Haymarket+Riot+of+1886

=Haymarket Riot of 1886=

**__Chicago Industrializes__ **
==Following the Civil War, America set out to be an economic power. Cities across the U.S. were undergoing urbanization. As a result, people had to work much longer hours because they were working in factories where the workday was not affected by the rising and setting of the sun. Urbanization also created a widening gap between capital and labor. These factors caused many workers to create unions and host strikes across the U.S. In the late 1800s, Chicago was the second largest urban center in the U.S. It suffered from three major depressions prior to the Haymarket Riot and also suffered from the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. The city was full of economic and social tensions. ==

**__Eight Hour Movement and May Day__ **
==Members of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions met in October of 1884. They decided to set May 1, 1886 as the day when an eight hour work day would become standard. On this date, labor unions across the U.S., such as the International Working Peoples Association and the Knights of Labor, held strikes in major cities. The number of strikers was an estimated 350,000 people. The strikers’ motto was “Eight Hours for Work, Eight Hours for Recreation, Eight Hours for Sleep.” The uprisings centered in Chicago, where about 80,000 workers marched down Michigan Avenue following Albert Parsons, the founder of the International Working People’s Association. As an immediate result of these widespread strikes, 185,000 workers across the U.S. gained a shorter work day. However, many wanted this shorter workday and the strikes continued. ==

**__McCormick Reaper Works Strike- A Precursor__ **
==On May 3, 1886, the first working day after the May 1 strike, August Spies was speaking at a rally of the striking Lumber Shovers’ Union. This rally happened to be just outside the McCormick Reaper Works. At this factory, union workers had been locked out since February by owner Cyrus McCormick Jr. McCormick was determined tobreak the Union, so he hired Pinkerton detectives to keep union workers out. Some of the strikers at the rally walked over to the factory to heckle the police-guarded scabs (the non-union replacements). August Spies urged the strikers to keep calm, but violence broke out and two strikers were killed by the police. In a newspaper article entitled “Revenge!” written by Spies on May 3, he states, //“[The police] killed them to show you ‘free American Citizens’ that you must be satisfied with whatever your bosses condescend to allow you.”// Spies acknowledges that the killing goes against what America set out to be: a free country. Backed by Spies, the strikers were now out to get revenge. Fliers spread across the city to rally workers to protest the killings. ==

**__Riot in Haymarket Square!__ **
==The riot in Haymarket Square began as a labor rally involving between 800 to 1000 workers against the McCormick Reaper Manufacturing Co. There were strikers from both the Knights of Labor and the International Working Peoples Association who demanded social change. The laborers were in favor of the Eight Hour movement, as well as protesting the killing of two laborers in a protest the day before. When Samuel Fielden, an organizer of the International Working Peoples Association, was speaking, a group of police officers began to break up the group. Suddenly, a person in the crowd threw an explosive into the group of police men, exploding and killing seven police officers and four workers and injuring more than 100 people. The protesters dispersed in panicked state. Eight anarchists who attended the protest were captured by the police and accused of conspiracy due to witnesses claiming that they egged on the bomb-thrower. ==

**__The Eight Anarchists and The Trial__ **
==Eight anarchists who were attending the labor rally against the McCormick Reaper Manufacturing Co. were arrested and put on trial for conspiracy and allegedly goading on the bomb thrower. All eight of the men were tired and sentenced to either death or life in prison. Four of the men were hanged, while one of the mencommitted suicide in prison. Three of the men were in prison until 1893, when then-Illinois governor John peter Altgeld pardoned the three men on the grounds that they did not receive a fair trial. In his 1893 speech pardoning the three men, Altgeld proclaimed, //”// //Upon the question of having been punished enough, I will simply say that if the defendants had a fair trial, and nothing has developed since to show that they were not guilty of the crime charged in the indictment, then there ought to be no executive interference, for no punishment under our laws could then be too severe.” // Many historians fully agree with Mr. Altgeld, and some go as far as to say this was the worst case of injustice in American court history. Not only was the bomb not thrown by any of them, but also the judge sped through the case due to either bias against the men, or trying to appeal to a certain group against these men, viewing them as responsible, and wanted to see them behind bars. ==

**__Public Reaction__ **
==The riot and its aftermath received a large amount of national publicity. The eight anarchists who were tried for conspiracy were considered to be the scapegoats used by citizens who were looking for a party to blame. Anti-socialist and anarchist sentiments began to rise at this point, and this even helped to solidify them as a dangerous political party. Others blamed the laborers for the deaths of the police officers, and the numerous injured people. If the laborers had not protested their working conditions, the explosive might have never been brought and the police officers would have not had to try and break them up. The image of the labor party was damaged by this event, and brought about many skeptics of their motives and ideas as radical. This hurt the push for the eight-hour work day that the strikers hoped for. The laborers, however, viewed the eight anarchists as martyrs of labor. They thought the men had great dignity to stand up for anarchist and socialist beliefs. Later on, many began to agree that the trial was unjust and was a travesty of the U.S. Judicial system. ==

3 Part PBS Program on the Haymarket Riot
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media type="youtube" key="VKkEl9XzjFc" height="349" width="425" =References: =

Altgeld, John. "Pardon of the Haymarket Anarchists." //ABC-CLIO: American History.// (1893). http://americanhistory.abc-clio.com.

Cahn, William. //Pictorial History Of American Labor//. New York: Crescent, 1972.

"Eight Anarchists." //PBS.// (2003). http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/chicago/sfeature/sf_haymarket.html.

"Haymarket Square Riot." //ABC-CLIO: American History.// (2011). http://americanhistory.abc-clio.com.

"McCormick Harvester." //ABC-CLIO American History.// (2011). http://americanhistory.abc-clio.com.

Smith, Carl. "The Dramas of Haymarket." //Chicago Historical Society.// (2000). http://www.chicagohs.org/dramas/overview/over.htm.

Spies, August. "Revenge Circular." //Chicago Historical Society.// (May 3, 1886). http://www.chicagohistory.org/hadc/transcript/exhibits/X000-050/X010A.htm.

Pictography:
Chicago (1880s): http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/223/chicago19098bely9.jpg/sr=1

May Day: http://web.gc.cuny.edu/ashp/1877/f1877-6.html

Revenge! Article: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/chicago/sfeature/pop_haymarket_e1.html

Riot Scene: http://americanhistory.abc-clio.com/assets/mediaserver/AmericanHistory/2901/290191w.jpg

Anarchists: http://www.anarkismo.net/attachments/apr2005/images_haymarket8_large.jpg

Public Reaction: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/ichihtml/haytitle4.gif

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OQxncb2ihQ
 * Youtube Videos:**

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w-z8ud_9QU&feature=related

Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKkEl9XzjFc&feature=related