceful protest against the killing of unarmed strikers who had been denied the right to picket. The anarchists did put themselves in harm’s way time and again to exercise their freedoms of speech and assembly, because they knew that without such liberties they could not succeed in organizing the kind of mass movement they thought would change America.

  A variety of artistic works about Haymarket appeared after the 1986 centennial. In Chicago, filmmakers made two videos on the case, an artist fought a three-year battle with the Park District to create a public memorial to Lucy Parsons in Wicker Park using May Stevens’s well-known portrait of Lucy and the city’s Steppenwolf Theater produced Haymarket Eight, written by Derek Goldman and Jessica Thebus. The videos, produced by Labor Beat in Chicago, are The Road to Haymarket and Train Wreck of Ideologies (laborbeat@findourinfo.com). On the spiral artwork dedicated to Lucy Parsons and its designer, Marjorie Woodruff, see Jeff Huebner, Haymarket and Beyond: A Guide to Wicker Park’s Labor History Sites, pamphlet published by the Near Northwest Side Arts Council, 1996 (copy in author’s possession), p. 8; and “Dangerous Women,” Chicago Reader, September 8, 1985, p. 1. May Stevens’s painting featuring the 1903 photo of Lucy Parsons overlaid with her own handwritten words (“Women are the slaves of slaves”) is reproduced in Images of Labor, edited by Moe Foner (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1981), facing p. 35. On the Steppenwolf production, see Northwestern University Alumni Magazine, Fall 2000, pp. 39–42. Other interpretive works of note include Harold A. Zlotnik, Toys of Desperation: A Haymarket Mural in Verse (Interlaken, NY: Heart of the Lakes Press, 1987); and Haymarket Heritage: The Memoirs of Irving S. Abrams, edited by David Roediger and Phyllis Boanes (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1989). A new fictional version of the story also appeared in Martin Duberman’s evocative Haymarket: A Novel (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003). Greg Guma’s play Inquisitions and Other Unamerican Activities was performed in Burlington, Vermont, in May 2003 (a CD can be purchased at the Web site www.towardfreedom.com). Zayd Dohrn’s play Haymarket was performed in Boston in November 2003. Another play, Day of Reckoning, written by Melody Cooper (who also plays the role of Lucy Parsons), was performed in New York in February 2005; it was reviewed in the New York Times, February 10, 200
5.

  The Haymarket affair marked Americans’ first experience with what would today be called terrorism, even though the scale of what happened on May 4, 1886, is difficult to compare with mass murders of civilians that have taken place in modern times. Nonetheless, the anarchists did make serious threats to use dynamite against their enemies in order to terrorize the authorities and the public—and this was clearly a result of the Haymarket bombing. It thus makes sense to return to the affair as the starting point for studying how Americans first reacted to the fear of bombings and then how they responded when suspects, particularly aliens, were accused of conspiring to commit such violent acts. Indeed, some commentators believe the Haymarket affair should be regarded as a warning to citizens who allow the civil liberties of immigrants to be violated in the name of fighting terrorism. See Clymer, America’s Culture of Terrorism, pp. 38, 211; Ivins, “Mr. Ashcroft, Let’s Not Repeat Past Mistakes” (see chap. 16, n. 55); and Studs Terkel, “Constitution Abuse,” Chicago Tribune, July 11, 2003.

  The term “terrorist” had not yet been invented in 1886, but the press, the police and prosecutors, and most members of the public regarded the Haymarket bomber very much like the public of today regards terrorists whose bombs kill civilians, even though the victims in 1886 were armed police officers who had shown no hesitation about attacking unarmed civilians. The bomber, whether or not he was an anarchist, clearly had no concern about harming civilians when he threw that hand grenade into a crowded street. Yet it seems likely, as Governor Altgeld suggested, that his act was one of revenge aimed directly at the police. In any case, the Chicago anarchists advocated the use of force as a defensive strategy for workers involved in life-or-death struggles with armed forces, not as a means of inspiring terror through indiscriminate killing.

  Despite the ways in which the story of the Haymarket affair resonates in an age preoccupied with a “war on terror,” I have not placed the Chicago anarchists and their activities within a discourse dominated by contemporary definitions of terrorism. The crime of murder committed with a bomb on May 4, 1886, whether it was intended as an act of revenge or was the work of an agent provocateur, seems, in retrospect, like the kind of terrorist attack that has became tragically common in the last few decades. However, the violence that came before and after the event on May 4 is better understood not as an early chapter in the history of terrorism, but as an episode in a different tradition of violent struggle between immigrant workers and their unions and the armed forces deployed against them.

  Lara Kelland, “Putting Haymarket to Rest?” Labor 2 (Spring 2005), pp. 31–38.

  Deanna Isaacs, “A Monumental Effort Pays Off,” Chicago Reader, January 16, 2004, p. 22.

  Stephen Kinzer, “In Chicago, an Ambiguous Memorial to the Haymarket Attack,” New York Times, September 15, 2004, including quote from the city’s cultural historian, Tim Samuelson.

  Ibid.

  Darrow, The Story of My Life (see chap. 16, n. 45), p. 99.

  Illustration Credits

  Credit for all images reproduced from John J. Flinn, A History of the Chicago Police, and Michael J. Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists, goes to the University Library, Rare Book Collection, University of Illinois at Chicago. Thanks also to the Imaging Services, Harvard College Widener Library; the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; the Library of Congress Photo Duplication Service; and the University of Michigan libraries.

