Haymarket this evening

#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #photography #Haymarket #EdinburghTram #tram #Ecosse #Edinburgh

Today in Labor History September 5, 1882: The first American Labor Day was observed, with 30,000 workers marching in New York City. The event was connected to a meeting of the radical Knights of Labor. Oregon became the first state to officially recognize the holiday. Over the years, more an more states recognized the holiday. However, by 1886, workers from around the world were celebrating May 1st as International Workers’ Day, in honor of the American anarchists who were wrongly convicted and executed for the Haymarket Affair. Fearing that the May 1st holiday would strengthen anarchist and communist movements, President Cleveland pushed for federal recognition of the September holiday. And in 1894, Congress passed a bill making it an official federal holiday.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #LaborDay #MayDay #haymarket #anarchism #socialism #communism #InternationalWorkersDay

Time to ride the Iron Horse to visit dad

#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #gare #railwaystation #Haymarket

#Sunset at Haymarket, another quick pic from the bus home

#ViewFromABus #Edinburgh #Edimbourg #architecture #photography #Haymarket #reflections

Haymarket this evening, sunny spell between rain clouds

#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #photography #Haymarket

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. And 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.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #pullman #strike #railroad #EugeneDebs #socialism #LaborDay #haymarket #anarchism #union #PoliceBrutality #PoliceMurder #police

On way to visit dad, hurly-burly of busy train station momentarily lightened by a lady playing a piano on the concourse.

#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #music #photography #piano #PeopleWatching #RailwayStation #gare #Haymarket

Today in Labor History July 21, 1877: 30,000 Chicago workers rallied on Market Street during the Great Upheaval wave of strikes occurring throughout the country. Future anarchist and Haymarket martyr Albert Parsons spoke to the crowd, advocating the use of the ballot to obtain "state control of the means of production," and urged workers to join the communist Workingmen's Party. Parsons was later abducted by armed men who took him to the police where he was interrogated and informed that he had caused the city great trouble.

The strike wave started in Martinsburg, WV, on July 16, and quickly spread along the railroad lines throughout the country. In Chicago, striking workers from numerous industries took to the streets daily. They shut down the railroads, mills, foundries and many other businesses. They carried banners that said "Life by work, or death by fight". One speaker said, "We must rise up in our might, and fight for our rights. Better a thousand of us be shot down in the streets than ten thousand die of starvation."

On July 26, the protesters threw rocks and fired pistols at the cops, who fired back until they ran out of ammo and were forced them to flee. However, they ran into a detachment of reinforcements and federal troops, sent in by President Hayes. This led to the Battle of the Viaduct, resulting in 15-30 dead strikers and dozens wounded.

In Pittsburgh, 20 striking railroad workers were killed by state troopers during the Great Upheaval. The second book of my “Great Upheaval” trilogy, “Hot Summer in the Smoky City,” takes place in Pittsburgh during the Great Upheaval.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #GreatUpheaval #railroad #strike #GeneralStrike #chicago #anarchism #communism #haymarket #police #acab #HistoricalFiction #novel @bookstadon

Today in Labor History July 12, 1850: Oscar W. Neebe (1850-1916) was born. He was the founder of the Beer Wagon Drivers Union (which later merged with the Teamsters Union). Neebe was also one of the Haymarket martyrs, imprisoned for his “role” in the Haymarket bombing, despite the fact that he was not in Haymarket Square at the time. He is one of the eight anarchists who are commemorated worldwide each year on May 1, International Workers’ Day. In 1893, Governor Altgeld pardoned the surviving Haymarket prisoners. Neebe joined the IWW soon after their founding in 1905.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #anarchism #IWW #haymarket #bombing #MayDay #union #prison #Riot

Today in Labor History July 10, 1894: The Pullman Rail Car strike was put down by 14,000 federal and state troops. Over the course of the strike, soldiers killed 70 American Railway Union (ARU) members. Eugene Debs and many others were imprisoned during the strike for violating injunctions. Debs founded the ARU in 1893. The strike began, in May, as a wildcat strike, when George Pullman laid off employees and slashed wages, while maintaining the same high rents for his company housing in the town of Pullman, as well as the excessive rates he charged for gas and water. During the strike, Debs called for a massive boycott against all trains that carried Pullman cars. While many adjacent unions opposed the boycott, including the conservative American Federation of Labor, the boycott nonetheless affected virtually all train transport west of Detroit. Debs also called for a General Strike, which Samuel Gompers and the AFL blocked. At its height, over 200,000 railway workers walked off the job, halting dozens of lines, and workers set fire buildings, boxcars and coal cars, and derailed locomotives. Clarence Darrow successfully defended Debs in court against conspiracy charges, arguing that it was the railways who met in secret and conspired against their opponents. However, they lost in their Supreme Court trial for violating a federal injunction.

