Looking BackMoving Forward

A newsletter of the Michigan Labor History Society mlhs.wayne.edu

For hundreds of families in Michi-gan’s Copper Country, Christmas1913 was a time of tragedy, not

of joy. Instead of celebrating, familiesmourned. Black ribbons replacedChristmas trees and wreaths. Horse-drawn funeral hearses moved slowlydown the streets of Calumet that in oth-er years might have seen Santa Clauswaving from a reindeer-drawn sleigh.The tragedy occurred on Christmas

Eve at Calumet’s Italian Hall during aparty for the children of copper min-ers who had been on strike for nearlyfive months after management hadrefused to discuss wages, hours, andworking conditions. The WesternFederation of Miners organized theparty, complete with gifts, candy, music, and an appearance by SantaClaus. But when someone enteredthe second-story hall and yelled “fire,”children headed for the exit, trying toescape. More than seventy perished, their

bodies jammed against each other on thesteep staircase, unable to breathe. Therewas no fire, and for the past century suspicion has reigned that the false cryof alarm came from an agent of the mineowners who had become increasinglyfrustrated by the strikers’ resolve.I knew a little about the copper mines

and Italian Hall history from spendingmy childhood summer vacations nearCalumet where my maternal grandpar-ents, both immigrants from Finland,farmed on mine-owned land. But it wasn’t until many years later, in the1970s, that I learned of a personal familyconnection to the Christmas Evetragedy.My uncle, Ted Taipalus, was visiting

in Detroit back then, and I had put onthe phonograph a recording of Woody

Guthrie’s ballad, “1913Massacre,” which tellsthe story of Italian Hall.To my surprise, Ted suddenly said, “I wasthere.” His father had been a strikingminer, he said, and he and his two broth-ers and three sisters had gone to the party along with other strikers’ children.While he and his brothers escaped thehall on a ladder from a second-story window, two of his three sisters, Ellen, 7,and Mildred, 5, were both caught in thestaircase crush and died.

The loss of the two young girls hurthis father terribly, Ted said. “He took mein his arms and cried like a baby. I hadnever seen my dad cry before.” After thestrike ended, Ted said, a mine boss cameto his father and asked him to return towork. But so devastated was he from theloss of his daughters, he would never goback into the mines again.

SPRING-SUMMER 2013

FOUNDED 1977

Continued on page 2

TRAGEDY ITALIAN HALLMichigan’s Copper Country Remembers the 1913 StrikeBY DAVE ELSILA

Right: Families bury the deadafter a three-mile march toLake View Cemetery.

Right: The Italian Hall, where the1913 disaster occurred, stood onSeventh St. in Calumet. It was demolished in the 1980s. Below:Only the arched doorway remainsat this memorial site developedwith the help of the Steelworkersand Operating Engineers.

PHOTO: MICHIGAN TECH ARCHIVES

PHOTO: MICHIGAN TECH ARCHIVES

PHOTO: NATIO

NAL PARK SERVICE

at the

FOUNDED 1977

Looking BackMoving Forward

DANGEROUS JOBSAt the time of the strike, miners

were working six days a week, tenhours a day, in the deep, poorly-litmine shafts where scores of deathsand hundreds of injuries were record-ed each year. In the year before thestrike, there had been at least 47deaths and 643 serious injuries. Forseveral years, two-man teams wereused to drill into mine walls, where explosives were placed to dislodgecopper ore, but then mine ownerssought to replace the two-person drillswith one-man drills, nicknamed “widow makers” since no one wouldbe able to summon help in case of anaccident. The strike failed to stop these one-

man drills, and although miners dideventually get some wage increasesand shorter workweeks, the unionfailed in its attempt to get recognitionand a contract.

Despite the family tragedy, Ted, atthe age of 16, was hired as a “puffer

boy” at $2.75 aday in Hecla No.9 mine, where heoperated the en-gine that hoistedtimbers used asroof supports fora stope, the spaceleft after ore has been extracted. Tedleft the mines in 1929; finally, in 1943,miners elected the Mine, Mill, andSmelter Workers as their collective-bargaining agent.This year is the centenary of the

Italian Hall tragedy, and the Copper

Country is hosting several memorialobservances. Ceremonies are sched-uled at the Italian Hall site June 20during the national FinnFest (many ofthe miners were immigrants from Fin-land; others came from Italy, Croatia,Cornwall, Scotland, and elsewhere).

Tragedy at Italian HallContinued from page 1

Scores of deaths and injuries were reported every year in the CopperCountry mines.

