Tag: International Workers’ Day

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Celebrating Labor Day in the IDHH

The IDHH contains some content that may be harmful or difficult to view. Our cultural heritage partners collect materials from history, as well as artifacts from many cultures and time periods, to preserve and make available the historical record. Please view the Digital Public Library of America’s (DPLA) Statement on Potentially Harmful Content for further information.

In recognition of Labor Day, the IDHH would like to highlight several collections from our contributors and curated searches of IDHH items that tell different stories about the history of labor movements, worker advocacy, and labor strikes in Illinois:

    • Recordings of the Illinois Labor History Society (Roosevelt University): explore oral history audio recordings that tell stories related to labor unions and movements, marginalized communities and worker advocacy, and labor strikes in Illinois.
    • Mary G. Harris Jones: explore images and text related to “Mother Jones,” an Irish-born school teacher, seamstress, labor organizer, activist, and self-described “hell-raiser”.
    • Labor and Industry: explore images, texts, and audio recordings from multiple IDHH collections and institutions related to labor, industry, and organization and advocacy for workers.

You can also view the IDHH’s previous posts with topics related to Labor Day:

image of women members of local union 183 in a parade
Local Union No. 183 in parade. 1903. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library. Picture Chicago. Courtesy of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library.
image of page 1 of document telling the history of local union 208 american federation of musicians
History of Local 208, American Federation of Musicians [page 1]. Louise Henry, creator. October 23, 1939. Chicago Public Library. Illinois Writers Project: Negro in Illinois Collection. Courtesy of the Chicago Public Library.
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International Workers’ Day: Honoring Labor

May 1 marks International Workers’ Day and the first week of May a significant time period in the history of labor and labor organization. May 4 is the 133rd anniversary of the Haymarket Affair in Chicago, an event in city and state history that resounded around the world and it, along with the events leading up to the Affair, are widely cited as the inspiration for International Workers’ Day. The IDHH highlights items from the Chicago History Museum relevant to the Haymarket Affair, workers’ rights, and labor organization across the state of Illinois.
The Chicago History Museum’s Prints and Photographs Collection includes prints and photographs that picture Haymarket Square, the location of a workers’ rally held as part of efforts to instate the eight-hour work day as a national standard and in response to the killing of several protestors on the previous day by police. The rally was initially peaceful but ended in the explosion of a homemade bomb, seen rendered in the print below by the artist, Paul J. Morand, that killed seven police officers. Police veterans of the Haymarket Affair were honored by their department and by local and municipal leaders, as evinced by the banner in an 1895 parade. Organizers, including those killed by police in the aftermath of the bomb and those wrongly accused in the fury of investigations and trials following the bombing were commemorated mainly by labor organizations.

Check out more items that relate to the Haymarket Affair, and workers’ rights and labor in Illinois. There are also many collections with items pertaining to labor, such as the Pullman State Historic Site’s Southeast Chicago Historical Society collection. To learn more about the Haymarket Affair, check out this article from the Encyclopedia of Chicago. For a timeline of events, search strategies, and a sampling of newspaper articles contemporaneous to the Haymarket Affair, see the Library of Congress webpage on the event.