Most radical of all American cities: Gene Debs` town, Big Bill Haywood`s town, the One-Big-Union town. – Nelson Algren, ”Chicago: City on the Make”
Clenched fists, a picket sign, heads bowed in memory of a fallen comrade. These are the images of labor in Chicago.
The Stockyards, Haymarket Square, Forest Home, Pullman, newspaper offices, union halls, cemeteries, factories. These are the sites of labor.
Albert and Lucy Parsons, Mother Jones, Eugene Debs, Clarence Darrow, William D. ”Big Bill” Haywood, John Peter Altgeld, Jane Addams. These are the people of labor.
Chicago has been a union town ever since there were enough people to organize a protest. ”By the time of Haymarket,” says William J. Adelman, labor historian and a professor at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, ”25 percent of the entire labor movement was in Chicago.” This was where the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was formed, where the anthem of the labor movement was first sung and where the American Federation of Labor demanded the acceptance of the eight-hour workday.
The relationship between management and labor was often a painful one, full of violence and strife, pitting worker against worker. Radicalized sentiments among some immigrant groups (especially the Germans), a
concentration of diverse industries, political suppression, racial and ethnic discrimination and a bone-wracking poverty compelled many Chicagoans to join unions.
Yet much of labor history in Chicago is hidden. The physical evidence is gone. Buildings have been torn down and replaced by new structures and, for the most part, there is nothing to indicate what once was. Labor is not so much a forgotten history as a neglected one. Although mandated by Illinois law, labor themes are not studied in school or, at best, are given a cursory treatment usually in social studies class and then dismissed with ”two paragraphs in a textbook,” complains Leslie Orear, president of the Illinois Labor History Society.
”Labor history-it sounds like a new field to most folks,” says labor singer and songwriter Allan Schwartz.
Nevertheless, there are many important labor sites in the city. The following is a guide to some of them.
It grew darker and darker every moment. Suddenly there came a flash, and then a peal of thunder. At the end of the flash, as it seemed to me, I saw the white clubs falling, saw the police striking down the men running along the sidewalk. – ”The Bomb” by Frank Harris
Haymarket Square, West Randolph and South Desplaines Streets, is a nondescript area on the western fringes of the Loop. You would never guess history was made here one night in May, 1886. ”Going to Haymarket Square is an experience of the imagination,” admits Orear. ”If you don`t know the story, it won`t mean much to you.”
On May 4, 1886, an outdoor meeting was held to protest police brutality at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. plant the day before. As the crowd was about to disperse, a phalanx of police officers came marching along Desplaines Street. A few minutes later, a bomb exploded. Seven police officers and four civilians were killed, many others injured. Eventually, eight went to trial and were convicted without evidence of any involvement in the actual bomb throwing; four were executed.
The only original building still standing is the Grand Stage Lighting Co. at 630 W. Lake St., which used to house Zepf`s Hall, the former meeting room of the Lumbershovers Union.
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”The lumbershovers were the ones who went down to the river, took the lumber off the boats and loaded it onto the wagons to be carried to construction sites,” Adelman says. ”The hall was only a few blocks from the river. Several of the Haymarket martyrs were in the building at the time of the bomb throwing.” At Randolph and the Kennedy Expressway is the base of a monument erected as a memorial to the seven policemen slain in Haymarket Square. The actual police statue has been moved several times (it has been knocked down, defaced and blown off its pedestal-twice) and now stands in the courtyard of the Chicago Police Training Center, 1300 W. Jackson Blvd.
At Dearborn and Hubbard Streets is the site of the former Cook County Court House, where the Haymarket trial was held. The original building was torn down in 1892 and a larger structure, now called Court House Place, built. Walk inside and take a look at some of the old photographs decorating the oak wall. Behind the building is a modern fire station, which replaced the notorious Cook County Jail. The Haymarket Eight were confined there as were labor activist Eugene Debs and ”Big Bill” Haywood, a Wobblies (IWW) founder. The adjacent alley was the site of the execution of the four Haymarket martyrs.
Across from the Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St., is Washington Square, popularly known as Bughouse Square, Chicago`s equivalent of Greenwich Village around the turn of the century. On this patch of green, advocates of free speech debated the issues of the day. Journalist Ben Hecht, poet Carl Sandburg, lawyer Clarence Darrow and activist Emma Goldman were some of the more prominent speakers.
You can get a feel for the old days when the third annual Bughouse Square Debates, with various speakers, takes place at 4 p.m. Saturday. It`s free.
After letting off steam at Bughouse Square, a few dissenters would saunter off in the direction of the Dill Pickle Club, a bohemian haunt in an old brownstone that still stands on West Tooker Place off Dearborn (its official address was 863 N. Dearborn St.). The Dill Pickle was the kind of place where nonconformists like Hecht, Sandburg, writers Theodore Dreiser and Sherwood Anderson and hobo king Dr. Ben Reitman gathered. Here anarchy reigned and the most sacred of cows were pilloried. On the door hung a sign that succinctly summed up the members` philosophy: ”Step High, Stoop Low, Leave Your Dignity Outside.”
One of the most important labor groups in the country was the Industrial Workers of the World. Formed in Chicago on June 27, 1905, the IWW called for the ”economic organization of the working class.” The current headquarters are at 3435 N. Sheffield Ave.