LOOKING BACKMOVING FORWARD

Spring-Summer 2013

Published by the Michigan Labor History Society

c/o Walter P. Reuther Library5401 Cass, Detroit MI 48202

Telephone: 313-577-4003http://mlhs@wayne.edu

Co-Chairs:Rory Gamble, Director, UAW Region 1A

Chuck Hall, Director, UAW Region 1Chris Michalakis, President,

Metro Detroit AFL-CIO

Secretary: Alberta AsmarTreasurer: David Elsila

Board members: John Dick, David Ivers,Mike Kerwin, Ruby Newbold

Editor: David ElsilaNational Writers Union,

UAW Local 1981, memberDesign: Barbara Barefield

Barefield Design Works

FOUNDED 1977

2

PHOTO: MICHIGAN TECH ARCHIVES

IN HIS OWN WORDS: A SCENE OF HORRORIn 1955, Ted Taipalus revisited the scene of the event. Invited by his brother-

in-law to the Eagles hall on Seventh Street in Calumet, he decided to go upstairswhere a dance was in progress. He experienced what he said was the “strangestsensation” as he suddenly found himself back in the very hall where, as a 10-year-old, he had been at the ill-fated party. He had once vowed that he would neverenter the hall again. When he discovered where he was, “I just wanted to getaway from there.”In a memoir now in the Finnish-American Heritage Center in Hancock,

Michigan, Ted wrote these words:“[My father] had joined the union with the rest of the men. And then came

the day before Christmas and the union was giving a party for the kids and moth-ers. Such excitement! There would be dances, musical and vocal numbers, recita-tions and a Christmas sock for all. Six from our family went, Hulda, age 16, withtwo younger sisters, Ellen, 7, Mildred, 5, and brothers Bill, 12, Ed, 14, and myself,10 ½. The girls got there early and sat in front. Us boys were a few rows behind.The hall was filled with people — they say about 500 to 600. Close to the end ofthe program, a man near the stage got up shouting ‘fire.’ “Needless to say, everyone panicked. My older brother Ed said he didn’t see

any smoke and that he wasn’t going anywhere so he just sat there. Bill and Ijoined the rush to the stairway. We ended at about the sixth or seventh step fromthe bottom. We both held on to each other and were side by side. The pressurewas getting greater and it was hard to breathe. We both kept wiggling until ourheads were close to the ceiling. The moaning and groaning and screaming wasawful. I even joined in the hollering until Bill shook his head for me to stop. Idon’t know how long we were being pushed; I knew I had a hard time breathingand then we felt the pressure lessening and I felt a hand on my feet pulling meback. I had to slide backward over people and on top of another. Bill was by myside. We stuck together like pants and shirt. “We were directed to a window where we got on a ladder and descended to

the ground. We then went home to Centennial Heights. We had gotten our can-dy and that was the main thing. “We did not know that anyone was killed until our dad came home and broke

the news. He took me into his arms and cried like a baby. I had never seen mydad cry before and thought it strange to see a man cry. Mildred was his prideand joy. Next day was Christmas. It was supposed to be a joyous day but that

Continued on page 11

This year marks the tenthanniversary of the dedica-tion of the Michigan La-

bor Legacy Landmark, “Tran-scending,” in downtown Detroit. Since its dedication in 2003,

thousands of visitors have walkedthe pathway that encircles theLandmark. There they find morethan a dozen bronze sculpturesdepicting highlights of labor andsocial history and telling the sto-ries of the workers who built thiscity. On the center podium, theysee the words of labor pioneersand social activists. Many willlearn and some will be inspired.It’s probably fair to say that

few visitors have drawn more inspiration from “Transcending”than Jasen Dippel, a young Detroiter who works as a massage therapist and who cameupon the Labor Legacy Land-mark by accident one day, andthen wrote about his experienceon the Internet.Dippel said that in his field

of work he has encounteredbusinesses that operate likesweatshops — giving only a25 to 30 percent cut of aclient’s fee to the therapistwho does the work, and thenburning them out with an over-demanding schedule. While trainingto start his own practice after graduatingfrom a prestigious myomassologyschool, he was offered such a job in Detroit’s Renaissance Center, but only ifhe’d go through an unpaid 20-hour“training” program for which he waspromised a small stipend, nothing more.

WALKING THE WALKWhen Dippel went to the Ren Cen to

collect his stipend he was told the ownerand manager weren’t there and to comeback later. So he left to take care of oth-er business and then, in his words, “I letgo of my agenda, surrendered to the

moment, and let Spirit and my in-tuition guide me. In doing so, I re-

ceived a gift that I never would have fath-omed. I was led to the Michigan LaborLegacy Landmark in Hart Plaza.”As he walked along the pathway

spiraling toward the center, he read theinscription, “Labor’s achievements areAmerica’s strength,” and the subsequentmarkers that read “free public educa-tion,” “ending child labor,” “equality forwomen,” and the other gains pioneeredby labor. Pulling out a scrap of paper, he began

writing down some of the quotations inscribed on the Landmark’s centralplatform. These inspiring quotations

include: “Labor creates allwealth” (Adam Smith);; “Thetruly great man is he who wouldmaster no one and who wouldbe mastered by none” (KhalilGebran); “Freedom is nevergranted; it is won. Justice is nev-er given, it is exacted” (A. PhilipRandolph).“The memorial,” he writes,

“honors all those nameless laborers who suffered to buildthe foundations of our societyand fought for the rights andprivileges we enjoy today. Thewhole presence of the Land-mark is ineffable.”“I realized,” he wrote, “that I

was being guided and asked tostand tall upon the shoulders ofthose who came before me, theancestors of our society, who la-bored, struggled, and foughtendlessly for the future we nowenjoy.”Fired up, he went back to the

Ren Cen to confront his formeremployer and collect his money.“I demanded a moment of hertime,” he writes, and asked thatshe mail him his check. “As Iwas leaving, I encouraged her tovisit the Labor Landmark. “Itmay offer you some perspective

on the relationship between employersand employees,” he told her.“Whether or not this particular busi-

ness owner takes time away from herbusy pursuit of money to visit, I do notknow. What does the future have in storefor me and my career, I do not know.What I do know is that it is easier to sleepat night after standing up for what youbelieve in.”“I encourage every human being to

stand tall upon the shoulders of our ancestors and fight for what you believein. Their efforts are for naught if wechoose to roll over to the unwarrantedand unjust demands of business leaders and ruling elite. “ 3

The Michigan Labor Legacy Landmark indowntown Detroit inspired young worker

Jasen Dippel (left) to write about his visit there.