By the 1950s, the town of Pullman had been incorporated into the city of Chicago. Debs became a socialist after the strike, running for president of the U.S. five times on the Socialist Party ticket, twice from prison. In 1905, he cofounded the radical IWW, along with Lucy Parsons, Mother Jones, Big Bill Haywood and Irish revolutionary James Connolly. In 1894, President Cleveland designated Labor Day a federal holiday, in order to detract from the more radical May 1st, which honored the Haymarket martyrs and the struggle for the 8-hour day. Legislation for the holiday was pushed through Congress six days after the Pullman strike ended, with the enthusiastic support of Gompers and the AFL.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #railway #strike #union #EugeneDebs #socialism #anarchism #IWW #massacre #SCOTUS #prison #GeneralStrike #boycott #afl #haymarket #conspiracy #MotherJones #LucyParsons #BigBillHaywood #Revolutionary

Soggy Haymarket this evening

#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #photography #rain #pluie #Ecosse #Scotland #Haymarket

Today In Labor History June 29, 1898: Michael Schwab, who was convicted for the Haymarket bombing, died from tuberculosis, after having been pardoned and released from prison just a few months prior. Schwab, who was born in Germany, was a bookbinder by trade. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1879 and wrote for the labor newspaper, “Arbeiter-Zeitung.” His brother in-law, Rudolph Schnaubelt, is believed by some to be the person who actually threw the Haymarket bomb. Schnaubelt was never tried or convicted of the crime. 8 other anarchists, none of whom were present at the bombing, were convicted of the crime. 4 were hanged. And one committed suicide in prison.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #haymarket #anarchism #prison #bomb #WrongfulConviction #EightHourDay

Today in Labor History June 20, 1912: Voltairine de Cleyre, one of the earliest feminist anarchists, died at the age 45, following a long illness. Two thousand supporters attended her funeral at Waldheim cemetery, in Chicago, where she was buried next to the Haymarket Martyrs. De Cleyre opposed capitalism and marriage and the domination of religion over sexuality and women’s lives. Her father, a radical abolitionist, named her after the Enlightenment writer and satirist, Voltaire. Her biographer Paul Avrich said that she was "a greater literary talent than any other American anarchist."

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #anarchism #feminism #haymarket #abolition #Sexuality

A station with a nice large window, from which we can look down on the platforms and trains. Somewhat reminiscent of #Haymarket Station.

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#haymarket #racialJustice #abolition #ebook Please Boost

#OTD 23May1820

Ned Brown the ‘Sprig of Myrtle’ defeats Jem Bunn ‘Pink of Bow’ in 22min at Tom Cribb’s, Union Arms in Panton St #Haymarket for £11. Brown Seconded by Turner & Bill Richmond, Bunn by Harry HOLT and Jack Martin.

#HarryHolt #Holt #Genealogy #Bareknuckle #Boxing #Pugilist #Regency #Georgian #C18th #C19th #History

Today in Labor History May 18, 1928: Big Bill Haywood died in exile in the Soviet Union. He was a founding member and leader of both the Western Federation of Miners and the IWW (the Wobblies). During the first two decades of the 20th century, he participated in the Colorado Labor Wars and the textiles strikes in Lawrence and Patterson. The Pinkertons tried, but failed, to bust him for the murder of former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg. However, in 1918, the feds used the Espionage Act to convict him, and 101 other Wobblies, for their anti-war activity. As a result, they sentenced him to twenty years in prison. But instead of serving the time, he fled to the Soviet Union, damaging his image as a hero among the Wobblies. He ultimately died from a stroke related to his alcoholism and diabetes. Half his ashes were buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. The other half of his ashes were sent to Chicago and buried near the Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #IWW #union #strike #BigBillHaywood #soviet #haymarket #kremlin #sabotage #mining

@JoCzechowska
When Cribb took the license in December 1819 it was the Union Arms (corner of Oxendon & Panton St in #Haymarket)

Dueling statues in #Chicago represent the battle of interpreting #history after the fact. #Haymarket #MayDay https://jacobin.com/2023/05/haymarket-affair-martyrs-memorial-history-chicago-may-day?

Today in Labor History May 5, 1886: The Bay View Massacre occurred in Milwaukee, one day after the Haymarket bombing, in Chicago. Workers in both cities were demonstrating for the 8-hour work-day. There were approximately 1,400 strikes that year for the 8-hour day. In Milwaukee, the governor called out the state militia. They shot and killed seven protesters, including a 14-year-old boy. No militiamen were ever charged. However, the authorities convicted fifty of the strikers and sentenced them to hard labor for "rioting."

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #bayview #massacre #riot #EightHourDay #union #strike #haymarket