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Death in the Haymarket
James Green
A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement, and the Bombing That Divided Gilded Age America
Pantheon
March 2006
400 pages ISBN: 0375422374 Hardcover
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Historical
On May 4, 1886, a bomb exploded at a Chicago labor rally,
wounding dozens of policemen, seven of whom eventually died.
Coming in the midst of the largest national strike Americans
had ever seen, the bombing created mass hysteria and led to
a sensational trial, which culminated in four controversial
executions. The trial seized headlines across the country,
created the nation�s first red scare and dealt a blow to the
labor movement from which it would take decades to recover. Death in the Haymarket brings these remarkable events to
life, re-creating a tempestuous moment in American social
history. James Green recounts the rise of the first great
labor movement in the wake of the Civil War and brings to
life the epic twenty-year battle for the eight-hour workday.
He shows how the movement overcame numerous setbacks to
orchestrate a series of strikes that swept the country in
1886, positioning the unions for a hard-won victory on the
eve of the Haymarket tragedy. As he captures the frustrations, tensions and heady
victories, Green also gives us a rich portrait of Chicago,
the Midwestern powerhouse of the Gilded Age. We see the
great factories and their wealthy owners, including men such
as George Pullman, and we get an intimate view of the
communities of immigrant employees who worked for them.
Throughout, we are reminded of the increasing power of
newspapers as, led by the legendary Chicago Tribune editor
Joseph Medill, they stirred up popular fears of the
immigrants and radicals who led the unions. Blending a gripping narrative, outsized characters and a
panoramic portrait of a major social movement, Death in the
Haymarket is an important addition to the history of
American capitalism and a moving story about the class
tensions at the heart of Gilded Age America.
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