Standing Tall in Downtown Detroit A Young Detroiter Tells How a Visit to the Labor Legacy Landmark Gave Him a Sense of Pride

PHOTO: SH

AWN D. ELLIS

FOUNDED 1977

SPRING-SUMMER 2013Looking BackMoving Forward

On New Year’s Eve 1900, a groupof Detroit union members gath-ered to compose a handwritten

letter addressed to the workers of the21st Century. “The Council of the Trades and Labor

Unions,” they wrote, “desire to greet thewage-workers of the 21st Century, ifthere are any, and hope that they enjoylife, liberty, and the pursuit of happinessin the fullest degree, and that the trustsand combines that are now forming todestroy competition and crush labor willnot be successful.”“Wage workers of the 21st Century,”

the letter challenges: “do your duty toposterity.”For over a hundred years that letter lay

in a sealed box before it was opened andread on the occasion of Detroit’s tri-cen-tennial anniversary earlier this decade.Now a copy is on display at the recentlyremodeled Detroit Historical Museum inan exhibit about the history of labor andunions in southeast Michigan.The exhibit, displayed in four large

showcases, includes tools, an old facto-ry time clock, photos, posters, and more.Dominating one of the showcases is ahuge poster from 1933 calling Detroitersto assemble at five locations around the

city and to march to Grand Circus Parkfor a May Day rally where workers werecalled on to demand unemployment in-surance, and the freedom of TomMooney, the Scottsboro Boys, and “allclass war prisoners.” (Mooney was a Cal-ifornia trade-unionist accused of partic-ipating in a bomb plot, and the Scotts-boro Boys were nine black teenagerswho had been accused of rape. BothMooney and the Scottsboro Boys werein jail in 1933.)Photos and posters

describe the danger-ous conditions facingfactory workers as De-troit industries grew inthe 20th Century.“Workers performedrepetitive, monoto-nous operations dic-tated by the speed ofthe assembly line,” theexhibit points out.“Machines had fewsafety mechanismsand industrial acci-dents were common.Even during boom times, job securitydepended on the whims of the factoryforeman, who could hire and fire work-

ers at will.” At the Ford Highland Parkplant, renowned for the introduction ofthe automobile assembly line, statisticsfrom 1916 report 68,000 lacerations,192 severed fingers, 5,400 burns, andover 2,000 puncture wounds. The exhibit also highlights union

organizing drives and strikes, and has acopy of the first contract between theUAW and Ford from 1941.In another area of the museum,

videotapes of actors in the role of earlyteachers, cigar workers, shoe-factoryworkers, and others describe their workand their lives. A major exhibit, “Door-way to Freedom,” chronicles the flight ofslaves to freedom in Canada via the Underground Railroad through Detroit.

The Detroit Historical Museum, Wood-ward at Kirby, is open Tuesday-Friday, 9:30a.m. to 4 p.m., and on Saturdays and Sun-days from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

A Challenge from the 19th CenturyA 113-year-old letter from workers is displayed at the remodeled Detroit Historical Museum

An actor portraying a 19th Century Detroitteacher talks in a video display about how schoolswere desegregated back then.

Above: Tools,posters, and oth-er objects fill ashowcase at theDetroit HistoricalMuseum’s new exhibit on laborhistory.

4

Local 58 of the International Broth-erhood of ElectricalWorkers (IBEW)will mark its 100thanniversary nextyear with severalspecial events. Atleft is the fixtureworkers’ sub-localof Local 58 at theStatler Hotel thatonce stood onWashington Blvd. Indowntown Detroit.The photo was taken in 1915.

IBEW Anniversary

PHOTOS: D

AVE ELSILA

PHOTO: COURTESY

IBEW LO

CAL 58

5

Iremember when the old UAW Local174 building on West Warren was being shut down to move the West Sidelocal into the Local 157 building. I want-ed to help clean out and move the local’scontents. Most important was gettingthe mural removed to a safe place, butin the back of my mind I knew I wouldfind an old treasure or a relic. Thingsdon’t always work out like you plan.There were boxes of old files of formermembers dating back to the beginningthat had to be thrown away. Before theycould be put in a dumpster, however,every paper had to be checked to makesure there was nothing of a person’sidentification such as a social securitynumber. That was the job I got. Page after page, box after box sorted and sep-arated, name after name, plant afterplant.This went on for days but it didn’t

take long for me to realize that I hadfound that treasure. These were themembers of the local. The people whowere there early on, the ones who fought

for the rights that came easy to me be-cause of them. The ones who paid theirdues that gave the local financial powerto move the union and its demands onthe employers. These were names unknown to me, but they were peopleand workers who at one time were knownby others in their shops and homes.As I said, this went on for days — but

with each name I tried to show a little respect to protect the members’ identi-ties with some gratitude for their contri-butions to this local. I thought of the oldlabor anthem Solidarity Forever: “Withoutour brain and muscle not a single wheelwould turn.” These were the brains andmuscles that turned the wheels of the labor movement back then, but we onlyremember the names of the people out infront, like a Reuther — a Victor, a Walter,and maybe a Roy.I found that treasure. It was my Fellow