  President Lincoln’s funeral hearse in Chicago: Photograph by S. M. Fassett. Library of Congress, USZ62-2454.

  William H. Sylvis: From James Sylvis, The Life of William Sylvis.

  Workingman’s Advocate advertisement: From Sylvis, The Life of William Sylvis.

  A drawing from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper: From Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, October 28, 1871. Chicago Historical Society, ICHi-02909.

  Joseph Medill: Chicago Historical Society, ICHi-16828.

  Socialist-led march: Chicago Historical Society, ICHi-19695.

  Thalia Hall: From Michael J. Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists.

  German Turner gymnasium: Chicago Historical Society, ICHi-14858.

  Chicago’s lumberyard district: From Harper’s Weekly, October 20, 1883.

  Police attacking cabinetmakers: Chicago Historical Society, ICHi-14018.

  The Battle of the Viaduct: From Harper’s Weekly, August 18, 1877.

  Albert Parsons: Chicago Historical Society, ICHi-03695.

  August Spies and Oscar Neebe: From Lucy Parsons, The Life of Albert Parsons.

  Johann Most: From Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists.

  Map of Chicago during the early 1880s: From the Railway Terminal and Industrial Map of Chicago, Chicago: Industrial World Co., 1886. Map Room, Pusey Library, Harvard University. Mapmakers: Jonathan Wyss and Kelly Sandefer, Topaz Maps, Inc.

  McCormick Reaper Works: From A. T. Andreas, History of Chicago, Vol. II (1885).

  Cyrus McCormick, Jr.: From John Moses and Joseph Kirkland, eds., The History of Chicago, Vol. II (1895).

  Mayor Carter H. Harrison: Chicago Historical Society, IHCi-19662.

  Captain John Bonfield: From John J. Flinn, A History of the Chicago Police (1887).

  Arbeiter-Zeitung building: From Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists.

  Anarchist banners: From Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists.

  A group of worker militiamen: From Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists.

  The Strike: From Harper’s Weekly, May 1, 1886.

  Terence V. Powderly: From George McNeill, ed., The Labor Movement: The Problem of Today (1886).

  Workers at Horn Brothers: From Chicago Historical Society, ICHi-20069.

  Painting of August Spies: From Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists.

  Map of Chicago with strike locations: From the Railway Terminal and Industrial Map of Chicago, Chicago: Industrial World Co., 1886. Map Room, Pusey Library, Harvard University. Mapmakers: Jonathan Wyss and Kelly Sandefer, Topaz Maps, Inc. Strike locations were originally identified on a map produced for the Newberry Library by Michael Conzen and Christopher Thale, in James R. Grossman, Ann Durkin Keating and Janice L. Reiff, eds., The Encyclopedia of Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).

  Haymarket circular: From Haymarket Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

  Map of Haymarket Square: Based on map in Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists.

  Patrolman Mathias J. Degan: Chicago Historical Society, ICHi-31340.

  Samuel Fielden and Michael Schwab: From Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists.

  Bohemian workers arrested by police: From Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists.

  Lucy Parsons after one of her arrests: From Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists.

  Thure de Thulstrup’s depiction of events at the Haymarket: From Harper’s Weekly, May 15, 1886.

  Julius S. Grinnell: From George N. McLean, The Rise and Fall of Anarchy in America (1890).

  Captain William Black and his wife, Hortensia: From McLean, The Rise and Fall of Anarchy in America.

  “The Great Trial”: From Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists.

  Judge Joseph E. Gary: Chicago Historical Society, ICHi-18750.

  August Spies: Chicago Historical Society, ICHi-03702.

  Albert Parsons: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

  George Engel and Adolph Fischer: Chicago Historical Society, ICHi-03703 and ICHi-03692.

  Nina Van Zandt: From McLean, The Rise and Fall of Anarchy in America.

  Cook County Jail cells at visiting time: Chicago Historical Society, ICHi-03688.

  Samuel Gompers and John Swinton: From McNeill, The Labor Movement.

  George Schilling and Henry Demarest Lloyd: Labadie Collection, University of Michigan, and Chicago Historical Society, ICHi-21779.

  William Dean Howells: From Harper’s Weekly, June 19, 1886.

  Governor Richard J. Oglesby: Chicago Historical Society, ICHi-31331.

  Louis Lingg: Bienecke Rare Book
and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

  “The Execution”: From Schaack, Anarchy and Anarchists.

  Police statue in Haymarket Square: Chicago Historical Society, ICHi-14452.

  Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument at Waldheim: Illinois Labor History Society.

  Governor John Peter Altgeld: From L. Parsons, The Life of Albert Parsons.

  George M. Pullman: Chicago Historical Society, ICHi-32204.

  Lucy Parsons in 1903: From L. Parsons, The Life of Albert Parsons.

  Studs Terkel speaking at Haymarket rally: Illinois Labor History Society.

  JAMES GREEN

  Death in the Haymarket

  James Green is a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He grew up outside of Chicago and now lives with his family in Somerville, Massachusetts.

  FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, MARCH 2007

  Copyright © 2006 by James Green

  Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the Pantheon edition as follows:

  Green, James R., [date]

  Death in the Haymarket: a story of Chicago, the first labor movement and the bombing that divided gilded age America / James Green.