At the corner of West Diversey Parkway and North Sheridan Road in front of what was formerly the headquarters of the Amalgamated Meatcutters and Butcher Workmen is Egon Weiner`s ”Brotherhood” sculpture. Four kneeling bronze figures, now weathered to a green patina, represent the working peoples of Europe, Asia, Africa and North America.
A bit off the beaten track is Forest Home Cemetery (formerly Waldheim) in Forest Park where many people associated with Haymarket are buried. Here is the Haymarket Martyrs` Monument, a statue of a hooded woman standing over a fallen worker and unveiled with much fanfare in 1893. Huddled around the monument are the graves of Lucy Parsons (widow of one of the Haymarket martyrs); Dr. Ben Reitman, founder of a workers` education school known as Hobo College on Madison Street; and Emma Goldman, a Russian-born lecturer and feminist. Here also were scattered the ashes of Haywood and legendary songwriter and union organizer Joe Hill.
. . . You could literally taste it, as well as smell it-you could take hold of it, almost, and examine it at your leisure. It was an elemental odor, raw and crude; it was rich, almost rancid, sensual, and strong-`Stockyards!`
-Upton Sinclair, ”The Jungle”
The old stone gate still stands at West Exchange Avenue and South Peoria Street, but not much else. ”The trouble with the stockyard area is so much is gone,” Adelman says. But from 1865 to 1971, the Union Stock Yards provided work for thousands of newly arrived immigrants and made Chicago the livestock capital of the world.
At 800 S. Halsted St. stands Hull House, the first settlement house in the U.S. Organized by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889, Hull House is now a museum and library and well worth a visit.
Bruna`s Restaurant, a neighborhood eatery at 2424 S. Oakley Ave. in Little Tuscany, used to be a gathering place for the Wobblies during the 1930s. Ralph Chaplin, author of the labor movement`s anthem, ”Solidarity Forever,” was a frequent visitor. Many skilled Italian workers toiled in the nearby McCormick Harvesting Machine plant, where the seeds of the Haymarket tragedy were sown. The plant was demolished in the 1950s.
South Chicago is the site of the 1937 Memorial Day Massacre. A clash between strikers and police at the Republic Steel plant at Avenue O and 113th Street resulted in the death of 10 workers and tarnished labor relations for many years to come. The mills are empty now, but there is a plaque on the flagpole of the U.S. Steelworkers of America union Local 1033 on Avenue O that honors the dead men.
Also on the Far South Side lies another one of the architectural showpieces of the city. With its stately brick row houses and 19th Century streets, Pullman is a trip back through time and ”second only to Williamsburg in size,” Adelman says. Sleeping car magnate George Pullman thought that by creating a ”model town” he could protect his workers from the evils of big city life and make a handsome profit in return. A nationwide depression changed all that. Wages were cut and thousands of employees were laid off, which led to a debilitating strike.
Today, you can enjoy a leisurely brunch in the Florence Hotel, a Queen Anne-style red brick mansion named after Pullman`s daughter, which has been restored to its former grandeur by the Historic Pullman Foundation. At 112th Street and St. Lawrence Avenue is the lovely Green Stone Church. Its green steeple is a Pullman landmark.
The 15th annual Pullman House Tour takes place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 8 and 9. Tickets are $8 in advance, $10 at the door.
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
– Chicago Historical Society, Clark Street at North Avenue. Books, pamphlets, photographs, manuscripts. From May 15 through June 25, 1989, there will be a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution entitled ”Badges of Pride: Symbols and Images of American Labor.” 642-4600.
– Chicago Public Library, 400 N. Franklin St. Books, journal articles, photographs. 269-2900.
– Jane Addams` Hull House Museum, 800 S. Halsted St. Artifacts, memorabilia, photographs, books relating to life of Jane Addams; exhibit on history of ethnic groups in the neighborhood. 413-5353.
– Illinois Labor History Society, 28 E. Jackson Blvd. Nonprofit educational organization founded in 1969. Produces and distributes labor books and films, and sponsors conferences; is sponsoring a photo exhibit, ”On the Job in Illinois: Then & Now,” at Daley Plaza through Sept. 9.
– Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St. Books and papers on George Pullman and Clarence Darrow, archives of the Charles H. Kerr Publishing Co. (see below). 943-9090.
OTHER RESOURCES
– Art Meets Labor, 742 S. Oak Park Ave., Oak Park 60304. A networking group between the arts and labor communities; quarterly newsletter. 386-1223 or 848-2863.
– Beasley Books, 1533 W. Oakdale Ave. Books on socialism, labor movement, Hollywood blacklist, coal mining, Wobblies, trade unionism. Catalogue available. 472-4528.
– The Illinois Labor History Society publishes three indispensable guides to Chicago labor history, all by William J. Adelman: ”Haymarket Revisited,” ”Touring Pullman” and ”Pilsen and the West Side.” Available at local bookstores.
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– Industrial Workers of the World, 3435 N. Sheffield Ave. General offices of the Wobblies. 549-5045.
– Charles H. Kerr Publishing Co., 1740 W. Greenleaf Ave. Oldest independent labor and socialist publishing house in the world, founded in 1886. 465-7774.
– Urban Gateways. Presents ”Labor History Through the Arts: Songs and Stories of Work and Struggle” this school year, performed by singer and songwriter Allan Schwartz. Schwartz will be performing labor songs at the Chicago Public Library Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St., at 12:15 p.m. Nov. 15.