Workers. I didn’t know their age, race, orreligion, just Man or Woman. SomethingI have never forgotten. When I see acrowd of union people while one or twoare on a stage talking, I know that hun-dreds and thousands are needed to holdthem up.I found the ghosts I was looking for to-

day while looking at the mural at the NewWest Side Local 174. They spoke to me.I thought I heard them say, We are theshoulders you are standing on, you have usedour shoulders long enough, it’s your turn.

Ghost Hunting at the UAW West Side LocalBY JIM REHBERG

ARCHIVES O

F LABOR AND URBAN AFFA

IRS, W

AYNE STA

TE U

NIVERSITYIn 2001, volunteers went to UAW Local 174, the home local of former UAW PresidentWalter P. Reuther, to move files, records, and — perhaps most challenging — to

remove a large mural depicting many of the events in union history, from the union’shall at 6495 West Warren Ave. in Detroit and take it to the Local 157 hall in Romulus,after the two locals had merged. Walter Speck, head of the Works Progress Administration(WPA) arts program in Detroit, had painted the mural in 1937. Today it can be viewedat what is now the New West Side Local 174 hall at 29841 Van Born Rd., in Romulus.For the past several years, local members have sought to raise funds to restore the mural toits original brightness following years of exposure to ambient smoke. Jim Rehberg, a mem-ber of the UAW and the Industrial Workers of the World, recalls the days he spent duringthe move in this posting from his Facebook page.

The 1937 mural by WPAartist Walter Speckhangs in the UAW NewWest Side Local 174 hallat 29841 Van Born Rd. inRomulus.

COURTESY UAW NEW WEST SIDE LOCAL 174

Above: A detail from the mural. Contributionscan be sent to the local for a fund to help restore the mural.

FOUNDED 1977

SPRING-SUMMER 2013

Looking BackMoving Forward

For ten years, from 1933-1943, un-employed American artists foundrelief from the economic down-turn of the Great Depression in a

variety of government-sponsored art pro-grams, clustered around the Works ProjectAdministration (WPA).This Federal Art Project was not only a

practical relief program for jobless artists,but, in the words of President Franklin D.Roosevelt, it provided the artist a chance torender “his own impression of things … forthe spirit of his fellow countrymen every-where.”One of those artists, Maurice Merlin,

used the techniques of silk-screening and li-thography to record Depression-era eventsin Michigan. His powerful works depict boththe hardship of unemployment and thestrength of public protest: portraits of hol-low-eyed workers facing the misery of job-6

DETROIT DURING THE DEPRE Maurice Merlin’s WPA Art CapturesScenes of Hardship, Symbols of Hope

Above: Artist MauriceMerlin.

Right: “No Work Today”offers a collection ofWPA artist MauriceMerlin’s silk-screens andlithographs documentinglife during the Great Depression.

Striking workers demonstrate in this work by Maurice Merlin.

ESSION

7

lessness, as well as symbols of courage andhope as workers strike and demonstrate. In one particularly poignant litho-

graph, he depicts a sinister figure of theanti-labor Black Legion lurking in theshadows of a portrait of a woman and heryoung child, after this secret militia-stylegroup had murdered her husband, aWPA employee. The Black Legion wasclosely allied with Henry Ford and tar-geted union organizers, left-wing ac-tivists, African Americans, and immi-grants, and allegedly had the support ofsome of Detroit’s top officials. Among itsvictims was a Flint minister, Earl Little,the father of Malcolm X.Maurice Merlin’s work includes scenes

of industrial factories, farms and rural

areas, and worker protests. He belongedto one of the first unions of artists, theAmerican Artists Congress, where heworked with Walter Speck, an AAC rep-resentative who painted the mural at UAWWest Side Local 174 (see page 5). TheAAC was founded in 1936 to promote theideal of collectivism, not individualism, inart and “to create a program open to theartistic ‘everyman,’” according to art his-torian Francis V. O’Connor.Earlier this year, Maurice Merlin’s

son, Peter, organized a show of his father’s work at the Huntington Libraryin Los Angeles. He also produced a bookof his father’s art that includes reproductions of many of the silk-screensand lithographs created between 1930

and 1947.The book, No Work Today, is available

in both e-book and print editions at thewebsite www.Blurb.com, and is not onlya collection of remarkable art but arecord of one of the darkest eras of eco-nomic challenges in the U.S. Some of theart from this period can be seen at theFlint Institute of Art, which has lent someof its artworks to the Maurice Merlinshow in Los Angeles.

Right: Maurice Merlin’s WPA poster for a“Mobilizing Michigan” program to help unemployed workers and farmers.

The image of a Black Legionnaire haunts a grievingmother and child in this lithograph by Maurice Merlin.

A new scholarship program will provide financial assistance to studentsenrolling in classes offered through theLabor@Wayne program at Wayne StateUniversity.

Named in honor of veteran labor ac-tivist Ethel Schwartz, the scholarship willhelp cover tuition for the certificate pro-gram at the WSU Labor School or degreeprograms in the Labor Studies Center.

Ethel Schwartz, who died last year atthe age of 94, was a member of the Office and Professional Employees International Union and worked formany years on the clerical staff of boththe International Union UAW and at anumber of UAW local unions. She was amember of the Coalition of LaborUnion Women (CLUW) and a delegateto the Metro Detroit AFL-CIO.

Information and applications for thescholarship are available from the LaborStudies Center at Wayne State Universi-ty, 656 W. Kirby, 3178 FAB, Detroit MI48202, phone 313-577-2191.

New Scholarship For Labor Education

PHOTO: BA

RBARA BA

REFIELD

ALL IM

AGES C

OURTESY

PETER MERLIN

FOUNDED 1977

SPRING-SUMMER 2013

Looking BackMoving Forward

Just north of the DetroitRiver in the Conner Creekneighborhood on De-

troit’s east side lies an openfield of weeds and grass. Thehouse that once occupied726 Lycaste St. is long gone.Only a curb cut and a partialdriveway offer clues to whereit once stood.But in January, 1938, the

Lycaste house was occupiedand its occupants evicted.Furniture and household be-longings were dumped on thestreet. When members of aUAW local heard about it, atleast eight union membersshowed up at the site to pickup the mattresses,lamps, and other ef-fects and carry themback into the home.That eviction was

hardly a unique occur-rence; neither was theaction to help evictedfamilies. At times, anaverage of 4,500 fami-lies “with no moneyand no place to gowere evicted everymonth,” reports histo-rian Robert Conot in hisbook American Odyssey . Union mobilizations kept many families intheir homes.Dave Moore, who would later be-

come a member of UAW Local 600 anda UAW staff representative, describedhow in August 1932, he and fellow ac-tivists Frank Sykes and Chris Alstonmoved the furniture belonging to anevicted family back into their East Sidehome. Only 20 years old at the time,Moore had joined the UnemployedCouncil and participated in the FordHunger March five months earlier. In 2008, a year before he died,

Moore took a Michigan Labor HistorySociety video crew to his old neighbor-hood near Leland and Russell Streets.

“We had blacks, Italians, and many ethnic groups living in this area; it wasopen to all,” he said. “And one daywhen we saw a family being evicted, wechased the bailiff through the fields andkept the family in its home.” Although one of every seven persons

was on relief during part of this period,the city’s welfare department hadstopped paying the rent of destitutefamilies, had cut thousands off its rolls,and was distributing only bread andflour to those in need, according toConot’s history.

FROM THEN TO NOWFast forward 80 years to 2013.Inspired in part by such events from

the 1930s, members of UAW Local600, the United Steel Workers, AFTMichigan, and other unions are part ofa growing coalition of southeast Michi-gan labor and community groups thatare helping to defend families againstevictions. In Wayne County alone, theagency Fannie Mae has foreclosed onmore than 20,000 homes since beingput into conservatorship by the federalgovernment in 2008. As in the 1930s, union members and

community allies are using direct ac-tion to defend homeowners. In one dra-matic episode, activists gathered bagsof leaves left for curbside pickup in De-troit’s Grandmont-Rosedale neighbor-hood, and filled a dumpster that had

Stopping Evictions –Then & NowHow labor actions in the 1930s inspire today’s activists

PHOTO: WALTER P. R

EUTHER LIBR

ARY/WAYNE STA

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NIVERSITY

8

Above: UAW volunteers movefurniture back into the homeof an evicted family on LycasteStreet in Detroit, 1938.

Left: This newspaper clippingshows Dave Moore, FrankSykes, Chris Alston, and othersreturning furniture to an evict-ed family’s home on Detroit’sEast Side in 1932.

PHOTO FRO

M DAILY WORKER

been parked outside a foreclosed home,leaving no room for the family’s furni-ture. A bailiff and two wrecking-crewmembers stood powerlessly nearby,their eviction plans thwarted. Mean-while, an attorney for the homeownerswas in court winning a stay of the evic-tion. Subsequent legal action has keptthe family in its home.So far, this combination of direct

action and legal challenges has keptfamilies in their homes in Detroit,Southgate, Inkster, and other commu-nities. Detroit anti-eviction activists callfor a moratorium on foreclosures andevictions. In the 1930s, during the Great

Depression, Michigan and several oth-er states passed five-year moratoriumsthat were upheld by the U.S. SupremeCourt. Now, Fannie Mae has declaredmoratoriums on mortgage foreclosuresto victims of Hurricane Katrina andTropical Storm Sandy but not for oth-ers. “We have our own ’hurricane with-out water’ here in Michigan,” said SteveBabson, one of the organizers of evic-tion defense groups as he argued for amoratorium on Michigan foreclosures.A little less than two years ago, hun-

dreds joined a march on Detroit’sWoodward Ave., following the sameroute that Dr. Martin Luther King hadtaken in his 1963 civil-rights march.Commenting on the Occupy move-ment and the efforts to stop foreclo-sures and advance economic justice,one young woman told a reporter, “Weare sitting on the shoulders of giants. Ifwe can connect with our history, withour roots, it’s going to be amazing.”

If we don’t learn from the past,what will our future be like?If you joined us on the last Michigan Labor History Society bus tour, you saw the

site where 200 young women courageously challenged one of the nation’s biggest retail-ers, Woolworth’s, in 1937 by occupying the five-and-dime store in a sit-down strike.If you read pages 8-9 of this issue of Looking Back, Moving Forward, you’ll learn how

workers in the 1930s stopped the evictions of their neighbors, inspiring today’s anti-eviction actions across Detroit.Whenever you visit the MLHS-initiated Labor Legacy Landmark you find out some-

thing new and inspiring about labor’s contributions to building a stronger society.

ISN’T IT TIME YOU HELPED A NEW GENERATION LEARN ABOUT LABOR’S HISTORY?

MLHS is eager to bring the story of labor’s accomplishments to union members,workers and their families, and students throughout the state. By joining up with us, you can be part of our efforts to build a speakers’ bureau, offer tours and field trips, and spread labor’s story to more people. Membership is just $10 a year. Please clip andreturn this membership coupon today and tell us how you want to become involved.

Mail with a check payable to Michigan Labor History Society to:Michigan Labor History Society, c/o Walter P. Reuther Library,

5401 Cass Ave., Detroit MI 48202

q Please __sign me up or __renew my membership in the MLHS. Enclosed is $10 for one year’s dues. I will continue to receive MLHS publications.

q I want to help MLHS develop a speaker’s bureau and educational materials for students and union members. Please contact me.

Name_________________________________________________________________

Address_______________________________________________________________

City___________________________________State________ZIP_________________

E-mail__________________________________Phone_______________________

Union or organization__________________________________________________9

More information on the eviction defense movement is just a click away at www.peoplebeforebanks.org. Contact local activists at DetroitEvictionDefense@gmail.com.

Left: Protesters filled this dumpster with leaves Oct. 31, 2012, so there was no room for thehousehold belongings that a wrecking crew had threatened to take from the Cullors family home in Detroit’s Grandmont-Rosedale neighborhood.

Above left: Marchers protest the impending eviction of Jennifer Britt at the federal building in Detroit. Britt remains in her home in northwest Detroit thanks to the anti-eviction activists.

Above: Neighbors and supporters gather for a vigil at a Detroit home in 2012 to prevent bailiffs and wrecking crews from evicting the owners. Rep. Hansen Clarke addressed the crowd.

PHOTOS C

OURTESY

STEVE BA

BSON

FOUNDED 1977

SPRING-SUMMER 2013

Looking BackMoving Forward

BY GARY KAUNONEN

In its vital labor history, Michiganhas had its share of martyrs—thosewho have given their lives to the

struggle for industrial democracy. OnJuly 23, 1913, one of the greatest strug-gles in Michigan’s history occurred onthe Keweenaw Peninsula, as the West-ern Federation of Miners (WFM) led acollection of mostly immigrantmineworkers and their families in anine-month conflict against one of themost entrenched and domineeringgroup of “bosses” in the United Statesat that time. And sadly, like many ofMichigan’s future labor actions, the1913-14 Michigan Copper Strike had agroup of men, women, and childrenwho gave all. Deadly violence against strikers hap-

pened early in the conflict. In late Au-gust of 1913, a mix of six HoughtonCounty deputy sheriffs and Waddell-

Mahon Detect i veAgency “gun thugs”shot and killed twoCroatian str ikers :Alois Tijan and StevenPutrich at Seebervillelocation. Less thantwo weeks later, andon Labor Day, some-one in a group ofHoughton Countydeputy sheriffs shot14-year-old MargaretFazekas in the back ofthe head. Amazingly,Margaret lived, but

according to a doctor on the scene inNorth Kearsarge where the incidenthappened, “a bullet penetrated theskull and carried a good deal of brainmatter, some oozing through her hair.” Violence against labor during the

strike was indeed ever-present, but aDecember campaign of institutional-ized violence and intimidation de-signed to “rid the Copper Country ofthe WFM…and its foreign…little par-asitic agitators” struck an ominous tonethat led to the greatest single loss of lifefor Michigan’s union community: theItalian Hall tragedy.While hired gun thugs and members

of Houghton County’s law enforce-ment were already plenty brutal, theCitizens’ Alliance, a vigilante groupcomprised of those with sympathy orties to area mining companies ratch-eted up the rhetoric and action againststriking workers and their families. TheAlliance was organized after a Decem-ber 7 shooting into a boarding houseoccupied by scab workers in Paines-

dale. Houghton County officials de-clared WFM members perpetrated theshooting, while the WFM contendedthe shooting was a frame-up. Citing theshooting as a sign unabashed lawless-ness on the part of the WFM (whichadvocated non-violence throughout thestrike), the Citizens’ Alliance went onan aggressive campaign to destroy theWFM in the Copper Country. Intimidation and violence against

strikers became commonplace. On De-cember 12, Charles Lawton, generalmanager of the Quincy Mining Com-pany, wrote in a letter to mining com-pany president William Rogers Todd,“They (local ‘police’) chased the strik-ers far and wide…quite a number ofthem were caught, but we thought itwas useless to arrest them, and some ofthem were made fit subjects for thehospital — in fact, they were veryroughly treated.” One of the primary locations on the

Alliance’s list for retribution wasCalumet’s Italian Hall. On December17, just a week before the tragic eventsat Italian Hall, a report from a Calumetand Hecla Mining Company labor spyindicated that the Calumet WFM localreceived, “two letters threatening unionstore and Italian hall.” In addition to the threats reported

by the labor spy, on the same day JamesMacNaughton, general manager ofCalumet and Hecla, wrote companypresident Quincy Shaw that “a deter-mined effort will be made in the nexttwo or three days, in fact has alreadystarted, by the business men, to get thestrikers to return to work. I am not sohopeful of the success of this move butsome of the business men think it isworth trying, and the Lord knows theyare willing to help do what they can.”A sinister act in this determined

effort came on Christmas Eve at a artyfor striking mineworkers’ children inthe Italian Hall (see page 1). After thetragic event, a number of partygoers

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A December to Remember Labor Martyrs in the Copper Country: Violence against Organized Labor during the 1913-14 Michigan Copper Strike

This cartoon and headlineappeared in the Finnish-language Michigan newspa-per Tyomies (Worker) after the tragedy at ItalianHall on Christmas Eve,2013.

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reported that a man wearing a Citizens’ Alliance button made a call of “Fire!” intothe crowded second-floor hall. This cry offire caused a panicked exodus of some300 to 400 people from the hall. The rushout of the hall caused some to trip on theway down the stairs, which led to a massof people being packed into the stairwell.The weight of this human mass crushedthe air from people’s lungs. An estimat-ed 73-79 people lost their lives after thecall of “Fire!” and the horrible loss of lifeincluded almost 60 children — 60 littlemartyrs — in addition to the other menand women who died in this struggle forindustrial democracy in Michigan.

Gary Kaunonen is a Ph.D. candidateand instructor at Michigan TechnologicalUniversity and co-author of a forthcomingbook on the 1913 copper strike.

Tragedy at Italian HallContinued from page 2

CURRENT &COMING EVENTSMotor City Muse Photo ShowA photo exhibit in-cluding the works oflabor photographerRuss Marshall, withmany of the work-place pictures shotin UAW and Steel-workers plants. Atthe Detroit Institute of Arts, 5400 Wood-ward. Tuesday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.; Friday, 9 a.m.-10 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Through June 16.

‘The Eyes of the World WereWatching’ and ‘For the Goodof All: The Labor Movement in America’Permanent exhibits on the 1937 Newtonsteel strike in Monroe, and on the historyof U.S. labor. Monroe County Labor His-tory Museum, 41 W. Front St., Monroe.Saturdays, 2-5 p.m. Information and photos at www.monroelabor.org.

Labor and New Deal Art

An exhibit ofnearly 50 printsfrom the 1930sby HugoGellert, PaulMeltsner, andothers, timed tocommemoratethe 75th anniversary of the Little Steel Strike(which included Monroe’s Newton steelplant; see above). Massillon Museum, 121 Lincoln Way East, Massillon, Ohio.Tuesdays- Saturdays 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m., Sundays, 2-5 p.m. Through June 2.

MLHS Annual MeetingThe Michigan Labor History Society annual meeting will include a free laborhistory bus tour of downtown Detroit.Bus departs AFSCME, 600 W. Lafayette,Detroit, at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 18, andreturns at 12 noon for business meeting.

Upper Peninsula History ConferenceThe 2013 Upper Peninsula History Con-ference will put a spotlight on the 1913copper strike and the Italian Hall tragedy(see page 1) when it meets June 28-30 inHoughton. For details and registration information, visit the Historical Society ofMichigan’s website at www.hsmichigan.organd click on “conferences.”

Labor Day Mobilization LuncheonThe Michigan Labor History Society’s annual Labor Day Mobilization Luncheonwill be held starting at 11:30 a.m.Wednesday, August 21, at IBEW Local 58Hall in Detroit. For tickets and informa-tion, please call Tanise Hill, 313-961-0800.

Labor Day ParadeDetroit’s annual Labor Day parade willform at Michigan and Trumbull and marchalong Michigan Ave. to downtown Detroit. Monday morning, Sept. 2. For details, contact the Metro Detroit AFL-CIO, 313-961-0800.

North American Labor History Conference“Geographies of Labor” is the theme ofthe 2013 North American Labor HistoryConference Oct. 24-26 at Wayne StateUniversity in Detroit. Participants will discuss how workers have interactedwith a variety of geographic categoriessuch as empire, globalization, uneven development, mobility, and migration andimmigration at the transnational, national,and/or local levels. Proposals for papers,panels, and roundtables in the form of aone-paragraph abstract, and brief biogra-phies of participants, may be submitted byMay 31 to NALHC coordinator Prof.Francis Shor, WSU History Dept., 3157Faculty Administration Bldg., Detroit MI48202 or nalhc@wayne.edu.

PHOTO: RUSS M

ARSHALL

Death of a Striker by Paul Meltsner is one of theprints at the “Labor and New Deal Art” exhibit.

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year it was a day of sorrow in manyhomes. Our neighbors lost a moth-er and two daughters. “My Dad was fortunate to get a

horse-drawn enclosed carriage forthe funeral. Six of us rode in it, myparents and four kids. Twelvecoffins were lined up in front of thealtar of the Bethlehem LutheranChurch. After the services, groupsmet on Pine Street and then con-tinued on to the cemetery. My sis-ters’ coffins were carried on theshoulders of the men walking infront of us — four to a coffin, andtwo extra to take the place of menwho tired. From the church to thecemetery was a good three miles.My two sisters were buried withmost of the other victims in a longtrench, side by side in the Lake Viewcemetery.“In 1980, when I looked over that

stairway I was speechless anddumbfounded. I could not visualizeseventy-four people having diedthere. I somehow was saved. I wasthere in the middle of it.”

Ted Taipalus moved to Detroit andbecame a Border Patrol agent on theDetroit River during Prohibition. Helater joined the Marines assigned toquell a popular uprising in Nicaragua.

MICHIGAN LABOR HISTORY SOCIETYc/o Walter P. Reuther Library • Wayne State University5401 Cass Avenue • Detroit MI 48202

Presorted StandardU.S. Postage

PAIDPermit No. 1328

Detroit, MI

ANNUAL MLHS MEETINGFree Labor HistoryBus Tour May 18

The annual meeting of the Michigan Labor His-tory Society will take place on Saturday, May 18,and will feature a free labor history bus tour oflower Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit.

Experienced guides will discuss labor historywith stops for participants to get off at GrandCircus Park, the old Woolworth’s five-and-dimestore on Woodward near Grand River, CadillacSquare, and the Labor Legacy Landmark at HartPlaza. Time permitting, there will also be a chanceto visit the Underground Railroad monument onthe Detroit riverfront. A similar tour last Octo-ber drew enthusiastic accolades from those whoparticipated.

The tour bus will leave promptly at 10 a.m.from the parking lot behind the AFSCME buildingat 600 W. Lafayette in Detroit (entrance off ThirdAve. just north of Lafayette). There is ample freeparking at the lot.

The bus will return at 12 noon and the annualbusiness meeting of the Society will take place immediately afterward.

There is no charge for the tour, but space islimited to the first 35 people who sign up. To reserve a place, please send an e-mail message toMichlabor@aol.com or leave a message at 313-690-1053.

BLET Marks 150 YearsAt Detroit Convention

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineersand Trainmen – the oldest labor union in NorthAmerica — will celebrate the 150th anniversaryof its founding in Detroit on May 8.

BLET members, friends, and colleagues willgather at the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel indowntown Detroit — the same hotel where theunion celebrated its 75th and 100th anniversaries— to mark the occasion.

Detroit is where the union was founded onMay 8, 1863 as the Brotherhood of the Foot-board. One year later, the name was changed tothe Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, andthe word Trainmen was added in 2004. BLET isnow affiliated with the International Brotherhoodof Teamsters.

GET READY FORLABOR DAY

MLHS 2013 Labor DayMOBILIZATION LUNCHEONWednesday, Aug. 21, 11:30 a.m.

IBEW Local 58Porter east of Trumbull, Detroit.

Free parking.

Tickets: $40, including membershipIn MLHS. Call 313-961-0800.

MLHS at History ConferencesMike Kerwin, David Elsila, and John Dick of the Michigan Labor History

Society led a two-hour labor history bus tour for some 35 delegates to lastfall’s annual North American Labor History Conference at Wayne State Uni-versity in Detroit.

The annual Michigan Oral History Association conference Oct. 12 at theMonroe County Labor History Museum featured a presenta-tion by MLHS Program Committee Chair Mike Kerwinand others on the uses and promotions of oral history.

Labor Heroes To Be HonoredLabor’s International Hall of Fame will induct

two outstanding Michigan leaders — “Big Annie”Klobuchar Clemenc, who defended workers duringthe 1913 copper strike in Michigan’s Upper Penin-sula (see page 1) and Viola Liuzzo, a Detroit civil-rights activist who was murdered while drivingmarchers home from Montgomery to Selma, Alabama,after the historic 1965 civil-rights march. They willbe honored along with Evelyn Dubrow, a legendaryactivist lobbyist for the International Ladies GarmentWorkers, at ceremonies in New York May 16.

Watch and Read Resources related to stories in this issue include:1913 MASSACRE, a new film about the Italian Hall tragedy, is available onDVD for $25 including shipping and handling from www.1913massacre.comNO WORK TODAY, a book of original art by WPA artist Maurice Merlin,can be viewed and purchased at www.blurb.com.THIS WORKING LIFE, a book of photographs by Russ Marshall is avail-able from www.blurb.com.“EMMA GOLDMAN,” a play about the life of the labor organizer byHoward Zinn, will open May Day, 2014, at the Matrix Theatre in Detroit.Watch for details in a coming issue.

Coming in Future IssuesThe 100th anniversary of the Clayton Act, which strengthened workers’

rights to organize and declared labor not to be a commodity, will be observednext year. Michigan Labor History Society Program Committee Chair MikeKerwin, examines the implications of this act and what needs to be done tosee it enforced in an article to appear in the next issue.

Local 58 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers celebratesits centenary next year. Watch for an account of the history of this dynamiclocal union based in Detroit.

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“Big Annie” KlobucharClemenc will be induct-ed in the Labor’s Inter-national Hall of Fame.